The move to digital, and now hybrid, education has defamiliarised teaching practices and unsettled experiences of what it means to be and to engage at university. In this article, I examine what new questions evolving teaching and learning practices provoke with regards rethinking notions of the body, and concepts of presence and absence.…

E-learning platforms are becoming more and more important and they are gradually changing people's learning ways. In the e-learning platforms, users actively create and join their favorite communities to share their questions and ideas. With the increase of users of e-learning platforms, the number of communities is increasing dramatically. In…

One of the main characteristics of distance education is the absence of face-to-face interaction with instructor and learner as well as learner and learner. The purpose of this article is to explore the issue of social presence and the various innovations used to foster a social presence with distance education programs.

Background: Social contact and belonging are among the most important keys to health and wellbeing, especially for the most vulnerable during the current global pandemic. Method: This reflective paper describes the authors' efforts to sustain an online version of a well-established community psychology-oriented group for men with learning…

Being a family carer can be rewarding but can also lead to mental and physical exhaustion as well as feelings of social exclusion and isolation. Research has shown that the use of the Internet and online forums can provide an immediate place to find information and reassurance and that forum use can be an empathetic place to share experiences and…

Group projects are an important part of many educational programs. In these projects, groupware tools like shared workspaces, shared editors, and synchronous or asynchronous communication tools (video conferencing, chat, email, forum) are often utilized. For synchronous collaboration, video conferencing systems are often used since they allow for…

Sociocultural theories of learning and sociocultural theories of technology are explored as a way to view and to map the complex interactions that can occur in online professional discussions. The case of synchronous online moderation meetings are used as an example of the combination of variables that can impact on the development of shared…

This article documents the experiences of three early career academics trying to establish a network of early career academics (ECAs) in a middle-ranked university in Australia. The changing context of academia means that ECAs face considerable challenges in understanding and negotiating effective career paths. Some of the issues encountered…

It is argued that online discussion is a useful tool for creating opportunities for learning in teacher education. In a project designed to improve the practicum in rural areas, researchers placed pre-service teachers (PSTs) in two different moderated online discussion forums: an unstructured personal blog space and a structured threaded…

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to better understand the ways in which K-8 teachers from a semirural, predominantly white district perceive their responsibilities to work toward anti-racism, as well as to learn more about how the teachers can be supported as they work to overcome the challenges facing teachers in these fraught times in this…

A large proportion of students in higher education report feeling bored during lectures, for example, Mann and Robinson (2009) put this figure at 60 per cent. This short article reviews our experiences of using a simple, free Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) service, Skype, to enhance the interest and engagement of students by holding a…

Online discussion boards are commonplace in higher education courses, intended either to supplement or in certain cases, replace face-to-face conversations. This article considers discussion boards from the perspective of David Kantor and Otto Scharmer's generative conversational models. It goes on to establish a rationale for applying these…

The authors critically analyze how the concept of the drama triangle--part of the game theory associated with transactional analysis--can be used by post secondary instructors teaching online to build a sense of community and decrease students' dependence on instructors in discussion forums. The article begins with an overview of sense of…

This book supports teaching and learning through online discussion in higher education contexts such as universities, colleges, and polytechnics. It presents an explicit focus on popular asynchronous discussion tools and methods, with attention to disciplinary variety and key principles for successful learning-oriented discussion. It tackles the…

This review examines research of computer-mediated small group discussion of literature. The goal of this review is to explore several instructional formats for integrating print-based and new literacies skills. First, the theoretical foundations for the shift from teacher-led to student led discussion are outlined. Research exploring ways in…