Crowdsourcing is an emerging web-enabled method to gain external expertise and ideas on tasks or projects. Mass contributions from the crowd are the key to the success and effectiveness of crowdsourcing. University students are important potential users and promising sources of contributions in the crowdsourcing context. However, little is known…

Knowledge building occurs when students work together and participate in idea-centred discussions where they share information and create knowledge collectively. This research explores whether knowledge building in knowledge forums using English as the "lingua franca" can facilitate in foreign language learning. An analysis was done on…

Although the potential of group awareness (GA) tools on triggering student engagement has been recognized in literature, little is known about the effects of GA tools on student engagement with peer feedback in the context of online collaborative language learning. This quasi-experimental study with 86 college students explored how GA tools…

The present study (n = 357) investigates the effects of collaborative note-taking behaviors on learning performance and note quality. To conceptualize collaborative note-taking, the present study introduces the collaborative encoding-storage paradigm, where collaborative writing behaviors are viewed as types of collaborative encoding and the…

Computer supported collaborative writing (CSCW), due to the potential to enhance online collaborative writing performance, has received more and more attention in educational settings in recent years. However, the lack of social presence results in learners not being able to construct group awareness to reduce participation rate and even appear…

Informal learning in blended and online settings plays an increasingly important role in the continuous professional development of individuals. Yet, how do individuals engage into these types of activities? We argue that social capital theory can provide valuable insights into how people behave and decide to take part in (in)formal learning.…

Digital technologies allow teachers and students to experience new pedagogical approaches leveraging on interactivity and collaboration. Among the available techniques, digital storytelling (DST) has been usually regarded as an activity that can both enrich the teaching practices and foster students' active behaviour. This paper aims at analysing…

In light of systematic evidence that extroverts are disadvantaged in the classroom, we examined whether an online environment assignment that builds on extroverts' character strengths can increase their overall course satisfaction. Based on previous studies demonstrating that extroverts are energized by feedback from outsiders, we asked 180…

This study proposes a Wiki-based collaborative writing approach to the writing process for EFL (English as a foreign language) learners. A five-stage computer-mediated collaborative writing project including collaborative planning, partitioned drafting, peer-revising, peer-editing, and individual publishing was blended with on-campus English…