Volume 3 - issue 3 - 2007
Developing a Virtual Book - Material for Virtual Learning Environments
From the left: Anne Karin Larsen, Grete Oline Hole and Morten Fahlvik.
Shaping or shaking the learning network?
Insights into teaching practices using Virtual Learning Environments
Laurence Habib and Monica Johannesen raise a pertinent question about how the introduction of a Virtual Learning Environment affects students, administration and teachers. Their analytical angle offer a framwork to see how critical and creative users might push the limits of for what is possible. They apply Actor-Network theory in understanding the organisational and pedagogical effects of using the VLE, they offer us a dynamic interpretations on how the various actors shape and shake assumptions and limits of its use. Laurence Habib and Monica Johannesen work at Oslo University College.
-And twelve months later, we are still waiting-:
Insights into teaching and use of ICT in rural and remote Australian schools
In this article Neil Anderson, Carolyn Timms and Lyn Courtney of James Cook University, Australia, address the rural/urban distinction in a complex project, investigated in several aspects. There is evidence for claiming that students in rural areas take up ICT to a lesser degree than in metropolitan areas. They found that Rural/ Remote Takers were more likely to perceive ICT subjects as boring than their metropolitan counterparts. They also found that Rural/Remote Non takers were more likely to report that they did not have access to a home computer. This is a significant set of findings that should alarm policymakers and educational administrators. There are good reasons to believe this will be the case in many other countries.
From the left: Ms Lyn Courtney, Professor Neil Anderson, Professor Colin Lankshear (key researcher in the ARC study) and Ms Carolyn Timms.