Virtual Canuck

I’m pleased to share below the Table of Content for issue 12(6) of the International Review of Open and Distance Learning.

This issue has 10 research articles and 4 book reviews. When you go the IRRODL site, you will see that we are adding graphical enhancements - including  anew colour scheme, photos of the first authors, snaps of book covers and updates to  special issues.

Remember the price is right to subscribe – Free.

Enjoy.

I am pleased to be able to introduce a new site – http://equivalencytheorem.info/ created by Terumi Miyazoe from Tokyo Denki University and myself to invite more use, critique and understanding of my 2003 distance education Interaction Equivalency Theorem.

Interaction has always been a defining (but expensive) component of all forms of education. In distance education, we have  expanded the definition of interaction to include that taking place between students and content- in addition to student-student and student-teacher interaction. Randy Garrison and I wrote an article in 1998 detailing the final three forms of educational interaction (teacher-teacher, teacher-content and content-content,- however the 3 student forms are the focus of most DE research and discussion.

In 2003 I began thinking that if you could get one of the three student forms of interaction at very highly levels of both quantity and quality in a formal course, then you have the necessary ingredients for a quality  learning experience - even in the absence of either or both of the other two forms. I expressed these and other ideas in more academic form in the 2003 article, but never took the idea much beyond this because I couldn’t figure out a way to disprove the theory . As the citizendium wiki puts “for a proposition to be considered scientific, it must, at least in principle, be possible to make an observation that would show it to be false. Otherwise, the proposition has, as Karl Popper put it, no connection with the real world.”

Thus, I was most delighted when Bob Bernard and his colleagues published a meta analysis of empirical DE research articles that generally served to support the theorem.  Since then a number of authors and doctoral studies have also confirmed or expanded upon my origional idea. Links to these articles and more is available at the website

Terumi and I welcome suggestions for other links, discussion or expansion of these ideas at the site.

References

Anderson, T. (2003). Getting the mix right again: An updated and theoretical rationale for interaction. The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning (IRRODL), 4(2).

Anderson, T. D., & Garrison, R. D. (1998). Learning in a networked world: New roles and responsibilities. In C. C. Gibson (Ed.), Distance Learners in Higher Education (pp. 97-112). Madison, Wisconsin: Atwood Publishing. – The first manuscript that referred to the fourth interaction dimension of teacher-teacher, teacher-content, and content-content, called Modes of Interaction.

Bernard, M. R., Abrami, P. C., Borokhovski, E., Wade, C. A., Tamim, R. M., Surkes, M. A., & Bethel, E. C. (2009). A meta-analysis of three types of interaction treatments in distance education. The Review of Educational Research (RER), 79(3), 1243-1289 – A meta-analysis on interaction research in light of the Equivalency Theorem covering 1985 – 2006 empirical studies in distance education.

The good folks at DERN (Australia) posted a nice summary of Jon Dron and my article from the recent Connectivist special issue of IRRODL.  They write:

“A review of the three dominant learning theories: Cognitive-Behaviourist, Social-Constructivist and Connectivist, and the pedagogies derived from them. The review is very relevant to the use of digital technologies in education using a community of inquiry analysis model beginning with a description of each learning theory and then analyses of the cognitive presence, social presence and teacher presence, and concludes with a summary of the strengths and weaknesses of each. This paper is a must read for educators interested in elearning.”

Over a beer and salty tears yesterday, (we were watching the Canucks get hammered by the Bruins), Jon and I were talking about a slide set he was preparing for a presentation to our Nursing Faculty here at Athabasca.  One of the slides shows a fourth integrative pedagogy that it refers to as holist. (more…)

Well, after surviving end of term marking, coupled with two online keynotes and a real f2F one at Canadian MoodelMoot I’ve finally found some time to skim through two books that arrived on my desk that I want to share with you.

The first is The Publish or Perish Book (P 0r P) by Anne-Wil Harzing. Harzing is one my heroes because she created and released  PorP Open Access program that uses Google Scholar to evaluate journals, articles, and authors based upon the number of citations of the work, collection or journal in other scholarly works. (more…)

I’ve decided to repost the email I sent to subscribers to IRRODL, announcing this VERY special issue.  If you want to be one of the 5054 (and growing) IRRODL subscribers (its free) and get your very own email announcement of each new issue, rather than read this boring old blog, click here.

I am especially pleased with this special issue, partly because, I am becoming a connectivist evangelist, partially because this is the first full issue on Connectivsm in a peer reviewed Journal and certainly not least because Jon Dron and I have an article in it!

I usually shy away from publishing in IRRODL – too easy to be less than objective about reviewing and editing your own work!  But I took the opportunity of a hot topic, personal interest, great guest editors (who of course were ruthless in their reviews – making it a better article!!) and a brilliant co-author made this opportunity irresistible.

Here is the subscriber letter: (more…)

I’m really pleased to present the second issue of IRRODL 12.2 for this year. I’ve cut and pasted the Table of Contents below, but you need to go to the IRRODL site to find the live links to this open access journal.

Enjoy

(more…)

The start of this year promises to be an active one for consumers of distance education and open learning research. IRRODL will be publishing 3 issues in the next 6 weeks, beginning with Vol. 12(1) that is described and linked to in this post.

This special issue of IRRDOL focuses on the exciting convergence of interests between open and distance learning (ODL) and the recognition of prior learning (RPL). The guest editor of this special issue is Dr Dianne Conrad who is the director, Centre for Learning Accreditation at Athabasca University. Dianne has used her contacts in this community to solicit the quality research articles and field notes that help us all understand more deeply this important and timely topic.

We hope you will take the time to visit the site, download, bookmark and cite articles in this issue. As usual the articles are disseminated in HTML, PDF, MP3 (audio) and EPUB (mobile) formats.

Finally I wish to thank all authors, reviewers, editors (and especially Dianne Conrad) and sponsors who make quality open access publishing possible.

Terry Anderson

Editor,

International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning

Athabasca University

Table of Contents

Editorial The landscape of prior learning assessment: A sampling from a diverse field Dianne Conrad HTML PDF MP3 EPUB

Research Articles

Field Notes

Dear Colleagues

We are pleased to present another fine issue of the International Review of Research in Open  and Distance Learning.

This issue is packed with 8 research articles and 3 book reviews. You notice as well that all content is formatted in HTML, PDF, MP3 and EPUB to maximize your accessibility and learning. Finally don’t miss the opportunity to download two of the books reviewed in this issue which are available in open access format from www.AUPress.ca

Our thanks (on your behalf) to authors, reviewers and IRRODL staff for their contributions.

We trust you will enjoy and learn from the issue and I hope you go to WWW.IRRODL.ORG to register for free subscription or to volunteer as a reviewer.

Terry Anderson

Editor,

International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning

Athabasca University

Table of Contents

Editorial

Research Articles

Book Notes

Table of Contents

Editorial

Research Articles

Field Notes

Book Notes

Technical Notes

CIDER Notes

Dear Friends We are pleased to announce issue 11(1) of the International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning. This is a general issue featuring 7 research articles, 2 articles from the field, 3 CIDER session recordings, and 1 book review.

In the issue editorial, I discuss changes to our Creative Commons license and to IRRODL’s policy on papers previously distributed via blogs or conference proceedings.

We are confident that you will both enjoy and learn from the knowledge freely shared by our authors, reviewers, editors, and publisher. Enjoy.

Terry Anderson, Editor

Table of Contents

Editorial

Research Articles

Field Notes

Book Notes

CIDER Notes