Looking at human communication from the perspective of semiotics extends our view beyond verbal language to consider other sign systems and meaning-making resources. Those include gestures, body language, images, and sounds. From this perspective, the communicative process expands from individual mental processes of verbalizing to include features…

Number sense is the basis of arithmetic and algebra, but counting dominates instruction, and fine-grained explorations of what children "do" as they develop number sense are relatively rare. Conceptually congruent actions that align with the mathematics support learning, and multitouch technology can afford using these actions while…

Over the last decade, the prevalence of online learning has dramatically increased. As part of their curriculum, students are expected to spend more and more time watching videos. These videos tend to follow a widespread format: a screen recording of slides with a picture-in-picture (PiP) image of the instructor's face. While this format is…

Helping preservice teachers use hybrid language representations in science is important if they are to become scientifically literate and able to engage in the discourse for understanding scientifiyc issues. Using hybrid language representations based on the framework of computer-supported collaborative learning, the teacher educator applied the…

The integration of artificial intelligence in educational environments has the potential to revolutionize teaching and learning by enabling real-time analysis of students' emotions, which are crucial determinants of engagement, motivation, and learning outcomes. However, accurately detecting and responding to these emotions remains a significant…

The Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning has enjoyed a prominent role in guiding the development of online instruction, but recent research has proposed boundary conditions for some of its key principles. Moreno and Mayer advanced the possibility of a reverse redundancy effect when narration and fully redundant on-screen text are presented in a…

This article provides a qualitative examination of student responses to an enjoyable online experience illustrating structure-function relationships of chemical messengers (neurotransmitters) in the human nervous system via text messaging emojis (often employed during mobile phone messaging). The "N.A.M.E." (Neurotransmitters as…

This paper investigates the differences between Immersive Virtual Reality (IVR) and the webcam (WBC) in the context of a Spanish distance-learning course. Two specific objectives were set: (1) to determine the existence of a relationship of dependence between the device used and the oral interaction, and (2) to analyse the existence of a…

Unprecedented investments are being made in mathematics tutoring interventions for K-12 students, but results from these interventions are not always promising. Traditional online or distance math tutoring can treat learning as disembodied, and not give learners access to embodied resources like gestures, movements, and actions. Virtual Reality…

To examine the utility of spoken dialog systems (SDSs) for learning and low-stakes assessment, we administered the same role-play task in two different modalities to a group of 47 tertiary-level learners of English. Each participant completed the task in an SDS setting with a fully automated agent and engaged in the same task with a human…

This study on online L2 interactions compares lexical word search between an audioconferencing and a videoconferencing condition. Nine upper-intermediate learners of English describe a previously unseen photograph in either the videoconferencing or the audioconferencing condition. A semantic feature analysis is adopted to compare their…

Access to body-based resources has been shown to augment cognitive processes, but not all movements equally aid reasoning. Interactive technologies, like dynamic geometry systems (DGS), potentially amplify the link between movement and geometric representation, thereby deepening students' understanding of geometric properties. This study…

People can make pointing gestures and tracing actions with the index finger with little or no conscious effort. From the perspective of cognitive load theory, such "biologically primary" gestures and actions might help people learn "biologically secondary" concepts and skills requiring extended cognitive effort, such as…

Higher education institutions are increasingly interested in offering more flexible teaching and learning delivery methods that are often independent of place. Where foreign language learning is concerned, telecollaboration is gaining ground. This paper focuses on synchronous webconferencing-supported teaching and examines how different semiotic…

The expansion of cognitive load theory to include evolutionary perspectives posits that biologically primary knowledge might support the acquisition of biologically secondary knowledge, which needs explicit instruction for novices to construct. Pointing and tracing actions with the index finger may be forms of biologically primary knowledge that…