This article reports a case study that examined dynamic patterns of interaction that two small groups (Group A and Group B) of ESL students exemplified when they performed two writing tasks: a research proposal (Task 1) and an annotated bibliography (Task 2) in a wiki site. Group A demonstrated a collective pattern in Task 1, but switched to an…

This paper documents a study investigating co-construction of knowledge by doctoral students in an online learning community. In this study 12 students participated in the coursework and thesis proposal development stages of a doctoral program offered by a research-intensive university in New Zealand. Socio-cultural and social constructivist…

This case study explores how a Chinese-American novice teacher acted as mediator in a telecollaboration with student teacher (ST) peers in the USA who designed tasks for his English as a foreign language (EFL) learners in China. The novice teacher was instrumental in mediating the student teachers' task design process by providing feedback…

This article focuses on the ways of researching the process of designing, developing, and using telecollaboration (also known as online intercultural exchange) to facilitate the learning of both linguistic and "intercultural communicative competence" (ICC) in higher education courses in different educational contexts in the United…

Despite the growing interest in examining the link between peer-peer collaborative dialogue and second language (L2) development in recent years (Swain, Brooks, & Tocalli-Beller, 2002), much of the empirical work in this regard focused on face-to-face communication, leaving the operationalization of collaborative dialogue in text-based…

This paper captures and characterises the interplay between a group of student teachers' narratives of social network practice and their emergent professional practice with technologies. Teachers on an Initial Teacher Education programme in the UK spent a semester studying a module that synthesised university-based lectures with a professional…

Under the French national project "1000 video conferencing systems for primary schools", a growing number of schools are being equipped of video conferencing systems. The assumption underlying this project is that, by putting students in a position to communicate with distant native speakers, it will enable them to improve their oral and…

This narrative interview study of a Spanish learner documents and explains apparent contradictions in a student's story when reporting on why she continues to take Spanish even when she does not like it or perform well in foreign language courses. A dialectical approach to human activity based on sociocultural theory is used to make sense of her…

This exploratory research investigates how students and professionals use social network sites (SNSs) in the setting of developing and emerging countries. Data collection included focus groups consisting of medical students and faculty as well as the analysis of a Facebook site centred on medical and clinical topics. The findings show how users,…

In this study, I investigate the digital literacy practices of adult immigrants, and their relationship with transnational processes and practices. Specifically, I focus on their conditions of access to information and communication technologies (ICTs) in their life trajectories, their conditions of learning in a community center, and their…

The Community of Inquiry Framework (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2000) has been an important contribution to the online distance education field and has been useful in providing researchers with the construct of "teaching presence". Teaching presence as described by the framework provides insight into the types of interactions…

In this paper the online construction of disability is investigated and the implications for educators working in virtual worlds are considered. Based on the analysis of data collected through interviews with deaf residents of "Second Life", it is argued that research into online identity, disability and education needs to allow room for…

The aim of this study was to identify social patterns in mobile technology mediated collaboration among distributed members of the professional distance education community. Ten participants worked for 12 weeks designing a master's programme in information sciences. The participants' mobile technology usage activity and interview data were first…

This paper reports a small-scale investigation into the differences in learning behaviour exhibited by members of an intercultural group undertaking an online course on educational enquiry in support of doctoral research in education. Differences in learning behaviour can be attributed in part to the different cultural and linguistic backgrounds…

This book focuses on what it feels like and what it means to spend substantial portions of one's everyday life in the chat rooms, support groups, and virtual communities of cyberspace. Interviewing heavy users online, and becoming one herself, the author creates and ethnographic site for inquiring into the meanings of life online, a place where…