To be truly effective, online learning must facilitate the social process of learning. This involves providing space and opportunities for students and faculty to engage in social activities. Although learning management systems offer several tools that support social learning and student engagement, the scope, structure, and functionality of…

This study investigated the efficacy of case development as an instrument for teacher learning in technology integration. In particular, the study investigated whether case development can help teachers (a) develop the ability to integrate technology with content and pedagogy, and (b) cultivate skills required to reflect on their own teaching with…

This article presents a two-semester study that examines the effectiveness of threaded discussions for foreign language teaching methods courses. In particular, this study focuses on how students view the role of asynchronous computer-mediated communication in the development of language pedagogy through an exchange with expert teachers from…

University staff are now encouraged to supplement their classroom activity with computer-based tools and resources accessible through virtual learning environments (VLEs). Meanwhile, university students increasingly make recreational use of computer networks in the form of various social software applications. This paper explores tensions of…

The purpose of this study was to determine how contributing to a class wiki affected the learning of preservice teachers enrolled in a language arts methods class. Participants included 37 preservice teachers enrolled in three sections of a field-based language arts methods class during two semesters. Data collection included online observations…

This paper reports on research that has been carried out into the use, process, and effectiveness of an asynchronous online seminar within an undergraduate sports studies degree programme. Contemporary sources are used to justify the use of technology supported learning (TSL) in higher education and to inform a reflective and critical account of…

The author presents 10 best digital resources for 2009. As librarians prepare for the next school year--or as public libraries develop the budget for a new fiscal year--these are the products for children and teens that should be advocated to add to one's digital collection. These include: (1) American Indian Experience; (2) Animoto…

The study reported here sought to obtain the clear articulation of asynchronous computer-mediated discourse needed for Carl Bereiter and Marlene Scardamalia's knowledge-creation model. Distinctions were set up between three modes of discourse: knowledge sharing, knowledge construction, and knowledge creation. These were applied to the asynchronous…

In order to collaborate effectively in group discourse on a topic like mathematical patterns, group participants must organize their activities in ways that share the significance of their utterances, inscriptions, and behaviors. Here, we report the results of a ethnomethodological case study of collaborative math problem-solving activities…

This article reports a design experiment conducted over three successive school years, with the teacher's goal of having his Grade 4 students assume increasing levels of collective responsibility for advancing their knowledge of optics. Classroom practices conducive to sustained knowledge building were co-constructed by the teacher and students,…

China's People's University has demoted a dean after the well-known scholar criticized university officials and what he termed the "bureaucratization" of the nation's higher-education system. The incident started when Zhang Ming, dean of political science at People's University, posted comments on his popular personal blog in which he…

In this article it is argued that communities of enquiry can and should be developed in courses delivered online. These communities make the most of the available technological resources and overcome some otherwise daunting challenges faced in online course delivery. Indeed, asynchronous tools like discussion boards offer a range of benefits for…

CSCL research has given rise to a plethora of analysis methods, all with specific analysis goals, units of analysis, and for specific types of data (chat, threaded discussions, etc.). This article describes some challenges of CSCL-analysis. The development of an analysis method for negotiation processes in multidisciplinary teams serves as an…

An all-volunteer organization called the Opensource Opencourseware Prototype System (OOPS), headquartered in Taiwan, was initially designed to translate open source materials from MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) site into Chinese. Given the recent plethora of open educational resources (OER), such as the OCW, the growing use of such resources by the…

In this research, it was aimed to develop an instrument for determining problematic internet usage of university students. Factorial structure of the data collected from 1658 university students revealed three factors. Of these, the first factor is called negative consequences of the internet and accounted for 25.36% of the variance, the second…