Family engagement is critical to student achievement, and the essential importance of family-school partnerships has become even more evident during the current sociohistorical context inclusive of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement. As such, it is imperative that pre-service teachers (PSTs) are equipped to build effective…

Background: Research into digital practices and cultures repeatedly calls attention to the complexity of communication spaces and meaning-making practices. With the blurring of boundaries between online and offline, these entangled practices involve the interweaving of human, material, semiotic, and discursive practices. Purpose: This introductory…

3D Virtual Worlds are being used for education and training purposes in a cross-disciplinary way. However, its widespread adoption, particularly in formal learning contexts, is far from being a reality due a broad range of technological challenges. In this reflection paper, our main goal is to argue why and how identity federation should be…

"iMOOC101: Mastering American e-Learning" is a Coursera-based, free, massive online course aimed at preparing non-U.S. students to succeed in regular, for-credit, online classes in American universities. The course is also intended to help foreign-born professionals integrate into virtual work environments in U.S.-based companies. The…

Intercultural simulations are instructional activities that engage and challenge participants with experiences integral to encounters between people of more than one cultural group. Simulations designed specifically to support intercultural encounters have been in use since the 1970s. This article examines the conceptual bases for intercultural…

Background: Immersive virtual worlds are one of a range of different platforms that can be grouped under the concept of mediated environments, i.e. environments that create a metaphorical space in which participants can position themselves and be embodied. Synthesising the literatures concerning the various mediated environment technologies…

In this paper we examine the transferability of the Jigsaw and Fishbowl collaborative learning techniques to the Second Life platform. Our aim is to assess the applicability of Second Life for collaborative learning by developing virtual tools and metaphors and exploiting the representational richness of this novel medium. In order to enhance the…

The authors use their own experiences with social software to argue for the need for caution in its uses in education. They particularly draw attention to difficulties in engagement, the effects on identity, an emphasis on superficial issues, lack of coherence, and problems with authenticity and trust. While Facebook and Second Life appear to have…

This article presents a qualitative case study that uses discourse and social semiotic analysis methods in order to examine the rhetorical construction of fictional personas within an online role play used for learning in the college classroom. Of special focus are the differing patterns of semiotic resource use (for example, language and…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the usability (effectiveness, efficiency and user satisfaction) of e-feedback interfaces. The experiment compares a traditional visual approach with a multimodal approach in order to determine the impact of multimodal metaphors upon the user's understanding, reasoning and engagement with the…

Background: Numerous surveys, articles, ephemera and online information sources indicate that "Second Life" has been the predominant virtual world, for educational purposes, in UK universities for the latter half of the 2000s. However, the infrastructure required to operate "Second Life" presents a number of technical concerns…

Imaginary worlds have been devised by artists and commentators for centuries to focus satirical attention on society's problems. The increasing sophistication of three-dimensional graphics software is generating comparable "virtual worlds" for educational usage. Can such worlds play a satirical role suggesting developments in distance…

This paper puts forward a series of theoretical underpinnings and design considerations for embodying emotional and aesthetic aspects of virtual (reality) and learning environment (VLEs) in support of ubiquitous teaching, studying and learning. The authors assert that a VLE should be considered as an interactive and sensation-producing affordances…

This paper examines the effective deployment of conversational agents in virtual worlds from the perspective of researchers/practitioners in cognitive psychology, computing science, learning technologies and engineering. From a cognitive perspective, the major challenge lies in the coordination and management of the various channels of information…

The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive review of how technology has been used to enhance or replace field experiences in preservice teacher preparation programs, and discuss the benefits and limitations of traditional and technology-enhanced/virtual field experience approaches. In this paper, three types of technology-enhanced…