Exploring the virtual classroom: What students need to know (and teachers should consider)

Technological improvements in many countries have meant that institutions offering distance education programmes now have more options available to them to communicate and interact with their students, and increasingly, attention is being turned to the potential of Web2 technologies to facilitate synchronous interaction. This study explores the affordances and limitations of an online virtual classroom, Adobe Connect Pro, when used in the learning programmes of two groups of undergraduate and postgraduate education students. Results indicate that while both groups gained value from using the classroom, they also found it a completely new environment, and one to which many had trouble transferring the interaction and communication skills developed in other contexts. The reasons for this related to three specific areas of knowledge – technical, procedural and operational, that were identified as being critical to student performance in this environment. The study suggests that educators and course designers need to embed strategies into their online offerings to enable students to develop these, if they are to gain substantial benefit from the availability of virtual classrooms. Additionally, the study identified that when making design decisions about online learning environments, it is very much a matter of horses for courses when selecting tools for specific purposes. While the virtual classroom proved useful for developing social connection and a sense of community, it may not be so beneficial for supporting deeper learning

Tertiary ICT enrolments and job vacancies: Reflecting on trends

Tertiary enrolments in ICT diploma and degree programmes are increasing from the 2007 lows, but at a rate insufficient to meet an increasing global demand. This impending shortage of knowledge and skills, which threatens the viability of the industry, is acknowledged by both industry leaders and by governments. The ICT monthly trend series, established in September 2010 on the CITRENZ (Computing & Information Technology Research & Education NZ) website, highlights NZ ICT education and job advert trends. Brief excerpts from selected news items are also included each month. These help give some insights into the reasons for the current and impending ICT skills shortages and suggest strategies for addressing the problem. This poster features selected extracts from the monthly trend series, with commentary, over the last 12 months

Program Verification of Numerical Computation

These notes outline a formal method for program verification of numerical computation. It forms the basis of the software package VPC in its initial phase of development. Much of the style of presentation is in the form of notes that outline the definitions and rules upon which VPC is based. The initial motivation of this project was to address some practical issues of computation, especially of numerically intensive programs that are commonplace in computer models. The project evolved into a wider area for program construction as proofs leading to a model of inference in a more general sense. Some basic results of machine arithmetic are derived as a demonstration of VPC

Making the Connection: Moore’s Theory of Transactional Distance and Its Relevance to the Use of a Virtual Classroom in Postgraduate Online Teacher Education

This study explored the use of the Web-based virtual environment, Adobe Connect Pro, in a postgraduate online teacher education programme at the University of Waikato. It applied the tenets of Moore’s Theory of Transactional Distance (Moore, 1997) in examining the efficacy of using the virtual classroom to promote quality dialogue and explored how both internal and external structural elements related to the purpose and use of the classroom affected the sense of learner autonomy. The study provides an illustration of the complexity of the relationship that exists between the elements of Moore’s theory, and how the implementation of an external structuring technology such as the virtual classroom, can have both positive impacts (dialogue creation) and negative impacts (diminished sense of learner autonomy). It also suggests that, although Moore’s theory provides a useful conceptual “lens” through which to analyse online learning practices, its tenets may need revisiting to reflect the move toward the use of synchronous communication tools in online distance learning

Antagonism of cytokine-induced eosinophil accumulation in asthma

Peer reviewedPublisher PD