Learning in Virtual Worlds
Three-dimensional (3D) immersive virtual worlds have been touted as being capable of facilitating highly interactive, engaging, multimodal learning experiences. Much of the evidence gathered to support these claims has been anecdotal but the potential that these environments hold to solve traditional problems in online and technology-mediated educa …
The Digital Nexus
Over half a century ago, in The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962), Marshall McLuhan noted that the overlap of traditional print and new electronic media like radio and television produced widespread upheaval in personal and public life:
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Even without collision, such co-existence of technologies and awareness brings …
Speaking Power to Truth
Online discourse has created a new media environment for contributions to public life, one that challenges the social significance of the role of public intellectuals—intellectuals who, whether by choice or by circumstance, offer commentary on issues of the day. The value of such commentary is rooted in the assumption that, by virtue of their tra …
Teaching Crowds
Within the rapidly expanding field of educational technology, learners and educators must confront a seemingly overwhelming selection of tools designed to deliver and facilitate both online and blended learning. Many of these tools assume that learning is configured and delivered in closed contexts, through learning management systems (LMS). Howeve …
Film and the City
Most Canadians are city dwellers, a fact often unacknowledged by twentieth-century Canadian films, with their preference for themes of wilderness survival or rural life. Modernist Canadian films tend to support what film scholar Jim Leach calls “the nationalist-realist project,” a documentary style that emphasizes the exoticism and mythos of th …
Teaching in Blended Learning Environments
Teaching in Blended Leaning Environments provides a coherent framework in which to explore the transformative concept of blended learning. Blended learning can be defined as the organic integration of thoughtfully selected and complementary face-to-face and online approaches and technologies. A direct result of the transformative innovation of virt …
Strategic Nonviolent Power
History indicates that there are powerful routes to liberation from oppression that do not involve violence. Mohandas Gandhi called for a science of nonviolent action, one based on satyagraha, or the “insistence on truth.” As Gandhi understood, nonviolent resistance is not passive, nor is it weak; rather, such action is an exercise of power. De …
Sociocultural Systems
Macrosociology—the study of large-scale social structures and the fundamental principles of social organization—was the style of sociology practiced by the founders of the discipline. Today, the social theories of Karl Marx, Max Weber, Émile Durkheim, and Herbert Spencer (among others) are commonly studied as part of the history of the field, …
Reel Time
In this authoritative work, Seiler and Seiler argues that the establishment and development of moviegoing and movie exhibition in Prairie Canada is best understood in the context of changing late-nineteenth-century and early-twentieth-century social, economic, and technological developments. From the first entrepreneurs who attempted to lure custom …
Connecting Canadians
Connecting Canadians represents the work of the Community Research Alliance for Community Innovation and Networking (CRACIN), the largest national and international research effort to examine the burgeoning field of community informatics, a cross-disciplinary approach to the mobilization of information and communications technologies (ICT) for comm …
Flexible Pedagogy, Flexible Practice
Flexibility has become a watchword in modern education, but its implementation is by no means a straightforward matter. Flexible Pedagogy, Flexible Practice sheds light on the often taken-for-granted assumptions that inform daily practice and examines the institutional dynamics that help and hinder efforts toward flexibility. The collection in inte …
Controlling Knowledge
Digital communications technology has immeasurably enhanced our capacity to store, retrieve, and exchange information. But who controls our access to information, and who decides what others have a right to know about us? In Controlling Knowledge, author Lorna Stefanick offers a thought-provoking and user-friendly overview of the regulatory regime …
Emerging Technologies in Distance Education
A one-stop knowledge resource, Emerging Technologies in Distance Education showcases the international work of research scholars and innovative distance education practitioners who use emerging interactive technologies for teaching and learning at a distance.
This widely anticipated book harnesses the dispersed knowledge of international experts wh …
Political Economy of Workplace Injury in Canada
Workplace injuries are common, avoidable, and unacceptable. The Political Economy of Workplace Injury in Canada reveals how employers and governments engage in ineffective injury prevention efforts, intervening only when necessary to maintain the standard legitimacy. Barnetson sheds light on this faulty system, highlighting the way in which employe …
Accessible Elements
Accessible Elements informs science educators about current practices in online and distance education: distance-delivered methods for laboratory coursework, the requisite administrative and institutional aspects of online and distance teaching, and the relevant educational theory. Delivery of university-level courses through online and distance ed …
A Designer's Log
Books and articles on instructional design in online learning abound but rarely do we get such a comprehensive picture of what instructional designers do, how they do it, and the problems they solve as their university changes. Power documents the emergence of an adapted instructional design model for transforming courses from single-mode to dual-m …
Mobile Learning
This collection is for anyone interested in the use of mobile technology for various distance learning applications. Readers will discover how to design learning materials for delivery on mobile technology and become familiar with the best practices of other educators, trainers, and researchers in the field, as well as the most recent initiatives i …
Le conseiller pédagogique réflexif
Transformer un organisme qui dispense des cours traditionnels en un organisme qui offre des cours à distance et en ligne n’est pas une entreprise de tout repos. Il faut comprendre que l’on travaille avec des spécialistes de la matière qui ont, dans la plupart des cas, toujours présenté leur enseignement en mode présentiel, en salle de cla …
The Theory and Practice of Online Learning
In this important collection of essays by practitioners and scholars that has been downloaded nearly half a million times is an overview of some of the most pressing issues in online education. By addressing transformations arising from educational technology advances and the new business conditions and modes of delivery of education, the contribut …