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E-learning is at an exciting point in its development; this book aims to define e-learning as a field of research, highlighting the complex issues, activities and tensions that characterize the area.
For decades, politicians, businessmen and other leaders have been concerned with the quality of education, including early childhood education, in the United States. While more than 50% of the children between the ages of three and five are enrolled in preschool and kindergarten programs in the United States, no state, federal, or national standards exist for science or technology education in preschool or kindergarten programs. Knowledge about science and technology is an important requirement for all in contemporary society. An increasing number of professions require the use of scientific concepts and technological skills and society as a whole depends on scientific knowledge. Scientific and technological knowledge should be a part of every individual’s education. There are many ways to enhance young children’s scientific thinking and problem-solving skills as well as their technological abilities. The purpose of this volume is to present a critical analysis of reviews of research on science and technology education in early childhood education. The first part of the volume includes contributions by leading scholars in science, while the second part includes contributions by leading scholars in technology.
The currency of social capital serves as an important function given the capacity to generate external access (getting to) and internal accountability (getting through) for individuals and institutions alike. Pierre Bourdieu (1986) defines social capital as “the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition or in other words, to membership in a group” (p. 251). Social capital contains embedded resources as a tool for manifesting opportunities and options among individuals and groups. Inevitably, the aforementioned opportunities and options become reflective of the depth and breadth of access and accountability experienced by the individual and institution. As educational stakeholders, we must consistently challenge ourselves with the question, “How do K-12 schools and colleges and universities accomplish shared, egalitarian goals of achieving access and accountability?” Such goals become fundamental toward ensuring students matriculating through K-12 and higher education, irrespective of background, are provided the caliber of education and schooling experience to prepare them for economic mobility and social stability. To that end, the volume, Contemporary Perspectives on Social Capital in Educational Contexts (2019), as part of the book series, Contemporary Perspectives on Capital in Educational Contexts, offers a unique opportunity to explore social capital as a currency conduit for creating external access and internal accountability for K-12 and higher education. The commonalities of social capital emerging within the 12 chapters of the volume include the following: 1) Social Capital as Human Connectedness; 2) Social Capital as Strategic Advocacy; 3) Social Capital as Intentional Engagement; and 4) Social Capital as Culturally-Responsive Leadership. Thus, it becomes important for institutions of education (i.e. secondary, postsecondary, continuing) and individuals to assume efforts with intentionality and deliberateness to promote access and accountability.
Recently, a new understanding of creative thought and creative performance has surfaced. It has also attracted the attention of early childhood professional organizations and researchers. Professional organizations have included it in their publications and conferences. While current creativity researchers have initiated a far more sophisticated understanding of young children’s creative thinking, ways to assess creativity, strategies to promote creativity, and research methodologies. The purpose of this volume is to present a wide range of different theories and areas in the study of creativity to help researchers and theorists work toward the development of different perspectives on creativity with young children. It focuses on critical analyses and reviews of the literature on topics related to creativity research, development, theories, and practices. It will serve as a reference for early childhood education researchers, scholars, academics, general educators, teacher educators, teachers, graduate students, and scientists to stimulate further “dialogue” on ways to enhance creativity. The chapters are of high quality and provide scholarly analyses of research studies that capture the full range of approaches to the study of creativity --- behavioral, clinical, cognitive, cross-cultural, developmental, educational, genetic, organizational, psychoanalytic, psychometric, and social. Interdisciplinary research is also included, as is research within specific domains such as art and science, as well as on critical issues (e.g., aesthetics, genius, imagery, imagination, insight, intuition, metaphor, play, problem finding and solving). Thus, it offers critical analyses on reviews of research in a form that are useful to early childhood researchers, scholars, educators, and graduate students. It also places the current research in its historical context. The volume is also of interest to the general readers who are interested in the young children’s creativity. The chapters are authored by established scholars in the field of young children’s creativity.
In the rapidly-changing world of the Internet and the Web, theory and research struggle to keep up with technological, social, and economic developments. In education in particular, a proliferation of novel practices, applications, and forms - from bulletin boards to Webcasts, from online educational games to open educational resources - have come to be addressed under the rubric of «e-learning». In response to these phenomena, Re-thinking E-Learning Research introduces a number of research frameworks and methodologies relevant to e-learning. The book outlines methods for the analysis of content, narrative, genre, discourse, hermeneutic-phenomenological investigation, and critical and historical inquiry. It provides examples of pairings of method and subject matter that include narrative research into the adaptation of blogs in a classroom setting; the discursive-psychological analysis of student conversations with artificially intelligent agents; a genre analysis of an online discussion; and a phenomenological study of online mathematics puzzles. Introducing practical applications and spanning a wide range of the possibilities for e-learning, this book will be useful for students, teachers, and researchers in e-learning.
A volume in Contemporary Perspectives in Data Mining Series Editors Kenneth D. Lawrence, New Jersey Institute of Technology and Ronald K. Klimberg, Saint Joseph's University The series, Contemporary Perspectives on Data Mining, is composed of blind refereed scholarly research methods and applications of data mining. This series will be targeted both at the academic community, as well as the business practitioner. Data mining seeks to discover knowledge from vast amounts of data with the use of statistical and mathematical techniques. The knowledge is extracted from this data by examining the patterns of the data, whether they be associations of groups or things, predictions, sequential relationships between time order events or natural groups. Data mining applications are in marketing (customer loyalty, identifying profitable customers, instore promotions, e-commerce populations); in business (teaching data mining, efficiency of the Chinese automobile industry, moderate asset allocation funds); and techniques (veterinary predictive models, data integrity in the cloud, irregular pattern detection in a mobility network and road safety modeling.)
'I would like to enthusiastically recommend The SAGE Handbook of E-Learning Research. An international set of authors have produced a highly readable handbook that covers topics in E-learning research, theory, policy, language and literacy, and design issues. The work draws on multiple perspectives ranging from early work in asynchronous learning networks to community organization in e-learning. This is a large and much needed work that organizes and illuminates issues in E-learning in a way that readers will be able to take away practical advice for their own use. I am quite pleased to see this handbook that provides a very useful organization of knowledge for our field' - John Bourne, Ph.D Professor and Executive Director, The Sloan Consortium (www.sloan-c.org) 'This book is an important contribution to the development of E-learning because its account of the research always begins with the context of learning from which the exploitation of technology can be viewed. The authors help us understand that technology affords new kinds of relationship between the learner and what is learned, and how it is learned. With this rich understanding, the book is able to build the wide-ranging research foundation on which the field can move forward' - Diana Laurillard, Institute of Education, University of London 'A comprehensive and compelling resource that provides a global perspective on a development that is transforming higher education' - David Pilsbury, Chief Executive, Worldwide Universities Network 'Unlike many how-to books on the topic...this work focuses on research for educators and others interested in how technology enhances or diminishes learning. Highly Recommended' - Choice Magazine This handbook provides a state-of-the-art, in-depth account of research in the rapidly expanding field of E-learning. The first of its kind, it provides reviews of over 20 areas in E-learning research by experts in the field, and provides a critical account of the best work to date. The contributors cover the basics of the discipline, as well as new theoretical perspectives. Areas of research covered by the Handbook include: - Contexts for researching e-learning - Theory and policy - Language and literacy - Design issues - History of the field The editors' introduction and many of the chapters show how multiple aspects of E-learning interact. The introduction also provides a new model for researching the field. This book is relevant for everyone in higher education, from undergraduate to faculty, as well as university administrators involved in providing E-learning. It will provide a research background for higher education, including universities, training colleges, and community colleges. It will also be relevant to those involved in any research and developmental aspect of E-learning - corporate trainers and those involved in online programs at secondary school or in virtual high schools. Whether you are a lecturer, researcher or programme designer, this is an essential read. Richard Andrews is Professor in English at the Institute of Education, University of London and Visiting Professor at New York University's Steinhardt School of Education, Culture and Human Development. Caroline Haythornthwaite is Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
e-Learning Initiatives in China provides research and application insights into e-learning in China, in the light of two drives by the Chinese Ministry of Education: to implement curriculum reform and to promote quality and innovation in e-learning provision. Educationalists throughout the world have their eyes on China, both as a market to understand and to enter, and as a major source of international students. In addition, educationalists are increasingly aware of the need to incorporate digital technology into their course provision and delivery. This book provides valuable insights into both of these elements. It includes ‘state-of-the-art' reviews of e-learning in China, case study examples of e-learning design and development issues, and explores the collaboration challenges that British and Chinese teams experienced as they participated in a Sino-UK e-learning initiative, the eChina-UK Programme. The book is written in a clear and accessible style. Section 1, Background, introduces the book and provides an overview of e-learning in higher education in China. Section 2, Designing and Delivering Online Courses in China, starts with a critical review of online courseware designs that are currently widespread in China, and then presents a series of case study examples which deal with important design and delivery issues. Section 3, Managing the Interplay between Pedagogy and Technology, explores ways in which new learning technologies can be exploited for pedagogic purposes. Section 4, Managing Collaboration Processes, discusses the issues that the project teams needed to manage effectively as they collaborated both internationally and professionally. The final section, Section 5, Addressing Policy Issues, deals with key e-learning policy issues, both within China and internationally. The topic of e-learning, combined with the book's emphasis on the interrelationship of policy and practice, and its international teamwork perspective, will appeal to education specialists and e-learning experts not only in Asia but also in many Western countries.
How can novice e-learning researchers and postgraduate learners develop rigorous plans to study the effectiveness of technology-enhanced learning environments? How can practitioners gather and portray evidence of the impact of e-learning? How can the average educator who teaches online, without experience in evaluating emerging technologies, build on what is successful and modify what is not? By unpacking the e-learning lifecycle and focusing on learning, not technology, Evaluating e-Learning attempts to resolve some of the complexity inherent in evaluating the effectiveness of e-learning. The book presents practical advice in the form of an evaluation framework and a scaffolded approach to an e-learning research study, using divide-and-conquer techniques to reduce complexity in both design and delivery. It adapts and builds on familiar research methodology to offer a robust and accessible approach that can ensure effective evaluation of a wide range of innovative initiatives, including those covered in other books in the Connecting with e-Learning series. Readers will find this jargon-free guide is a must-have resource that provides the proper tools for evaluating e-learning practices with ease.
"The aim of this book is to bring together best practice in the development and use of E-Learning tools and technologies to support academic staff and faculty in universities, further education, and higher education institutes"--Provided by publisher.
