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Institutional, national, and global pressures demand that universities address issues of quality in teaching and learning. The maintenance of existing courses and the imperative to offer new courses online necessitates the development of measures and guidelines that can inform instructional designers and academics. A number of quality guidelines have been produced that reflect different contexts and purposes. Some focus on school learning, some on pedagogy alone, and some reflect the designs of particular courseware management software. This paper describes a workable set of guidelines for academic and support staff in the development and benchmarking of online course quality across the institution that emphasize current approaches to teaching and learning in higher education supported by appropriate content and delivery strategies. (Contains 22 references.) (Author/MES)

How can the Internet be used to provide authentic professional development for newly appointed teachers? This paper reports on work-in-progress of an industry partnership research study between Edith Cowan University education staff and students, and the Education Department of Western Australia teachers and curriculum advisers. The study involves developing a web site to assist novice teachers solve realistic school-based problems and will involve approximately 120 K-7 and middle school teachers from ECU who have undertaken training in the use of the website. Teachers appointed in 2003 from the university cohort will be invited to use the website in their first and second years of teaching. Online interviews and surveys will be conducted with teachers from the cohort who have gained employment. Case studies will be undertaken with teachers selected on the basis of geographical location and year level taught. Guidelines will be produced to support the design and production of Internet-based professional development.

Curtin University initiated its eScholar program in 2009 making funds available for academic staff to implement innovative teaching using Curtin’s extensive suite of learning technologies. The program is based on the philosophy of engaging students with learning technologies that support their growing understanding through authentic and assessable activities.This publication presents the research findings of each of the eScholar projects conducted in 2010 and 2011. Each chapter has undergone a process of double-blind review resulting in high quality descriptions of learning using current and emerging technologies. The publication is divided into 6 sections based on these technologies.University teaching and learning is faced with many challenges. A major one is recognising appropriate learning technologies and their use that support ways in which adults learn. Rapid advances in technologies can easily seduce those with limited understanding of adult learning. This publication offers clear directions founded on teacher and learner experiences grounded in real classroom activity.

Curtin University initiated its eScholar program in 2009 making funds available for academic staff to implement innovative teaching using Curtin’s extensive suite of learning technologies. The program is based on the philosophy of engaging students with learning technologies that support their growing understanding through authentic and assessable activities. This publication presents the research findings of each of the eScholar projects conducted in 2010 and 2011 and offers clear directions founded on teacher and learner experiences grounded in real classroom activity.

The paper reports on research concerned with learners’ uses of mobile technologies based on an international survey that targeted students registered in selected master’s and doctoral programmes in Australia, Hong Kong, Portugal, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. The survey findings were enriched by local knowledge, as the authors administered questionnaires in their own countries. The research gives an account of uses of handheld devices by students from departments of education, educational technology, engineering, and information technology in the domains of learning, work, social interaction and entertainment. The paper illuminates learners’ choices in the midst of evolving social practices, and challenges the common preconception that mobile devices are not suitable for academic study. In today’s global education marketplace, educators must know the technology habits and expectations of their students, including those from other countries. Knowing about students’ previous practices and the techno-cultural setting they come from can help institutions determine what mobile applications are most appropriate to support learning.

This paper seeks to determine the affordances of Smartpen technology for adult learners in an ESL learning environment by identifying the ways in which Smartpens are used by participants to facilitate their learning. The Pulse™ Smartpen records audio and links the audio to handwritten notes, which can then be uploaded to a computer. Through the use of Smartpens, research participants were provided with opportunities to create a series of podcasts linked to notes taken during workshops conducted in a second or other language teaching and learning environment. Interviews conducted with participants indicated that the Smartpen provides enhanced learning opportunities in the areas of comprehension, pronunciation, and intonation. Smartpen use also affords improved learning retention by increasing cognitive associations with the target knowledge. Future research would extend Smartpen use to a wider group of international students with a view to investigating the possible benefits of enhanced note taking strategies.

Mobile devices are more and more becoming indispensible tools in everyday life. However, universities continue to rely on the provision of computer labs for ICT-based instruction where in many cases mobile phones would be a much more appropriate choice. In this paper, we question the proliferation and continued provision of computer labs in universities, and suggest the need to instead adopt the widespread use of mobile phones for pedagogical purposes in university classrooms (and beyond). We review the affordances and potential barriers to extensive mobile penetration in learning contexts in higher education, and examine the pedagogical foundations of mobile learning and guidelines and principles emerging in recent research.

Current reports of literacy rates in Australia indicate an ongoing gap in literacy skills between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australian adults, at a time when the literacy demands of work and life are increasing. There are many perspectives on what are the literacy needs of Indigenous adults,from the perspectives of community members themselves to the relatively under-researched perspective of literacy practitioners. This paper provides the insights, experiences and recommendations from adult literacy practitioners who work with adult Indigenous learners in communities across Australia. Focus group interviews, using an online synchronous platform, were used to elicit views about the literacy needs of Indigenous adults in communities and the successes in and barriers to meeting those needs. The practitioners also shared their views on the use of technology in literacy learning. Together, these views can informfuture directions in curriculum design and teaching approaches for community-based Indigenous adult literacy education.

Blended learning is an approach to teaching and learning that is being promoted at many universities involving an integration of learning technologies and face-to-face teaching. This paper outlines a strategy for promoting blended learning that involves identifying eTeaching and Learning scholars and providing them with possibilities for engaging their students in learning with technology. The strategy employs an action learning approach that utilises the knowledge and experiences of participants to address a common problem: In what ways and to what to extent can blended approaches support student learning?

There is a strong impetus for blended learning approaches to be more widely adopted in higher education but finding an effective model for professional development of teaching staff can be problematic. In 2009, Curtin University developed an eTeaching and Learning Scholarship program for academic staff to develop exemplary online learning tasks that could be shared with the university community and inform future online teaching within their disciplines. This paper describes the design of the professional learning program together with early encouraging results that indicate both the willingness of the eScholars to incorporate additional learning technologies to extend the affordances of the university provisioned systems and to embrace authentic learner-centred tasks.

Purpose. Updating professional knowledge is a central tenet of Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and professional reading is a common method health practitioners use to update their professional knowledge. This paper reports the level of professional reading by Medical Radiation Science (MRS) practitioners in Australia and examines organisational support for professional reading. Materials and Methods. Survey design was used to collect data from MRS practitioners. A questionnaire was sent to 1142 Australian practitioners, which allowed self-report data to be collected on the length of time practitioners engage in professional reading and the time workplaces allocate to practitioners for professional reading.Results. Of the 362 MRS practitioners who returned the survey, 93.9% engaged in professional reading on a weekly basis. In contrast, only 28.9% of respondents reported that their workplace allocates time for professional reading to practitioners. MRS practitioners employed in universities engaged in higher levels of reading than their colleagues employed in clinical workplaces (p < 0.01) and more university workplaces allocated time for professional reading to their employees than clinical workplaces (p < 0.01). There were no significant differences for clinical practitioners in level of reading across geographic, organisational and professional demographic factors. Significant differences in workplace allocation of time for professional reading in clinical workplaces were evident for health sector (p < 0.01); work environment (p < 0.01); geographic location (p < 0.01) and area of specialisation (p < 0.01).Conclusion. The vast majority of respondent MRS practitioners engage in professional reading to update their professional knowledge. This demonstrates an ongoing commitment at the individual practitioner level for updating professional knowledge. Updating professional knowledge is an organisational as well as an individual practitioner issue. Whilst the

Purpose: The Internet is an important information source for health practitionersproviding immediate access to the most current health and medical information. Factorslimiting practitioner access to the Internet have been identified and the literature shows thataccess to the Internet varies across and within health professions. There is therefore a need foreach health profession to investigate practitioner access to the Internet. There has been, however,no identified empirical research investigating medical radiation science (MRS) practitioneraccess to or use of the Internet. This research sought to establish the professionaluse of Internet-based tools by Australian MRS practitioners and issues affecting access tothe Internet within MRS workplaces.Methods: Qualitative and quantitative approaches were used in this research. These includedinterviews with 28 MRS practitioners from the four areas of specialisation, namely nuclearmedicine, radiation therapy, radiography and sonography and a survey of MRS practitioners.In 2007 a 4-page postal survey was sent to a random sample of 1142 MRS practitioners witha response rate of 32.8%.Results: The Internet is an important information source widely used by MRS practitioners. MRSpractitioners search the Internet (87%), access specific web pages (86%), use email (82%) andlistservs (39.4%) to update their professional knowledge. It was evident that access to the Internetwithin the workplace varied within the MRS profession. Whilst the majority (96.4%) ofMRS practitioners had some level of access to the Internet in their workplace, factors shownto affect practitioner access were workplace setting (p Z 0.000), work environment(p Z 0.000), and geographic location (p Z 0.025). The majority of clinical workplaces (81%)did not provide practitioners with remote access to electronic resources available in the workplacesuch as e-journals and databases.Conclusions: This research provides baseline data to the MRS profession on the professio

The chapters of this e-book comprise the pedagogical and research endeavours of a team of academics in higher education who worked with mobile learning devices over two years on a project entitled New Technologies: New Pedagogies project: Using mobile technologies to develop new ways of teaching and learning. The project endeavoured to take an innovative approach not only in the creation of new, authentic pedagogies for mobile devices but also in the action learning approach adopted for the professional development of participants. The project involved 15 people including teachers, IT and PD personnel. It was a large and ambitious project that resulted not only in a range of innovative pedagogies, but in the creation of more knowledgeable and confident users of mobile technologies among teachers and students. This book was originally published as Jan Herrington, Anthony Herrington, Jessica Mantei, Ian Olney and Brian Ferry (editors), New technologies, new pedagogies: Mobile learning in higher education, Faculty of Education, University of Wollongong, 2009, 138p. ISBN: 978-1-74128-169-9 (online). Contents information and chapter listings available here: ro.uow.edu.au/newtech., https://ro.uow.edu.au/uowbooks/1001/thumbnail.jpg

Synchronous learning has the potential to provide literacy and essential skills training to Indigenous learners living in remote and isolated communities. Although there is considerable research completed in the area of internet-based learning technologies in general, there is very little research in the area of online synchronous learning opportunities for remote Indigenous learners. This paper presents the results and theoretical framework of the first and second phases of a four phase design-based research approach that aims to establish design principles to guide the future development of synchronous online literacy services for Indigenous learners living in remote Australian communities.

This paper explores the experience of police recruits as they move from the classroom experience to learning on the job. The research presented forms part of a larger study of newcomers to the policing profession. The study is contextualized within the NSW Police Force where recruits undertake university education with the final year of their university study coinciding with their role as a probationary constable in the field of policing. During the period in the field the recruits are developing their professional practice and identity through a process of socialization and situated learning. This paper will present findings, using case studies, of the initial experience of new recruits in the policing world to better understand the effectiveness of university-industry partnerships and pedagogical practices in the development of early-career professionals.

This chapter examines blogging as a social networking tool to engage final year preservice teachers in reflective processes. Using a developed Web site, the students post their own blogs and comment upon those of others. The authors argue that opportunity to engage with this networking experience provides avenue for the students to consider their emerging professional identity as teachers. The blogging mechanism brought together the physical university context and virtual online environment as students identified, examined and reflected upon the intricacies of what it means to be a teacher. The authors hope that examining the findings that emerged from this research will inform other educators as to the affordances of blogging as a social networking tool.

This paper describes the design of a research project that adopted a designbased research (DBR) approach to create and implement an online community of second language learners of Italian. For one semester a group of sixteen intermediate and advanced level students of Italian, their teacher and seven Italian native speaker facilitators participated in the activities of an online community of practice and interacted with each other through the communication tools and resources of an online learning management system. This paper presents the four phases of the study using the DBR model outlined by Reeves (2006) and the methodology that informs the development of each phase. In particular the discussion focuses on the design of the overall study and the theoretical framework that supports the development of the online learning environment.

Mobile wireless technologies have the potential to exploit its location-awareness capabilities to engage learners in constructivist collaborative learning activities yet there is little research that explores this capability. This paper is a report of work-in-progress on an exploratory study that seeks to identify ways in which the location-awareness feature of mobile wireless devices could be used to create constructivist-based learning activities. A literature review of existing mobile learning applications suggests the potential of using location-awareness feature of mobile wireless devices for learning and teaching applications, however, little research has been done to implement such as system so far. This study will make contributions for future development of location-aware mobile learning experiences.

The development of digital resources set in authentic contexts using mobile technologies is reflected in this study. The research involved adult educators creating teaching episodes or digital narratives using smartphones, as part of a postgraduate subject designed to introduce these learners to technological applications in adult education. The study involved interviewing students to determine the affordances of the technology in this context and the pedagogical strategies suited to such an approach.

Mobile wireless technologies have the potential to exploit its location-awareness capabilities to engage learners in constructivist collaborative learning activities yet there is little research that explores this capability. This paper is a report of work-in-progress on an exploratory study that seeks to identify ways in which the location-awareness feature of mobile wireless devices could be used to create constructivist-based learning activities. A literature review of existing mobile learning applications suggests the potential of using location-awareness feature of mobile wireless devices for learning and teaching applications, however, little research has been done to implement such as system so far. This study will make contributions for future development of location-aware mobile learning experiences.