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The Effects of the Instant Messenger on Online Learners’ Sense of Community and their Multimedia Authoring Skills
PROCEEDINGS

, New York Institute of Technology, United States

E-Learn: World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education, in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA ISBN 978-1-880094-66-2 Publisher: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE), San Diego, CA

Abstract

Literature suggests that developing a community of learners is the key to a successful online-learning experience. In this study, the instructor of a multimedia authoring course adopted the Yahoo Messenger to interact with learners orally on a weekly basis and, thereby, to establish a sense among the learners that the class was a learning community. This study adopts mixed-methodology (the Classroom Community Scale, open-ended questions, and grades) to compare the learners’ development of a sense of community with both the outcomes of the learners’ group-centered online learning and the outcomes of the learners’ group-centered face-to-face learning. The results indicate that in neither of the two groups did a sense of community contribute to the improvement of hands-on skills. Providing clear instruction with constant and accurate feedback is the key strategy by which instructors can help online learners improve their hands-on performance.

Citation

Wang, S.K. (2008). The Effects of the Instant Messenger on Online Learners’ Sense of Community and their Multimedia Authoring Skills. In C. Bonk, M. Lee & T. Reynolds (Eds.), Proceedings of E-Learn 2008--World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education (pp. 3285-3290). Las Vegas, Nevada, USA: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). Retrieved March 19, 2024 from .