Student study time and the use of technology

Babcock, P. and Marks, M. (2010) Leisure College USA: The Decline in Student Study Time Washington DC: The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research

Results

This paper found that in 1961 ‘the average full-time student at a four-year college in the United States studied about 24 hours per week, while his modern counterpart [...]

Comparing apples with oranges: online vs face-to-face learning in community colleges

Smith Jaggars, S. and Bailey, T. (2010) Effectiveness of Fully Online Courses for College Students: Response to a Department of Education Meta-Analysis New York: Community College Research Center, Teachers College, Columbia University.

From the abstract:

Proponents of postsecondary online education were recently buoyed by a meta-analysis sponsored by the U.S. Department of [...]

Another view on research for the Ontario Online Institute

Maxim Jean-Louis, the President of Contact North, was one of the participants in the recent HEQCO meeting to discuss possible areas of research that would inform the development of a new Ontario Online Institute.

Following the meeting, he produced a very interesting document for HEQCO entitled: A Research Framework for the Online Learning Institute [...]

The future of instructional design - or my heart belongs to ADDIE

Victoria Harbour, BC

On Sunday, I attended a very interesting meeting of about 50 instructional designers (what is a good collective noun for instructional designers?) from across British Columbia, at Camosun College, Victoria. This was a pre-conference workshop before the Educational Technology Users Group of BC’s Spring Workshop (more on [...]

Do social media result in less sensitive people?

Science Daily (2010) Empathy: College students don’t have as much as they used to, study finds Science Daily, May 29

Some people have bad hair days; I have bad research days, i.e. days when bad research dominates the news headlines (the media are as much to blame as the researchers). It started this morning [...]