Because distance education is such a rapidly developing educational venue, knowing what factors impact success must be known. Loneliness and sense of connectedness, or community, are issues facing graduate distance education students. These issues may influence retention. The theoretical framework of a Community of Practice assisted in…

This article explores the relationship between teacher authority and flaming in asynchronous online communication. Teachers who rely on what I call stabilization and universal applicability--two concepts emerging from a liberal democratic theory--may actually be preventing a full and robust understanding of the complexities of 21st-century…

In this article, I draw on contemporary theorizing on the concept of face (e.g., Ting-Toomey 1994, 2004; Tracy 2008) and research on Islamic and Arabic cultures and linguistic strategies (e.g., Beeman 1986; Hegland 1998; Wilce 2005; Al Zidjaly 2006) to explore the role that the Internet plays in enabling Muslim Arabs to manage or save their…

Within a globalised world that has ever changing social, economic, cultural and legal influences, higher education providers have a responsibility to equip graduates with the skills necessary to meet these demands. Pedagogic research shows that students' motivation is often driven by assessment and therefore the challenge for programmes is to find…

This article discusses how good faculty blogs can help institutions facilitate communication with some of the audiences they most want to reach. The blogs can be a resource for prospective students and parents and an easy way for alumni and friends to keep up with or reconnect with an institution. They're popular among those who write for them,…

This article outlines an instructional paradigm that guides the design of interventions that build skills in computer-mediated communication (CMC). It is applicable to learning at multiple levels of communicative proficiency and aims to heighten awareness, the understanding of the impact of media configurations, the role of cultures and social…

This conceptual paper critiques the popular Community of Inquiry framework (CoI) that is widely used for studying text-based asynchronous online discussion (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2000). It re-examines the three main aspects of CoI (cognitive presence, social presence, and teaching presence) and their relationship, and further highlights…

Learning style is traditionally assumed to be a predictor of learning performance, yet few studies have identified the mediating and moderating effects between the two. This study extends previous research by proposing and testing a model that examines the mediating processes in the relationship between learning style and e-learning performance…

Special interests are frequently developed by individuals with autism spectrum disorder, expressed as an intense focus on specific topics. Neurotypical individuals also develop special interests, often in the form of hobbies. Although past research has focused on special interests held by children with autism spectrum disorder, little is known…

This article proposes a methodology to create a multimodal corpus that can be shared with a group of researchers in order to analyze synchronous online pedagogical interactions. Epistemological aspects involved in studying online interactions from a multimodal and semiotic perspective are addressed. Then, issues and challenges raised by corpus…

This article describes the process by which the authors created a Virtual Learning Community for cultural and linguistic exchange between college students of Portuguese in the United States and undergraduate and graduate students of English in Brazil. In addition to describing the way the so-called tandem model for telecollaboration was adapted to…

The purpose of this student-faculty partnership research study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a blended four-year Bachelor of Education Elementary Program at a Canadian university using the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) framework. Data was collected from the first graduating cohort of students from the B.Ed. program in…

This article discusses insights gained from a case study on telecollaboration for intercultural communication in foreign language school contexts. Focus was on non-native English and German lingua franca conversations between pairs of students (aged 14-16, B1 level) from schools in France, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain. Telecollaboration…

Research conducted by the British Council concerning modern continuous professional development of teachers has been analyzed. The issue concerning foreign language teachers' professional development has been considered. Productive approach to this process that gives a teacher the opportunities to define aspects of their professional activities…

The purpose of this research was to explore the relationships between design, learning, and translanguaging in a 3D collaborative virtual learning environment for adolescent learners of Chinese and English. We designed an open-ended space congruent with ecological and dialogical perspectives on second language acquisition. In such a space,…