Category Archives: Future Research Projects

Call for Chapters – Online Learning: Common Misconceptions, Benefits, and Challenges

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Call for Chapters
Online Learning: Common Misconceptions, Benefits, and Challenges

Editors: Patrick Lowenthal, Cindy York, and Jennifer Richardson
Publisher: Nova Science Publishers

The deadline for abstracts outlining what you want to contribute is May 5, 2013 and for the completed chapter is July 1, 2013.

Possible areas to be addressed include but are not limited to the following:
• Academic honesty and online learning
• Lurking and student engagement
• Benefits of MOOCs
• The future of MOOCs
• Limitations of MOOCs
• Online learning and class size
• Informal Learning
• Moving beyond learning styles
• Challenges of K12 online learning
• Critical thinking and online learning
• Challenges communicating in online learning environments
• Benefits of synchronous communication
• Limitations of asynchronous threaded discussions
• Assessing asynchronous threaded discussions
• Learning analytics and student performance
• Evaluating online learning
• Mobile computing and online learning
• The role of the teacher
• Instructor workload teaching online
• Assessing student learning
• Online Professional development
• Attrition and online learning
• The future of online learning
• Open educational resources
• Personal learning networks
• Social media and online learning
• Constraints of learning management systems

For consideration to be included in this edited book, please send a 250 – 500 word abstract and a brief bio to patricklowenthal@boisestate.edu.

Send any questions to Patrick Lowenthal (patricklowenthal@boisestate.edu).

Notes from the editors: The contributions for this edited book are intended to range from 3,000 – 5,000 words. This is not a peer-reviewed book. Even if your abstract is accepted, there are no guarantees that your final chapter will be accepted. Finally, please be aware of the aggressive timeline for both the abstract and the final chapter.

Here is a PDF version of the Call for Chapters

The Need to Study Infographics… Anyone Interested in Collaborating???

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I consider myself a researcher of sorts. And as a researcher, I am constantly thinking about my next study. In fact, I have a google doc that lists ideas for dozens of future research projects and/or papers. But recently I began wondering… Why do I keep all of my ideas to myself?  What would happen if I started to blog about them? Could I find colleagues to collaborate on some of them? So here goes…

The need to study infographics!

I love infographics! I am mean… I really love infographics!!! My love for infographics led me to post a few here or there on my blog. Over time, I somehow began being identified as a lover of infographics. I get at least one email a week from someone asking me to post an infographic on my site. As I see more and more infographics, I have begun to wonder,

  • How accurate are infographics?
  • Are people more likely to believe a message that is presented as an infographic vs. text alone?
  • Do people ever fact check infographics?
  • Do infographics ever use more than one source?
  • Are people more likely to remember facts presented as an infographic vs. text alone?
  • How are infographics used to persuade or manipulate people?
  • Are academics creating infographics?
  • Could conference “posters” be created in an infographic form?

Questions like these could be investigated in a number of ways. For instance, infographics could be purposely sampled from a list like “20 Great Infographics of 2012” or randomly sampled from a list like “Cool Infographics Gallery” and analyzed. At the same time, a survey could be developed and adminstered to a group to investigate their perceptions of infographics. Or an experiment could be conducted where one group is presented information as an infographic and another group is presented the same information in another format.

The bottom line is this, more and more infographics are being created each day and somebody should be investigating questions like the one’s I listed above.

Let me know if you are interested in collaborating on a project like this in the spring of 2013!