The concept of open educational resources (OER) signifies a shift in educational accessibility, promising to democratize access to knowledge across the globe. This overview explores the foundational elements of OER, including their history, types, institutional adoption, growth trends, and the challenges and best practices associated with their development and use. Originating in the early 2000s, the OER movement has expanded significantly, embracing various resource types such as textbooks, full courses, and pedagogical materials, all aimed at enhancing educational quality and equity. Despite the evident growth and potential of OER, challenges persist, including issues of discoverability, quality assurance, and integration into formal education systems. Best practices for creators emphasize the importance of accessibility, clear licensing, and pedagogical effectiveness, aiming to ensure resources are informative, easily integrated, and beneficial to a global audience. For institutions and end-users, strategic approaches towards adoption, integration, and advocacy are crucial to leveraging OER's full potential. Looking forward, the future of OER is shaped by technological advancements, pedagogical innovations, and a growing commitment to open education principles, underscoring the need for ongoing collaboration among stakeholders to address challenges and embrace opportunities.
Blended learning combines technology in various forms with in-person instruction. Online learning activities allow students to watch videos and tackle assignments at their own pace and provide exposure to platforms and software that prepare them for lifelong learning. In-person instruction focuses on individual and/or group work that aligns with online content. Accessing materials at any time they choose means students can also engage in other life tasks. Blended learning leverages the strengths of online and in-person instruction, which can have a powerful impact on students and the instructor.
As online learning environments become more complex and emotionally demanding, educators are beginning to explore ways in which they can support their students’ well-being, encourage engagement, and sustain their own emotional resilience. This article considers how AI tools, used ethically and thoughtfully, can help enhance emotional intelligence within online classrooms. Three practical use cases are discussed: AI-powered sentiment analysis, nudging tools that support empathetic teaching, and reflective AI journaling to encourage faculty growth. Each of these examples shows how emotional human connection can be amplified, not replaced, with technology.
This article introduces the concept of shared metacognition and its relevance in the online learning environment. The authors outline the challenge of engaging online learners in shared metacognition, provide examples of shared metacognition in practice, consider the challenges associated with it, and provide some best practice tips.
When it comes to grades, adult students in the online modality often see themselves as at the mercy of the professor, leading to expectations of struggle and failure. This article details a real-life intervention activity to create agency within a digital classroom, which puts the power back into the hands of students. After completing the activity, students voiced an intention to change their study plan (53%) and reported feeling more confident (32%). On average, their grades were nearly 40 points higher than those of non-participating classmates. This class is based on 1,000 points total, and the range for each letter grade equaled 100 points.
John Rawls’s theory of justice offers a powerful framework for reimagining digital learning environments as matters of moral architecture rather than neutral technical systems. Using the “veil of ignorance” as a thought experiment, the analysis considers how online courses and learning management systems might be designed if their creators could not know their role within the system, whether student or instructor, privileged or disadvantaged. Viewed through this lens, many inherited practices in online education such as rigid time structures, surveillance-driven analytics, standardized templates, and unidirectional content delivery are revealed as inequities that constrain both student and faculty agency while privileging efficiency over equity. Principles drawn from universal design for learning and liberatory pedagogy are presented as more just alternatives, emphasizing flexibility, transparency, and recognition of learner variability. Reframing instructional design as a moral undertaking challenges institutions to move beyond technical fixes and confront the ethical assumptions embedded in digital platforms. A just learning environment, the argument concludes, is not measured by scale or efficiency but by its ability to preserve dignity, extend agency, and include those most at risk of exclusion.
Group work in e-learning environments allows students to develop essential professional skills while fostering a sense of community. This article explores the multifaceted value of group work in online learning, including its theoretical foundation and the unique challenges it presents. Various collaborative learning theories support the effectiveness of group work, emphasizing the importance of social interaction, knowledge construction, and interdependence among learners. However, challenges such as communication barriers, scheduling difficulties, uneven participation, and technical issues can hinder effective collaboration. These challenges can be addressed through careful planning, clear guidelines, and the strategic use of technology to enhance communication, collaboration, and coordination. By fostering a sense of community, encouraging active participation, and providing ample support, educators can leverage group work to enhance student learning and engagement in e-learning, preparing them for the demands of the modern workforce.
A simple children’s test brings to mind Noam Chomsky’s critique that modern systems indoctrinate learners, strangling creativity and critical thinking. A tension amplified by the rise of artificial intelligence and digital learning platforms. While education has historically fostered creativity and critical inquiry, from the Enlightenment’s intellectual hubs to today’s universities, the modern shifts toward privatization, liberalism, and globalization have restricted intellectual freedom, driving universities to become captive to the research trends imposed by capital. However, eLearning and digital platforms promise democratized access, flexibility, and collaborative potential, yet they also present challenges of intellectual uniformity. Likely today, a battle against indoctrination becomes vital to face the rise of AI with the intention of improving human creativity and critical thinking as a key concept that human beings should conserve in their concurrence with artificial intelligence.
This article describes self-regulated learning in the context of online learning in higher education. Understanding self-regulated learning empowers educators to guide learners in effectively controlling their learning process and design appropriate support structures for their courses. Learners need specific self-regulated learning skills to be successful in online environments.
Esports has rapidly evolved from a recreational pastime into a meaningful educational pathway that supports college access, career readiness, and 21st-century skill development. This article examines the expanding role of esports across K–12, higher education, workforce preparation, and military training. Research demonstrates that participation fosters collaboration, communication, problem-solving, and digital literacy—competencies that align with both academic expectations and emerging industries. Colleges now offer millions in scholarships and develop programs that prepare students for careers beyond competitive play, including technology, media production, and event management. Similarly, school districts integrating esports into career and technology education report increased engagement, stronger community connections, and expanded interest in STEM pathways. Esports also intersects with military training by supporting teamwork, decision-making under pressure, and morale. While challenges such as equity, access, and wellness require attention, well-designed programs can balance innovation with responsible implementation. Esports ultimately represents a bridge between students’ interests and future-focused learning, offering an avenue to cultivate curiosity, creativity, and transferable skills. When grounded in academic purpose and ethical practice, esports serves as a powerful platform for preparing learners for college, careers, and an increasingly digital world.
This article briefly reviews classroom assessment techniques, focusing on K-12 student-led and teacher-led assessment practices. The former includes techniques such as conferences and self- and peer assessment, while the latter contains rubrics, questioning, and performance-based assessment. The author discusses their experiences using these techniques, focusing on their essential characteristics and highlighting several platforms and tools for online assessment practices.
Online learners benefit from a strong social presence in their classes. This social presence enhances their feelings about the class, which, in turn, motivates students towards success. To meet this goal, instructors may provide opportunities for virtual conferences with their students. While there are indeed many advantages to virtual synchronous meetings, there are also challenges. These challenges stem from instructors conducting these sessions in isolation, which results in low attendance or attempting to cover multiple content areas not immediately applicable to all attending students. The team approach—creating one weekly virtual office session with three instructors—mitigated or eliminated these challenges while providing numerous benefits for students and instructors.
Quizzing is a powerful educational strategy that transcends traditional assessment to actively enhance learning and engagement. Incorporating quizzes can reinforce learning, provide immediate feedback for student improvement, and foster active participation. Regular quizzing motivates students, helps develop metacognitive skills, and encourages consistent engagement with course materials, thereby improving academic outcomes. Beyond the traditional use of quizzing for assessment, it can be integrated in creative ways to maximize its benefits. By adopting innovative strategies like gamification, collaborative projects, and scenario-based challenges, faculty can make quizzing a more meaningful part of the educational experience.
Early engagement in online learning in higher education is essential. Rooted in the Community of Inquiry (CoI) model, early engagement establishes social connectedness, bridges transactional distance, and fosters a collaborative learning environment. Instructors play a crucial role in initiating engagement. Early engagement includes utilizing high-touch activities like personal introductions, regular interactions, addressing individual needs, and facilitating learner-to-learner connections. These practices build trust, satisfaction, and a sense of community from the outset, enhancing the overall learning experience.
Asynchronous courses often present challenges in fostering student engagement, as learners may feel disconnected from both the instructor and the course material. Compounding this issue, instructors enter online teaching with varying levels of experience in adapting their pedagogy to effectively engage students in a virtual environment, often lacking the necessary facilitation techniques for asynchronous learning. These instructional struggles can further diminish the student experience. This article aims to support online instructors by highlighting strategies and opportunities to enhance their teaching in asynchronous courses. Specifically, it will provide practical suggestions for creating an engaging and interactive course environment. The ultimate goal is to help instructors cultivate enriching asynchronous learning spaces where students actively engage with their peers, feel connected to their instructor and coursework, and perceive asynchronous learning as a highly effective and desirable educational experience.
E-learning authoring tools incorporating AI-powered functionalities have emphasized course content generation to reduce production times and resource demands. However, this approach lacks thoughtful consideration of generative AI's potential impact on the quality of e-learning experiences. This article identifies current limitations in e-learning authoring tools and proposes directions that can guide vendors in incorporating functionalities that help e-learning producers create content that is both engaging to navigate and cognitively meaningful for learners.
While advances in knowledge production have offered rich resources for classroom content and how to deliver it to learners, instructors still encounter challenges in developing communities of practice (CoPs) in an e-learning environment. Teaching novice learners to become professional experts within a community with a shared purpose and who are dispersed geographically can be designed, but requires deliberate effort. Using Wikipedia’s editing feature as an example, this article explores how to establish CoPs in e-learning spaces.
Scaffolding is essential for effective online instruction. It empowers students and fosters connections with instructors, peers, and learning goals. By utilizing theories such as Vygotsky's zone of proximal development (ZPD), scaffolding supports students in tackling challenging tasks with guided assistance. This approach enhances understanding and skill acquisition and boosts student confidence and engagement, creating a supportive online learning environment.
With the widespread use of AI tools in education, students’ writing increasingly reflects AI-generated styles. We named this emerging phenomenon “AI-lization.” This article examines AI-lization in academic writing, highlighting policy gaps and limitations of detection tools. It proposes strategies for higher-education stakeholders, including AI literacy education, reflective documentation, clear institutional guidelines, and transparent AI design, promoting authentic learning. By moving beyond detection-focused approaches, our work reconceptualizes originality as an evolving process and offers practical guidance for ethical AI integration, supporting creativity, reflection, and integrity in the AI era.
Publicly accessible large language models (LLMs) and generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools, like ChatGPT, are being adapted by course development software companies, online tutoring companies, and publishers to support tasks such as instructional design, tutoring, and adaptive and personalized learning. This article explores the dynamics of knowledge construction among human educators, generative AI, and learners in the continuing education e-learning space.
