University students use social media tools not only to connect with friends socially but also to collaborate with classmates. Many universities have embraced academically-focused social media platforms such as social question answering (SQA) applications to make student interactions easier. This study addresses how students in a face-to-face…

The nexus between paid work and study is important. Developing opportunities to facilitate this link is a key part of good course design especially in postgraduate programs. Strong communities of practice can also assist with improving links between research and practice. The online study environment affords some challenges to achieving these…

This article explores the perspectives of seven teachers in England who teach pupils with severe profound and multiple learning difficulties about their learning to teach this group of students. Teachers' views were captured through a combination of synchronous and asynchronous online communications. Four themes emerged from teachers' perspectives…

The article explores how the Internet and email offer space for participants to think and make sense of their experiences in the qualitative research encounter. It draws on a research study that used email interviewing to generate online narratives to understand academic lives and identities through research encounters in virtual space. The…

The current study explored the interaction patterns of a cohort of international students in a Professional Doctorate of Higher Education program (EdD) in order to establish the extent to which (if at all) the cohort evolved into an authentic online learning community. Phase 1 of the study consisted of a retrospective audit of three out of the…

The Windows into Teaching and Learning (WiTL) project was developed by researchers at one large urban institution in the southeast region of the United States as a way to facilitate online clinical experiences for content area methods students during summer coursework. Utilising both synchronous and asynchronous elements, WiTL addressed the issue…

Early childhood classroom teachers are often left with little support and guidance as they assume responsibilities as mentor-teachers. The purpose of this collective case study was to explore how a hybrid community of practice comprised of four pre-K mentors and a university program coordinator supported the development of new understandings about…

One of the most complicated academic endeavours in transmission pedagogies is to generate democratic participation of all students and public expression of silenced voices. While the potential of mobile phones, particularly mobile instant messaging (MIM), to trigger broadened academic participation is increasingly acknowledged in literature,…

Our universities are becoming increasingly diverse at the same time as online asynchronous discussions (OADs) are emerging as the most important forum for computer mediated communication (CMC) in distance education. But there is shortage of studies that explore how graduate students from different ethnic, linguistic and cultural backgrounds use…

Despite that fact that the demand for asynchronous learning is booming, the literature on distance learning facilitation skills is lacking (Sherry, 1996). This study supports the premise that the use of paraphrasing strategies impacts learners in an asynchronous environment. The research question has been narrowed to inspect the particular…

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…

The purpose of this study was to understand how teachers participate in and benefit from an online community of practice (NETwork) for learning to teach. Dependent-samples t-tests were employed to examine the significant differences of members' perceptions of their social experience, while content analysis was utilized to identify members'…

The purpose of this research was to explore the use of ICT to support leadership learning within an education context. Leadership development opportunities that encourage reflection, the development of self-awareness, the sharing of practice, and that support the transfer of learning back to the workplace are challenging to fit into the life of…

Distance education fosters new kinds of collaboration--some intended, others unintended--among students and between students and instructors in college classes. The authors report the incidental learning activity within a complex of asynchronous online and compressed desktop video courses at a mid-sized university. Learning to use technology and…