Open Teaching is currently considered an ambiguous and polysemic concept but has nevertheless become a growing global trend in ICT‑based education. To identify key issues on the subject, this article presents a study on Open teaching that combines meta‑synthesis and content analysis of research published over the last twenty years in major peer‑reviewed databases. Six main analytical categories emerge from data, conforming six groups of findings. Those findings show that Open Teaching has been associated with various concepts over the years and that there is no consensus on its meaning in the academic community. The current understanding of Open Teaching, that it is merely related to distance education, thwarts important practical and conceptual possibilities by prioritizing access as its main feature and ignoring important “openness” attributes, such as adaptation, sharing, remixing or collaboration. Moreover, the findings note that the most common means to implement Open Teaching as an ICT‑based practice are derived from the use of Open Educational Resources (OER) and via Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) which represents not only a major challenge for active educational practitioners but a new way of conceiving and implementing e‑learning in higher education. 

Electronic resources have become a dominant feature of higher education, both traditional and distance learning based. Unlike in the past when universities relied majorly on the physical library and hard copy of books, e‑books accessible through e‑libraries are the dominant features of this century’s institutions of higher learning. This study investigated pre‑service teacher trainees by distance and the utilization of e‑learning resources. A survey research design was used to carry out the study. One hundred and forty four (144) pre‑service teachers by distance from three institutions offering teacher training programmes by distance in South Africa completed the anonymous web based survey designed to gather data which provide answers to the five (5) research questions in the study. The results revealed a high utilization of e‑resources to learn but a low utilization of e‑resources to teach among the respondents. The study recommends institutional based training on the techniques of accessing and utilizing e‑learning resources for pre‑service teacher trainees in ODL institutions. 

The introduction of technologies into the teaching and learning environment has implied changes to the way education plays out in an e‑Environment. Previous research has highlighted the many barriers and challenges in integration technology into teaching and learning. Technology is said to be underutilised. However there are studies that have identified that teachers are using technology in their work. Little is known about the extent of this use of technology. Accordingly less is known about teachers’ e‑Learning practices. This paper seeks to highlight the patterns in teachers’ e‑Learning practices. Using a blend of inductive and deductive techniques data was collected from a sample of teachers known to be using technology in their work. The study was framed by the: (i) Development in use and stages of teaching and learning with technologies (UNESCO) and (ii) Technological skills developmental levels (DoE). The data from the study has highlighted patterns in the use and practice of technology integration in school education. These patterns could be mapped to continuums of use and practice. It has been found that teachers used technology for a variety of purposes: personal, administration, teaching and learning at different frequencies and at varying levels of intensity. Teachers were found to use technology for e‑Teaching and e‑Learning progressively and in ways that was aligned to their comfort zones. The way teachers’ used technology was found to be progressive from simple to innovative. 

The U.S. defense industry spends billions of dollars each year developing defense systems to keep the nation and allies secure. However, the failure rate of system development is notoriously high. Even when development efforts do succeed, they often do so with cost overruns and compromises in system performance. As a result, large amounts of money are wasted in defense acquisition, leaving the nation both poorer and less secure than it could be. Though this problem is certainly multi‑faceted, one way to approach the problem is to provide better systems engineering education to engineers. Systems engineering skills, generally considered to be key to the successful development of large scale systems, often require many years to acquire. However, recent research investigates the theory that these years can be reduced through the use of simulation software. This paper describes Project Robot, a defense systems engineering simulator designed to facilitate the acquisition of systems engineering skills at an increased rate. Project Robot was the co‑winner of the 2010 Experience Accelerator international systems engineering simulator competition held at Stevens Institute of Technology, NJ. The development of this simulator is a first step towards the design and development of experience accelerating simulations and software games that push the boundaries of engineering education to the next level using modern computer software techniques. The paper introduces the concepts of systems engineering and systems thinking, then discusses the Project Robot game concept, design, theory, and implementation, including detailed screen captures. The paper concludes with a discussion of the future of Project Robot and related research efforts to improve systems engineering education through simulation. 

Gamification is the use of game design elements in non‑game contexts and it is gaining momentum in a wide range of areas including education. Despite increasing academic research exploring the use of gamification in education little is known about teachers’ main drivers and barriers to using gamification in their courses. Using a phenomenology approach, 16 online structured interviews were conducted in order to explore the main drivers that encourage teachers serving in Higher Education institutions to using gamification in their courses. The main barriers that prevent teachers from using gamification were also analysed. Four main drivers (attention‑motivation, entertainment, interactivity, and easiness to learn) and four main barriers (lack of resources, students’ apathy, subject fit, and classroom dynamics) were identified. Results suggest that teachers perceive the use of gamification both as beneficial but also as a potential risk for classroom atmosphere. Managerial recommendations for managers of Higher Education institutions, limitations of the study, and future research lines are also addressed. 

In South Africa, the Western Cape government (WCG)’s current broadband strategy aims to ensure that all schools will be connected to broadband service within a reasonable time‑frame. According to the WCG integration of ICTs and the broadband will remove the digital divide and enhance curriculum delivery in schools. To achieve this, sensible long‑term planning must be in place to ensure that subject advisors are adequately trained and equipped to participate in the connected schools environment and effectively assist teachers integrate digital resources into classrooms. The aim of this paper is to explore how subject advisors perceive of their preparedness to embrace new technologies for their advisory job; to ensure effective teaching and learning. A qualitative research approach was used; randomly selected education districts in the Western Cape Province provided subject advisors to be participants in the study. Results show that most subject advisors perceive their complex knowledge of how to effectively integrate ICTs into curriculum delivery as inadequate hence are hesitant to advise teachers on effective technology integration into classrooms. 

Storytelling plays a vital role to impart a nation’s tradition, cultural beliefs and history to future generation. It is frequently used for the purpose of sharing or exchanging information as it enables the messages to be conveyed to the audience easily. Storytelling acts as a tool of human social interaction and is commonly used in education for learning, explaining and entertaining. Due to the learning effectiveness brought up by storytelling, this study is aimed to compare and differentiate the feasibility of traditional storytelling and multimedia storytelling in motivating and leveraging the non‑native novices’ learning of Chinese idioms. A total of 83 non‑native novices who have attended the Chinese as Foreign Language Course in a local private university of Malaysia were selected as the research sample and divided into two groups. 43 participants were placed in the experimental group and studied the Chinese idioms with a developed multimedia storytelling prototype (MSP), whereas the other 40 participants in the conventional teaching group learned the new knowledge through traditional storytelling. A Chinese idiom test and survey questionnaires were distributed to the non‑native novices to examine their learning achievement and preferences towards the learning approaches. Results showed that the students in the experimental group scored higher and had greater satisfaction towards the Chinese idiom learning than the learners from the conventional group.