The paper is a review of literature on online learning and how it prepares the digital learners into the future work force. Factors contributing to the growth in online education are linked to changing social and economic structures. The College Board Commission on Access, Admissions and Success issued a call for 55% of America’s youth to obtain a postsecondary education credential by 2025 (Bonk, 2015). This is to support and strengthen the position of the United States to be more competitive in a global economy (Burnette & Conley, 2011). There are current questions about student success, open education, informal learning, online plagiarism and principally whether online learning successfully prepare the online student for the future work skills. Keywords: online learning, workforce, digital learners, future jobs

Gamification is now a household word, but it remains at the top of the lists of emerging technology and expected trends for the future of instructional design. If this is true, how can we take gamification to a level beyond badges and points? This paper argues that narrative is a key element that has not yet been fully realized in gamification, reviewed through its prior successes in entertainment-education, game-based learning, project-based learning, and digital storytelling. It suggests that Alternate Reality Games may be the true future of gamification as we know it today.

Gamification in education is an up and coming idea. This paper will look at what gamification is and the effects of gamification on student motivation, homework, and assessment. Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation is discussed and the effects gamification has on both types. Learners use intrinsic motivation when first completing a gamified lesson, however, some learners turned their motivation to extrinsic motivation after a period of time. The future of gamification in e-learning is also, although brief, discussed.

Since the advent of distance learning, interaction has played a crucial role in learner satisfaction and more recently the quality of learning online. Even though the crucial nature of incorporating interactive learning environments is not lost on the education community, it has been at troubling odds with meeting the expectations of learners and establishing why some proposed “interactive” activities fail. Because technology has changed, offering varying levels of interaction between learner-learner, learner-instructor, and learner-content some argue that re-conceptualizing interactive can provide unique learning advantages. This literature review explores the most vital aspects of interactivity, the variables that determine its appropriateness and significant findings as they pertain to meeting the expectations of e-learning.

Abstract: There will always be instructors who use humor in their classes. While these practitioners have never numbered in the majority and often have been scorned by their peers, there has been a resilient insistence that humor has a place in education. As education moves more and more into online modalities, we find ourselves at a crossroad of opportunities. It has never been easier to find humorous content about any topic using technology. Simply searching Google for “humor in instruction” lists page after page of ideas, research and content designed for the classroom. At the same time, many of us are teaching in classes where we never see the people we teach. This can rob instructors of important feedback about whether their content (whether humorous or not) is connecting with the students. This literature review explores these crossroads, looking at the effectiveness of humor in teaching, theories that can guide humor in the classroom, types of humor to use in education, how to add humor to your online class and resources for implementing humor in your online class.

Multimedia has infused itself into all aspects of education be it online, distance or in the face-to-face classroom. Its presence has become ubiquitous in education and yet has it really benefitted students to the degree it could? This paper utilizes a review of the literature to define the role of multimedia in e-learning then looks at how multimedia fits into basic pedagogy, learning theory and learning styles. An examination of how multimedia optimally could be incorporated into the curriculum is also conducted. Finally a look at cognitive overload is undertaken to determine if there is such as thing as too much of a good thing; can instructors end up confusing students with poorly designed multimedia presentations? There are many tools to use to present multimedia lessons however, this does not mean they all need to be used in a single lesson, and selecting the right multimedia tool, and content is imperative to ensure learning goals are met. Careful selection and attention to instructional design remains the key determinant in successful learning models and the incorporation of multimedia should be used with basic instructional pedagogy in mind.

This review of the literature is third in a series of investigations into educational technology curriculum integration for the Tucson, Arizona office of the International Rescue Committee (IRC). It is a broad investigation into the theory, methods and delivery of supportive instructional materials to refugees via mobile learning. It examines current international program methods that will aid in design of U.S. mLearning programs to support the IRC’s mandated goal of promoting self-sufficiency for resettled refugees.