Project OWLink is a teledistance project linking Rice University (Texas) to five Texas schools (one K-8 and four high schools) with a two-way audio/video and Internet connectivity, creating an interactive electronic community of teachers and students. Initiated in June 1994, the project has experimented with nontraditional models of distance…

This paper describes an Interactive Shared Journal System (ISJS) that provides access, support, and sharing for the processes of learning to become a teacher. This system is a component of the undergraduate teacher education program at the University of Missouri-Columbia. ISJS is a flexible system for the development and support of learning…

This paper evaluates an approach to dissertation supervision, designed to assist international students with their academic writing. It argues that a blended approach to supervision within a Virtual Learning Environment can provide high quality individualised care not otherwise available. This leads to deeper, critical learning and more meaningful…

This study sought to investigate four separate issues regarding student performance in a blended learning environment in the delivery of a Psychology course to 140 University undergraduates. Firstly, to investigate the relationship between student performance on three different coursework assignments and their performance on interim online…

As beginning teachers experience and process new information during their initial acts of teaching, reflection is an inherent part of the process. The following study was designed to explore technology as a tool for reflection by introducing first-year teachers to three technology tools designed to elicit and encourage their reflections on…

Social capital has recently emerged as an important interdisciplinary research area. It is frequently used as a framework for understanding various social issues in temporal communities, neighbourhoods and groups. In particular, researchers in the social sciences and the humanities have used social capital to understand trust, shared…

In support of research examining relationships between learner characteristics and the quality of online discussions, this paper surveys different methods for evaluating discussions. The paper will present coding methods used in our own research as well as methods used by others interested in quality online discussions. Key topics include what…

The Shongololo project of the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Education and Culture in South Africa aims to endorse the notion that a school can quite effectively cross the digital divide with a single online computer that is accessible to both learners and educators and which is managed by an enthusiastic and committed information…

The present study reports results of an experiment in which the author and her students at King Saud University (KSU) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia shared an online grammar course with a professor and his students at Umm Al-Qura University (UQU) in Makkah, Saudi Arabia using www.makkahelearning.net. The experiment proved to be a total failure. Factors…

One important aspect of adolescent education, regardless of the learning environment, is learning acceptable human interaction, socialization styles, and cooperation mechanisms. However, when adolescent students attend cyber schools, they no longer receive those traditional opportunities to gain the human interactions required for such…

The IT 3050 course at Capella University is an introduction to fundamental computer networking. This course is one of the required courses in the Bachelor of Science in Information Technology program. In order to provide a more enriched learning environment for learners, Capella has significantly modified this class (and others) by infusing it…

This paper offers observations and suggestions regarding what to do and what not to do when offering an online developmental mathematics course. At Harrisburg Area Community College (HACC), Pennsylvania, online courses were initially offered in 1999. In spring 2002, the authors piloted two online developmental math courses, Intermediate Algebra…

This paper categorizes the learning communities that have emerged as educators extend the capabilities of the Internet beyond simple search capacities. An example of a teacher education project entitled "Mystery Web" is introduced as a model for building intern and student relationships as well as a variety of generic educational skills.…

This report represents the phase two evaluation of the New Zealand Ministry of Education's "School's Network," or "Schoolsnet." The Schoolsnet is a computer service offered by the Ministry of Education as a pilot project that allows teachers and students to gain access to a computer-based communications and information system.…

This volume brings together the majority of lectures and papers presented at the 1998 and 1999 discourse symposia at Vaxjo University. Part one, "Four Perspectives on Discourse," offers a matrix perspective on narrative, a cross cultural perspective on academic rhetoric, a cognitive perspective on informational discourse, and a construction…