Susan Elwood

Students' Perceptions of the Laptop Program: What Factors Should be Considered Before Implementing the Program?

Due to a rapid increase in the usage of information technology, several companies are demanding that graduates have more than just the basic computer skills when they graduate. This has prompted many universities to initiate a campus laptop program in order to increase their students’ computer experiences and skill sets. The success of a laptop program relies heavily on the extent to which the laptop environment is accepted and wholeheartedly implemented by students and faculty. Defining the conception factors necessary to successfully implement a laptop initiative becomes a critical issue to the success of the program. This study examines university students’ perceptions of a required laptop program to determine what factors that they think are crucial for the success of such a program. By understanding what factors encourage students to support a laptop initiative, such a program can be made more useful to students as well as more beneficial to universities.

A theoretical framework and model towards media-rich social presence design practices

Educators are seeing rapid developments in online instruction with regard to not only available technologies, but also in design and teaching practices. Developing and maintaining social presence in an online environment is paramount to the success of a learning environment. This article touches upon some historical perspectives of social presence and proposes a theoretical framework and design guide towards media-rich social presence practices for future research. The design guide in this article adds to the historically text-based social presence applications by posing media-rich, higher-level thinking questions based upon a grounded theoretical framework.