Internet Learning Volume 3, Number 2, Fall 2014 | Page 4

Internet Learning Volume 3 Number 2 - Fall 2014 multimedia team of J. Sean Geary and Jaime Goodman from American Public University System who created the four complex interactives in our featured article, and Ty Crawford for his design of the journal’s new logo. Lastly, the works written by the authors in this issue embody a more holistic approach to online teaching and learning topics. No longer should we isolate education and industry. No longer should we limit the inclusion of conceptual works and opinion pieces from academic journals. No longer can we afford to ignore the potential that partnerships between market-driven, student-centric companies and reputable, higher education institutions can provide to both entities. Therefore, the articles included in this issue cover topics such as MOOCs, new online learning business models, gamification, interactive and blended teaching environments, data visualization and online collaborative efforts on a global scale. The first article, Enter the Anti-MOOCs: Reinvention of Online Learning as Social Commentary, by New Media Consortium’s Larry Johnson and Samantha Adams-Becker, discusses in depth these “high-level experiments in online learning” (a.k.a, the Anti-MOOC) as virtual spaces created to promote social interaction and commentary. In the second article, Positioning for Success in the Higher Education Online Learning Environment, Jeff Mc- Cafferty presents an analysis of current online learning and higher education markets in terms of identifying factors that impact the development and expansion of online learning. Britt Carr’s case study, Gamifying Course Content with Smashfact describes Smashfact—a recently-released study-game app for faculty that increases student engagement levels by “gamifying” basic course content, thereby reducing barriers to success. Students are able to use the app on any of their devices: phones, tablets or desktop computers. Our fourth article, Problems And Possibilities of Gamifying Learning: A Conceptual Review by Hannah Gerber continues the exciting discussion on gamification by providing a brief overview of the concept of gamification and examines and compares gamification with edutainment and game-based learning. Gerber asserts that in its current industry-driven conceptualization, gamification will not work when implemented in educational arenas, and that to be examined and used within educational frames, gamification must be re-examined and re-conceptualized. Our fifth article, Using Early Warning Signs to Predict Academic Risk in Interactive, Blended Teaching Environments, by Julie Schell, Brian Lukoff and Cassandre Alvarado offers an evidence-based process for identifying characteristics correlated with student academic underachievement at the course level in blended, interactive teaching environments. Visualizing Knowledge Networks in Online Learning by Marni Baker-Stein, Sean York and Brian Dashew introduces the development of a framework and methodology aimed to yield a better understanding of social interactions and knowledge construction in online courses that employ both formal and informal social and cooperative learning activities. In our final article, Integrating Online Global Collaboration authors Zhenlin Gao and Tom Green share their account of an online, collaborative project based upon the premise that students today are instinctively collaborative, innately cooperative, and 3