This article discusses the pedagogical implications of using Internet chat in simulations for second-language learners. The author reviews several published simulations and explains how to use Internet chat effectively in the classroom. The author also relays her experience with using Internet chat with the BULLYING simulation.

Technology-dependent teaching strategies can exploit the currently underused capacities of media-rich Web 2.0 technology to enable student engagement and support higher order thinking. In particular, Web 2.0 technologies support learners' opportunities to coconstruct ideas/knowledge and ways in which they can add their own interpretations in to…

This article reports on key aspects of a theory generative study into social presence in text-based online learning environments. The focus of the article is the nature of social presence as experienced by online learners in those environments. Employing a collective case study design, the study accessed online learners' experience-based heuristic…

Isolation and a lack of support contribute to high attrition rates among novice teachers. Computer-mediated communication (CMC) is one mechanism for providing anytime, anywhere support to teachers. Previous research in this area has focused on structuring such discussions to encourage cognitive engagement, yet little attention has been paid to how…

The national science standards, along with prominent researchers, call for increased focus on scientific argumentation in the classroom. Over the past decade, researchers have developed sophisticated online science learning environments to support these opportunities for scientific argumentation. Assessing the quality of dialogic argumentation,…

In this paper, we explore the idea of weak ties in networked learning. We go back to the original conception of the strength of weak ties and relate this to Bakhtin and a dialogic understanding of networked learning. These theoretical ideas are applied to the examination of two networked settings in which educational leaders exchange ideas and…

Educators' use of multimedia enhances the online learning experience by presenting content in a combination of audio, video, graphics, and text in various formats to address a range of student learning styles. Many personnel preparation programs in visual impairments have turned to online education to serve students over a larger geographic area.…

Spring term of 2005, three Web-assisted undergraduate mathematics courses were taught at the University of Idaho: Math 235 Mathematics for Elementary Teachers 1; Math 236 Mathematics for Elementary Teachers II; and Math 391 Modern Geometry. While the content of these courses differ, they share common goals: to foster a deep understanding of…

Numerous studies have affirmed the value of asynchronous online communication as a learning resource. Several investigations, however, have indicated that discussions in asynchronous environments are often neither interactive nor coherent. The research reported sought to develop an enhanced understanding of interactional coherence, argumentation,…

Business organizations are using blogs as a conversational technology to help build a community of practice where knowledge exchange and sharing actively take place. This case study examines how Macromedia used blogs to build its developers' communities and become more organizationally effective. Four major types of interactions between the…

Digital literacy includes a range of abilities from basic computing skills to the creation of multimodal texts. This literature review examines eleven articles that track the digital literacy practices of youth populations or individuals between the ages of 12 and 17. It describes the practices of these individuals through three perspectives,…

The paper presents a case study of the educational exploitation of group blogging for the implementation of a "learning by design" activity. More specifically, a group of students used a blog as a communication and information management tool in the University course of ICT-enhanced Geometry learning activities. The analysis of the designed…

This study examines the effectiveness of asynchronous communication in facilitating historical discussions among adolescents, with a specific focus on the ways in which teachers can affect this process. Threaded discussion board posts and teacher-student email correspondence from a five-week American history summer course are analyzed and…

This study investigates how 15 Design & Technology (D&T) students (aged 15 years) participated in three stages of the design process in a technology mediated environment. The three stages are named "Situation," "Ideation" and "Development." The learning process is mediated by "Knowledge Forum" (KF),…

This article reports on a study concerning secondary school students' meaning-making of socio-scientific issues in Information and Communication Technology-mediated settings. Our theoretical argument has as its point of departure the analytical distinction between "doing science" and "doing school," as two different forms of…