Working Papers

Some valuable take-aways from the report, "Learning Management Systems: Are organizations making the most of them?" [PDF] are:
- 66 percent of respondents' organizations already use an LMS/VLE and a further 13 percent plan to use one. However, 21 percent do not use an LMS/VLE and have no plans to.
- Of those using an LMS/VLE, 45 percent have used it for more than five years. Only 3 percent started using one within the last year.
- 30 percent of respondents said they are completely satisfied with their LMS/VLE.
- 30 percent were concerned that their LMS/VLE might not meet future requirements.
- 8 percent said their LMS/VLE would definitely not meet future requirements.
- Ensuring training matches employee development needs and reducing costs by decreasing the time taken to train people were seen as the largest benefits of LMS/VLE (40 and 36 percent, respectively).
- Conversely, reducing employee turnover by enabling greater development opportunities (10 percent) and increasing revenue from better trained people (17 percent) were highlighted as the smallest.

By Elizabeth A. Gruenbaum

When authors refer to a Professional Learning Community (PLC) within a school, they commonly mean a community of stakeholders that are all working together focused on the best interest of the students, where results are measured by an increase in student achievement. These stakeholders are anyone with an interest in that particular school from within the school community—school leaders or administrators, teachers, staff, parents, and community members. Collaboration is a key factor in a PLC. Imagine everyone working together for the best interest of the students and focused on a culture of assessment-driven continuous improvement, and you have a PLC. Read more...

By Patrick Lambe, Straits Knowledge, Singapore

One of the ongoing admonitions e-learning specialists face is the need to "prove" the return on investment (ROI) for each program they initiate.

But most e-learning programs are funded from ongoing training budgets, which are recurrent (that is, budgeted annually to cover the cost of a year's worth of training, rather than individual projects) and are accounted as operations or infrastructure costs.

Read Part I
Read Part II

Blended learning is not simply the addition of ICT into traditional face-to-face subjects. It is about integrating the relative strengths of face-to-face teaching and online learning to provide a range of learning spaces where students can interact and construct knowledge. Read more...

By Tom Barr

The days of orchestrating corporate learning through special "events," such as classroom training and seminars, have given way to learning on-the-job. Indeed, working and learning are becoming so tightly integrated that it's often difficult to differentiate between them. Read more...

By Haitham A. El-Ghareeb

E-learning is the "learning" process revolution enabled by new technologies that, hopefully, will present an effective and efficient learning process that doesn't exist today. Learning management systems (LMSs) are responsible for "learning" activities, while university management information systems (UMISs) are responsible for handling University managerial activities.
Sociotechnical systems recognized many years ago that organizations functioned most effectively when their social and technological networks were compatible. This is the case exactly with e-learning systems. LMSs can't provide the managerial functions needed to support universities, and UMISs don't support the "learning" process. Both systems have to integrate and operate together to support educational institutions and e-learning.
Read more...

By C. Jennings

Real learning is the ability to acquire new ideas from experience and retain them as memories. Acquiring knowledge is not real learning. It's just the first easy step in the process. Formal learning can only give us 10 percent of our learning and feedback. Coaching and sharing—learning from others—can only give us 20 percent. The other 70 percent comes from experience. Read more... (.PDF)

By Park, Sung Hee; Ertmer, Peggy A.

This article (.PDF) is concerned with changing teachers' beliefs regarding technology use. Although nowadays technology has become very common in everyday life, it yet has to be embedded in the teaching practice to unfold its full potential. While access and training are no longer considered significant barriers, teachers' beliefs about technology use are thought to be potentially impedimental for the integration of technology in the teaching practice.

By Mohamed Amine Chatti

Organizational learning occurs when individuals within an organization experience a problem (error detection) and work on solving this problem (error correction). Error correction happens through a continuous process of organizational inquiry, where everyone in the organizational environment can inquire, test, and adjust his or her theory-in-use, which is a private image of the organizational theory-in-use. Effective organizational inquiry then leads to a reframing of one's theory-in-use, thereby changing the organizational theory-in-use. Interesting reconceptualization of the concept of LaaN (Learning as a Network - interesting acronym). Read more...

By Terry Anderson

Theory and Practice of Online Learning is concerned with assisting providers of online education with useful tools to carry out the teaching and learning transactions online. It presents, in an easily readable form, the theory, administration, tools, and methods of designing and delivering learning online.

By G. Siemens

This paper focuses on the need for organizations - corporations, universities, NGOs - to conceive a more compelling vision for learning and development than currently exists.

By S. Downes

This will be the last generation in which education is the practice of authority, and the first where it becomes, as has always been intended by educators, an act of liberty. Read more... (.DOC)

by Park, Sung Hee; Ertmer, Peggy A.

Although computers are now commonplace within our lives, integration within schools is much less ordinary. While access and training are no longer considered significant barriers, attention has turned to the potential influence of teachers’ beliefs. In response, problem-based learning (PBL) has been proposed as an effective approach for changing preservice teachers’ beliefs. This study (.PDF) investigated the impact of PBL on teachers’ beliefs regarding technology use and on their intended teaching practices.

By Christian Glahn, Marcus Specht, Rob Koper

This paper(.PDF) focuses on the relevant information for collecting and presenting contextual information, its effects and impact on the learning interaction cycle, and mechanisms of controlling it. The core principle of the learning interaction cycle is the interaction of learners with their learning environment. Previous research highlights that such interaction is important for the experience and progress of learners.

For the first time in its history, Stanford University is offering some of its most popular engineering classes free of charge to students and educators around the world. Stanford Engineering Everywhere (SEE) expands the Stanford experience to students and educators online. A computer and an Internet connection is all you need. View lecture videos, access reading lists and other course handouts, take quizzes and tests, and communicate with other SEE students, all at your convenience. Read more...