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Cover image of Learning Online
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Learning Online

The Student Experience

George Veletsianos

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What's it really like to learn online?Learning Online: The Student Experience

Online learning is ubiquitous for millions of students worldwide, yet our understanding of student experiences in online learning settings is limited. The geographic distance that separates faculty from students in an online environment is its signature feature, but it is also one that risks widening the gulf between teachers and learners. In Learning Online, George Veletsianos argues that in order to critique, understand, and improve online learning, we must examine it through the lens of student experience.

Approachi...

What's it really like to learn online?Learning Online: The Student Experience

Online learning is ubiquitous for millions of students worldwide, yet our understanding of student experiences in online learning settings is limited. The geographic distance that separates faculty from students in an online environment is its signature feature, but it is also one that risks widening the gulf between teachers and learners. In Learning Online, George Veletsianos argues that in order to critique, understand, and improve online learning, we must examine it through the lens of student experience.

Approaching the topic with stories that elicit empathy, compassion, and care, Veletsianos relays the diverse day-to-day experiences of online learners. Each in-depth chapter follows a single learner's experience while focusing on an important or noteworthy aspect of online learning, tackling everything from demographics, attrition, motivation, and loneliness to cheating, openness, flexibility, social media, and digital divides. Veletsianos also draws on these case studies to offer recommendations for the future and lessons learned.

The elusive nature of online learners' experiences, the book reveals, is a problem because it prevents us from doing better: from designing more effective online courses, from making evidence-informed decisions about online education, and from coming to our work with the full sense of empathy that our students deserve. Writing in an evocative, accessible, and concise manner, Veletsianos concretely demonstrates why it is so important to pay closer attention to the stories of students—who may have instructive and insightful ideas about the future of education.

Reviews

Reviews

George Veletsianos is one of the top scholars of online learning. His very enjoyable book makes an important contribution to the research on the student experience in online learning.

Learning Online exemplifies a student-centered approach to online learning that is vital to achieving accessible and high-quality university education for all. The insights that emerge from Veletsianos's review of the online student experience will support learning as both process and product.

Veletsianos provides an overview of decades of online learning research in a succinct and approachable manner. His focus on the student experience fills a void in the online learning literature. He does an outstanding job of questioning the assumptions of both advocates and critics of online learning, while advocating for a compassionate, flexible, responsive, and humane approach to learning online.

About

Book Details

Publication Date
Status
Available
Trim Size
5.5
x
8.5
Pages
184
ISBN
9781421438092
Illustration Description
1 chart
Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. The Learner Who Compared Online Courses to Face-to-Face Courses
2. The Learner Who Was "Nontraditional"
3. The Learner Whose Motive Was Sheer Interest
4. The Learner Who

Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. The Learner Who Compared Online Courses to Face-to-Face Courses
2. The Learner Who Was "Nontraditional"
3. The Learner Whose Motive Was Sheer Interest
4. The Learner Who Dropped Out
5. The Learner Who Used the Family Computer
6. The Learner Who Had the Necessary Literacies
7. The Learner Who Watched Videos Alone
8. The Learner Who Showed Emotion
9. The Learner Who "Listened"
10. The Learner Who Cheated
11. The Learner Who Was Taught by a Bot
12. The Learner Who Took Notes
13. The Learner Who Used a Social Networking Site for Online Learning
14. The Learner Who Was Self-Directed
15. The Learner Who Took Advantage of the Openness in MOOCs
16. The Learner Who Took Advantage of Flexible Learning
17. The Learner of the Future
Conclusion
Index

Author Bio
George Veletsianos
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George Veletsianos, Ph.D.

George Veletsianos is the Canada Research Chair in Innovative Learning and Technology and a professor in the School of Education and Technology at Royal Roads University. He is the author of Social Media in Academia: Networked Scholars.