Name: Sha Li Date of Degree: August, 2001

Institution: Oklahoma State University Location: Stillwater, Oklahoma

Title of Study: THE IMPACT OF THE LEARNING NETWORK: A QUALITATIVE

CASE STUDY ON LEARNING WITH LOTUS LEARNINGSPACE

Pages in Study: 179 Candidate for the Degree of Doctor of Education

Major Field: Curriculum and Instruction

Scope and Method of Study: The purpose of this study was to explore how Lotus LearningSpace network impacted the HES 3002 distance class, and what were the main factors that affected learning in this class. This study was a qualitative case study. It was conducted in a large land grant university in the Midwest of the United States in the fall semester of 2000. The participants in this study were fifty students, one instructor of the HES 3002 class, and three school network administrators. The approaches to collect data were the interview, observation, document review and the open-ended survey. The research explored the users’ perspectives and attitudes toward using Lotus LearningSpace, and their experience of learning in the HES 3002 class. The research described the perceived merits and demerits of LearningSpace, and the factors that were crucial in the LearningSpace-assisted HES 3002 class.

Findings and Conclusion: Two themes were found in this study: technical accommodation and format shift dilemma. The capabilities of LearningSpace and the students' struggle to learn to use this new communication tool constituted the first theme--technical accommodation; the students' experiences with the learning format or habit change constituted the second theme--format shift dilemma. Constructivist scaffolding and cooperative learning were found to be effective ways to resolve both technical problems and format shift problems. This research also proposes three levels of abilities that a learner should have to take a distance class; and ten points that a teacher should be aware of in order to effectively teach a distance class.

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