In the Post RN BScN curriculum, one of the courses "Professional Development and Leadership (PDLM)" was offered as blended mode for the first time. In order to explore the students' interactions and Cognitive Engagement (CE) in Online Discussion Forums (ODFs), the research team conducted a retrospective study for the first time at a…

Due to the recent increase in digital education technologies, online education classes have been experiencing a popularity increase among students worldwide. As classroom diversity continues to expand, instructors grapple with strategies to create caring and culturally responsive educational environments to increase student engagement irrespective…

An emerging trend toward computer-mediated collaborative learning environments promotes lively exchanges between learners in order to facilitate learning. Discourse can play an important role in enhancing epistemology, pedagogy, and assessments in these environments. In this paper, we highlight some of our recent work showing the advantages using…

We introduce a new method, "differential language analysis" (DLA), for studying human development in which computational linguistics are used to analyze the big data available through online social media in light of psychological theory. Our open vocabulary DLA approach finds words, phrases, and topics that distinguish groups of people…

Numerous attempts have been made to use Second Life (SL) as a platform for language teaching. As a result, the possibility of SL as a means to promote conversational interactions has been reported. However, research has thus far largely focused on simply using SL without further augmentations for communication between learners or between teachers…

Although lots of studies have investigated collaborative knowledge construction in online courses, the factors influencing this process are yet to be fully determined. This study provides quantitative and qualitative types of evidence on how (naturally emerged) student facilitation and quality of initial postings influence collaborative knowledge…

The "language barrier" is a common buzzword in Russian-English teaching discourse that has not yet been critically investigated. This study contemplates a recently emerging phenomenon of private online language tutoring in Russia through investigation of this popular phrase. The paper draws on Critical Discourse Analysis to explore…

Course instructors across a wide range of disciplines have implemented computer-based learning resources such as online discussion boards. While the benefits of implementing an online discussion board in teaching have been well-documented, investigation into the social aspects of online learning environments is still needed in order to develop a…

Through the case of one online disputant, Minerva, this study intended to see the possibilities of online communities as the public sphere. Minerva's postings and comments were analyzed using discourse analysis and ground theory. It was found that the online community did act as the public sphere at that time, such as setting agenda and developing…

The discourse of twenty-first century learning argues that education should prepare students for successful living in the twenty-first century workplace and society. It challenges all educators with the idea that contemporary education is unable to do so, as it is designed to replicate an industrial age model, essentially rear-focused, rather than…

This manuscript reports on a corpus-based comparison of native and nonnative graduate students' language production in an asynchronous learning environment. Using 486 discussion board postings from a five-year period (2009-2013), we analyzed the extent to which native and nonnative university students' writing differed in 10 measures of syntactic…

This article examines the discursive construction of social presence and identity in a bilingual collaboration between tertiary distance learners of German in New Zealand and Academic English students in Germany. Drawing on positioning theory, this small-scale study investigated the collaborative practices of a group of students, whose synchronous…

Cross-cultural education is thought to develop critical consciousness of how unequal distributions of power and privilege affect people's health. Learners in different sociopolitical settings can join together in developing critical consciousness--awareness of power and privilege dynamics in society--by means of communication technology. The aim…

Discourse analysis of literature circles can lead educators to understand the different types of interactions taking place as students talk about text. Social and academic interactions exist in both face-to-face and online discussions of reading material. This study examines two different settings of literature circles and compares interactions of…

This study examines manifestations of verbal aggression in an intergroup context between Mainland Chinese and Taiwanese on computer-mediated communication (CMC) discussion boards. We examine the role of perceptions of national identity and face in occasioning instances of aggression in Sino-Taiwanese online interactions. It will be argued that…