The purpose of this exploratory study was to analyze the writing experiences of eighth-grade students in three social studies classrooms while using a Web 2.0 online writing workspace. Participants included one social studies teacher and 69 eighth-grade students in a selective admission public high school. Furthermore, three of the eighth-grade…

Though a few empirical studies on acceptance of Web 2.0 as a social networking tool in teaching and learning exist, apparently none consider students' and faculties' views from different cultures, which is the focus of this study. This article reports on a pilot study that begins to fill this gap by investigating the perceptions, attitude and…

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…