This study revisits the Carpenter and Krutka survey of how and why educators use Twitter, through exploring one of Twitter's oldest education hashtags: #Edchat. From October 1, 2017, to June 5, 2018, more than 1.2 million unique #Edchat tweets were collected from approximately 200,000 different tweeters. Machine coding was used to answer…

Drawing on findings from two studies, this article focuses on the expectations of students and teachers in higher education, when learning via asynchronous online discussions. In particular, this synthesis highlights a divergence of expectations. The first study investigated how students and teachers experienced asynchronous online discussion…

The potential of social media to give insight into the dynamic evolution of public conversations, and into their reactive and constitutive role in political activities, has to date been underdeveloped. While topic modeling can give static insight into the structure of a conversation, and keyword volume tracking can show how engagement with a…

The Arnold Mitchem Fellows Program (AMF) is a co-curricular, undergraduate research program where first-generation, low-income, and underrepresented students learn about basic research skills in preparation for future undergraduate research opportunities and graduate school outside of their traditional for credit classes. This academic year-long…

The purpose of this study was to further our understanding of the use of Twitter for promoting reflective learning. Specifically, this study investigated how students participate in Twitter-supported activities, what type of knowledge are manifested when Twitter is used to reflect on the course readings, and how students perceive the…

The study investigates the effect of delivery types of (virtual and face-to-face) collaborative learning environments on the development of trust among group members in a graduate course. For this aim, a quasi-experimental, non-equivalent group comparison was used. It comprised a total of 64 participants -- 21 in the face-to-face group, and 43 in…

The purpose of this study is to determine the effects of structured discussion by giving participants in online discussion groups different roles in transactional distance perception and knowledge sharing behaviors. In the study, a quasi-experimental design was utilized with pretest and posttest control groups. The study was conducted with 111…

Digital and social media have grown exponentially to become highly influential spheres of public communication -- increasingly crowded, contested, and corrupted, and increasingly in need of scholarly engagement. As public debate is conducted more through social and digital media, alternative metrics ('altmetrics') that are generated from social…

This study examines student discussion fora in a Master's programme. Previous student evaluations of the course highlighted the students' dissatisfaction with the technology chosen for communication and recommended the use of Facebook instead. In this article, we raise the following question: 'How do various digital discussion fora engage students…

Employers provide their interpretation of the meaning of "communication skills" in this qualitative study of 22 managers. Employers understand written communication to be types of documents, a way to write, and a mode of communication. Oral communication skills mean a style of interacting, presenting, and conducting meetings. Visual…

Online interaction has been associated with positive outcomes, academically and psychologically. Regarding the latter, social connectedness has been recognised as an important outcome on the basis of its link to subjective well-being and course satisfaction. In adult educational settings, how online interaction can foster social connectedness has…

Suicide prevention strategies include attempts to control information young people receive about suicide, but digital communication provides young people with alternative forums to engage with this issue. This article explores the constraints and opportunities for youth to talk about suicide in New Zealand. A thematic analysis of data from focus…

Following the pioneering work of Randy Garrison and colleagues, online teachers in the US and internationally see their discussion boards as communities of inquiry (CoI) which promote sustained communication and higher-level learning. The CoI approach to online discussions is based on John Dewey's conception of education in which teachers and…

The present study attempts to explore the effects of WhatsApp and Pen/Paper dialogue journal writing techniques on university students' writing performance. 45 freshmen students from Sociology department of State University in Turkey, participated in the current study forming three homogenous groups of 15, namely WhatsApp dialogue journaling…

A sense of community among learners is recognized as contributing to positive student outcomes. Synchronous learning opportunities may serve as one way to create a sense of community among online learners. Findings are shared from a mixed-method study that examined the impact of synchronous discussion sessions on students' sense of community, as…