Abstract E-learning is becoming an increasingly important part of higher education institutions. ... more Abstract E-learning is becoming an increasingly important part of higher education institutions. However, instructors' use of e-learning systems in community colleges in the United States is relatively sparse. Thus, the purpose of this study was to investigate some individual factors that may affect instructors' intention to use e-learning systems in community colleges.
Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia, Dec 1, 2011
Abstract The influence of media richness, media attentional load, social influence and users&... more Abstract The influence of media richness, media attentional load, social influence and users' prior experience with media on selection of media to transmit different messages to peers within an educational organization was tested. Media were discriminated by all potential variables. Support was found for the role of prior experience and social influence in media choice. The influence of media richness was small and there was no impact of media attentional load. The results are discussed in relation to theories of media choice and ...
Gorsky, Caspi and their colleagues (2010) calculated a tentative bi-modal population parameter fo... more Gorsky, Caspi and their colleagues (2010) calculated a tentative bi-modal population parameter for the distribution of "teaching presence", "cognitive presence" and "social presence" in asynchronous course forums based on disciplinary differences, group size and academic level. Findings from this study, carried out at a campus-based college, did not support the parameter. However, a ratio was found between social presence versus the sum of cognitive and teaching presence that was constant across disciplines and institution type.
Using educational blogs promotes the improvement of online learning by creating a peer dialogue i... more Using educational blogs promotes the improvement of online learning by creating a peer dialogue in the form of a reader response or a question-and- answer sequence. The present study explores interpersonal and group interactions using blogs. The findings show that, as predicted by the theory of electronic propinquity (TEP), the feeling of nearness transmitted by students via blog posts positively related to students' interpersonal online interactions. According to the hypothesis, private authorship in personal blogs affected group interaction patterns in comparison to multi-authored wikis. While educational blogs promoted communication among all course students, wiki interactions were affected by student offline former acquaintance and social contact. The present study findings suggest some recommendations concerning the use of educational blogs in order to encourage student interactivity: (1) projecting nearness to audience, (2) sharing thoughts, work experiences and feelings r...
Scratch is a programmable media tool and online community that enables children to create, share,... more Scratch is a programmable media tool and online community that enables children to create, share, and remix interactive projects, and socially participate in the community by writing comments, giving ratings, adding members as friends and so forth. This study examined the learning community of Israeli Scratch users. We investigated (1) participation patterns (project creation vs. social participation), (2) the relationship
ABSTRACT This study investigates student interactions in a blog-based learning community in a uni... more ABSTRACT This study investigates student interactions in a blog-based learning community in a university course. In addition, this study explores the dynamics of group interactions in individual blog-based environments compared with collaborative wiki-based educational activities. A learning community of 56 graduate students wrote individual blogs and weekly group summaries using a wiki environment. The posts were analyzed by identifying a post content type and explicit feedback promotions, and by counting the number of the blogger's own comments and the number of others’ comments per post, received from peers studying in the same versus the other offline group. The results show that choosing the appropriate type of post content (i.e., sharing experiences rather than providing information, explicitly calling for feedback, and providing the blogger's own comments) augments peer interaction in a blog environment, thus explaining 51.4% of variance in peer comments. Group interactions through comments in individual blogs, without the possibility of changing one another's content, seem to be non-intrusive and prompt interactions with offline as well as with online peers. In contrast, actual editing of texts through multi-authored collaborative wikis remained affected by student offline former acquaintance. The results are discussed in terms of social interactions and pedagogical beliefs.
Gorsky, Caspi and their colleagues (2010) calculated a tentative bi-modal population parameter fo... more Gorsky, Caspi and their colleagues (2010) calculated a tentative bi-modal population parameter for the distribution of" teaching presence"," cognitive presence" and" social presence" in asynchronous course forums based on disciplinary differences, group size and academic level. Findings from this study, carried out at a campus-based college, did not support the parameter. However, a ratio was found between social presence versus the sum of cognitive and teaching presence that was constant across disciplines and ...
Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, Jun 23, 2012
This study compares dialogic behavior in asynchronous course forums with non-mandatory student pa... more This study compares dialogic behavior in asynchronous course forums with non-mandatory student participation at a campus-based college and at a distance education, Open University. The goal is to document similarities and differences in students' and instructors' dialogic behavior that occur in two similar instructional resources used in two dissimilar learning environments. Quantitative content analysis, derived from the" Community of Inquiry" model, was performed on a year-long course forum from the ...
Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia, 2011
The influence of media richness, media attentional load, social influence and users' prior e... more The influence of media richness, media attentional load, social influence and users' prior experience with media on selection of media to transmit different messages to peers within an educational organization was tested. Media were discriminated by all potential variables. Support was found for the role of prior experience and social influence in media choice. The influence of media richness was small and there was no impact of media attentional load. The results are discussed in relation to theories of media choice and ...
One hundred and eighteen undergraduate students participated in an experiment which tested the di... more One hundred and eighteen undergraduate students participated in an experiment which tested the differences between shared-and collaborative-writing of an assignment. Participants were randomly allocated to one of five groups that carried out different types of collaborative writing. Psychological ownership and responsibility for the document quality differed across the groups. Level of ownership and responsibility increased after collaborating by suggesting comments to a peer's draft and decreased after editing a ...
Abstract E-learning is becoming an increasingly important part of higher education institutions. ... more Abstract E-learning is becoming an increasingly important part of higher education institutions. However, instructors' use of e-learning systems in community colleges in the United States is relatively sparse. Thus, the purpose of this study was to investigate some individual factors that may affect instructors' intention to use e-learning systems in community colleges.
Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia, Dec 1, 2011
Abstract The influence of media richness, media attentional load, social influence and users&... more Abstract The influence of media richness, media attentional load, social influence and users' prior experience with media on selection of media to transmit different messages to peers within an educational organization was tested. Media were discriminated by all potential variables. Support was found for the role of prior experience and social influence in media choice. The influence of media richness was small and there was no impact of media attentional load. The results are discussed in relation to theories of media choice and ...
Gorsky, Caspi and their colleagues (2010) calculated a tentative bi-modal population parameter fo... more Gorsky, Caspi and their colleagues (2010) calculated a tentative bi-modal population parameter for the distribution of "teaching presence", "cognitive presence" and "social presence" in asynchronous course forums based on disciplinary differences, group size and academic level. Findings from this study, carried out at a campus-based college, did not support the parameter. However, a ratio was found between social presence versus the sum of cognitive and teaching presence that was constant across disciplines and institution type.
Using educational blogs promotes the improvement of online learning by creating a peer dialogue i... more Using educational blogs promotes the improvement of online learning by creating a peer dialogue in the form of a reader response or a question-and- answer sequence. The present study explores interpersonal and group interactions using blogs. The findings show that, as predicted by the theory of electronic propinquity (TEP), the feeling of nearness transmitted by students via blog posts positively related to students' interpersonal online interactions. According to the hypothesis, private authorship in personal blogs affected group interaction patterns in comparison to multi-authored wikis. While educational blogs promoted communication among all course students, wiki interactions were affected by student offline former acquaintance and social contact. The present study findings suggest some recommendations concerning the use of educational blogs in order to encourage student interactivity: (1) projecting nearness to audience, (2) sharing thoughts, work experiences and feelings r...
Scratch is a programmable media tool and online community that enables children to create, share,... more Scratch is a programmable media tool and online community that enables children to create, share, and remix interactive projects, and socially participate in the community by writing comments, giving ratings, adding members as friends and so forth. This study examined the learning community of Israeli Scratch users. We investigated (1) participation patterns (project creation vs. social participation), (2) the relationship
ABSTRACT This study investigates student interactions in a blog-based learning community in a uni... more ABSTRACT This study investigates student interactions in a blog-based learning community in a university course. In addition, this study explores the dynamics of group interactions in individual blog-based environments compared with collaborative wiki-based educational activities. A learning community of 56 graduate students wrote individual blogs and weekly group summaries using a wiki environment. The posts were analyzed by identifying a post content type and explicit feedback promotions, and by counting the number of the blogger's own comments and the number of others’ comments per post, received from peers studying in the same versus the other offline group. The results show that choosing the appropriate type of post content (i.e., sharing experiences rather than providing information, explicitly calling for feedback, and providing the blogger's own comments) augments peer interaction in a blog environment, thus explaining 51.4% of variance in peer comments. Group interactions through comments in individual blogs, without the possibility of changing one another's content, seem to be non-intrusive and prompt interactions with offline as well as with online peers. In contrast, actual editing of texts through multi-authored collaborative wikis remained affected by student offline former acquaintance. The results are discussed in terms of social interactions and pedagogical beliefs.
Gorsky, Caspi and their colleagues (2010) calculated a tentative bi-modal population parameter fo... more Gorsky, Caspi and their colleagues (2010) calculated a tentative bi-modal population parameter for the distribution of" teaching presence"," cognitive presence" and" social presence" in asynchronous course forums based on disciplinary differences, group size and academic level. Findings from this study, carried out at a campus-based college, did not support the parameter. However, a ratio was found between social presence versus the sum of cognitive and teaching presence that was constant across disciplines and ...
Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, Jun 23, 2012
This study compares dialogic behavior in asynchronous course forums with non-mandatory student pa... more This study compares dialogic behavior in asynchronous course forums with non-mandatory student participation at a campus-based college and at a distance education, Open University. The goal is to document similarities and differences in students' and instructors' dialogic behavior that occur in two similar instructional resources used in two dissimilar learning environments. Quantitative content analysis, derived from the" Community of Inquiry" model, was performed on a year-long course forum from the ...
Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia, 2011
The influence of media richness, media attentional load, social influence and users' prior e... more The influence of media richness, media attentional load, social influence and users' prior experience with media on selection of media to transmit different messages to peers within an educational organization was tested. Media were discriminated by all potential variables. Support was found for the role of prior experience and social influence in media choice. The influence of media richness was small and there was no impact of media attentional load. The results are discussed in relation to theories of media choice and ...
One hundred and eighteen undergraduate students participated in an experiment which tested the di... more One hundred and eighteen undergraduate students participated in an experiment which tested the differences between shared-and collaborative-writing of an assignment. Participants were randomly allocated to one of five groups that carried out different types of collaborative writing. Psychological ownership and responsibility for the document quality differed across the groups. Level of ownership and responsibility increased after collaborating by suggesting comments to a peer's draft and decreased after editing a ...
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