Educational technology integration in higher education consumes enormous resources but with little evidence of efficacy, due in large measure to lack of vision and a cohesive strategy. Instructors perceive formidable technical skills in undergraduate students, untapped in an instructional role, but this may be unfounded. This article proposes a…

It is commonly argued that a key challenge for e-learning is to encourage learner participation. Even though this challenge has received increased attention by researchers, little effort has been put into developing a sound theoretical understanding of what online participation actually is and how it may be studied empirically. This paper examines…

The online environment represents one of the fastest growing contexts for adult learning. The first online programs resembled electronic versions of old correspondence study programs. As problems of low motivation, alienation, dissatisfaction, and attrition within these programs mounted, practitioners and scholars recommended more emphasis on…

Today's young people seem to live in an even faster fast-paced society than previous generations. As in the past, they are involved in sports, music, school, church, work, and are exposed to many forms of mass media that add to their base of information. However, they also have instant access to computer-generated information such as the Internet,…

This paper represents an earnest attempt to identify specific pedagogical roles for blogs in language learning. After briefly describing various types of blogs and defining their purposes (Herring "et al.", 2005) we attempt to accommodate their position and application within language teaching (Thorne & Scott Payne, 2005), relating evidence from…

The present study offers a holistic and rich description (as recommended by Ellis, 1999b) of the sociopragmatic features of exchanges among first-year learners of German. Specifically, it examines the use of opening and closing sequences, patterns of topic assignment, and maintenance by participants in computer-mediated interactions in order to…

Educational authorities in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) of China introduced an early childhood education voucher system in 2007 with two implicit goals: to turn profit kindergartens into non-profit ones and to curtail parental choice. This initiative has caused a great deal of controversy locally and internationally, so the…

The present study examined continuity of learning between face-to-face and online environments in a "blended" professional development program designed for 16 physics teachers. The program had nine face-to-face meetings as well as continuous online exchanges between them through a website. The program focused on "knowledge…

This paper reports on a study of the use of self-repair among learners of German in a task-based CMC environment. The purpose of the study was two-fold. The first goal sought to establish how potential interpretations of CMC data may be very different depending on the method of data collection and evaluation employed. The second goal was to…

Lynn Zimmerman and Anastasia Trekles Milligan examine technological communication from the perspectives of two instructors, one a digital immigrant and the other a digital native. Today's students are digital natives, reared in a world permeated by interactive technology; as a result, they are used to a model of communication that is significantly…

"Elearning2.0" promises to harness the power of three of today's most disruptive technologies: social software, elearning, and Web2.0. Our own work in this disruptive space takes as a starting premise that social networking is critical for learning: finding the right person can be more important than "scouring the web for an answer" particularly…

This study addressed the implications of delivering weekly, interactive, web-based lectures and web-based cyber-office hours to college students enrolled in an advanced, undergraduate course. These web-based lectures and office hours were available to all enrolled students (240), providing them the opportunity to meet, at the same time, at a…

This article reports the key findings of a project commissioned in 2005 by the UK Department for Education and Skills to consider the use of synchronous digital video for observation, feedback and assessment of teaching practice in post-compulsory education and training. A protocol for the remote observation of teaching is presented that was…

This study of the flow of online discussions examined how earlier messages affected later messages along five dimensions: (1) evaluations (agreement, disagreement, or unresponsive actions); (2) knowledge content (contribution, repetition, or null content); (3) social cues (positive, negative, or none); (4) personal information (number of visits);…

In response to the challenge of meeting the needs of today's learners, teachers must know how to teach and facilitate new literacies and instructional technologies. This article introduces the concept of an electronic reading workshop (ERW), in which participants read eBooks, respond to literature in digital response journals, participate in…