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put on tracking down the PCSP's best practices,
as well as drawbacks in their learning designs
for short online courses, with an emphasis on
the design and implementation of collaborative
learning events.
at minimum. The first week was usually devoted
to the introduction of the learning of the primary
aspects of the concepts in question while the
second week was usually dedicated to consolida-
tion and extension of these concepts, as well as to
evaluation procedures. To this end, PCSPs used
most of the blocks provided by MOODLE such
as Calendar, Latest News, Upcoming Events,
Participants, Grades and Activities.
The typical flow of learning events that most
PCSPs (30 PCSPs) suggested for their students
was as follows: (a) completing quizzes to express
their previous knowledge related to the subject
matter in question, (b) participation in groups,
(c) reading the learning materials provided, (d)
fulfilling the learning tasks at hand during the
'introduction' part of the course, (e) completing
quizzes to assess the knowledge acquired during
this part of the course, (f) fulfilling the learning
tasks at hand during the 'consolidation' part of
the course and (g) completing quizzes to assess
the knowledge acquired during the said part of
the course or the knowledge they acquired during
the whole course.
Integration of learning materials:
Here, as
well, all PCSPs integrated various learning materi-
als to help their students acquire some knowledge
about the subject matter in question as well as
background issues. These learning materials were
in the form of text documents, Power Point pre-
sentations, links on the Web, Glossaries and online
Encyclopedias, appropriate educational software
and, finally, online tutorials about MOODLE. Most
of these materials provided information and solved
examples to help the students grasp the learning
concepts in focus. However, it is important to
note that some PCSPs integrated so many learn-
ing materials - and usually failing to emphasize
the most important aspects of the subject matter
in question - that they could become boring for
the students to navigate and read.
Class organization:
The majority of PCSPs
(26 PCSPs) organized their students in two ways;
as a whole group and as small groups, mainly
3. RESULTS
Based on the analysis described in the previous
sections, the results emerged from this study are
reported in the following section. The main points
of these results are also briefly reflected in Table 1.
Setting the stage
: Most PCSPs (25 PCSPs)
used some brief provocative expressions/exam-
ples/jokes/figures to motivate their students and
draw their attention to the subject matter in ques-
tion. A few PCSPs (only 2 PCSPs) also designed
discussions - using whole class forums - asking
each of their students to give an example of their
own life that related to the learning concepts in
question, so as to stimulate them to actively and
passionately participate in the course at hand.
Most PCSPs (27 PCSPs) also defined certain
cognitive and technical goals of their courses and
presented them explicitly in the main page of their
courses. Regarding the investigation of students'
previous and prerequisite knowledge of the said
concepts, a considerable number of PCSPs (20
PCSPs) used specifically designed quizzes while
others (2 PCSPs) used the
brainstorming
method
utilizing a whole class chat room. However, it
should not be ignored that some PCSPs (6 PCSPs)
failed to initiate any action to prepare their students
emotionally and cognitively to actively and ef-
fectively participate in the learning of the subject
matter through the said online courses. It was
probably due to the fact that, usually, in Com-
puter Science departments emphasis is given in
the presentation of the subject itself with less at-
tention on the development of an appropriate
emotional climate for its understanding.
Scheduling of the online courses
: All PCSPs
designed their online courses to last two weeks
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