This case study explores the question of whether school personnel are using the technology available to communicate effectively with the members of their communities? A plethora of communications technology is now accessible to schools, but the question remains whether it is being used to connect with the different members of one's school…

This paper investigates the impact that a teacher's virtual presence--or lack thereof--has on students' chat behavior with regard to error correction, uptake, target language use, and on-task behavior. The data come from beginning German students engaged in pair and small-group chatting activities at a major American university. Transcripts from…

The growing presence of Latino students in U.S. colleges and universities is evident in foreign language (FL) classrooms. Latino students with a high proficiency level in Spanish are usually placed in advanced language or content-based courses along with other non-Latino students. This paper examines university instructors' beliefs and practices…

This paper explores the importance of interaction in the online teaching environment and the important role of staff development in developing teacher presence online. Professionally developing staff to use information and communication technologies is viewed from the standpoint of diffusion of innovation, moving from early adopters to mainstream…

While "hevruta" (text study in pairs) is a traditional form of Jewish learning, it has rarely been the subject of empirical research. Building off of research on reading and interpreting literary texts and sociocultural theories of learning, the author closely analyzes transcripts and videos of students studying in "hevruta." Through this fine…

The study of Jewish traditional texts in a "hevruta" learning setting (two people studying a text together) represents past as well as contemporary modes of Jewish religious and devotional study. More recently, "hevruta" learning has made its way into several contexts of professional development in Jewish education, including inservice settings…

Second language anxiety has a debilitating effect on the oral performance of speakers of English as a second language. This article describes a research project concerning the conceptualization of second language speaking anxiety, the relationship between anxiety and second language performance, and the major reported causes of second language…

The concept of knowledge building communities has not traditionally been associated with agricultural extension, but is one which has the potential to increase the rate of adoption of best management practices by the industry. A potentially important mechanism to facilitate knowledge building is information and communication technology (ICT);…

In this paper we discuss how online seminar participants experience dimensions of embodiment, virtual space, interpersonal relations, and temporality; and how interacting through reading-writing, by means of online technologies, creates conditions, situations, and actions of pedagogical influence and relational affectivities. We investigate what…

The spread and utilization of information technology in the human services is examined using innovation diffusion theory. This examination is contextualized within the values basis of social work. Literature from the human services, the business sector, and the social sciences regarding the role of information technology is used to promote a…

This article presents ten strategies instructors can use to get their students to take more responsibility for their learning. Suggestions are given about the importance of getting students to verbalize why they are taking the course, helping students get into the proper mindset for each class, and structuring assignments so students will be more…

This is a compilation of reports on international literacy research. The report includes 3 separate reports on France, United Kingdom and Brazil. In the first report, research correspondent Jacques Fijalkow presents research into variations of reading motivation related to students' socioeconomic status (SES), age, and gender. Three of these…

Napster, a program for sharing MP3 files, has transformed the way music files are shared over the Internet. In its heyday, anyone looking for free music just had to search Napster's database for the artists or songs they wanted and download them for free. Because of its operations, Napster was successfully sued for violation of copyright and has…

With the advent of the knowledge era, teacher education needs to prepare teachers to face the changing technological contexts and to model pedagogies and tools for better forms of learning. Despite much enthusiasm about the roles of technology in education, its role in transforming teacher learning, in ways aligned with advances in the learning…

I present theory and research associated with learning to teach science in inner city high schools on the east coast of the United States. I use theories from cultural sociology as a framework to explore how coteaching is enacted in a science teacher education program in which coteachers collaborate with high school students in cogenerative…