Open online courses are becoming more prevalent at local level and for and professional development objectives. Proper instructional design combined with use of online tools can promote learner interaction in online environments. Using the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework, this study aimed at examining learners' interaction and their perceptions of teaching presence, social presence, and cognitive presence in an open online course offered for professional development in three Swedish universities. The course was free and open to all, attracting participants from all over the world. In order to understand the online interactions of the course, three presences of CoI were matched to three types of interaction (Moore, 1989). Data were collected through a slightly revised version of the CoI instrument and open-ended questions were added. Survey results showed that participants had high perceptions of the three presences in the course. Results also yielded significant relationships between teaching presence and cognitive presence, as well as social presence and cognitive presence. The findings suggest that deploying a set of online tools combined with appropriate pedagogical approaches in designing open online courses could foster learner interaction especially learner-content interaction and cognitive presence. Abstract in SwedishÖppna nätkurser kan anpassas till ett mindre format för ändamålet kompetensutveckling. En genomtänkt kursdesign i kombination med digitala verktyg stödjer samspelet mellan kursdeltagare i en digital lärandemiljö. I denna studie användes Community of Inquiry (CoI) som utgångspunkt för att studera interaktionen mellan kursdeltagare och lärmiljön och dess innehåll i en öppen nätkurs som erbjuds för kompetensutveckling till lärare på tre svenska universitet. Kursen var gratis och öppen för alla och samlade deltagare från hela världen. För att åskådliggöra samspelet i kursen matchades de tre typerna av närvaro i CoI med tre sorters interaktioner mellan kursens aktörer (Moore, 1989). Data samlades in genom en reviderad version av CoI-enkäten med tillägg av öppna frågor. Resultaten visade att deltagarna uppfattade en hög grad av närvaro i alla tre dimensionerna och visade också signifikanta samband mellan pedagogisk och kognitiv närvaro, såväl som mellan social och kognitiv närvaro. Fynden antyder att genomtänkt pedagogisk utformning och användning av digitala verktyg vid design av öppna nätkurser kan främja interaktion, särskilt mellan deltagare och kursinnehåll, och kognitiv närvaro. IntroductionAlongside massive open online courses (MOOCs) small-scaled open online courses are becoming more widespread in many disciplines in higher education and continuing institutions around the world. MOOCs represent a novel format of online learning and have ushered in an increased interest in learning experiences and learner interactions taking place in open online learning environments (Kilgore & Lowenthal, 2015). Learning and interactions in complex online environments pose both advantages and ...

Web 2.0 tools and emerging technologies offer learners an abundance of information and resources. This brings more flexibility and choices for learners to better control their learning and benefit from the various available learning materials in different forms. This has resulted in new learning practices and environments in higher education which are more open, flexible, and student-centered. Personal Learning Environment (PLE) is such a technology-mediated and learner-controlled learning environment. This paper describes PLE as a set of learner-defined tools and services in the ecology of Web 2.0 used by participants in three open online courses. The aim of the study was to find out how participants create and utilize their PLEs for searching, aggregating, creating and sharing content and learning resources, and being engaged in online learning networks and communities. A particular interest was to explore how serendipity, as a by-product of these open online encounters, can occur. Data were gathered through an online survey, semi-structured interviews, and online artifacts. The findings suggest the serendipitous nature of content aggregation in a PLE and provide evidence of serendipity as a valuable and unexpected source for learning

T he goal of this chapter is to assess and discuss research and knowledge concerning the signi cance of Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) in educational practices. The chapter rst discusses the nature of learning, which is inherently social, relational and a ective. The concept and de nitions of SEL are introduced to synthesize the debate around how social and emotional experiences interact with the learning processes. Then the development of socio-emotional skills across the lifespan with regards to neurobiological, social, and cultural factors is discussed, highlighting the important role of assessment in bringing a disciplined focus to SEL in schools. Applied research that describes interventions, programmes and policies geared towards promoting SEL and that can inform educational practices is then presented. The chapter concludes by recommending that SEL practices and policies should be responsive to context and culture, be informed by neurobiological development, and take into account educators' social and emotional capacities.

The integration of social web and networking technologies into education is transforming learning practices particularly learning environments in higher education. Such technology-mediated learning environments based on the potential of Web 2.0 and free/open social software tend to be more open, networked and distributed. What we can see now in online education realm is perhaps a paradigm shift from less institutionalized learning management systems to more flexible student-centered learning environments as it is called Personal Learning Environments (PLE). Such networked and distributed learning environments seem to have the potential of bringing various opportunities and resources for learners. This paper, by describing a PLE as a set of learner-defined tools and services, highlights how participants in open online courses use a variety of tools and resources as their PLEs for searching, aggregating, creating and sharing contents. In this online ethnographic research design, data was gathered through an online survey, semi-structured interviews and online artifacts from the participants in three open online courses. This work also draws attention to study how serendipitous discoveries and kind of emerging learning might occur by being immersed in the abundance of resources and engaged in various online networks and communities. The results of the initial yet-in-progress analysis of this study suggest evidences of serendipity and emergent learning in open online contexts.

T his chapter introduces Working Group 3 of the International Science and Evidence based Education Assessment, which discusses the learning experience and provides some answers to the two fundamental questions addressed in this report: Are our education systems still serving the right purpose? And, are they equipped to address the pressing challenges we face? Based on the six learning trajectories de ned in Working Group 1 (i.e., learning to know and think, learning to learn, learning to do and evaluate, learning to be and become, learning to live together, and learning to live with nature), this section takes a transdisciplinary approach to determine the genetic, neurobiological, psychological, social and environmental factors that underpin the learning experiences of diverse learners, and their complex interactions. We start the chapter by de ning the key concepts that are the foundation of the six chapters in this section. We then present brie y the most in uential models of development and learning before providing a brief overview of the chapters in this section.