Reference service via instant messaging (IM) has significant potential to benefit distance learners. There has been wide experimentation with IM to expand reference services in libraries across the US, with mixed results. Concern has been expressed that IM cannot provide the same reference experience as face-to-face interactions. One academic…

The authors discuss the notion of Rapid Collaborative Knowledge Building (RCKB) in classroom settings. RCKB seeks to harness the collective intelligence of groups to learn faster, envision new possibilities, and to reveal latent knowledge in a dynamic live setting. It is characterized by the notion of rapid cycles of knowledge building activities…

This paper has a dual aim: to situate functionalities among the complex of factors that help shape online interactions and to explore the heterogeneity of audio conferencing and its implications. Following a critical discursive synthesis of the treatment of variables in the literature, attention focuses on the distinctive and diverse…

Effective assessment is vital in educational activities. We propose IWAS (intelligent Web-based assessment system), an intelligent, generalized and real-time system to assess both learning and teaching. IWAS provides a foundation for more efficiency in instructional activities and, ultimately, students' performances. Our contributions are…

The aim of the research is to compare the impacts of telementoring services, delivered using chat with video, chat with instant message, mobile phone, discussion board and video conference on proteges' academic achievements and opinions. Telementoring services, made up with five different instruments, were administered to a group of proteges,…

As online learning environments now have an established presence in higher education we need to ask the question: How effective are these environments for student learning? Online environments can provide a different type of learning experience than traditional face-to-face contexts (for on-campus students) or print-based materials (for distance…

Communicating and collaborating online are becoming common requirements in education. The specialized notations and symbols necessary for some content areas where mathematical expressions are part of the conversation require that users select appropriate communication tools. The purpose of this article is to describe tools that can be used for…

To well prepare pre-service teachers for their future teaching, researchers and teacher-educators have been employing information and communication technology to improve pre-service teachers' learning of subject-matter knowledge, pedagogies, classroom-management skills, and so on. This study illustrates a service-learning project we conducted to…

With the ability of modern system developers to develop intelligent programs that allows machines to learn, modify and evolve themselves, current trends of reactionary methods to detect and eradicate malicious software code from infected machines is proving to be too costly. Addressing malicious software after an attack is the current methodology…

This study identified and analyzed how those responsible for filling vacant superintendencys identify and recruit applicants for the position of school superintendent in Minnesota, notwithstanding the factors that lead to the diminished pool of potential candidates. The study affirmed the shortage of superintendent applicants in Minnesota,…

In this work we present an overview of the undergraduate online Physics course that we have implemented in the Moodle platform. This course has been developed as an enhancement of the face-to-face courses. The aim of this course is to create an online learning community which helps both teachers and students to have a virtual space where we can…

There has always been a debate around the issue of what it is that improves learning: the instruction itself or the media used for it (Clark 1983; Kozma 1994). It has also been said (Kulik and Kulik 1991; Andrewartha & Wilmot 2001) that computer mediated learning, as opposed to traditional instruction, positively influences the students'…

This study examined predictors of students' intentions to access face-to-face (f2f) or online options for lectures and tutorials in a buffet-style blended learning 2nd-year psychology statistics course ("N" = 113; 84% female). Students were aged 18 to 51 years ("M" = 23.16; "SD"= 6.80). Practical and technological…

Online instruction offers students a convenient way to access higher education. However, convenience must never trump quality when it comes to participation in a graduate program. Synchronous learning activities in graduate online courses are an effective way to enhance the learning experiences of all students, and especially those from different…

Current research describes multimodal pedagogical communication of two populations of online teachers; trainee tutors (second year students of the Master of Arts in Teaching French as a Foreign Language at the university Lumiere-Lyon 2, France) and experienced teachers based in different locations (France, Spain and Finland). They all taught…