Discussion of electronic discussion groups as an instructional technique addresses the dilemma of whether instructors should associate assessment schemes with the electronic discussion forum. Presents a coding technique as an example of how assessment can potentially promote substantive electronic discussions. (Author/LRW)

Interviews with employees after videoconferencing facilities were introduced in a multinational corporation revealed that only 10% of 60 trainees felt they needed more training in their use; however, only 9 actually used the facilities for meetings. Concerns about the quality of communication in unstructured meetings and newly established…

Discusses Web sites and Weblogs (or blogs) created by librarians as informal, interactive zines. Considers Web publishing software which makes it easier to start, motivation for self-publishing, and differences from trade publications; and provides a list of librarian blogs and zines. (LRW)

Electronic business is stimulating employment in some sectors across industries, such as computer-related and customer service occupations, and diminishing employment in others, such as administrative support and marketing/sales. Similarly, employment impacts will vary by industry. (Contains 56 notes and references.) (SK)

Makes the case that a more balanced pedagogical perspective for use of computer-mediated-communication (CMC) must be created by the communication discipline in order to assure its centrality as the key academic source and authority on CMC. Concludes that there is a path to a clear pedagogical agenda that can ensure the communication discipline's…

Academics have a range of learning activities and tools they can incorporate to enable students to achieve the objectives of their courses. Strategies such as role-play have been used with learners in face-to-face settings to allow students to experience learning using a range of learner identities. Yet, with the exception of role-plays,…

This article is a brief debate on the pros and cons of allowing students to use instant messaging (IM) in school. On one hand, teenagers' desire to socialize can overcome other priorities and schools may set policies to ban instant messaging. The contrary view is that schools should embrace the IM technology being popularized by youth and find…

In a previous column, standards for professional growth in educational technology for developmental educators were discussed. These standards focus on competence with technology applications for improving instruction. How these standards might be implemented through four stages of technology integration: adopting, adapting, appropriating, and…

This paper reports on a study involving the identification and measurement of collaboration in an online asynchronous discussion (OAD). A conceptual framework served for the development of a model which conceptualises collaboration on a continuum of processes that move from social presence to production of an artefact. From this model, a…

Within a synchronous computer-mediated discussion, teachers used a prescriptive framework of Socratic interventions together with dialogue moves which challenged students to justify their opinions or which presented a devil's advocate line of counter-argument. This paper examines the effectiveness of different teacher strategies and presents…

An online community is a group of people who connect with one another over time and through space using the Internet as their primary medium. Online communities also act, albeit through text. They organize political action, introduce to-be spouses, and create new products and tools. This article discusses how one librarian used online communities…

This document briefly discusses how headlines initially seem to be irrelevant to e-content, until the reader looks further. Examples of headlines are listed in this document. It is suggested that things may be clearer if some headlines from outside of mainstream or popular news publications are added. Examples of these are also listed.

Internet Protocol (IP) Telephony, or voice-over IP (VoIP), has proved to be a wise decision for many organizations. This technology crosses the boundaries of public and private networks, enterprise and residential markets, voice and data technologies, as well as local and long-distance services. The convergence of voice and data into a single,…

Much has been written about the potential for online learning (Fryer, 1997; www. ngfl.gov.uk/ngfl/index.html). However this literature typically emphasizes not online learning but online education. In this paper I focus on the potential for online learning, specifically learning about issues surrounding femininity in the presence of online peers,…

The reactions of children to a written interchange that they redid by co-opting riddles, that is a genre which is unavoidably dialogic, is focused. The research conducted for the same through exchange of e-mail letters is discussed in detail.