Forums

CAREER SKILLS DEVELOPMENT USING WIMBA VIRTUAL CLASSROOMS

2009-07-26T06:00:32Z

I am writing from Warwick Business School in the UK. We are currently piloting the delivery of a suite of career management/skills programmes using WIMBA and would be very interested if anyone can point us in the direction of any research done into the effectiveness and best practices of delivering career or leadership skills programmes in a virtual classroom environment.

Many thanks.

Carol Rue

THE IMPACT OF ASYNCHRONOUS AND SYNCHRONOUS INSTRUCTION AND DISCUSSION ON PRESENCE AND LEARNING

2009-02-26T21:07:06Z

I am a doctoral student who is working on a two part study (casual comparative and true experimental design) exploring how the use of synchronous audio/visual CMC systems such as Wimba, as a complement to asynchronous CMC systems, in online courses enhances or detracts from students’ sense of presence and learning. Results should be released in August 2009.

I am still currently seeking faculty willing and able to assist me in collecting data for my significant and timely dissertation study. Specifically, I am seeking faculty across the country who are teaching online counseling, human service, psychology, social work , or highly related courses (delivered asynchronously or both asynchronously and synchronously) to participate. During the final two to three weeks of their courses, I am asking faculty to take a few minutes to send a participation letter to their students that requests students’ voluntary and anonymous participation in an online survey (about 60 questions). If you know a colleague who would be interested, able, and willing to participate in the casual comparative part of this study in Spring 2009 (16-week; 8-week ;5-week, etc.), please feel free to contact me at amanroc at regent dot edu.

P.S. Someone on this forum asked about research regarding Wimba and blended courses; thus far, in my research, I have found limited studies on this topic. Bonk and Park (2007) and Wang & Chen (2007) have published on similar topics.

Wimba in a hybrid (blended) course

2009-01-23T19:40:32Z

Wondering if anyone has done anything studying the use of Wimba to do hybrid courses. I’m trying to teach an engineering course using Wimba because of its interaction features (which, BTW are not quite as flexible as DYKNOW or Ubiquitous Presenter...hopefully you guys can work on that...). And I’m trying to meet the students face to face twice and online once for our regular class sessions. I have a hunch that the appropriate use of Wimba might have a positive effect on student engagement in their learning, so I want to study that...any work you know of in this area?

Thanks!
Sandy Yost
Univ. of Detroit Mercy

Retention Rates of Online Courses Increase up to 7% via Wimba at Great Basin College

2008-09-23T13:24:46Z

In How Using Wimba Supports Cognitive Processes Resulting In Higher Retention Rates, a dissertation in progress by Lisa Frazier, MED, Curriculum Development Specialist/Instructional Technologist at Great Basin College, Frazier finds that, “Our online courses that use Wimba in addition to the Blackboard environment have a 5-7% higher retention rate than online courses using Blackboard alone. ... ...
Seven percent is a very meaningful number when students who usually can’t sign up and complete courses are now signing up, completing, and loving their experience. ” It’s examples such as these which clearly demonstrate that collaboration is key to any student’s success, particularly for students learning at a distance.