Resources

This textbook considers and addresses the design of online learning objects, electronic textbooks, short courses, long courses, MOOC courses, and other types of contents for open sharing. It also considers the design of online mediated communities to enhance such learning. The “openness” may be open-access, and/or it may even be open-source. The learning may range from self-directed and automated to AI robot-led to instructor-led.  The main concept of this work is that design learning for open sharing, requires different considerations than when designing for closed and proprietary contexts. Open sharing of learning contents requires a different sense of laws (intellectual property, learner privacy, pedagogical strategies, technologies, media, and others). It requires different considerations of learner diversity and inclusion. It requires geographical, cultural, and linguistic considerations that are not as present in more localized designs. The open sharing aspect also has effects on learner performance tracking (assessments) and learner feedback.  This textbook targets students, both undergraduate and graduate in computer science, education and other related fields. Also, professionals in this field managing online systems would find this book helpful. (From the Publisher)

Organization and Newness: Discourses and Ecologies of Innovation in the Creative University offers a view from a perspective of organizational education on the ‘new’, which analyzes the production of the ‘new’ within organizations, in relation to the inherent learning processes. Fundamental for this perspective is the question about the changeability of organizations, especially when these are not viewed only as instrumentally established regulatory structures but rather as social constructs. The contributions of this volume contour the complexity of newness in organization and form a bridge from critical analysis of imperative discourse of newness, to programmatic pleas of an organizational pedagogy, which is normative in nature, for a reconfiguration of organizational and societal relationships. The issue at hand shows how tightly the question about newness is constitutively woven into the self-conception of organizational education and pedagogy. (From the Publisher)

Assessment and evaluation have always been an integral part of the educational process. Quality and purposeful assessment can assist in students’ learning and their achievement. In recent years, considerable attention has been given to the roles of educational measurement, evaluation, and assessment with a view to improving the education systems throughout the world. Educators are interested in how to adequately prepare the young generation to meet the ever-growing demands of the 21st century utilizing robust assessment methods. There has also been increased demand in accountability and outcomes assessment in schools to bridge the gap between classroom practices and measurement and assessment of learners’ performance. This volume contains selected and invited papers from the First International Conference on Educational Measurement, Evaluation and Assessment (ICEMEA). (From the Publisher)

Recognizing the growing interest in competency-based education (CBE) in U.S. higher education, but also the lack of shared standards or practices around it, three experts produced this guide for other educators who are contemplating a move to (or revision of) this type of instructional program. The authors help those who are enthusiastic about CBE avoid pitfalls by offering practical guidance. They strike a cautionary tone throughout, beginning their Introduction with the sobering reality that “there are relatively few schools that have been able to move from interest to implementation” (1). One of the reasons for caution may be that even a definition of CBE is hard to come by. The authors joke that “if you were to ask ten people to define CBE, you would likely hear ten different answers” (2). Instead they offer five “hallmarks” of CBE: (1) “time is variable, and learning is fixed”; (2) there is “required demonstration of mastery or proficiency” which is (3) “determined by rigorous assessments”; CBE is (4) “focused on the student learning journey” and is (5) “offered in a flexible, self-paced approach” (3-4). Many educational programs would claim one or more of these hallmarks, but taken together, they represent a distinct departure from traditional education. CBE’s most famous feature may be the way it changes the relationship between learning and time by replacing the credit hour with continuous direct assessment. As the authors demonstrate, however, this change complicates everything from the transcript to faculty workload to accreditation. CBE’s intense focus on individualized student learning paths and assessment (“assessment on steroids,” as I once heard) is also significant because it changes what learners actually do to learn and what teachers do to teach. Traditional faculty roles are likely to be unbundled, “reassembled” (89), and redefined – or replaced – by roles like coach, tutor, and psychometrician. Given the challenge of defining CBE and the guide’s relative brevity, it would benefit from some case studies, at least for readers who are still trying to gain a clear picture of what a CBE program looks like and why an institution might adopt one in the first place. Cases would presumably also help CBE adopters appreciate why other institutions made the choices they did. The book reads instead like an insider’s guide. The book’s best feature, accordingly, is its soup-to-nuts review of issues that educators must consider when designing competency-based education. Chapters address institutional culture, program design, assessment strategies, staffing and business models, and approval seeking. Readers come away fully aware that CBE is not just a different teaching approach but a potentially radical disruption to education delivery.

This edited volume is built around the belief that educators can no longer ignore issues of cyberethics in either the content they teach or the tools they use to teach it. Over the past few decades the internet, in its various manifestations, has integrated itself seamlessly into our lives to the point that questions about the responsible use of digital tools are unavoidable. Furthermore, most students are now “digital natives,” born into the digital age with no memory of life before the internet. This reality makes it all the more critical to teach cybercitizenship and responsible internet use in the classroom. Emerging Trends in Cyberethics and Education covers an impressively diverse range of topics and contexts in the course of eleven essays. It treats both K-12 and university-level educational contexts and considers classes that take place strictly online as well as those that meet face to face. The essays fall into three broad categories based on how they approach questions of cyberethics in education. First, there are essays that examine the ethical implications of using educational technology in the classroom, including questions of inclusivity and equal access, the quality of education made possible by digital tools and online environments, plagiarism and intellectual property rights, and discerning the accuracy of information available on the web. Second, there are essays that assess the role of educators in responding to challenges students face in online environments outside the classroom, cyberbullying being the most salient example. Finally, there are essays that consider how educators can teach students to be ethical users of the internet, social media, and other digital tools. Nevertheless, it is consistently clear throughout the book that these are not separate questions; the overarching concern among the authors is the cultivation of “cybercitizens” who can better navigate the complex promises and challenges of life in the digital age. The way teachers model responsibility and thoughtfulness in their use of digital tools, the steps they take in responding to violations of their students’ safety and privacy outside the classroom, and their efforts to explicitly teach cyberethics all play a role in this cultivation. Educators in all contexts and subject matter can make use of this volume and the challenging questions it raises; the theology and religious studies classroom is no exception. Religion classes are particularly well situated to cultivate students as citizens because the subject challenges students to critically reflect on their own beliefs and to understand those with very different ways of thinking and acting in the world. Teachers in these subjects must now consider how, in an era in which knowledge and human interaction is increasingly mediated through digital platforms, one can integrate questions about cyberethics and digital citizenship into course design. As the editors of this volume assert, “these discussions should no longer be optional” (xv).