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In a study conducted across an urban school district, we tested a classroom-based intervention in which students were taught online evaluation strategies drawn from research with professional fact checkers. Students practiced the heuristic of "lateral reading": leaving an unfamiliar website to search the open Web before investing attention in the site at hand. Professional development was provided to high school teachers who then implemented six 50-minute lessons in a district-mandated government course. Using a matched control design, students in treatment classrooms (n = 271) were compared to peers (n = 228) in regular classrooms. A multilevel linear mixed model showed that students in experimental classrooms grew significantly in their ability to judge the credibility of digital content. These findings inform efforts to prepare young people to make wise decisions about the information that darts across their screens.

Calculus is traditionally tested, at least in part, by a closed book written examination taken under secure conditions. In March 2020, two-thirds of the way through a vector calculus course, our institution went into lockdown and all teaching and assessment had to shift online. While some teachers insisted that remotely written non-proctored examinations remain closed book, we accepted that this would result in inequity, with some students certainly choosing to flout that rule should it be imposed, to their advantage over their classmates. Driven by circumstance, we were forced to design a vector calculus examination that would be written open book and 'open internet' with access to online calculators and computer graphing packages. Proficiency at vector calculus is exhibited far more in the interpretation of information and effective decision-making than in the computational solving of integrals. In this article, we shall present and discuss our experiences, address the challenge of non-proctored examinations and argue for the merit of open book examinations in an otherwise standard vector calculus course.

Students believe mathematics is best learned by memorization; however, endorsing memorization as a study strategy is associated with a decrease in learning (Schoenfeld, 1989). When the world changed with the onset of the COVID-19 global pandemic, instruction transitioned to fully remote instruction where many assignments and examinations became open textbook, open note, and even open Internet. In this new world, did students change their beliefs about the role of memorization in learning? Did academic performance change? And did the relationship between memorization beliefs and academic performance change? The current study takes advantage of data collected in an online interactive statistics textbook used by courses before (in-person) and after (remote) the declaration of the COVID-19 pandemic at three institutions, each representing a part of the California Master Plan for Higher Education (e.g., University of California, California State University, and California Community Colleges). Results from 2668 students who used the textbook showed that the UC institution had lower memorization belief scores compared to both the CSU and CCC institutions. Even when controlling for institution and chapter of the textbook, lower memorization belief scores were related to higher performance. Surprisingly, there were no significant differences in either memorization beliefs nor performance before and after transitioning to online remote instruction due to the pandemic. Although much of educational research is conducted in one institution, this kind of research can identify differences across institutional contexts to understand how learning can be affected by different teaching formats, including in-person and online/distance, brought on by disruptive social changes such as a global pandemic.

We are four academics teaching mathematics at three different higher education institutions over two continents. Through fortnightly meetings to research how our practices changed as a result of the COVID-19 lockdowns, we formed a community of practice. The process of articulating our experiences and ideas, and reflecting on the recorded meetings and the written homework we set ourselves, was reassuring and motivational. We identified five assessment propositions to guide our mathematics teaching, which we summarize in this paper. A major proposition of assessment we embraced was the use of open book (or open-internet) assessment as a way to test for mathematical understanding. Our community of practice interactions influenced our teaching and assessment practices. We learnt more deeply about assessment by interrogating each other's work, observing and identifying misconceptions or errors (made by ourselves and others), and learning different ways of solving problems through discussion. We noted that sustaining the community of practice required comfort in being confronted and criticized. The unexpected consequence of our community of practice was the push it gave us to think about why we teach what we teach, assess how we assess, and how we can make both more relevant to a changing world.

In this article, we studied net neutrality as a complex sociocultural phenomenon that can affect the works of distance education scholars and online learners. We decided to take part in this research because many distance education scholars and learners take net neutrality for granted. We engaged in a qualitative investigation of US public documents and explored the effects of net neutrality and public digital access, which can influence learner engagement with online educational materials. We focused on identifying tensions in the discourse about net neutrality, especially surrounding the Federal Communication Commission's (FCC) 2015 Open Internet Order. Our research question was: How do the complexities involved in the net neutrality debate in the United States affect public access to online information and services, and what implications does this hold for online learning? We relied on activity systems as an analytical framework for making sense of net neutrality.

This paper considers Wikipedia and collaborative editing in general: what is Wikipedia, how does it work as a collaborative editing project? Who publishes there, how do these people collaborate, is there a hierarchy among them? And what about Wikipedia quality control: is it efficient, how good is the factual quality of the content? Can Wikipedia be re-used for academic work--and if so, where and how? How does Wikipedia cope with research findings; can they be found on the platform? What influence does Wikipedia have on research and education; how should universities cope with the fact that open knowledge can be found there within a matter of seconds? This paper addresses the issue in a rather hands-on and down-to-earth approach that will allow us to draw some interesting conclusions about the role of open Internet knowledge (such as that which can be found on Wikipedia) for learning and knowledge creation. We will be placing a special focus on academia: for instance, how should universities of applied sciences define "competency based learning" at a time when so many answers can be readily found on Wikipedia? Here the paper does not strive to come to generalized conclusions, but it does strive to find some modest, surprising and--last but not least--also practical answers. The current paper is based on library research, an online analysis of the current Wikipedia website, and interviews with Swiss Wikipedia activists.

To be an informed citizen in today's information-rich environment, individuals must be able to evaluate information they encounter on the Internet. However, teachers currently have limited options if they want to assess students' evaluations of digital content. In response, we created a range of short tasks that assess students' "civic online reasoning"--the ability to effectively search for, evaluate, and verify social and political information online. Assessments ranged from paper-and-pencil tasks to open Internet search tasks delivered via Google Forms. We outline a process of assessment development in which middle school, high school, and college students in 12 states completed tasks. We present a series of representative tasks and analyses of trends in student performance. Across tasks and grade levels, students struggled to effectively evaluate online claims, sources, and evidence. These results point to a need for curriculum materials that support students' development of civic online reasoning competencies.

The objective of this research is to design an integrated system of evaluation of the quality of the Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) taking into account the features of this type of courses. The criteria included in the evaluation of the quality of e-learning training in a broad sense are considered, and specifically those developed for the MOOCs. Using a quantitative, descriptive and sectional design, a team of experts have valued those indicators proposed by the scientific literature. To do this, eight courses, focusing on the field of entrepreneurship and innovation, were selected. Most of the analysed courses meet designated quality criteria by having a clear and organized academic structure. In addition, each course states clearly the timing and hours of dedication by the learner. However, only a few courses do that on the open Internet and on their own academic institutions' websites. None of the MOOCs establishes the admission requirements. The main contribution of the current research is that it gives MOOC developers some quality indicators, related to course design and platform, to better plan their applied design and implementation, which has a decisive positive impact on the educational quality of such e-learning platforms.

Background: Physical education is a subject that generates strong feelings and emotions, as can be seen in written accounts of PE experiences. It is also important to listen to students' voices in the research context. Nowadays, students can be listened to in a new way--through the Internet. Various discussion forums on the Internet make it possible for people to express themselves through real or imagined messages. It might be easier to express highly sensitive and even intimate thoughts on the Internet. Thus, the Internet might be an interesting open forum for teachers to think about new ways of developing teaching practices that would reduce negative experiences of PE. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine what kinds of extrinsic factors underlie the opinions expressed in Internet discussion forums on experiences of PE in Finnish schools. Research design: The data for this research were collected from open Internet discussion forums during a randomly chosen week in April 2007. Using qualitative content analysis all the messages (total n = 356) from nine forums were grouped into positive, both positive and negative, and negative messages. The messages were divided into smaller segments such as paragraphs, sentences or even words, and labelled opinions (total n = 652). Data analysis: Based on Carlson's model, these opinions were further grouped into intrinsic and extrinsic factors. This study concentrated on the extrinsic factors behind the opinions, as these can more easily be influenced by pedagogical developments. Six extrinsic factors were identified: teacher's personality and behaviour, curriculum, assessment, class environment, facilities and equipment, and out of school influences and other factors. Findings: The results showed clearly that of the total of extrinsic factors only 8% were in the category of positive opinions and up to 61% in the category of negative opinions. The findings revealed that the teacher plays a crucial role in students' enjoyment of PE, as is indicated by the fact that the personality and behaviour of the teacher was mentioned the most often (40% of all opinions). Almost every fourth opinion concerned the class environment. In the third place, accounting for 16% of opinions, were issues related to the curriculum. Conclusions: Based on the results of the study, we conclude that more focus is needed on the pedagogical and emotional aspects of the learning environment. In PE teacher training it should be ensured that all future teachers have good socio-emotional skills and tools for creating a safe class environment. Teachers also need to widen their understanding on the strong role of emotions and experiences, as these can include humiliation and shame.

This paper provides a Microsoft .NET framework application that makes browsing the Internet in a shared computer environment convenient and secure. One simply opens the program, then points and clicks to both open Internet Explorer and have it move directly to the selected address. Addresses do not need to be manually entered or copied and pasted into the browser. Addresses are secure as they brought to the shared computer on an external storage device.