Background: In the 1990s, Salmon developed a five-stage model for enabling and scaffolding remote groups to work and learn together using asynchronous bulletin boards. The model has informed online learning and development practice across different levels and education for online and blended learning. Purpose: This paper reports our testing of the usefulness and relevance of the model for Second Life (SL). Programme description and sample: Our case studies included students and tutors from three different disciplines: Archaeology, Digital Photography and Media and Communications. For the first case study, we collaborated with a postgraduate distance learning course in Archaeology at the University of Leicester. The second case study involved a campus-based undergraduate course in Digital Photography at the London South Bank University. The third case study was of a postgraduate campus-based course in Media and Communications. Design and methods: In each study, we developed artefacts and activities (SL-tivities) for students and tutors, to enable them to interact in groups. The SL-tivities were designed based on the five-stage model to provide scaffolding of learning in a group. Using qualitative methods, we studied students' and tutors' engagement with SL-tivities and their learning experiences at each stage of the model. We captured data through semi-structured interviews and from chat logs in SL, and mapped student dialogue against each stage of the model. We analysed the data using cognitive mapping, created causal understanding of the individuals and the groups and their changing views, feelings and experiences. Results and conclusions: The case studies gave us examples of learning opportunities in SL at each stage of the model. Our initial study showed that using a structured model for scaffolding learning in groups has value in a 3D multi-user virtual environment such as SL, as well as in text-based asynchronous environments. The model helps to inform design and delivery so that learners' and teachers' confidence in each other and in the environment builds up and that they work productively with each other. We continue to build further research using SL-tivities and the five-stage model to explore and develop further understanding of its applicability.

As the COVID-19 pandemic began to spread all over the world, many educational institutions have shifted to a full-time online teaching mode. Although online teaching has been widely explored, the unprecedented initiatives of mass-scale full-time online education at the secondary school level are yet to be unravelled. By using a qualitative approach and drawing on the conceptualisation of learning engagement and Community of Inquire model as conceptual frameworks, this study explored how secondary school students in China engaged with online education during the COVID-19 pandemic and what factors influenced their sustainable online learning engagement. This research examined the perspectives of twenty-four students and five teachers through semi-structured interviews and observations of online classes. Findings indicate that the students’ online learning engagement involved three inter-related categories: emotional, cognitive and behavioural engagement. Contextual factors influencing the sustainability of students’ online learning engagement were identified by the participants, including teacher presence, parental involvement, and a supportive learning environment/community. The findings in this paper have implications for teacher development, family support and establishment of e-teaching platforms in emergency remote teaching for young students. Finally, the study puts forward best practices for the sustainable development of the emergency remote teaching in the future public crises.

The article addresses the issue of whether student learning style has an impact on use of a learning technology such as a virtual learning environment (VLE). It is based on material from a broader research project at a UK university (Kingston University) on the use of VLEs in teaching and learning and explores the findings from the analysis of qualitative interviews with 43 first‐year undergraduate students, drawn from three faculties and four subject areas. It discusses the features of the VLE that are most valued by students (including their evaluation of more flexible modalities of learning); how students integrate the VLE with other learning and studying activities; and the specific ways in which various learning styles and approaches affect VLE use.

This study builds upon previous research on podcasts as an educational tool, by providing a background in teaching, learning and cognitive theories. Laurillard's Conversational framework is one of the most acknowledged tools for examining teaching/learning situations for their effectiveness and the evaluation of the appropriateness of media for any given teaching/learning activity. In the light of current literature and practice, this study explores podcasts through the Conversational framework, and provides with examples where podcast has the potential to extend it. As a result, a table is designed in structuring teaching and learning validity of podcast as educational technology.