This study combines interlanguage pragmatics and speech act research with computer-mediated communication and examines how native and non-native speakers of English formulate low- and high-imposition requests to faculty. While some research claims that email, due to absence of non-verbal cues, encourages informal language, other research has…

In this article, the author looks to the past for trends in hardware, software, networking, and education and attempt to extrapolate where they are going and what their broad implications might be. However, there are many different ways that trends can be interpreted, and it is easy to pick trends that support one's thesis and ignore ones that…

What the participants share, their common "sense" of the world, creates a foundation, a framing, an orientation that enables human actors to see and act in coordination with one another. For recurrent activities, the methods the participants use to understand each other as they act change, making the intersubjective space in which actors operate…

This study investigates cultural and communication medium effects on conversational argumentation in a decision-making context. Chinese and U.S. participants worked in pairs on two decision-making tasks via face-to-face (FtF) and instant messaging (IM). The analyses showed that Chinese participants tended to engage in potentially more complex…

This qualitative research study examines the home use of Information and Communicative Technologies (ICT) by high school students living in economically disadvantaged households. The students' use of ICT was for the purpose of completing assigned and unassigned homework outside of the traditional high school setting. Student participants in the…

Technology has received much praise and blame for its uses and influence in higher education over the past twenty-five years. It has been widely praised for its contributions to management efficiencies, information access and analysis, improved communications, and innovative educational applications in colleges and universities. But it has also…

Reflection is a commonly accepted practice and considered advantageous in teacher education programs. Teachers are encouraged to think critically about their beliefs and teaching styles with the intended goal of fostering greater professional and personal development. Nonetheless, researchers have noted the challenges inherent in encouraging…

This paper presents a study which involved researching student interaction and participation under the lens of Activity Theory and Social Computing. Activity Theory is a philosophical framework that integrates the objective, the sociocultural, and the ecological, while Social Computing describes any type of computing application in which software…

This article, based on an interpretive study, examines what happens when a team of teaching fellows and their supervisor attempt to address what they have identified as a "pedagogical crisis" in a social foundations of education course. Student proclivities had resulted in extreme polarization regarding contested social issues. By using a…

Many Internet safety and parenting experts suggest that parents prohibit their teens from social networking sites and other online spaces where predators may lurk. But we may do adolescents a disservice when we curtail their participation in these spaces, because the educational and psychosocial benefits of this type of communication can far…

Smart librarians have always valued their relationships with users and other librarians. The creative force of those relationships is empowered via Web-based social networking, collaboration, and sharing. At Stony Brook University Health Sciences Library in New York, students, faculty, clinicians, and residents expect the latest refinements in…

In this paper, we introduce an electronic collaborative learning environment based on Interactive Instructors of Recreational Mathematics (IIRM), establishing an alternative approach for motivating students towards mathematics. The IIRM are educational software components, specializing in mathematical concepts, presented through recreational…

Noting that there has been tremendous growth in the number of businesses and not-for-profit organizations which have become equipped with computers and have empowered workers to communicate with them, this paper sheds light on policy issues related to managing the use of computer mediated communication (CMC). The paper first summarizes CMC's…

In this paper, potential applications of wireless data communications and mobile satellite technology are described which aim at improving education. The motivation behind this work is that the technology now exists for providing today's teachers and students with not only better access to educational facilities, but also instantaneous…

The face is a small part of a human, but it plays an essential role in communication. An open hybrid system for facial animation is presented. It encapsulates a considerable amount of information regarding facial models, movements, expressions, emotions, and speech. The complex description of facial animation can be handled better by assigning…