To design a new distance education course with an emphasis on student group work, a collaborative effort among the University of Missouri St. Louis Libraries and faculty was established. The collaborative process resulted in a more individualized service experience for library users, and the problems of course construction, using the Blackboard…

The Virtual Math Teams Project is exploring how to create, structure, support, and assess an online chat-based collaborative community devoted to mathematics discourse. It is analyzing the forms of group cognition that emerge from the use of shared cognitive tools with specific functionalities. Centered on a case study of a synchronous online…

In order to understand and meet the needs of the distance learning population, student affairs administrators must partner with our colleagues in the fields of technology and distance education. A study of distance learners at North Carolina State University provides information and opportunities for strengthening those partnerships. (Contains 3…

This study explores the usefulness of an online platform for capturing field experiences of inservice teachers enrolled in a graduate level literacy course. Four lessons related to the online field experience are offered: (1) instructors cannot adequately assess teachers without visual examples; (2) teachers and instructors need detailed…

The School Health Index (SHI) is a self-assessment and planning tool that helps individual schools identify the strengths and weaknesses of their health policies and programs. To determine the percentage of US schools meeting the recommendations in the SHI, the present study analyzed data from the School Health Policies and Programs Study (SHPPS)…

Realizing the potential of online or virtual communities to facilitate teacher professional development requires educators to change their current perceptions of professional development. This calls for educators to develop new images of ongoing opportunities for professional development, based on their needs within an online community of learners…

Case studies are frequently used to prepare preservice teachers through reflection and analysis of classroom situations. Previous research suggests asynchronous online discussions provide more opportunity for reflection and analysis than face to face environments. Online case study discussions of two groups of preservice teacher education…

This study uses virtual reference transcripts for which patrons completed exit surveys to seek any correlations between user and librarian satisfaction within virtual reference transactions. By analyzing transcripts with a focus on three elements-technology performance, preferred reference practices, and the demonstrated communication levels of…

This article explores the uses, practicality, and problems involved in creating online finding aids by state-funded university archivists across the nation. It examines various aspects of online finding aids such as financial considerations, its importance as a research tool, timelines, demographics, and use. The more technical side is also…

Within this paper I report on aspects of a study aimed at not only discovering how and when students use a graphical calculator within an Advanced-Level (pre-University) Mathematics course, and what operations and calculations they perform with such calculators, but also the depth and type of learning that takes place when students use graphical…

In the world of work and in the social lives of many, new technology plays an important role in establishing and maintaining relationships and exchanging information. The school system varies in its response to this new technology and particularly to the popular communication of email and mobile phone users. In schools and classrooms, policies,…

In this article the authors consider how youth engage in social practices of identity through their online practices with images. Although they build on social practice perspectives, informed by the new literacy studies, they question the extent to which such perspectives have created new autonomies and separations, including the separation of…

This article reviews research related to the construct of interaction in the educational technology and distance education literature. The review is limited to higher education and includes theories and empirical research that inform the construct of online interactions. Conceptual and operational definitions of "interaction" are categorized from…

This qualitative study used theories of language and learning to explore the identities of one preservice teacher in a reading specialization program. Data sources included archived online course responses, interviews, journals, and an electronic portfolio. Analysis indicates that the participant used multiple discourses as an immigrant,…

This article describes an email project carried out jointly by the Institute of Modern Languages and the Department of Applied Languages at Antonio de Nebrija University in Madrid and the University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass) in the US during the first semester of the academic year 2004-2005. Students worked with a partner exchanging…