Instructors at a provider of military continuing education courses transitioned traditional classroom leadership courses to fully online and hybrid formats that combined online and face-to-face instruction. No evaluation of student satisfaction during the transition was conducted using research-based practices. The purpose of this mixed methods research study was to examine student satisfaction of traditional, hybrid and online delivery of two military continuing education courses using research-based practices. This empirical study was grounded in Malcolm S. Knowles, Elwood F. Holton III, and Richard A. Swanson's adult learning theory as well as Terry Anderson's and Gilly Salmon's online learning theories. Data from 96 course evaluations from students who completed traditional, online, and hybrid versions of two military continuing education courses were analyzed. Kruskal-Wallis analyses of variance tests were used to examine student satisfaction ratings for significant differences.--Provided by publisher.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Hybrid Learning, ICHL 2013, held in Toronto, ON, Canada, in August 2013. The 35 papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. The selected articles broadly cover topics on hybrid learning and continuing education, including computer supported collaborative learning, experiences in hybrid learning, pedagogical and psychological issues, e-learning and mobile learning, open education resources and open online courses, and issues in hybrid learning and continuing education.

The twentieth century has seen the creation and evolution of technologies beyond imagination a century ago. The computer has enabled the digital presentation of knowledge, and increased the speed with which information can be captured and processed. The acceptance of these technologies has led to a new alternative for providing education and training--distance learning. This book focuses on the processes, techniques and tools that are being used to successfully plan, implement and operate distance learning projects.

This book is to explores a variety of facets of online learning environments to understand how learning occurs and succeeds in digital contexts and what teaching strategies and technologies are most suited to this format. Business, health, government and education are some of the core sectors of society which have been experiencing deep transformations due to a generalized digitalization. While these changes are not novel, the swift progress of technology and the rising complexity of digital environments place a focus on the need for further research and novel strategies. In the context of education, the promise of increased flexibility and broader access to educational resources is impelling much of higher education’s course offerings to online environments. The 21st century learner requires an education that can be pursued anytime and anywhere and that is more aligned with the demands of a digital society. Online education not only assists students to success-fully integrate a workforce that is increasingly digital, but it helps them to become more comfortable with the use of technology in general and, hence, more prepared to be prolific digital citizens. The variety of settings portrayed in this volume attest to the unlimited opportunities afforded by online learning and serve as valuable evidence of its benefit for students’ educational experience. Moreover, these research efforts assist a more comprehensive reflection about the delivery of higher education in the context of online settings.

Communications technologies have been continuously integrated into learning and training environments which has revealed the need for a clear understanding of the process. The Community of Inquiry (COI) Theoretical Framework has a philosophical foundation which provides planned guidelines and principles to development useful learning environments and guarantees successful educational experiences. Educational Communities of Inquiry: Theoretical Framework, Research, and Practice is an extensive reference that offers theoretical foundations and developments associated with the COl theoretical framework. This collection is a valuable source of ideas, research opportunities, and challenges for scholars and practitioners in the field of education technology.

Teaching and Learning at a Distance is written for introductory distance education courses for preservice or in-service teachers, and for training programs that discuss teaching distant learners or managing distance education systems. This text provides readers with the basic information needed to be knowledgeable distance educators and leaders of distance education programs. The teacher or trainer who uses this book will be able to design courses, evaluate programs, and identify issues and trends affecting the field. In this text we take the following themes: The first theme is the definition of distance education. Before we started writing the first edition of Teaching and Learning at a Distance we carefully reviewed the literature to determine the definition that would be at the foundation of our writing. This definition is based on the work of Desmond Keegan, but is unique to this book and has been adopted by the Association for Educational Communications and Technology and by the Encyclopedia Britannica. The second theme of the book is the importance of research to the development of effective courses and programs offered at a distance. The best practices presented in Teaching and Learning at a Distance are validated by scientific evidence. Certainly there are “rules of thumb,” but we have always attempted to only include recommendations that can be supported by research. The third theme of Teaching and Learning at a Distance is derived from Richard Clark’s famous quote published in the Review of Educational Research asserting that media are mere vehicles that do not directly influence achievement. Clark’s controversial work is discussed in the book, but is also fundamental to the book’s advocacy for distance education—in other words, we authors do not make the claim that education delivered at a distance is inherently better than other ways people learn. Distance delivered instruction is not a magical approach that makes learners achieve more. Equivalency theory is the fourth theme of the book. Here we present the concept that instruction should be provided to learners that is equivalent rather than identical to what might be delivered in a traditional environment. Equivalency theory helps the instructional designer approach the development of instruction for each learner without attempting to duplicate what happens in a face-to-face classroom. The final theme for Teaching and Learning at a Distance is the idea that the book should be comprehensive—that it should cover as much of the various ways instruction is made available to distant learners as is possible. It can serve as a stand-alone source of information.

Digital and online learning is more prevalent than ever, making multimedia learning a primary objective for many instructors. The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning examines cutting-edge research to guide creative teaching methods in online classrooms and training. Recognized as the field's major reference work, this research-based handbook helps define and shape this area of study. This third edition provides the latest progress report from the world's leading multimedia researchers, with forty-six chapters on how to help people learn from words and pictures, particularly in computer-based environments. The chapters demonstrate what works best and establishes optimized practices. It systematically examines well-researched principles of effective multimedia instruction and pinpoints exactly why certain practices succeed by isolating the boundary conditions. The volume is founded upon research findings in learning theory, giving it an informed perspective in explaining precisely how effective teaching practices achieve their goals or fail to engage.

Technology acceptance can be defined as a user’s willingness to employ technology for the tasks it is designed to support. Over the years, acceptance researchers have become more interested in understanding the factors influencing the adoption of technologies in various settings. From the literature, much research has been done to understand technology acceptance in the business contexts. This is understandable, given the close relationship between the appropriate uses of technology and profit margin. In most of the acceptance studies, researchers have sought to identify and understand the forces that shape users’ acceptance so as to influence the design and implementation process in ways to avoid or minimize resistance or rejection when users interact with technology. Traditionally, it has been observed that developers and procurers of technological resources could rely on authority to ensure that technology was used, which is true in many industrial and organizational contexts. However, with the increasing demands for educational applications of information technology and changing working practices, there is s need to re-examine user acceptance issues as they emerge within and outside of the contexts in which technology was implemented. This is true in the education milieu where teachers exercise the autonomy to decide on what and how technology will be used for teaching and learning purposes. Although they are guided by national and local policies to use technology in the classrooms, teachers spent much of their planning time to consider how technology could be harnessed for effective lesson delivery and assessment to be conducted. These circumstances have provided the impetus for researchers to study technology acceptance in educational settings. Although these studies have typically involved students and teachers as participants, their findings have far-reaching implications for school leaders, policy makers, and other stakeholders. The book is a critical and specialized source that describes recent research on technology acceptance in education represented by educators and researchers from around the world such as Australia, Belgium, China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, United Kingdom, and United States of America.

A cutting edge collection of 59 essays solicited from Web-based instructors offering a variety of perspectives, notions, and experiences in the practice of virtual teaching. The compendium introduces the evolution and status of distance learning, critical issues in Web-based learning environments such as the similarities and differences between Web-based and traditional classrooms, specific discussions on designing learning activities and electronic textbooks, an evaluation of delivery systems for instruction, and case studies of Web-based courses from kindergarten and beyond to the instruction of literature, astronomy, and foreign languages. Includes illustrations. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR