The rapid advance of distance learning and networking technology has enabled universities and corporations to reach out and educate students across time and space barriers. Although this technology enables structured collaborative learning activities, online groups often do not enjoy the same benefits as face-to-face learners, and their…

This article explores student teachers' views of the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in schools. There is limited research literature regarding the perceptions that such students develop in relation to the use of ICT in teaching while observing practice in schools. The paper offers an interpretive analysis of the opinions…

When I turned to asynchronous delivery of content for a recent educational research and evaluation course, I wanted to supplement threaded discussions with social interactions to better support meaningful learning and allow students to make knowledge their own. I incorporated synchronous small group discussions among peers to replace some of what…

Learning communities gained attention in 1984 after the publication of the "Involvement in Learning" report, which was sponsored by the U.S. Education Department. The authors of the report stated that active engagement in learning processes enhances learning and leads to two fundamental principles: (1) The amount of student learning and personal…

The purpose of this project was to provide a resource for distance education graduate students or their instructors to help students excel in their online programs. The researchers interviewed 15 people, consisting of current students and recent graduates. Participants provided information about the nature of online courses, why these courses were…

Seven in-employment postgraduate Master's level students in an e-learning unit participated in this research, designed to identify tensions between participation in a community of learning that was part of their studies, and participation in the communities of practice that they were engaged in at their workplaces. It was hypothesised that…

This study analyzed what kind of role sociometric status has in non-real time computer conversations. Computer-supported conversations were investigated by using two local area networks. Participants were 52 9 to 10-year-old schoolchildren selected from three sociometric strata: rejected, average, and popular. Children's preferred friends, school…

In this article, the author discusses blogging and its benefits. Blog is shorthand for weblog, which is a series of items posted on the Internet for others to read. It usually includes text, images, and links to other websites. Blogs provide a running commentary or conversation. Although many people use blogs as online journals, detailing the…

A focus is made on connectedness by explaining how the MOO is a unique tool that allows students to connect across distances short and long and engendering enthusiasm of reading and discussion. It is further shared how the MOO applications work together, enhance discussions and increase students' skills in communicating with each other.

There are many ways to improve the quality of education, but it is believed that the scholarship of teaching and learning holds special promise. The scholarship of teaching and learning invites faculty from all disciplines and fields to identify and explore interesting questions in their own teaching--and, especially, in their students'…

Studies have shown that videoconferencing is an effective medium for facilitating communication between parties who are separated by distance, particularly when learners are engaged in complex collaborative learning tasks. However, as in face-to-face communication, learners benefit most when they receive additional support for such learning tasks.…

Informal interactions are often undervalued, yet, studies in office and educational environments show that they play an important role in successful collaborative projects. Online courses however, offer limited opportunities for informal interactions, which might put them at a disadvantage when compared to traditional courses. To evaluate possible…

This paper describes a Web-based and distributed system named QSIA that serves as an environment for learning, assessing and knowledge sharing. QSIA--Questions Sharing and Interactive Assignments--offers a unified infrastructure for developing, collecting, managing and sharing of knowledge items. QSIA enhances collaboration in authoring via online…

Modern communication technologies continue to spawn new and transformed genres, but in the digital realm, distinctions between form, content, and medium are blurred. Confounding this issue is the fact that genres are usually specific to a particular discourse community of users with learned social and cultural expectations. In the domain of higher…

The authors examined the online construction of identity and sexuality in a large sample of conversations from monitored and unmonitored teen chat rooms. More than half of the 583 participants (identified by a distinct screen name) communicated identity information, most frequently gender. In this way, participants compensated for the text-based…