Background Study: Asynchronous online discussions are vital venues for collaborative knowledge construction. However, the lack of appropriate instruction designs poses challenges in promoting deep and substantive engagement with the core subject matter. This paper explores how to enhance adult students' knowledge construction in the context of…

The recent increase in short messaging system (SMS) text messaging, often using abbreviated, non-conventional "textisms" (e.g. "2nite"), in school-aged children has raised fears of negative consequences of such technology for literacy. The current research used a paradigm developed by Dixon and Kaminska, who showed that exposure to phonetically…

Facebook and other social media have been hailed as delivering the promise of new, socially engaged educational experiences for students in undergraduate, self-directed, and other educational sectors. A theoretical and historical analysis of these media in the light of earlier media transformations, however, helps to situate and qualify this…

Virtual teamwork is a growing mode of operation within organizations through the increasing sophistication and accessibility of computer-mediated communication. The purpose of this paper was to develop a new conceptual framework and propositions to assist understanding of a new training phenomenon. The approach used was the integration of related,…

This paper describes and assesses the development of an online solution for the experiential support of distance learning by teachers. Three hundred and forty-eight randomly selected K-12 teachers participated in this pilot study using the online learning environment designed in this research. Teachers' products, surveys, and interviews were…