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…

Purpose: This study examines how Discord facilitates peer-to-peer learning in a university-level computer graphics course. It explores how the platform supports student engagement, peer feedback and mentorship in a technical, project-based setting. By analyzing survey responses and server engagement metrics, the study highlights Discord's role in…

This study analyses the perceptions of students when learning in an online language learning (OLL) environment using virtual classrooms. The main goals were to find out if students enjoy learning in this manner, if they perceive learning benefits and if they would recommend this method to others. A total of 15 OLL students participated in this…

The use of social annotation tools in higher education has attracted the attention of researchers with many studies having looked at student perceptions and attitudes to them. This paper investigates students' activity and perceptions of the social annotation tool Diigo along with the extent to which they correlate with their approaches to…

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have generated a global revolution and forced to rethink and redefine basic paradigms of the teaching learning process such as where and how does learning happen? How to develop new study environments? And what role must teachers play? Literature shows that in education ICTs facilitate efficient…

In recent years, higher learning institutions have been forced to integrate online learning into their curriculum. However, despite the increasing popularity of online learning, students' engagement and interaction within this environment remain a crucial aspect to explore. This study investigates how connected the students are during their online…

This experimental study within the scope of Anadolu University Open Education Faculty in Turkey aims to examine the effect of online group discussion techniques. In this context, the online group discussion technique, which is applied by dividing the learners into manageable groups in online learning environments, has been examined within the…

Help seeking is a self-regulated learning strategy, and peer help is an important form of interaction in online education. Yet, students often do not seek help even at the cost of lower performance. To understand the factors behind online students' commitment to peer help, this study implemented a peer-help discussion forum in an online course and…

In-person, one-to-one verbal feedback has long been prioritised in learning development. However, there are instances where written feedback proves to be a more convenient option. This study investigated the reasons why students request, and how they perceive, the written feedback they receive from a writing centre at a university in the UK. To…

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…

Collaborative learning environments that support students' problem solving have been shown to promote better decision-making, greater academic achievement, and more reasonable argumentation about controversial issues. In this research, we developed a technology-based critical discussion platform to support middle school students' argumentation,…

The design of social learning analytics (SLA) tools has become a practical means to make available learning information with a goal to improve students' regulation, reflection, and engagement in online learning. This design-based research uses the multi-method analytics to iteratively design, implement, and modify the SLA tool that makes available…

The purpose of this study is to determine whether a rich repertoire of meaningful, relevant comments posted on social media sites can facilitate or increase L2 listeners' comprehension of videos. The study utilized a quasi-experimental design with an experimental group (n = 29) that watched two YouTube videos and read comments, as well as 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.…

While much research supports the benefits of computer-mediated collaborative writing (CW) in second language (L2) classrooms, the assessment of CW has received scant attention. This study proposed an assessment scheme considering both the products and processes when assessing online synchronous CW, and explored its effects on learners'…