Time to put a little fun into online learning--with good reason: 'Emotional arousal helps the brain learn'. Medina, Brain Rules (2008). Joni Dunlap leads the IDLive team in considering how to incorporate fun into the fabric of a course to provide a more stimulating learning experience.

 

 
Zuochen Zhang, Assistant Professor in the School of Education at Windsor University, and Richard F. Kenny, Associate Professor at the Center for Distance Education, Athabasca University, joined us this week to discuss the perspectives of International students in online courses.
It is becoming common practice in higher education for online distance education programs to enroll international students, but what are the implications for online course designers and instructors when faced with learners from diverse backgrounds that may not be familiar with cultural references, discourse conventions or a constructivist pedagogical approach.  Tune in to find out more.
 
Discussion is based around Learning in an Online Distance Eductaion Course: Experiences of Three International Students

Inspired by a number of discussions at the Annual Conference on Distance Teaching and Learning in Madison Wisconsin,  we consider the process of transitioning from a proprietary learning management system such as Blackboard to an open source system such as Moodle. Keith Lynip, director of Extended Learning Services at The University of Montana, discusses the nature of this process from the request for information from vendors to the selection of an open-source provider. Questions such as how to support faculty in this transition/transformation process are addressed.
  afkatws