The potential for computer-supported learning in educational contexts has opened up the possibilities for learners to interact in informal contexts outside the classroom. The context of the present research is a young American individual's vlog on YouTube sharing his experiences as a learner of French. This paper focuses on the potential use of…

It is often observed that the globalization of social media has opened up new opportunities for informal intercultural communication and foreign language learning. This study aims to go beyond this general observation through a case study that explores how discourse analysis tools might be used to uncover evidence of language and intercultural…

This research explores the ability of grade 2 students to engage in productive discussion about the state of their knowledge building using group-level feedback tools to support their metadiscourse. Two aspects of knowledge work were common to the comparison and experimental classes: "Knowledge Building talk" (KB talk) involving…

In this work, the author examines a digital role-play in which participants composed an alternate version of "The Hunger Games" (Collins, 2008). Participants imagined characters and posted more than 400 scenes in the online collaboration. The author draws upon ethnographic methods (Merriam, 2009) to describe her participant-observer…

Communicating via text-only computer-mediated communication (CMC) channels is associated with a number of issues that would impair users in achieving dialogue coherence and goals. It has been suggested that humans have devised novel adaptive strategies to deal with those issues. However, it could be that humans rely on "classic"…

More and more educational institutions are moving towards online distance learning. Although asynchronous online learning overcomes the constraints of time, place and pace, online distance learners feel isolated due to the lack of real-time communications. One possible solution for overcoming this sense of isolation is regulating student online…

In an online context, without facial, verbal or gestural cues, establishing identities through naming social positions appeared essential to effective written communication for graduate pre-service teacher candidates enrolled in a course on literacy education for elementary students. As they engaged in small group asynchronous discussions about…

Protecting children online from sexual predators has been a focus of research in psychiatry, sociology, computer science, and information systems (IS) for many years. However, the anonymity afforded by social media has made finding a solution to the problem of child protection difficult. Pedophiles manipulate conversation (discourse) with children…

Purpose: To present YouFlow Microblog and how its functionalities for discourse structuring and message classification allows improving learning. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach: The authors developed a survey on microblogs and its functionalities for supporting education, and then the authors developed a new…

Rigorous interaction between peers has been an elusive goal in online asynchronous discussions. Intersubjectivity, the goal of peer-to-peer interaction, is a representation of a higher quality of synthesis. It is the representation of knowledge construction achieved through a synergistic progression from individual contributions to sequences of…

This study explored what instructors can do to improve student depth of thinking in online discussion boards (DBs). Participants were graduate students enrolled in online courses within a college of education in the southwest United States. Measurement consisted of discourse analysis of posts in DBs and student self-assessment of dispositions,…

This commentary reflects on the contributions to learning analytics and theory by a paper that describes how multiple theoretical frameworks were woven together to inform the creation of a new, automated discourse analysis tool. The commentary highlights the contributions of the original paper, provides some alternative approaches, and touches on…

There are important cultural differences in attitudes towards and use of electronic text communication. Consistent with Hall's high-context/low-context conceptualization of culture, electronic inter-cultural communication, just as verbal inter-cultural communication, is affected by the culturally-specific assumptions and preferences of message…

The study reported here explores whether English as a foreign Language (EFL) learners' preferred ways of learning (i.e., learning styles) affect their task performance in computer-mediated communication (CMC). As Ellis (2010) points out, while the increasing use of different sorts of technology is witnessed in language learning contexts, it is…

This paper reports on a study of the interactions between text chat and audio modalities in L2 communication in a synthetic (virtual) world and observes whether the text chat modality was used for corrective feedback and the characteristics of the latter. This is examined within the context of a hybrid content and language integrated learning…