quality—such as common metrics for course completion
rates or standards-based outcomes, including attainment of
21st-century learning standards—in online distance
education programs.
That quick overview of trends in Internet access, both in
school and out of school, suggests that the physical connectivity is increasingly in place for expanding access to
digital education opportunities, but how and how well
different groups of people use this for learning purposes
and under what conditions is still relatively underexplored.
However, two recently published research articles present
novel small-scale investigations that attempt to address
these questions.
In the summer 2009 issue of the Journal of Research on
Technology in Education (JRTE), Howard Nicholas and Wan
Ng report findings from a six-month study of high school
students’ motivation, collaboration, interaction, and learning within an open-source online environment intended
to extend learning from a previous face-to-face, four-day
Sun, Science, and Society camp. The researchers invited the
study’s 16 participants, who were from different schools and
geographic areas, to use a Moodle online environment with
discussion forums, chat rooms, a resource area, and a private messaging tool, with help from an online adult mentor-facilitator, to extend and build on their camp experiences.
As the learning was designed to be open ended, there was
no direct teaching and no course-work-type materials,
only broad suggestions of topics for a research project and
encouragement to investigate the societal and ethical issues around the topic chosen. In analyzing data from students’
online artifacts and focus groups, Nicholas and Ng found that
about half the students logged in to the space once or twice a
week and posted frequently. Two-thirds of their interaction
was social talk and one-third was topic-focused talk. However,
these researchers argue that students’ interactions and collaborations were underrepresented in Moodle because, in focus
groups, students reported interacting online with an online
tool they were already using, MSN Chat (which allows voice
and video conversations). By the end of the study period, half
of the students had submitted a completed project or a draft.
A few recommendations from this study may resonate
with those considering similar spaces for open and extended learning, including:
• Incorporate online technologies that students are already
using.
• Allow tools and practices that encourage social-relationship building to seed more productive and
frequent academic exchanges.
• Improve the visibility of individual projects so all can see
each other’s work at any given time.
• Improve the adult online mentor-facilitators’ strategies
for motivating seemingly less-engaged students.
Also in JRTE’s summer 2009 issue, Jung Won Hur and
Thomas A. Brush investigated why teachers want to voluntarily participate in self-generated online communities,
as opposed to communities required by their district or
research-driven online communities for teachers. They analyzed interview and online artifacts from 23 teachers who
had been participating in one of three online communities
of at least 1,000 members: Teacher Focus, We The Teachers,
and Teaching in LiveJournal. The teachers studied were
classified as active, infrequent, or “lurker” members. They
found that teachers want to participate in such self-generated communities for five interrelated reasons:
• To vent negative and positive emotions
• To combat feelings of local isolation
• To explore their own and others’ ideas
• To experience a sense of camaraderie in the profession
• To tap online affordances, such as reduced social cues
and anonymity, which encourage expression of uncertainty or lack of expertise in an area, and many-to-many
communication, which allows teachers to broadcast
ideas to a large audience and collect diverse viewpoints
As boundaries between life online and offline dissolve,
we can expect more variety in the types of online learning
experiences people seek out or assemble for themselves.
However, it will be a while yet before we accumulate the
research needed to understand the significance and impact
of this for the field of education as it moves forward.
Resources
“Home Broadband Adoption 2008” by John Horrigan of the Pew Internet & American Life Project: www.pewinternet.org/~/media//Files/
Reports/2008/PIP_Broadband_2008.pdf
“Internet Access in U.S. Public Schools and Classrooms: 1994–2005”
by J. Wells, L. Lewis, and B. Greene (2006) of the National Center for
Educational Statistics (NCES), U.S. Department of Education: http://
nces.ed.gov/pubs2007/2007020.pdf
“Networked Nation: Broadband in America 2007” (2008) by the National
Telecommunications and Information Administration: www.ntia.doc.
gov/reports/2008/ NetworkedNation.html
“Technology-Based Distance Education Courses for Public Elementary
and Secondary School Students: 2002–2003 and 2004–2005” (2008)
by I. Zandberg, L. Lewis, and B. Greene of the National Center for
Educational Statistics (NCES), U.S. Department of Education: http://
nces.ed.gov/pubs2008/2008008.pdf
“Writing, Technology, and Teens” (2008) by Amanda Lenhart, Sousan
Arafeh, Aaron Smith, and Alexandra Macgill of the Pew Internet &
American Life Project: www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2008/Writing-
Technology-and-Teens.aspx
