Describes a study of graduate students that examined how online privacy affects social presence in online learning environments and whether three types of computer-mediated communication, email, bulletin board, and real-time discussion, affect online privacy. Results of analysis of variance revealed that the correlation between social presence and…

Examines the experiences of an instructor and teaching assistant who employed online communication strategies in a graduate seminar to deliberately foster the development of a virtual learning community using synchronous and asynchronous online events. Compared their reflections with what the student reported about their learning in online…

Examines online discussions using lexical scoring techniques. Suggests that online conversations become more sophisticated as learners interact with each other over the duration of a course, that collaboration among learners fosters the social construction of knowledge and that evidence of such knowledge-building activities is embodied in the tone…

Reports the results of a case study at the Open University (Great Britain) which shows that the learning environment for distance education students of mathematics can be substantially improved by the use of electronic communication for communication with students or teachers. Future plans are also discussed. (Author/LRW)

Describes the nature of online chats in terms of how graduate students structured their conversations in online group discussions, and how they participated and conversed in and across concurrent conversations. Characteristics of the computer medium contributed to the conversational structures and the kinds of structures affected interactivity and…

An Internet user talks about her experiences as a result of a graduate-level class, "Telecommunications in the Classroom," at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Discussion focuses on the Internet community and the various kinds of talk on the Internet, including bulletin boards, real time, creative, political, expert, international,…

Despite criticism, lecture continues to be a major instructional method in higher education. Discusses characteristics of effective lectures and variations of lecture presentation using electronic mail, multimedia, the World Wide Web, and CD-ROMs. Argues that lectures provide a sense of place and community and that technology can mediate human…

Presents a case study of a year-long collaboration over the Internet between a systems analyst from Sweden and a technical communicator from the United States that resulted in a conference paper. Describes the progress of the collaboration, the major difficulties encountered, and the authors' conclusion about its success. Suggests how to improve…

Suggests that effective advising practices can be found on a continuum including prescriptive advising, developmental advising, and counseling. Discusses technological tools for positive intervention with students (such as e-mail), and addresses developmental theories, use of narrative, defense mechanisms, and reframing. (EV)

Presents the case for using chat (synchronous online communication) in the language classroom from the point of view of a teacher with positive experiences and a balanced awareness of the potential of the medium. Discuses how to integrate chat in language learning, examines the advantages and disadvantages of chat to the language learner, and…

Examines whether computer mediated communication can help learners improve their oral proficiency by comparing the performance of three groups of learners (a control group, a synchronous CMC group, and an asynchronous CMc group) on three oral discussion tasks during the course of a semester. Number of idea units and words, lexical richness and…

Presents two experiments to address the questions of if and how normative social influence operates in anonymous computer-mediated communication and human-computer interaction. Finds that the perception of interaction partner (human vs. computer) moderated the group conformity effect such that the undergraduate student subjects expressed greater…

A study of registered nurses participating in an Internet-based cardiac education program included analysis of online discussion forums. Comments about evidence-based theory and discipline-specific wiring indicated that the environment facilitated online scholarly discourse. Interactions provided moral, technical, and academic support to…

This study examined the use of online argumentation scaffolds to engage and support coherent argumentation. Participants were students in an undergraduate economics course. Results showed that providing a constraint-based argumentation scaffold during group problem-solving activities increased the generation of coherent arguments and resulted in…

Discusses the use of online teaching assistants or "course wizards," employed at Mercy College (New York) not only to tutor students who are experiencing difficulty but also to facilitate discussion and to model the role of a successful student. Presents a discussion of the current crisis in higher education in America and of how online…