This study investigated graduate students' perceptions of the online collaborations and the factors that contribute to the quality of online discussion with a qualitative case study. Data were collected through interviews with 20 graduate students in an online course, their online discourse, and the instructor's observation notes. The case study…

Recent policy initiatives in England have focused on promoting "interactive" teaching in schools, with a clear expectation that this will lead to improvements in learning. This expectation is based on the perceived success of such approaches in other parts of the world. At the same time, there has been a large investment in Information…

The aim of this study was to explore how learners operating in a small group reach shared understanding as they work out joint research questions and build a theoretical framework and to identify the resources and tools they used in the process. The learners' own interpretations of their group activities and learning were also taken into account.…

With the increased interest in using Immersive Virtual Worlds (IVWs) such as Second Life to augment and amplify teaching or to develop communities of practice, the author engaged graduate students, all current K-12 teachers, in a qualitative study to examine their attitudes about communicating for the first time in a virtual setting represented by…

Since its inception in 2003, the popularity of "Second Life (SL)", an online 3-D virtual environment, has increased exponentially. The global reach of "SL" and the opportunities it provides for cross-cultural exchange using multiple modes of communication in real and virtual worlds make it an ideal venue to examine cross-cultural engagement.…

This paper researches the effects that students' metacognitive knowledge has on their participation in online forum discussions, which form part of a web-based asynchronous course based on a constructivist instructional approach. Metacognitive knowledge increases learners' ability to be independent learners, which is an indispensable…

Academics can be found all over the Internet commiserating about academic bullying, including on "The Chronicle's" own forums and blogs. There are debates over how to resolve bullying, warnings to other scholars, and even primal cries for help. This article describes three blogs on bullying: (1) Historiann (http://www.historiann.com); (2) On…

Web-based sites such as WebCT/Blackboard are useful for faculty and generally appreciated by students. This article describes the results in a hybrid course of the addition of specialized Web-based software. The intent was to enhance student skills in analysis and critique. Highly structured assignments were graded with Waypoint software,…

This study focused on students' conceptions of and approaches to learning through face-to-face and online discussions. The study setting was a course in which students (N = 110) worked in small teams and in which team discussions took place both face-to-face and online. The design of the study involved a combination of in-depth interviews and…

Previous research with face-to-face groups found that majority-minority theory was a better predictor of argument patterns between Israelis and Palestinians than cultural codes theory (D. G. Ellis & I. Maoz, 2002; I. Maoz & D. G. Ellis, 2001). But, because of the difficulties of organizing face-to-face contacts between Israelis and Palestinians…

Professors may be among the most highly educated members of society, but when it comes to negotiating their daily professional relationships, they sometimes seem to check their intelligence at the door. Ostensibly the bastion of reasoned and collegial discourse, academe is often plagued by inexcusably rude behavior that is the opposite of…

Children's resourcefulness can be seen in their ordinary, everyday "semiotic work" as they select resources from those ready to hand to create play environments and artefacts. Is this resourcefulness also evident as they make meaning in the highly conventionalized mode of writing? Conceptualizing writing as a process of design opens up the…

In its purest form, accounting is a method of communication, and many refer to it as the language of business. Although the average citizen might view accounting as a convoluted set of complex standards, the recent abuses of data have resulted in legislation and investor demands for timely and relevant information. In addition, global requirements…

In this article we describe a system that matches learners with complementary content expertise in reaction to a learner-request for knowledge sharing. It works through the formation of "ad hoc," transient communities, that exist for a limited period of time and stimulate learners socially to interact. The matchmaking system consists of a request…

Online collaboration and project-management tools allow people to work together without being in the same place at the same time. However, that is not all, Google Docs & Spreadsheets, for example, allows the creation of documents and spreadsheets just like in Microsoft Word and Excel, but with more collaborative capacity. Google Calendar lets…