Blog technology is a potential medium for encouraging reflective writing through self-expression and interactive exchange through social networking. This paper reports on a study using blogs as out-of-class assignments for the development of learners' language competence. The study involved seventeen university students at advanced level who kept…

This case study explored the educational experiences of Canadian preservice teachers in a course designed to teach about online teaching. Students gained experience in course design and delivery, and safe and ethical behavior related to technology. Findings indicated that projects in which students actively applied their knowledge were more…

For the net-generation students learning in a Web 2.0 world, research is often equated with Googling and approached with a mindset accustomed to cut-and-paste practices. Recognizing educators' concern over such students' learning dispositions on the one hand, and the educational affordances of blogging on the other, this study examines the use of…

This article provides a personal perspective about the development of the seminal papers associated with the Community of Inquiry Framework. The framework and its construction are described. The main part of the paper explores the evolution of the framework and its associated methodology. Finally, research associated with the validation of the…

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…

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…

This research attempted to test whether the granting of points for receiving the most votes as the "best post" would affect the quality of subsequent postings to online discussions. Five online discussions were held in a small graduate-level course in leadership theory, and postings were coded into Bloom's taxonomy. Quality was defined…

With the vast development of various technologies, learning today is no longer confined to classrooms with lecture delivery as the only method of conveying knowledge, rather, an electronic means of learning has continued to evolve. Electronic learning (e-Learning), which facilitates education using communications networks, has made learning…

The topic of virtual reference has been a popular one in the past year, and this column highlights a range of those articles. Included are overviews of the topic, articles addressing specific technological solutions and concerns, and pieces that explore the intricacies of delivering and assessing a "traditional" service through a…

This paper offers support that those students who felt they had stronger reasons for committing unethical academic behaviors are more likely to report committing academic dishonesty than those who felt they had weaker reasons for unethical academic behaviors. This relationship held for all four categories of academic dishonesty: cheating (on…

A study examining an online graduate-level course for evidence of distributed emotion yielded many findings, including emotion being socially distributed. In particular, it was found that many students played distinct and constant emotional roles which impacted all class members. These roles fall into the following categories: cognitive…

Technical communication instructors want to help students, as well as professionals, design effective PowerPoint presentations. Toward this end, I compare the advice of academic and industry experts about effective PowerPoint presentation design to survey responses from university students about slide text, visual elements, animations, and other…

This paper argues for understanding ICT from the standpoint of philosophical world views. We present a framework, based on Pepper's root-metaphors (Formism, Contextualism, Mechanism, Organicism, and Animism/Mysticism) and we illustrate the use of the framework by looking at a common example of ICT: e-mail. It is argued that such a framework is…

Previous research studies on how to promote student participation in asynchronous online discussions have largely focused on the role of the instructor or tutor as facilitators. Not many investigated student facilitation. This article reports a qualitative study examining the facilitation techniques used by student facilitators to attract their…