Several techniques have been used to provide hands-on educational experiences to online learners, including remote labs, simulation software, and virtual labs, which offer a more structured environment, including simulations and scheduled asynchronous access to physical resources. This exploratory study investigated how these methods can be used from the learner's perspective to enhance the online learning experience by improving its effectiveness and maintaining students' satisfaction while keeping the same level of standards and outcomes as face-to-face courses. Current and former online learners from several community and four-year colleges were surveyed to evaluate their experiences for utilizing different networking lab techniques. An analysis of survey results highlights the importance of lab accessibility to learner satisfaction and evaluates the interaction between learner experience and preference for networking labs. These results are used to recommend the best implementation practices and to guide future studies in online networking labs.
As the majority of traditional educational institutions move toward some version of online instruction and institutions devoted totally to online instruction emerge, it is imperative that the mechanisms of this instruction support the needs of current and future cadres of online learners. The rational for investigating learning styles in this context is presented focusing on the characteristics of the online learner population and the tendency of this population to be more "at risk" and less traditional then learners in a typical university setting. The theoretical foundations for anticipating benefits from utilizing learning styles in the online context are articulated. The potential for utilizing information technology to facilitate utilization of learning styles in this environment is explored. Finally, a research model for exploring the effectiveness and level of learner satisfaction with using learning styles in this context is presented.
This paper explores the process of designing and creating a course that is somewhat remedial in nature but is offered at the masters level to provide basic knowledge and experience in key information technology areas required for matriculation in a masters degree in this program. The course is useful to learners of varying levels of competencies in information technology, but whose skill set is not sufficient to enter the program directly because it automatically adjusts the delivery of instruction to the style and learning capability of the students. . Characteristics of adult learners and related theories of instructional design are considered in the development of this course. The capabilities that new learning technologies and standards (i.e. Sharable Content Relational Model (SCORM) and Learning Management Systems (LMS)) offer in the design and implementation of this course are also discussed.
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