Blended learning is increasingly being adopted at all levels of the educational system. It continues to gain primacy in the teaching and learning environment as both students and teachers seek to integrate familiar information communication technology (ICT) into their classroom activities. Additionally, it allows the teacher, as a facilitator of learning, and the learner, the opportun'ities of working in both the face-to-face and online environments. This paper provides a basic review of blended learning and some ways 'it may be used in teacher preparation programs to support the effective integration of ICT within the classroom environment.
In traditional models of technology implementation in education, curriculum and pedagogical innovations are deemed to be pivotal to student learning while technology per se only has mediating effects on learning outcomes (Law, Pelgrum, & Plomp, 2008; Wong & Li, 2008; Wong, Li, Choi, & Lee, 2008). Nonetheless, our results indicate that the implementation of one-to-one technology can have immense impact on learning if students are empowered to use technology as their cognitive companions. In this paper, we examined students’ daily activity logs and found that, despite having no drastic change in curriculum and pedagogies, the ubiquity of one-to-one technology can provide the necessary affordance for enhancing both formal learning at school and informal or less-structured learning at home, and that students’ perceived impact of technology on (1) enhancing their learning motivation, (2) developing their cognitive skills, (3) improving their learning strategies and (4) planning for their learning in their daily learning activities was significantly higher in the experimental classes.
The recent revolution in information technology (IT) has significantly challenged society’s perception and thinking about the world in which we live. Because of its many advantages, distance learning has been identified by educators, scholars, academicians, and researchers as one of the most effective ways to improve the quality of learning. This study investigates possible factors that affect student acceptance of distance learning at the Arab Open University in Kuwait. The variables examined in the study include computer self-efficacy, technological factors, instructional design, and instructor characteristics. A descriptive quantitative research design and inferential methods analysis were utilized to examine these variables. Findings suggest that in order to enhance the DL system, DL institutions need to address computer self-competency, technological factors, the social environment, and instructor characteristics.
This manuscript presents a pilot study investigating the affordances of wikis to support collaborative learning in online settings, compared to current asynchronous threaded discussion tools. The study was conducted with 21 graduate students enrolled in an online learning theories course. Innovative methodologies were utilized -- computer-mediated discourse analysis (CMDA) and chronologicallyoriented representations of discourse and tool-related activity (CORDTRA) -- to study discourse and technology use as students worked in groups to analyze a case. The study revealed results in favor of the wiki technology suggesting that wiki groups tend to be more collaborative, rather than cooperative, compared to threaded discussion groups.
