Digital literacy involves more than the mere ability to use software or operate a digital device; it includes a large variety of complex cognitive, motor, sociological, and emotional skills, which users need in order to function effectively in digital environments. The tasks required in this context include, for example, "reading" instructions…

This case study of an online graduate course determines the message characteristics of the instructor, volunteer teaching assistants, and students in online discussions, and proposes a mentoring, coaching, and facilitating model for online discussions. The researchers developed a coding system based on the literature of mentoring, coaching, and…

You probably think instant messaging (IM) as something teenagers do to chat up friends online, whether across the street or across the world. But IM has some buttoned-down business benefits, as well as some risks you may not be aware of. Unlike e-mail, in which you fire off messages to recipients who read them when they next check their in-box,…

Teacher collegiality has been consistently highlighted in recent years as a crucial factor in the success of processes of educational change and professional development. Consequently, there is considerable interest both from researchers and practitioners, in investigating strategies capable of supporting interactions and collaborations between…

The capacity of online education to produce learning environments that are supportive of hybrid identities, complex discourses, and multiple relations among learners raises questions about the ethical response of online educators. To investigate the ethics of online education, we discuss two questions: How are identity and communication…

In this paper, we explore some of the complexities of emergent role development and group awareness among participants in an asynchronous Networked Learning discussion in a higher education context. We used content analysis to provide participant profiles for learning and tutoring processes within a group of collaborating professionals. Using…

Many youth in conflict are reaching out to the Internet for virtual support and guidance. This is a brief alert about this new risk confronting children with suicidal ideations. In most countries, mortality from suicide is the second or third leading cause of teenage deaths. The incidence of suicide attempts peaks during mid-adolescence. Evidence…

This investigation of student perceptions of mediated presence in an online college class yielded two key findings. First, perceptions of the instructor's mediated presence were significantly higher than perceptions of the other students' presence. Second, students identified a set of communication behaviors that influenced their perceptions of…

Students studying a third-year e-commerce subject experienced face-to-face and online discussions as an important part of their learning experience. The quality of the students' experiences of learning through those discussions is investigated in this study. This study uses qualitative approaches to investigate the variation in the students'…

In this article, we extend previous work with respect to interrater reliability measure of computer-mediated conferencing and suggest coding categories relevant to problem-based learning. Calculating interrater reliability agreement by using a Transcript Reliability Cleaning Percentage (TRCP) approach is simple for academics with limited…

Reflection is an important aspect of learning in groups. In collective moments of reflection, learners can share and compare their ideas with others, and by doing so can reach an articulated and personal understanding of a learning task and domain. In the research presented here, e-mail is examined as a means for reflection in the context of group…

Academic literacies research has significantly informed educational practice across a range of disciplines. But this influence has largely been through a focus on genres of written language. The growth of new information and communication technologies demands a broader view of academic literacy and how it now informs situations of learning. This…

This paper investigates how students' attitude and performance are affected by using an asynchronous learning network (ALN) to augment exams in a traditional lecture/lab course. Students used the ExamNet ALN to create, critique, and revise a database of questions that subsequently was drawn upon for course exams. Overall, students considered…

The words blog, blogger, blogging, and blogosphere have entered online technological dictionaries in the last decade. Recently, these personal electronic journals have received more attention and their increased popularity has led to their regular use in many different settings including the news, the political arena, and even in education. This…

This study examined the functions of Instant Messaging (IM) among seven youths who regularly used this digital technology in their daily lives. Grounded in theories of literacy as a social and semiotic practice, this research asked what functions IM served in participants' lives and how their social identities shaped and were shaped by this form…