Too often, when child care center directors turn their attention to enhancing management skills, or connecting with someone who understands the day-to-day demands of the job, they are pulled back to the immediate needs of running their programs. Directors, often masters of multitasking, are increasingly turning to web-based technology to manage…

Online learning communities are an important means of sharing and creating knowledge. Online behaviors and online roles can reveal how online learning communities function. However, no study has elucidated the relationships among online behaviors, online roles, and online learning communities. In this study, 32 preservice teachers participated in…

This study examined students' perceptions of peer feedback and learning in a large, undergraduate course that incorporated supplementary online discussions. Peer feedback (PF) was facilitated via an automated rating system, within Blackboard discussion forums, for half of the students enrolled in the course. Following the peer feedback process,…

Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) are becoming increasingly popular in online education environments and have multiple pedagogical advantages over more traditional approaches to education. VLEs include 3D worlds where students can engage in simulated learning activities such as Second Life. According to Claudia L'Amoreaux at Linden Lab, "at…

All teachers know them--the students who sit in the back of the room and never make a peep. If prodded, they may reluctantly offer a comment or opinion, but they are so obviously uncomfortable about participating that a teacher may wonder if it is even worth trying to engage them. Are they unprepared or just shy? Do they lack ideas or merely need…

Research on asynchronous online discussions has primarily focused on their efficacy in relation to learning outcomes. Rarely are there investigations on how the design of online learning activities or how discussions could be incorporated into student learning experience. We contend that successful online activities need careful and meticulous…

Pre-service teachers' perceptions of their own learning are important to the ways they integrate technology into their practices. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the pre-service teachers' perspectives of asynchronous discussion board (ADB) as a tool of learning to teach. ADB was integrated into two literacy courses for 33…

This book is provided as a guide, encouragement and handbook for faculty to introduce digital media in language they can understand and provide strategies and activities they can quickly assimilate into their teaching. The authors are excited that more people will be able to benefit from the powerful help and guidance contained in this book. This…

This article used work from the writing assessment literature to develop a framework for assessing the impact and perceived value of written, audio, and combined written and audio feedback strategies across four global and 22 discrete dimensions of feedback. Using a quasi-experimental research design, students at three U.S. universities were…

Mobile learning is undergoing rapid evolution. While early generations of mobile learning tended to propose activities that were carefully crafted by educators and technologists, learners are increasingly motivated by their personal learning needs, including those arising from greater mobility and frequent travel. At the same time, it is often…

The World Wide Web is evolving in response to users who demand faster and more efficient access to information, portability, and reusability of digital objects between Web-based and computer-based applications and powerful communication, publication, collaboration, and teaching and learning tools. This article reviews current uses of Web-based…

The Internet promotes computer-mediated communications, and so asynchronous learning network systems permit more flexibility in time, space, and interaction than synchronous mode of learning. The key point of asynchronous learning is the materials for web-aided teaching and the flow of knowledge. This research focuses on improving online…

The study reported here sought to obtain the clear articulation of asynchronous computer-mediated discourse needed for Carl Bereiter and Marlene Scardamalia's knowledge-creation model. Distinctions were set up between three modes of discourse: knowledge sharing, knowledge construction, and knowledge creation. These were applied to the asynchronous…

This paper reports on a study that examined teachers' perspectives on learner centredness in a distance learning context. Data collection relied on semi-structured interviews conducted with 42 Canadian high school teachers. Teachers' perspectives were analysed then categorized according to the four dimensions of a research validated framework of…

The purpose of this study was to examine reasons for teacher participation in online communities of K-12 teachers. The authors interviewed 23 teachers from three self-generated online communities and analyzed more than 2,000 postings in those communities. The findings indicated five reasons for participation: (a) sharing emotions, (b) utilizing…