Argumentation is an important skill to learn. It is valuable not only in many professional contexts, such as the law, science, politics, and business, but also in everyday life. However, not many people are good arguers. In response to this, researchers and practitioners over the past 15-20 years have developed software tools both to support and…

The relative ubiquity of computer access and the rapid development of information and communication technology have profoundly impacted teaching and learning at a distance. Relatively little is currently known about the characteristics of those students who participate in distance e-learning courses at the secondary school level. In an effort to…

This paper presents a quantitative approach to multimodal discourse analysis for analyzing online collaborative learning. The coding framework draws together the fields of systemic functional linguistics and Activity Theory to analyze interactions between collaborative-, content- and technology-related discourse. The approach is used to examine…

The present study attempted to investigate whether young learners who were new to knowledge building approaches could work towards advancing both individual and collective knowledge, and whether knowledge building could be beneficial to both high-achieving and low-achieving students. Findings reported in this paper are from one and a half-year…

Purpose: This paper aims to provide a methodological road for the next generation of e-learning environments. Design/methodology/approach: This paper considers a survey of recent publications (1995-2002), which aim to provide practical and theoretical indications and advice, which are coupled with practical experimentations. Findings: The paper…

In relation to quality, evaluation is often used synonymously with quality assurance and monitoring processes (Ehlers et al, 2004). However, evaluation has other purposes, such as for development and knowledge (Chelimsky & Shadish, 1997). In this paper, I present a view of evaluation as an instrument of quality enhancement rather than quality…

This article presents the structure and theoretical foundations of the Learning Object Review Instrument (LORI), an evaluation aid available through the E-Learning Research and Assessment Network at http://www.elera.net. A primary goal of LORI is to balance assessment validity with efficiency of the evaluation process. The instrument enables…

The article suggests that stakeholders involved in quality development need a specific competence, called quality literacy, in order to successfully improve learning processes. We introduce and describe quality literacy as a set of competencies that are needed for professional quality development. Quality literacy emphasises the importance of…

In this article, we describe a Java-based virtual laboratory, accessible via the Internet by means of a Web browser. This remote laboratory enables the students to build both direct and alternating current circuits. The program includes a graphical user interface which resembles the connection board, and also the electrical components and tools…

Over the last ten years e-learning has rapidly emerged as a potentially effective mode of higher education, but it is still unclear what factors are important in the design of an effective e-learning course. e-Learning has been described as being a "disruptive technology" that changes how learning is approached in higher education…

This paper presents the central ideas of a grounded theory research by the name of Triarchy Perspective on Metacognitive Learning in Free Online Groups, or "TriP on MetaL-FrOG" in short. The research setting was online learning community on the platform of Free Online Group web (FrOG) intended for post-graduate students. The research…

John Dewey believed that the education should educate individuals "not as passive recipients of educational content, but as active makers of meaning, capable of exercising independent judgement and of democratic collaboration" (Gregory, 2001, p. 399). With this philosophical viewpoint, the author strongly believes that teachers should engage…

This paper introduced the implementation of a New Mobile Technologies and Environmental Education System (NMobTec-EnvEdu) designed for m-learning environments. The NMobTec-EnvEdu system has been developed to provide environmental education in a collaborative framework to undergraduate students through the Internet using mobile phones. The study…

Technology is changing very rapidly and nearly all branches of education are affected by these changes. As a result of these rapid changes there has been significant interest and growth in the number of educational institutions using mobile devices to support learning and teaching. There is also an increase use of wireless technologies in…

The cross-cultural experiences of Chinese international students in Western countries have been subject to intensive research, but only a very small number of studies have considered how these students adapt to learning in an online flexible delivery environment. Guided by Berry's acculturation framework (1980, 2005), the investigation discussed…