#18883
Of Gurus and Godfathers: Learning Design in the Networked Age
Educators in a school of architectural design and researchers in a school of education explore the design of learning and the learning of design in this networked age. Their discussion revolves around a course on computer-aided design and the introduction and use of Eventspaces, an experimental, online 'neighborhood' for the students in the course. The conversation reveals how frameworks oriented towards improving educational practice—in this instance, a set of concepts known as Teaching for Understanding—hold the potential of offering a common language to probe the impact of innovation and point the way towards redesign. It also shows how reference to more than one framework may be essential to explore fully new arenas of educational practice.
Spicer, David Eddy and Jef Huang. Education Communication and Information (2003). Articles>Education>Design
#28120
"Oh that wonderful stuff": Selected Poetry by College and Middle School Students 
When students use poetry to imagine and explore academic subjects, they examine the topic in new, creative ways, resulting in interesting and lively writings that stimulate thought and class discussions. The following poems are examples of student poetry written in a variety of classes throughout the curriculum. I am pleased to showcase student writing in this section, and I hope reading these poems will suggest possibilities and adaptations for teachers and students elsewhere.
Apostel, Shawn. LLAD (2002). Articles>Writing>Education
#28568
What if we could offer a course or two on usability, on thinking like a user, on design thinking, on the user-centered design process?
Sampson, Fred. Usability Professionals Association (2007). Articles>Usability>Education
#25861
The course Web site is a critical mediator between the instructor and students in online classes. This requires a shift in how instructors think of their presence and influence on the classroom. This essay, based on the author’s personal experience in designing and teaching online, argues that the design of the course Web site needs to carefully reflect the passions and pedagogical philosophy that drive the instructor. It is also an argument against one–size–fits–all approaches to online course design as instantiated in most course management systems.
Mishra, Punya. First Monday (2005). Articles>Education>Online
#30335
On Teaching Technical/Business Writing
Whether one teaches business communication or technical writing (or some amalgam of the two), the first statements an instructor makes in class should be to apprise students that the course upon which they are embarking is but a specialty within a larger field of writing, that their courses in English composition, philosophy and survey of literature (and the papers written for those courses) will all apply to the specialized communication field they now must address.
Wyld, Lionel D. Boston Broadside (1992). Articles>Education>Writing>Technical Writing
#19076
As faculty and administrators responsible for program implementation continue to explain to each other how engineers, computer programmers, business managers, and technical communicators view the world, I hope that a new and genuinely collaborative, interdisciplinary program will emerge. The resulting opportunities for students will--I hope--be worth the trouble.
Ecker, Pamela S. CPTSC Proceedings (2000). Academic>Education>WPA
#29122
An Online Approach to Teaching International Outsourcing in Technical Communication Classes 
The growth of international online access has given rise to a new production method--international outsourcing--that has important implications for technical communication practices. Successful interactions within international outsourcing require individuals to understand how cultural factors could affect online interactions. Today's technical communication students therefore need to understand how factors of culture and media could affect the success with which they operate in international outsourcing activities. This article provides technical communication instructors with a series of Web-based exercises they can use to familiarize students with different aspects that can affect intercultural online interactions. It also provides a series of online resources students can use to enhance their understanding of cross-cultural communication in cyberspace.
St. Amant, Kirk R. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2005). Articles>TC>Outsourcing>Education
#10319
Companies can improve customer satisfaction while reducing training time and product support costs by integrating online documentation with product training. Online documentation can be designed to be not only the reference at the point of use but also the primary instructional medium used during training. This use of the online documentation during training increases user acceptance of it and helps develop the required skills for its use. This expanded role for online documentation provides new opportunities for technical communicators to add value to their roles within their companies. This article defines reference-based instruction and outlines its benefits. It describes how reference-based instruction can be incorporated into an instructional system design (ISD) and provides specific examples of learning objectives and student exercises. It lists guidelines for how to structure usability tests for Help systems, and finally, it advises how technical communicators can use reference-based instruction to ex
Hughes, Michael A. Technical Communication Online (1997). Articles>Documentation>Instructional Design>Education
#23774
#23166
This article examines many surprising problems that arise in the process of distance education using the Internet and describes ways in which instructors and administrators can solve these problems. The information in the article is based largely on the experience of educators at Utah State University who have been exploring distance education for the past six years by teaching a wide range of online courses via the Internet. As a result of this varied online teaching, we have encountered a broad spectrum of challenges to which we have tried to respond and from which we have tried to learn. The solutions described are generalizable to other programs using online delivery for instruction.
Hailey, David E., Keith Grant-Davie, Christine A. Hult. Computers and Composition (2001). Articles>Education>Online>Collaboration
#22735
Online Ins and Outs: How E-learning Works
Online classrooms are the way of the future, and rather than discussing the benefits and drawbacks of e-learning, let’s look at how e-learning works on two of the top e-learning environments running today.
Haugh, Donald. Techniques (2003). Articles>Education>Online
#22733
Online learning, a new phenomenon in Chinese education, is developing at an unimaginable pace. According to China Internet Information Center’s (CNNIC) survey in June this year, there were 68,000,000 Internet users. Statistics also show that there were 59,100,000 more users compared with the first half of the year. Eighty-four percent of the users were between 18 to 40 years old, the ages for continuing education (China Internet Network Information, 2003). The survey indicated that taking online courses is one of the most important purposes of the users. The development of online learning in China has three tendencies: student-centeredness, more involvement in the nation’s education system, and collaborative effort by prestigious universities.
Dong, Qiumin. Techniques (2003). Articles>Education>Online>China
#22737
Online or Face-to-Face: A Survey of Student Preferences
Although COMS 101 is officially a face-to-face course, I duplicate so much of the course online that it is more like a hybrid course. A hybrid course is between a traditional lecture course and a completely online course in terms of the percentage of class time conducted online. Theoretically, my students learn in our scheduled lectures, but in reality, about one-third of the class requirements are accomplished with little or no instruction from an in-person teacher. This is not so much due to the online content, but instead to the requirement of learning software applications without benefit of a scheduled lab session.
Lindberg, Martha. Techniques (2003). Articles>Education>Online
#31358
Online Teaching Opportunities for Technical Communicators
Supplement your income and provide students with real-world knowledge and experience. Learn what kinds of online teaching opportunities are out there for technical communicators.
Petit, Angela. Intercom (2008). Articles>Education>TC>Online
#10791
Online Technical Writing: an Online Textbook
This text is used by students in online technical-communication courses worldwide as well as the online courses below taught by David A. McMurrey, Tim Altanero, and Devorah Feldman at Austin Community College (ACC) in Austin, Texas USA.
McMurrey, David A. Illuminati Online. Books>Education>Textbooks
#23028
Online Tools for Online Writing Teachers
When you teach online technical writing courses (where the primary method of communication is e-mail and where class materials are mailable through various Internet facilities), you face a number of challenges. Teaching writing courses online can be time-consuming -- not what we want in such a labor-intensive field of instruction. This paper reviews a number of software tools that can reduce these problems and add advan-tages not normally available in the conventional face- to-face classroom. (Omitted here is discussion of common Internet tools such as lTP, telnet, vi and other such facilities.)
McMurrey, David A. STC Proceedings (1996). Articles>Education>Online
#18239
Online Writing Center Consortium 
The Online Writing Center Consortium supports collaboration among writing centers and writing-across-the-curriculum programs. Consortium members share ideas, resources, and advice about how best to use the World Wide Web to support writers and teachers.
Palmquist, Mike. Colorado State University. Organizations>Education>Writing
#30167
Opening the Door to Cyberspace: Teaching Web Page Construction in the Classroom
This article shows how to move students from paper-bound text to hypertext. We explain why the web is an important new communication medium--with numbers and testimony to substantiate our opinion; discuss techniques for teaching web-page construction--samples, HTML coding, and document design; show how traditional resumes, proposals, manuals, and newsletters can go online in the classroom, and examine the benefits of teaching online documentation, including instant gratification, new skills, and problem-solving opportunities.
Gerson, Steven M. and Sharon J. Gerson. STC Proceedings (1997). Articles>Education>Web Design
#26698
The Orange Journal: Creating a Student Writing Space
Argues that the Orange Journal can provide a way to help graduate student scholars create a map for those inherent contradictions of being a graduate student, providing a space that serves our needs and that can give us legitimacy.
Gulbrandsen, Karen. Orange Journal, The (2005). Articles>Publishing>Education
#23002
An on-site training requires a lot of logistical planning. If you are hosting or providing the training yourself, then you have the ability to control many of these logistics. If another party is hosting your training, you must communicate with the host to ensure that everything is in place to allow the training to occur effectively. Begin planning for your training as far in advance as possible. Trainings that are organized and thrown together at the last minute are rarely successful.
#23338
Out of the Trenches and into the Field: Leaves of Absence for Writing Teachers
Those who teach mainly writing have a particular need for avenues of career growth because their tasks are especially repetitive and personally draining. One such avenue can be a year's leave of absence in industry.
Pfeiffer, William S. ADE Bulletin (1987). Articles>Education>Collaboration
#29055
An Outline of Technicisation Theory
Teachers and researchers in the field of Technical English have always been concerned with the nature of this subject, its major characteristics, and its chief uses in Science and Technology. Obviously, less time and efforts have been spent on how technical English is learned, particularly in situations where foreign students have to relate their limited linguistic knowledge to meaningful realizations of the language system in technical texts of immediate concern to their specialist studies. This research is an early effort to show how technical English is learned and, more specifically, what relevant factors are involved in the overall learning process.
Soheili, A., D. Barjasteh, and Laila Al Qadhi. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2001). Articles>Scientific Communication>Education>Language
#31790
Overcoming Barriers in Developing Conversation Skills: A Pedagogical Perspective
This paper examines the relevance of culture to language learning, the meaning and the structure of conversation, the obstacles in developing good conversation skills, the impact of these obstacles on students’ communication skills in the first part of the paper. The second part describes the class-room based project carried out during the spring semester 2007, and reports the findings.
Inguva, Meena Lochana. Association for Business Communication (2007). Articles>Education>Business Communication
#20959
Overview of a Distributed-Hard-Drive-Based Educational Plan
Although empirical research indicates that media selection may not impact learning a great deal, results are inconsistent and sometimes contradictory. We have done recent studies indicating that inconsistent results may be caused by the extent to which educational developers are modifying the genres within which they typically teach – e.g., converting lectures to essays and converting demonstrations to posted instruction sets. Typically, the instructional developers who significantly modify their educational genres do so because digital media (usually designed for dissemination on the Internet, CD-ROM, or DVD) preclude the large format heuristics we accept as necessary in our traditional classes. New technologies, available this year, seem to provide a solution for this problem. In recent studies, we have successfully placed traditional educational genres on very large, external and/or removable hard drives which we combine with Internet technology to overcome the bandwidth problems we faced in the past. Because this involves a unique, step-by-step process of examining educational materials, re-combining them into external drive technlologies, and then developing new distribution methods, we call the process 'Distributed Hard Drive Protocol.' This paper describes six new, protocols we have developed for educators, trainers, and archivers.
Hailey, David E. and Christine E. Hailey. Utah State University (2000). Articles>Multimedia>Instructional Design>Education
#10062
An Overview of Online Learning
This 1998 book introduces online learning, and provides an overview of the key issues to consider when working with online learning. Specifically, it: describes what online learning is and identifies its major uses; identifies the four major types; provides an overview of the technology needed; and lists the project issues--that is, management and learning issues--that need to be addressed when developing materials for online learning.
Carliner, Saul. VNU Business Media (1998). Books>Education>Online
