This article explores professional learning through online discussion events as sites of communities of learning. The rise of distributed work places and networked labour coincides with a privileging of individualised professional learning. Alongside this focus on the individual has been a growth in informal online learning communities and…

This article draws on theoretical work which considers the composition of meetings, in order to think about the form of the meeting in digital environments for higher education. To explore the motif of meeting, I undertake a "compositional interpretation" (Rose, 2012) of the default interface offered by "Collaborate", an…

Engagement with Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) at the University of Edinburgh has emerged from its strategic priorities to explore and innovate in the area of online and technologically supported approaches to teaching and learning. This paper provides an account of analysis aimed at understanding who Edinburgh MOOC learners are, who elects…

The analysis of data collected from the interaction of users with educational and information technology has attracted much attention as a promising approach for advancing our understanding of the learning process. This promise motivated the emergence of the new research field, learning analytics, and its closely related discipline, educational…

This paper examines the current state of learning analytics (LA), its stakeholders and the benefits and challenges these stakeholders face. LA is a field of research that involves the gathering, analyzing and reporting of data related to learners and their environments with the purpose of optimizing the learning experience. Stakeholders in LA are…

It is now common practice for instructional designers to incorporate digitally recorded lectures for Podcasts (e.g., iTunes University), voice-over presentations (e.g., PowerPoint), animated screen captures with narration (e.g., Camtasia), and other various learning objects with digital audio in the instructional method. As a result, learners are…

The term computational thinking (CT) has been in academic discourse for decades, but gained new currency in 2006, when Jeanette Wing used it to describe a set of thinking skills that students in all fields may require in order to succeed. Wing's initial article and subsequent writings on CT have been broadly influential; experts in…

Many recent models of learning and instruction center learning on real-world tasks and problems to support knowledge application and transfer. Of the many different approaches to centering learning on real-world tasks and problems, one main area in recent literature attempts to balance the efficiency of adequate learner support with the…

In this paper I will explain what I see as some of the core attributes of "Communities of Innovation," or communities fostering collaborative creativity, and what we have learned from the research literature about each attribute. There is a critical need to design learning environments that foster creative thinking in students,…

The proliferation of broadband mobile devices, which many students bring to school with them as mobile phones, makes the widespread adoption of AR pedagogies a possibility, but pedagogical, distribution, and training models are needed to make this innovation an integrated part of education, This paper employs Social Construction of Technology…

This article examines the implications of shifting technology trends by looking at what we've lost or are losing, where we are, and where we need to go for making the needed transitions in knowledge and skills. Areas of growth within new media and the tech industry are good indicators of our growing interests in mobility, improved quality,…

This article discusses a systemic change that expanded the doctorate in Learning Technologies at the University of North Texas to include a distributed option, delivered primarily online. It provides an overview of the development process from concept to initial implementation. The article examines the specific differences that make the online…

The field of educational technology has seen marked growth from just a small number of distance-based doctoral programs to nearly 20 today. Creating and sustaining a quality doctoral program of any kind requires a substantial amount of work; the additional challenges of online programs both increases and changes the nature of the efforts required.…

Current interest in social media for educational purposes has led many to consider the importance of literacy development in online spaces (e.g., new media literacies, digital literacies, etc.). Relying heavily upon New Literacy Studies (NLS) as a base, these approaches treat literacy expansively to include socio-cultural factors beyond mere skill…

Augmented reality is an emerging technology that utilizes mobile, context-aware devices (e.g., smartphones, tablets) that enable participants to interact with digital information embedded within the physical environment. This overview of design principles focuses on specific strategies that instructional designers can use to develop AR learning…