Nottingham University Business School China

Today's classroom no longer has four walls and students no longer sit in a row to learn from a subject expert. Technologies and web 2.0 tools have walked into the classroom, and learning now happens everywhere and anytime through collaboration, sharing and reflection between the peers. These changes have connected the students, educators, learning resources and activities into a collaborative learning environment that allow students to personalize the learning process, and change the sole determining role of the educators. Therefore, it builds the student-centred learning experience and makes the classroom learning to be less teacher-dependent. This research aims at studying students' perception on web-based collaborative learning in constructivist learning environment which is designed based on Jonassen's constructivist learning principle (Jonassen, 1999). In addition, web 2.0 social applications are used to engage the students in this learning approach to promote participation, collaboration and communication along the learning process. The research question in this study is what is the students' perception on web-based collaborative learning in a constructivist learning environment? This research study involves 104 Degree year 1 students as the research samples. They are exposed to the constructivist learning environment which is embedded in a common subject that offered to all IT Degree students who at INTI International University. This constructivist learning environment is centred at a student project of developing an interactive multimedia application which requires students to use various skills, software tools, and approaches to solve the ill-structure problems. Students needed to work in a group collaboratively to handle this project as it has a large scope, complex requirements and limited time. In the project development stages, students need to complete several tasks both individually and collaboratively, which includes project proposal, background study, planning and progress report, content sharing and discussion. All these tasks are done with the peer interaction through the use of various web 2.0 social tools, which are wiki, blog, social networking site. A set of questionnaire is used to collect the student perceptions on the group collaborative learning in the constructivist learning environment. This survey is conducted once the completion of the project and the result is then analyzed by using SPSS to assess the reliability of the survey items, and to perform factor analysis. These statistical data is used to uncover some meaningful facts and its underlying relationships, and subsequently, enhances the understanding on how students perceive web-based collaborative learning in this setting. Furthermore, the analyzed facts become the input to study the impact on the learning experience and the attitude change in a constructivist learning environment with multimedia and web 2.0 social tools. It is expected that the outcome of this research study emphasizes on presenting the important factors in designing the learning environment.

The 21st century marks the beginning of digital age with the extensive use of digital media, mobile devices, and Internet resources. Recent studies found that this digital era has expanded the landscape of student experiences, and educational technologies as well as increased the educator’s awareness on embracing technologies to promote effective learning. This has redefined the meaning of effective learning and the approach in motivating students. Therefore, redesigning the learning environments plays an important role in enhancing the students’ experiences in the university classrooms. This study employed the mixed methods approach to study peer interaction and student’s perception in the constructivist-collaborative learning environment (CCLE) which was designed with the use of multimedia contents and web 2.0 tools. The research study includes conducting factor analysis on the questionnaire response and the qualitative analysis on students’ comments. The samples were formed by 300 undergraduate degree students who studied at INTI International University, Malaysia. The discussion addresses the issues of supporting students’ need in collaborative learning process that bring impact on student learning. The factor analysis has presented several significant components of student learning. However, the discussion in this paper focuses on one of the identified components, ‘motivation and affective factor’, and particularly from the dimensions of competence, value, relatedness. This study concluded that it is important to emphasize on the component of ‘motivation and affective factor’ and the consideration should include a wide range of student’s perception. It is believed that this study can contribute to developing more strategies to help the educators, parents, policy makers, or even the students themselves, for fostering and sustaining student motivation and affective factors in student learning process.

The 21st century marks the beginning of digital age with the extensive use of digital media, mobile devices, and Internet resources. Recent studies found that this digital era has expanded the landscape of student experiences, and educational technologies as well as increased the educator’s awareness on embracing technologies to promote effective learning. This has redefined the meaning of effective learning and the approaches in motivating students. Therefore, redesigning the learning environments plays an important role in enhancing the students’ experiences in the university classrooms. In this study, the 21st century class environment is designed by mapping Jonassen’s model and Gagne’s events to employ the constructivist learning approach, organize the information processing, and design the instructions to support effective learning. In order to study student’s perception in the 21st century class environment, this study employed the mixed methods approach, includes conducting exploratory factor analysis on the questionnaire response and the qualitative analysis on students’ comments. The research samples were formed by 300 undergraduate degree students who studied at INTI International University, Malaysia. The exploratory factor analysis has identified four main factors, group learning, motivation, skills development and knowledge transfer. In the discussion, this study presents the key attributes, the main contributors to the attributes and its impact on student learning. For instance, the factor of group learning can be stimulated by emphasizing on the identified key attributes, such as improved work relationship, improved leadership, and refined collaborative learning which enhancing student learning experience as they are keen to attempt different approach, and anticipate changes. This study aims to identify the factors and elaborate the key attributes for supporting the strategies in transforming the university class environment to enhances students’ learning experiences and promote effective learning.

With the emergence of technologies, the revolution in the digital age, and the increase of digital native students in universities, the teaching and learning approaches need to be redesigned, to enhance students " learning experience and develop new skills and knowledge. Studies show that having collaborative learning in constructivist environment enhances students " skillset and learning experience through the process of knowledge construction, peer interactions and problem-solving. However, students do not entirely experience effective collaborative learning by just having technologies, well-planned instructions, or highly interacted situations; instead it requires active interaction and communication by working in a small group.Through analyzing students " perception and their feedback, this paper discussed one of the identified components-" new skills and knowledge " , and the five aspects of new knowledge and skills. The discussion shows that effective collaborative learning can be achieved more meaningfully as the students are able to develop new knowledge and skills through the experiential activities, and apply to another project or similar situations, for solving the real-world case or enhancing the learning outcomes.

Studies found that complex knowledge can be learned more effectively when students are engaged in a collaborative classroom environment. Therefore, conventional classroom learning should be redesigned into collaborative learning activities and study how students interact. In this study, Laurillard’s conversational framework was used to redesign collaborative university classroom environment which centered at developing a multimedia project. Student comments and interaction were collected from open-ended questions and web 2.0 tools which were used in the interaction process, before analyzed by using Cecez-Kecmanovic and Webb’s (2000) Communicative Model of Collaborative Learning (CMCL). Result showed that Laurillard’s conversational framework was effective in redesigning the classroom to capture and reflect collaborative learning activities, and that the CMCL framework was a viable instrument in analyzing students’ interaction in the collaborative learning activities. A flow diagram was developed to illustrate the pattern of conversation from Laurillard’s conversation framework and the forms of teacher-students’ interaction.

The rapid progression of ICT has influenced the social change and broadened the horizon of innovative learning which further enabled the web-based collaborative learning. Studies show that the use of web-based social tools is able to expand the social interaction and engagement among the students. In fact, many learning approaches in today’s higher education context have embedded collaborative learning activities. Therefore, it is important to investigate the student communicative acts and social interaction in the online communication process for sustaining and better supporting web-based collaborative learning. This study presents students’ feedback and their communicative acts in the process of collaborating on a multimedia project. Communicative Model of Collaborative Learning (CMCL) was used to analyze these inputs which obtained from open-ended questions, student interviews and students’ posting in social networking sites. The results showed that the CMCL was a useful tool for assessing the students’ social interaction and communicative acts in this learning approach. The outcomes of this study show that the use of CMCL is effective to analyze the student communication and interaction in web-based collaborative learning environments with more perspectives and reveal the impacts on student learning experience and attitudes.

This research study was conducted at INTI International University, and aimed at enhancing the quality of classroom learning for University students with three important emphases: Gagne’s instructional model, multimedia, and student-centred learning. An Interactive Learning Module (ILM) was developed as the core component in forming the multimedia-mediated student-centred learning environment (MMSLE) to improve the quality of student learning. The impacts on student learning were investigated through pre-test and post-test, questionnaires, open-ended questions and interview. A significant improvement was found in the test results, and shows that this learning environment has enhanced the students’ learning achievement. Students also show positive attitude change as they became more active and motivated in the learning process. A framework named MMSLE was proposed to provide a guideline for educators in Malaysian Universities to foster education innovations as alternatives to the conventional classroom teaching and learning methodology.

In this study, Gagne’s instructional events were incorporated into Jonassen’s model for designing constructivist learning environment (CLE) to enable collaborative learning, which mediated by web 2.0 tools. By factor analysing the survey response from 182 students in previous study, ‘peer interaction’ component was identified, and therefore used as the coding category for the content analysis, to study students’ comments and posts in web 2.0 tools. It was found that peer interaction can be further elaborated into different aspects, such as forming cross-checking and expressing personal thoughts. The next study will focus on other identified components in collaborative learning environment.

The emergences of information technologies and World Wide Web have broadened the horizon of innovative teaching and learning, and have pushed the bar on web-based collaborative learning. This includes expanding the social interaction and engagement between the students with more online communication and collaborative tools. Hence it established the importance of analyzing the processes in social interaction and online communication, and further developed the framework to evaluate the design of this learning environment which can sustain and support web-based collaborative learning. Many learning approaches today have embedded collaborative learning activities and therefore there is a need to investigate the effectiveness of such collaborations with respect to student communication and interactions. This study presents students' feedback on their interaction and communication process when collaborating on a multimedia project. The Communicative Model of Collaborative Learning (CMCL) was used to analyze their feedback, obtained from open-ended questions and student interviews. The results showed that the CMCL was a useful tool for assessing the linguistic interactions between students in this strategy of web-mediated learning. The results showed positive encouragement for using the CMCL to further improve student communication and interaction analysis in web-based collaborative learning environments.

The emergences of information technologies and World Wide Web have broadened the horizon of innovative teaching and learning, and have pushed the bar on web-based collaborative learning. This includes expanding the social interaction and engagement between the students with more online communication and collaborative tools. Hence it established the importance of analyzing the processes in social interaction and online communication, and further developed the framework to evaluate the design of this learning environment which can sustain and support web-based collaborative learning. Many learning approaches today have embedded collaborative learning activities and therefore there is a need to investigate the effectiveness of such collaborations with respect to student communication and interactions. This study presents students' feedback on their interaction and communication process when collaborating on a multimedia project. The Communicative Model of Collaborative Learning (CMCL) was used to analyze their feedback, obtained from open-ended questions and student interviews. The results showed that the CMCL was a useful tool for assessing the linguistic interactions between students in this strategy of web-mediated learning. The results showed positive encouragement for using the CMCL to further improve student communication and interaction analysis in web-based collaborative learning environments.

Today, it is increasingly popular to apply the concept of social constructivism for innovative classroom learning
emphasizing the importance of social interaction for constructing knowledge collaboratively, and to form a small
culture with shared meaning. In this study, the focus is on analysing perceptions from the student perspective and
experience of web-based collaborative learning in a social constructivist learning environment which is designed
based on Jonassen’s constructivist learning principle (Jonassen, 1999). A group of students, who experience the
development of a multimedia application group project with the use of multimedia software and Web 2.0 tools in
their learning process, was selected to participate in this study. The mixed method design approach is used to study
the students’ perception and attitude which was collected through survey, open-ended questions, and interviews. In a
previous study, several important factors were found from the factor analysis based on the survey result. In this
study, the analysis of students’ perception, which came in the form of comments and personal opinion, presents
several aspects that are crucial to elaborate those factors for designing an effective learning environment to enable
web-based collaborative learning. Overall, this study also indicates the use of Web 2.0 technology and the
development of multimedia projects are able to engage the students to collaboratively construct new knowledge by
sharing ideas and meaning-making through the extension of web-based communication.

This paper focuses on studying the students' collaborative processes within a web-based learning environment. A constructivist web-based learning environment was designed using Jonassen's (1999) CLE model, and centered around a multimedia group project and the use of web 2.0 tools. The project was undertaken by students at INTI International University, Malaysia, and worked in a project group of 4 members. This study assesses students' perception, attitude change, language acts through the use of several data collection instruments, including questionnaires, open-ended questions, interview, and students' interaction records in web-based applications. Factor analysis was performed on quantitative data, whereas the framework of CMCL was used to investigate the qualitative data to identify the collaboration and communication through their communicative acts during project development process. Results showed that group collaboration provided peer support, increased their motivation and satisfaction, and more communication and interaction were stimulated in the learning process.

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present the rationale for democratising the digital reproduction of cultural heritage via “mass photogrammetry”, by providing approaches to digitise objects from cultural heritage collections housed in museums or private spaces using devices and photogrammetry techniques accessible to the public. The paper is intended as a democratised approach rather than as a “scientific approach” for the purpose that mass photogrammetry can be achieved at scale.

Design/methodology/approach
The methodology aims to convert the art of photogrammetry into a more mechanical approach by overcoming common difficulties faced within exhibition spaces. This approach is replicable and allows anyone possessing inexpensive equipment with basic knowledge of photogrammetry to achieve acceptable results.

Findings
The authors present the experience of acquiring over 300 3D models through photogrammetry from over 25 priority sites and museums in East Asia. The approach covers the entire process from capturing to editing, and importing 3D models into integrated development environments for displays such as interactive 3D, Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality.

Practical implications
The simplistic approach for democratised, mass photogrammetry has implications for stirring public interests in the digital preservation of heritage objects in countries where museums and cultural institutions have little access to digital teams, provided that Intellectual Property issues are cared for. The approach to mass photogrammetry also means that personal cultural heritage objects hidden within the homes of various societies and relics in circulation in the antiques market can be made accessible globally at scale.

Originality/value
This paper focuses on the complete practical nature of photogrammetry conducted within cultural institutions. The authors provide a means for the public to conduct good photogrammetry so that all cultural heritage objects can be digitally recorded and shared globally so as to promote the cross-cultural appreciation of material cultures from the past.