This study explores the discursive practices the researcher utilizes during recurring asynchronous writing consultations to engender mutually adjusted and context-driven interactions meaningful to writers' development during virtual tutoring. While earlier studies have critiqued asynchronous tutoring for its inability to efficiently promote the…

The purpose of this research was to identify students' views on the use of WhatsApp in an online postgraduate course at a South African Open Distance eLearning institution during the COVID-19 pandemic. During this time, lecturers and students relied on their mobile devices to communicate using different tools, including WhatsApp. Although it is a…

Rooted in the Greek tradition of Socrates and Aristotle, debate pedagogy utilizes the interpersonal 'heat' that comes with a clash in opinions to engage students in learning. Well-structured classroom debates can engage students, give them agency in their learning, and challenge them to view the layered perspectives that lie under the surface of…

In recent years, 'Facebook' is considered a widely used social network site, used by a vast cross section of persons worldwide, regardless of age, job and education level. Facebook was commenced in February 2004 as a social networking site for Harvard students and expanded to all over the world, thus offering an extensive attain within a defined…

The current study compared the effects of discussion forum and interteach activities on quiz performance in an asynchronous master's level course using an alternating treatments design. The study included five participants. Participants engaged in interteaching in half of the weeks, and in the alternate weeks, they contacted the discussion forum…

This paper reports on an innovation of allowing higher education students to select their preferred mode of feedback. The aim was to investigate how a sample of 35 postgraduate students perceived and experienced self-selected feedback mode (audio, video or written) as part of an online research subject. Participants were invited to complete a…

Understanding best practices in online learning environments has become an important area of research in recent years, both before and during the pandemic. Video feedback has been studied as a way to enhance instructor social presence and create classroom community, though more research is needed to understand these constructs in various contexts.…

Over the last decade, the prevalence of online courses has continued to grow, and students in higher education are being offered increased access to technology and communication tools in online learning programs. This action research study analyzed the impact of two distinct types of online course instruction (100% asynchronous and weekly online…

COVID-19 has changed the landscape of education forever. Online education has become the new normal for many graduate students with the pandemic outbreak. While online education is more cost-effective, there is little research on how online education has impacted graduate students academically. This study aimed to assess graduate students'…

The adoption of mobile apps in teaching and learning stimulates learner motivation and engagement, and as a result, can enrich the overall learning experience. This study explores how Viber messenger, an instant mobile messaging application, can be used to foster learner engagement and online social presence among blended learning students. A case…

Few studies have examined the effects of using mediation tools (e.g., collaborative dialogs and online searches) on graduate students' academic writing in a computer-mediated collaborative writing environment. This study investigated what types of co-constructed writing knowledge the graduate students generated from using the mediation tools to…

The focus of this study was to evaluate the use of the Blackboard™ App by students in traditional and online learning environments. The participants in this study were students in a first-year college orientation course, and undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in educational technology (EDT) courses, all at a 4-year public university in…

Creating an engaging online course where students feel part of an online community can be challenging even for the most experienced online educator. Online discussions are a common tool used to connect students in online courses, but it is often limited to text-based posts. This international research study compared the use of text-based versus…

Online discussion boards are a standard learning management system (LMS) instructional tool used in the emerging online learning pedagogy. This pilot study examined an innovative approach that differs from how discussion boards have been commonly used. Using a retrospective, cross-sectional design, we evaluated the effect of shifting from…

In this researcher's experience, online students very often ask questions about returned assignments, the answers to which are clearly articulated on Blackboard Learn (the learning management system (LMS) utilized at the site of this study). This raised the question of how much time and effort online students actually put into reading the…