AP Literature students participated in a series of real-time online discussions to complement the in-class conversations they were having about "The Autobiography of Malcolm X." Thus, the front channel was comprised of the students who were discussing the class text aloud, and the backchannel was the online conversation the rest of the…

Online learning communities (OLCs) offer opportunities to help teachers engage better with technology and develop new skills through a participatory social process. This study investigates the potential of an OLC for advancing teachers' professional learning in integrating technology into their instructional practices. Drawing on two case studies…

The research study examined the ways participants analyzed students' mathematical thinking in a massive online open course focused on teaching mathematics with technology. Across units, participants' posts showed increased attention to student thinking and less focus on issues related to technology. [For the complete proceedings, see ED606531.]

This paper reports on a study that integrated two instant messaging applications (Moya Messenger App and WhatsApp) and a myUnisa's online discussion forum (ODF), and utilised them as tools to support student learning at an open and distance e-learning university in South Africa. The participants in this study were 41 undergraduate education…

Sociocultural perspectives of learning emphasise the role of social interaction and activity in the process of knowledge construction and foreground the social-cultural settings in which knowledge construction occurs. This paper examines how in-service language teachers co-construct technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) in…

The University of South Africa (UNISA) is one of the distance education universities that is shifting from open distance learning (ODL) to open distance e-learning (ODeL). UNISA started as a correspondence institution in the 1950s and it has since evolved into an ODeL university. The aim of this research was to assess and determine the maturity…

While technology-assisted learning has become commonplace in education, its applications are rarely examined along geopolitical and cultural perspectives that reveal certain shared and vastly distinct localized practices in evolving pedagogy and cultural dynamics. For developing countries such as Uzbekistan, collaborating virtually with a…

National efforts have been made to encourage technology integration in teacher preparation with expectations for frequent and successful applications with K-12 learners. While online learning has become pervasive in many fields in education, it has been somewhat slow to catch on in K-12 settings. The "Handbook of Research on Emerging…

Electronic communication, whether through Facebook, Twitter, text messages, or even e-mail, has become part of the lives of hundreds of millions of people in the last 10 years. However, there are still many teachers who are nervous about using social networking for educational purposes, and there are still many schools in which students must…

This review examines research of computer-mediated small group discussion of literature. The goal of this review is to explore several instructional formats for integrating print-based and new literacies skills. First, the theoretical foundations for the shift from teacher-led to student led discussion are outlined. Research exploring ways in…

The action research study described in this report outlines the design and implementation of a unit of blended instruction in a traditional high school English classroom. Twenty technical high school students in an 11th grade Honors English class engaged in a variety of internet-based activities in conjunction with traditional learning activities…

Working to transform his classroom, fifth grade teacher John Blain of Buffalo (New York) public schools infused technology into his literature lessons by adding an online literature discussion to his more traditional classroom discussion. Students were assigned to read Kate DiCamillo's books "Because of Winn-Dixie" and "The Tiger…

The present paper discusses results of a study which aimed to explore the knowledge and use of Web 2.0 technologies by LIS academics in Iran and to explore the challenges they face for using these technologies. The research method was explorative and empirical. Data was collected through a web-based survey questionnaire containing both open and…

For some time now, English teachers have used electronic discussion in their classrooms. There is also a considerable literature suggesting benefits to student learning in doing so. However this research often downplays the context in which the discussion group is used--so that the particularities in use, including teacher decision-making as they…

Web 2.0 technologies, open source software platforms, and mobile applications have transformed teaching and learning of second and foreign languages. Language teaching has transitioned from a teacher-centered approach to a student-centered approach through the use of Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) and new teaching approaches.…