Self-Directed Learning (SDL) has been the focus of attention on the part of scholars for at least four decades. However, it is with the advent of technology and the possibilities offered by the Internet that researchers and practitioners have begun to look more closely at what students do autonomously to support their own learning outside of the…

This chapter discusses issues concerning the design and implementation of the research project dealing with the changes in the levels of willingness to communicate, motivation, boredom and language anxiety, their relationships and factors influencing them in the course of the participants' visits to the virtual world Second Life. [For the complete…

The aim of this paper is to show the impact of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) by using WhatsApp with activities based on collaborative work, real time communication, and feedback. The relevance of presenting authentic material such as topics of students' interest combined with collaborative work is central for developing…

Productive "Third Spaces" are often an afterthought when designing learning environments, both in a physical sense and online. These areas, properly mediated by technology and designed around humans, can often be a key facilitator for student success. The STAC Model is designed to provide a framework for understanding what makes these…

The COVID-19 pandemic posed, and continues to pose, many challenges to teaching and learning, most notably the need to pivot from traditional in-person course instruction and experiences to entirely virtual course delivery while maintaining course rigor and quality. Our guiding principle for course modification was the critical need for an…

Wawasan Open University (WOU) provides working Malaysians access to quality higher education via Open Distance Learning (ODL). As admission of students involves students from diverse backgrounds, including diversity of ability, age groups and educational backgrounds, WOU faces the real challenge of effectively engaging and supporting these…

Increasing regulation imposed on education systems at all levels engulfs teaching/learning time and impedes individual pursuits of interest to the learner. However, by restructuring the way educators approach the classroom, students can be provided an opportunity to explore further and become more successful. This success can be derived by…

We are presenting a methodological approach that aims to increase students' motivation by asking them to develop tasks based on professional settings. In order to meet this objective a collaborative methodology was designed and applied to two multidisciplinary projects: MARKETOUR and ICT-SUSTOUR. Both projects made students face real workplace…

This paper describes a collaborative Internet-based project involving foreign language students and teacher trainees in three different countries. The project involved both online collaboration with international partners and face-to-face classroom activities and was designed not only to facilitate purposeful, authentic language use, but also to…

Explores the results obtained from using a computer network for real-time synchronous discussion in a course for students of English as a foreign language. Found that computer conferencing had noticeable effects on students' motivation for language learning. (Author/VWL)

This study explored what factors influenced learner participation in two sections of a graduate online course at a Midwestern university. Findings indicated that online learner participation and patterns of participation are influenced by the following factors: technology and interface characteristics, content area experience, student roles and…