Many teachers are organizing interactive Skype sessions. By taking advantage of Skype to allow students to interact with guests outside the classroom, sometimes thousands of miles away, teachers from all over the world are creating new opportunities for students to make academic gains in a motivating way. In this article, the author discusses the…

A social network recruitment campaign was prepared where applicants for information technology bachelor studies at a Norwegian university college were invited to join a Facebook group related to the subject of interest. Each Facebook group was assigned a contact person who received training to facilitate activities and in answering questions from…

In large parts of the developed world, increased connectivity has led to changes in the communicational landscape. Meaning-making associated with new media disturbs established ways of describing and defining literacy, leading some academics and educators to identify "new literacies" as a distinct break from traditional and predominantly…

In organizations of any size, communication, collaboration and informal learning among employees can be critical contributors to meeting goals and succeeding in the marketplace (Mason & Lefrere, 2003). When done well, over time these groups of employees form loose bonds and evolve into communities of practice that promote shared learning and…

This dissertation examines the demarcation line of school authority between off campus conduct and on campus discipline involving student cyber speech. A lack of clear direction from the Supreme court has left school administrators wading through a quagmire of advice and disparate lower court rulings regarding their authority to punish students…

This descriptive case study includes both new principals and their mentor principals engaged in e-mentoring activities. This study examines the components of a school district's mentoring program in order to make sense of e-mentoring technology. The literature review highlights mentoring practices in education, and also draws upon e-mentoring…

If the word "bullying" makes you think of one child picking on another in the schoolyard, it is time to update your image of how students bully. While the face-to-face harassment certainly still exists, new ways of bullying have emerged. With the easy access to cell phones, instant messaging, mobile devices, social networking websites,…

This paper describes a platform for administering questionnaires on smart-phones and tablets. The project arises from the need of acquiring data for monitoring the outcomes of different homecare interventions. First a model has been defined for representing questionnaires, able to support adaptivity in the dialog with the user and enforce some…

This study investigates the interactional work involved in ratifying mutual participation in online, multiparty, voice-based chat rooms. The purpose of this article is to provide a preliminary sketch of how talk and participation is managed in a spoken communication environment that comprises interactants who are not physically copresent but are…

There is a wealth of research on computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) that is neglected in computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) research. CSCW research is concerned with contextual factors, however, that may strongly influence collaborative learning processes as well, such as task characteristics, team formation, team members'…

Based on a corpus of 296 authentic business emails produced in computer-mediated business communication from 7 Chinese international trade enterprises, this paper addresses the language strategy applied in CMC (Computer-mediated Communication) by examining the use of hedges. With the emergence of internet, a wider range of hedges are applied…

Computer mediated communication (CMC) offers new opportunities for learners to create communities of inquiry that allow for more active learning. This paper reports on the use of a Learning Management System (LMS) as a tool to facilitate students' writing and critical thinking skills. The primary data for the study came from students'…

This "self-ethnography" complements the other articles in this special issue by spotlighting a set of key challenges facing international research teams. The study is focused on the relationship between information and communication technology (ICT)-based collaboration and research team dynamics. Our diverse team, drawn from researchers…

Academic distance learning programs have gained popularity and added to the demand for online library services. Librarians are now conducting instruction for distance learning students beyond their traditional work. Technology advancements have enhanced the delivery mode in distance learning across academic disciplines. Online conference tools…

Asynchronous online discussion forums are common in blended learning models and are popular with students. A previous report has suggested that participation in these forums may assist student learning in a gross anatomy subject but it was unclear as to whether more academically able students post more often or whether participation led to…