Creating an online learning environment that engages learners beyond the given course period is challenging. Open, participant-driven discussion forums, where participants are provided with greater agency on what to learn, how to learn, and whom to learn with, have a unique potential to help learners engage in learning experiences based on their…

This study examines emotion regulation strategies in written digital discussions revolving around controversial issues. Twenty-five undergraduate students, placed in five study groups, took part in written digital discussions. Two groups were chosen to participate in the study. Participants were interviewed and were asked to read the transcript of…

Previous research showed that the parents acknowledged the technology's benefits for their young children's learning, however, they are still worried about the extended screen time, lack of physical activity and lack of social interactions. To address these concerns, we developed Kid Space to enable pedagogically appropriate technology use for…

This systematic literature review explores the implementation and effectiveness of active learning approaches in online training environments. The rapid growth of online education necessitates strategies that enhance learner engagement and improve educational outcomes. The review identifies various active learning techniques, such as discussions,…

Web-based writing tools, which allow multiple writers to share and edit the same document, have attracted significant attention as computer-assisted language learning tools in the past decade. However, how L2 writers contribute to the shared document as a social action for interacting with other cowriters remains underexplored in L2 research.…

The study presented in this article explores the ways in which discursive-technologies shape interaction in "digitally-mediated" educational settings in terms of affordances and constraints for the participants. Our multi-scale sociocultural-dialogical analysis of the interactional order in the online sessions of an "Italian for…

With its growing number of users, Second Life as one of the avatar-based 3D virtual worlds has received attention from educators and researchers in various fields to explore its pedagogical benefits. Given the increasing implementation of technologies broadly in much instruction, this study investigated how ESL students negotiated meanings in…

Within the European TILA project a case study was carried out where pupils from schools in Finland and the Netherlands engaged in debating sessions using the 3D virtual world of OpenSim once a week for a period of 5 weeks. The case study had two main objectives: (1) to study the impact that the discussion tasks undertaken in a virtual environment…

This study used a sequential set-up to investigate the consecutive effects of timing of supportive information presentation (information before vs. information during the learning task clusters) in interactive digital learning materials (IDLMs) and type of collaboration (personal discussion vs. online discussion) in computer-supported…

In this paper we examine how two groups of middle school students arrive at shared understandings of and solutions to mathematical problems. Our data consists of logs of student participation in the Virtual Math Teams (VMT) system as they work on math problems. The project supports interaction both through chat and through a virtual whiteboard. We…

Non-participation and poor quality participation in online environments is often discussed in the literature. Interaction and engagement in online discussions are critical for understanding and constructing new knowledge. In this case study, we examined messages posted by graduate students in four online debates for quantity and quality. The…

This study examined some of the methodological approaches used by students to construct causal maps in order to determine which approaches help students understand the underlying causes and causal mechanisms in a complex system. This study tested the relationship between causal understanding (ratio of root causes correctly/incorrectly identified,…

Interactive relationships in online learning communities can influence the process and quality of knowledge building. The aim of this study is to empirically investigate the relationships between network structures and social knowledge building in an asynchronous writing environment through discussion forums in a learning management system. The…

This study examined the overarching issue of how temporal transitions, specifically duration of message flow, affects momentum or wellness of discussion in an asynchronous forum. Quantitative data representing time indicators in discussion activity included posting patterns related to duration (density, intensity, latency, and response count),…

This paper seeks to contribute new insight to the process of learning during idea generation (i.e., brainstorming) by proposing and evaluating two alternative operationalizations for learning, which we refer to as connection-based learning and multi-perspective learning, during a carefully designed idea-generation task in the earth-sciences…