Article Notice – Integrating Online Learning In NSW Secondary Schools: Three Schools’ Perspectives On ICT Adoption

This scrolled through my RSS reader when I was checking it in Brisbane airport (which is kind of fitting given the source and the topic of this article)…

Integrating online learning in NSW secondary schools: Three schools’ perspectives on ICT adoption (HTML/PDF)

Edwina Neyland
Macquarie University

Australasian Journal of Educational Technology
2011, 27(1), 152-173.

This report examines factors associated with integration of online learning in Sydney region high schools. Past studies have shown that schools can be identified as operating at a certain level of use – ranging from non-use, through stages such as entry, and adaptation, arriving at transformation – when a focus on technology shifts to a focus on the learner. This report highlights several factors affecting the use of online learning in Sydney high schools, including systemic factors such as institutional support, as well as micro factors such as teacher capability. After questionnaires and interviews conducted with computer coordinators during 2009, it was found that immediate school factors such as school support and focus on pedagogy were perceived as being more important than broader systemic factors.

I haven’t had a chance to read it, but hope to in the next few days. In the meantime if you have any thoughts on the article, please let us know.

Article Notice: Analysing High School Students’ Participation And Interaction In An Asynchronous Online Project-Based Learning Environment

This came through my RSS reader yesterday via “journals” via Doug Holton in Google Reader.

Australasian Journal of Educational Technology
2010, 26(3), 327-340.

Analysing high school students’ participation and interaction in an asynchronous online project-based learning environment

Quek Choon Lang
Nanyang Technological University

This study aims to replicate and extend a previous study which was conducted on primary school students’ asynchronous online project-based learning. In this study, 276 high school students’ participation and interaction in a project-based learning environment was mediated by an asynchronous computer-mediated communication (CMC) tool. The students’ high participation revealed their adaptability to this teacher-facilitated learning environment. However, in terms of interaction, these students’ notes were found congregating mainly in phase I (comparing and sharing information, 82.7%) but lesser extent in the subsequent phase II (the discovery and exploration of dissonance or inconsistency among ideas, concepts or statement, 13.5%), phase III (negotiation of meaning/co-construction of knowledge, 3.7%) and beyond when these notes were analysed using Gunawardena’s Interaction Analysis Model (IAM) (1997). These findings were compared, discussed and referenced to the earlier research conducted in the primary school to surface gaps for future research that will focus on addressing obstacles to students’ learning issues pertaining to participation and interaction socially and cognitively in such a learning environment.

Not directly conducted in an online learning environment, but the blended nature of this project should provide some useful insights for folks interested in K-12 online learning.