Current recommendations for teaching increasingly call for meaningmaking and discussion (Walker, 1996). However, new teachers are seldom given instruction or guidelines for creating an environment that nurtures or encourages dialogue or discussion that is not teacher-centered (Milbrandt, 2002). Most art teachers are familiar with questioning…

The one feature that most distinguishes the Internet from any previous communications medium is its interactivity. The Net is a two-way street. One gives, and one receives. Savvy organizations and individuals have long recognized this, making it easy for people to contact them and diligently respond to e-mail. Organizations on the vanguard have…

The value of an academic conference lies in its ability to engage attendees in ongoing scholarly conversations. Such engagement depends on presentations that are intellectually sound and effectively delivered, but it also requires thoughtful participation by discussants, session chairs, and audience members. Shared understanding of the…

Communities are telling inspiring stories about what happens when they use public dialogue and action to involve large numbers of citizens--with the greatest diversity possible--in a search for common ground to resolve tough issues like race, community police relations, and education reform. These efforts, often called "study circles," are…

The aim of this study is to investigate what is reciprocal understanding in virtual web-based interaction and what does it consist of. The context of this study was an international web-based pre-service teacher education (N=116) course. The study is based on an idea of shared cognition and reciprocal understanding, in particular. It is assumed…

Purpose--To illuminate the importance of the communal deliberative process, as a form of collective thinking, in overcoming the growing complexities of schoolwork in uncertain and turbulent environments. Design/methodology/approach-- Introduces the notion of deliberation as evolved from Dewey's moral theory, the essential phases and elements of…

This article describes the survey of the usability of a novel content-based video retrieval system. This system combines video streaming and an electronic bulletin board system (BBS). Comments submitted to the BBS are used to index video data. Following the development of the prototype system an experimental survey with ten subjects was performed.…

Blogging as a practice can be defined as different things to different people. There are those that keep personal online diaries to keep friends, family, and total strangers abreast of what's going on in their daily lives; news blogs that keep a daily or weekly digest of current events; politically oriented blogs that report daily events…

The article described a framework for analyzing the discourse of the classroom. It highlights the differences between traditional classroom discussions and discourse within learning communities.

Recently it has become commonplace in America for commentators and the public to use the terms "red" and "blue" to refer to perceived cultural differences in America and American politics. Although a political divide may exist in America today, these particular terms are inaccurate and reductive. This article presents research from social…

Prior research indicates that using democratic modeling in a classroom can increase students' class participation, self-esteem, senses of belonging, and senses of responsibility toward the school, but that the effect can be short-termed if other classrooms are not so organized. However, little research examines the impact of flexible scheduling.…

This article introduces a simulation on bullying that consists of five phases. In the briefing phase, the participants answer a questionnaire about bullying. After they complete the questionnaire, they move on to read simulated news articles (the second phase). Once they finish reading the articles, the participants take part in a talk show. This…

This article explores the social network of learning beyond a functional understanding of social relations. It describes and interprets the realities of networked learning within a particular postgraduate course in an English university setting. It draws attention to some of the limitations of the increasing interest in the use of social network…

This article reports research from an innovative university-secondary school partnership, the Web Pen Pals Project, which pairs preservice English teachers in online chat rooms with local middle school students to talk about young adult literature. The analyses reported here center on the type of dialogue that results during such online…

Studies have shown that electronic discussion can be used effectively to teach critical thinking and can achieve greater understanding. The use of online discussions is common in polytechnics and universities, and many schools in Singapore have begun to introduce online forums for discussion beyond the classroom. This research investigates lower…