Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the construction of virtual community identities among Chinese internet users and their motivation for lurking, posting or flaming. Design/methodology/approach: Taking Qiangguo Luntan as an online study site the authors apply an ethnographic approach for the research, a method that is becoming more…

Argumentative activity has been found beneficial for construction of knowledge and evaluation of information in some conditions. Many theorists in CSCL and some empiricists have suggested that graphical representations may help in this endeavor. In the present study, we examine effects of type of ontology and of synchronicity in students that…

Much has been written about the promise of online learning environments for higher education, and there is a rapidly growing body of research examining the nature of learning and interaction in such courses. This article presents a discourse analysis of an interactive, text-based, online, graduate education course, designed and taught according to…

A schism now exists between Blacks and Jews in the United States, 2 groups that were strong allies during the civil rights movement. The authors describe the historical antecedents of and contributing factors to this schism and present information on and lessons learned from 2 Black-Jewish dialogues that were conducted.

The trend toward increased technology in traditional higher education classrooms has been met with both optimism and criticism. One of the major criticisms of technology in the college classroom is that it does little, if anything, to improve student learning. Taking this view of technology into account, this study examined how the use of…

This paper reports on the students' experiments of using blogs to encourage themselves to do pre-class reading assignment and reflections after class. The sample in the study included five ESL (English as a Second Language) graduate students in a course of teaching methods, and 90 software engineering students in an undergraduate information…

Web 2.0 communication tools have considerable promise for supporting collaborative learning. But there is a need for research examining learners' and teachers' experiences of the newer communication tools, such as wikis, in comparison with well-established tools, such as discussion forums. This paper reports on an initiative where distance…

The rapid growth in online and virtual learning opportunities has created culturally diverse classes and corporate training sessions. Instruction for these learning opportunities must adjust to meet participant needs. "Online Course Management: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications" is a comprehensive reference source for the…

A collaborative faculty project was something of a failure for one instructor. About a year ago, the instructor invited everyone in the department to meet in her office every third week to talk about teaching literature and composition. The immediate concern was the use of writing in three general education literature courses that had been…

The Carribean Child Development Centre conducted a 2-year research project to provide a socio-historical perspective on roles of Caribbean men within the family, and to survey and describe attitudes and behaviors of a cross-section of men in Jamaica. An 8-week series of discussions, designed for a maximum of 15 men and 15 women, was organized to…

A brief review of the literature on the various approaches which have been used to help children formulate their emerging attitudes towards reading and literature helps clarify the goal of creating lifelong readers. Samway (1991), discussing literature study circles, relates that students read the book they have selected, answer assigned…

The overall theme of the round-table discussions at a conference of the Canadian Council of Teachers of German (CCTG) was the cooperation of regional teacher associations and creation of a professional development network. An introductory section describes the project through which the round-table discussions were organized, the structure of the…

The consequences of alcohol and drug abuse on college campuses across the United States has been well documented. Designed to bring the problems related to drug and alcohol abuse into focus, this training manual is a compilation of seminars created to allow facilitators (counselors, professionals, trainers) to train students as peer educators. The…

A project was conducted to incorporate the Kettering Foundation's National Issues Forums (NIFs) into two senior citizen centers in Pennsylvania. The NIFs provide a process for sharing thoughts and opinions about areas of pressing national concern in an open exchange of all participants' opinions. An inservice training of senior center staff on…

This paper presents a study that examined the effectiveness of a proposed teaching improvement process, referred to as practice-centered inquiry, by using faculty discussion groups involving a total of 29 professors, and formal classroom research studies, one of which is reported. The study, a collaborative effort by some of the professors in…