Engagement in online classes can promote student success but can be met with challenges associated with students feeling isolated from their peers, their instructors, or the course when learning online. Building opportunities for student interaction is one way to combat this isolation. A common activity in online courses that allows for student…

Youth with disabilities are overall less engaged in extracurricular, community, and social activities than their peers without disabilities. Specifically, youth with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD; e.g., autism, intellectual disability) are less likely to participate in extracurricular or social activities compared to peers with…

Increasing use of the Internet has led to a proliferation of online communication and information sharing media. These media, each with its own set of affordances and limitations, are thought to encourage new ways to communicate. Interlocutors refashion general English into abbreviated and often pictographic representations of existing concepts.…

In the first case study, a piece of recent BBC news reported on Chinese netizens leaving random but funny comments on a Western website attracted people's attention. A closer look at those comments reveals that understanding the Chinese netizens' comments requires metaphorical and cultural knowledge. This study starts with theoretical explanations…

The transition from preservice teacher to classroom teacher occurs rapidly, requiring that teacher candidates assimilate into the field quickly. In order to do so, these teachers must demonstrate appropriate language development as it relates to the teaching profession. Not only do novice teachers need to be able to articulate what they and their…

Introduction: Little is known about how group cohesion develops in online support group communities. Previous research suggests that message content, self-disclosure, and emotional expression may be central to this process. The purpose of this study was to identify linguistic and qualitative characteristics of participants' messages that…