This study examines the extent to which conceptual change is stimulated and achieved through online discussion in the context of an online graduate course. Transcripts of discussions among 15 graduate students studying assessment issues in mathematics and science education were analyzed using an interaction analysis model developed to assess…

This paper explores the question of how cultural stereotypes are formed, modified, dismissed or reinforced, drawing on findings from a collaborative intercultural e-mail project between Hong Kong learners of Japanese at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and native Japanese speakers at Kagoshima University. It also evaluates role of e-mail…

This paper examines the step show or code-switching involving two dialects of English, Standard American English (SAE) and Black English Vernacular (BEV) at a Historically Black College and University (HBCU). The data point to a reversal of dominant institutional language and literacy practices at the university under focus. The conscious and…

This paper describes a qualitative study of asynchronous electronic conferencing by three tutorial groups on the same postgraduate course ("Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages Worldwide"), forming part of an MA in Applied Linguistics (via Distance Education) at the Open University, UK. The groups varied in the degree to which…

Since 1999, the blog has become a pervasive communication and information-sharing Internet-based tool in certain segments of the society. Within education, it is becoming much more widely used and will continue to expand rapidly as instructors learn about its adaptability for the classroom. Not only will an ever-increasing number of individuals…

The increased demand for Internet courses, especially in schools of business, has raised questions about instructional interaction and teacher-student immediacy, which online courses may lack. Because current research suggests immediacy behaviors may indeed be present, we developed a strategy for measuring immediacy in an online MBA course and…

A variety of instructional methods have been shown to be effective in fostering employee learning in workplace training. These include problem-based learning, cooperative learning, and situated learning. Despite their success, however, there are at least two important reasons to actively foster learning beyond the training room: The transfer of…

Interactional ethnography with a social constructionist perspective was used as an orienting theoretical framework to investigate how a community of learners was constructed in a postsecondary distance education class. The question guiding this research was: How do the interactions of the participants in an on-line classroom construct the social…

We integrated four technology tools into a course to showcase their pedagogical usefulness. These were Course Compass, a web-based, course-management system; Moveable Type WebLog, an Open Source blog; recorded verbal critique, an evaluation of student projects recorded verbally and then web archived; and Calibrated Peer Review, a web-based,…

Synchronous communication has a great potential to increase individual participation and group collaboration. Despite increasing use, scant research has been conducted on variables impacting successful synchronous learning. This study focuses on learner experiences in a real-time communication mediated by the Breeze web-based collaboration system.…

Science Across the World is an exchange programme between schools world-wide. It has two main components: existing resources for students (age 6-10) and a database with all participating schools. The programme exists since 1990. It is carried out in partnership with the British Association of Science Education (ASE) and international…

Higher education institutions around the world are increasingly turning to e-learning as a way of dealing with growing and changing student populations. Education for the knowledge society means new skills and knowledge are needed and it means that lifelong learning has become a necessity. Higher education institutions are looking to e-learning to…

In a face-to-face classroom, the instructor can easily diagnose students' motivational status by observing their facial expressions and postures, but such cues are absent in an online classroom. Therefore, online instructors often estimate students' motivational level based on their online behavior such as the number of messages they post, and…

Authentic learning designs have been explored for some time now and have frequently been shown to provide learning settings that provide many meaningful contexts for learning. These meaningful contexts provide not only encouragement for students to learn but also a raft of learning enhancements including higher-order learning and forms of learning…

With the rapid expansion of the transnational education market, more and more universities join the ranks of transnational education providers or expand their transnational education offerings. Many of those providers regard fully-online provision of their programs as an economic alternative to face-to-face teaching. Do transnational students…