Volume 6, Number 1 2000
John Willinsky
Language Education The University of British Columbia Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T IZ4willinsk@unixg.ubc.ca
This study of computer-mediated communication between 28 grade-eleven students and as many employees in a high-tech corporate setting examines the educational potential of electronic networks for building learning connections on a global basis. Using a critical analysis of excerpts from the electronic messages between the students and employees, three qualities of connection were identified. The exchanges exhibited strategies of immediacy, pedagogy, and, in one case, aberration. In the process of working on a journalism assignment using CMC, there also arose, for both students and employee, an element of responsibility in writing that might be thought to serve in the language development of both settings.
Lorraine Sherry
RMC Research Corporation Winter Square, 1512 Larimer St. Denver, CO 80202, USAlsherry@carbon.cudenver.edu
Emerging technologies such as the Internet, the World Wide Web (WWW), computer-mediated communication (CMC) are being discussed around the world by teachers, administrators, parents, researchers, academics, and technology planners. The WEB Project (http://www.webproject.org) is beginning to show what is possible when telecommunications links participating schools and initiatives with the community-at-large. It serves as an educational environment for student inquiry and expression, a medium for presenting and assessing student work, a virtual faculty room for professional discussions, and a forum for civic discourse. Through its intensive use of the Internet, the WWW, and the WEB Exchange, the project has been supporting ongoing, public dialogue for the past three years.
This innovative project introduces several questions regarding the motives, the impacts, and the activities associated with computer-mediated communication (CMC). This innovative project raises many interesting questions. Why engage in online conversations? What is the nature of mediated discourse? What are its various forms? What are the factors that facilitate or impede it? How does the technology itself interact with different learner characteristics, thereby resulting in different learner outcomes than traditional, face-to-face conversation? Finally, what are the implications for changing roles of students, teachers, experts, and novices as they carry out collaborative inquiry, civic discourse, and design conversations in a mediated environment? These are areas that will be explored in this paper.
Gregory MacKinnon and Lynn Aylward
Acadia University Wolfville, Nova Scotia Canada BOP 1X0gregory.mackinnon@acadiau.ca
Acadia University in Wolfville, Nova Scotia offers a unique setting for research in Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC). Acadia, in the fall of 1996, embarked on a laptop project with IBM corporate support now coined “The Acadia Advantage.” Of particular use to faculty is the Acadia Courseware Management Environment (ACME), a piece of software designed and implemented by the Acadia Institute for Teaching and Technology (Sandbox). The ACME courseware offers many features such as online course descriptions, notes, testing, web links, and includes a discussion group setting. Electronic Discussion Groups (E.D.G.) hold great potential as an innovative method for engaging students in substantive academic dialogue. This paper will offer a model for the implementation of an E.D.G. “coding system” called “cognotes.” The system developed has its roots in Language Arts journal coding and represents a distinctly unique approach to promoting quality asynchronous discussion.
Betty Collis
University of Twente, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlandscollis@edte.utwente.nl
Nico Pals
KPN Research -ITB, The Netherlandsn.pals@research.kpn.com
Telematics, the combination of communication and information technology, offers a wide range of possibilities for education. Telematics applications include e-mail, groupware, and all the possibilities of the World Wide Web (WWW). Educational institutions and jurisdictions throughout the world are investing in Internet access and in creating the conditions so various kinds of telematics applications can be available to teachers and learners. But a major question is: Will the intended users, teachers and learners, actually make use of all these possibilities? What factors have the most impact, both positive and negative, in terms of the individual teacher or student’s decision to make use of a telematics application? In a research project underway in The Netherlands, using data from a number of countries, these questions are being addressed. In this article we describe the theoretical model derived for our research. The model involves four main clusters of variables related to external context, educational effectiveness, ease of use, and personal engagement and is thus called the 4-E Model. The paper develops this model theoretically. It also briefly describes how it is being validated and gives indications of how the model can be applied in practice.