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Graduate online learners have specific needs and challenges highlighted in the research on graduate online education. This systematic review examined 271 studies on broader research themes on graduate online education. Publication trends by year and journal outlets were analyzed. Descriptive statistics were tabulated for research context, participants, discipline, methods, and research themes. Among the studies published on graduate online education in this review, 59% were published in the United States, with 32% studied at the master's level and 59% in the education discipline. About 39% of the studies used quantitative methods, while 37% used qualitative methods. Online engagement was the most studied research theme (24%), followed by learner characteristics (13.7%) in graduate online education. Very few studies (5.2%) focused on the organizational level. Implications for online graduate learners, instructors, program directors, administrators, and future research recommendations are provided.

This study investigated the effectiveness of Vlogs on the motivational beliefs of trainee teachers in the practicum period. It also offers their perceptions of Vlogs for professional development. The participants were 54 trainee teachers from a university located in the north-west of Turkey. In this study, a pretest post-test quasi-experimental design with a control group was adopted to test the effects of using Vlogs on motivation. To collect qualitative data, semi-structured interviews were conducted in the experimental group. The results indicated that Vlogs had significantly positive effects on the sub-factors of motivation such as intrinsic goal orientation, control beliefs, self-efficacy, and task value. The experimental group had lower extrinsic goal orientation scores in comparison with the control group. The trainee teachers reported that Vlogs were a potential media not only for self-assessment, reflection, and peer learning but also for the development of techno-pedagogical skills in teacher education along with challenges of their use.

This paper investigates how psychological needs spurring self-determined motivation relate to collective efficacy for flourishing in online learning communities. Self-determination theory posits individuals experience intrinsic motivation to flourish at educational tasks because of targeted satisfaction of the three psychological needs: autonomy, relatedness, and competence. However, studies conducted to investigate collective, technology-assisted learning processes suggest competence and relatedness may play a pivotal role in online community engagement and knowledge-sharing. Moreover, informal gaming experiences may mirror the collaborative skills needed in online educational/professional communities. These insights suggest confidence in one's abilities to contribute to a community, the perception of a strong, supportive social culture in the online classroom, and informal online experiences may lead to self-determined motivation enabling agents in distributed, technology-assisted classrooms to collectively flourish. Little work has been done to examine effects of need satisfaction on collective efficacy in using online technologies. To fill this research gap, we used structural equation modelling to investigate perceptions of 636 undergraduate students enrolled in classes within an education department at a midwestern university employing weekly asynchronous blogging. Our results suggest students' experience with multiplayer gaming, and need satisfaction towards competence and relatedness correlate with higher collective efficacy in technology-assisted classrooms employing discussion forums.

Information and communication technology (ICT) not only improved communication in the 21st century, but it also led to rethinking the facilitation of online learning. University students in the information age have access to the internet, chat rooms, Twitter, and other social media. However, the literature reveals that most students use these technological tools for social and entertainment purposes rather than for learning (Holmfeld et al., 2012), and this contrasts with the perception that students use technology for online learning. At the University of South Africa (UNISA), an open distance and e-learning (ODeL) model, in which learning is mediated through technology, was instituted in 2016 even though there are still challenges to seeing it fully functional. The facilitation of online learning includes cell phones, video cameras, podcasts, and blogs, and UNISA uses a communication platform called myUnisa where academics and students can communicate with each other on a social learning platform that is more formal and controlled. In order to explicate the importance of online learning, the theories in this article will give insight into e-tutors on online training.

The paper investigates the trends of the Arabic research with the emphasis on the nature of science. Hence, a descriptive analytical approach, both qualitative and quantitative forms, was used to explore 42 online journals and articles. The research sample was defined by online journals and articles cover the question of the Nature of Science (NOS) in the Arabic setting. The data collection tool has implemented a content analysis checklist that contains three sections the fields of study section, the subjects of each field, as well as methods and procedures. The results taken from the data analysis have shown that most Arabic researchers focus on the curriculum, teaching and learning environments and their improvement, the use of new teaching methods, students' understanding of NOS, as well as teacher's knowledge and teaching strategies. Also, many researchers have used descriptive methods and techniques. The research findings suggest that Arabic NOS has been done by teaching science through education. The paper provides recommendations to ensure greater government involvement in establishing science centers that attract graduating students in science learning and relevant projects.

The purpose of this study was to explore the use of Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) in preservice teacher education as a tool for learning about differentiation within writing instruction. Using online dialogue journals, preservice teachers communicated with elementary students about a shared text and met in ongoing PLC groups to examine students' work and discuss articles related to writing instruction. In end-of-course reflections, preservice teachers reported new understandings of how to guide individual students toward reasonable writing goals, as well as increased confidence in their ability to teach writing and to differentiate instruction as a result of participating in the PLCs. In particular, preservice teachers learned to build upon students' strengths in an effort to facilitate growth over time.

Online learning is increasingly being used in K-12 learning environments. A concomitant trend is found towards learning becoming "authentic" as students learn with tasks that are connected to real world occupations. In this study, 48 pre-service teachers use an online environment to engage in authentic practice as they developed online learning experiences for their future students. Using a design-based research methodology, the researchers were involved in planning, designing, implementing, and evaluating the higher education class across two macro cycles. An authentic learning framework was utilized in the development of the class. Findings explicate the design of the course and how it aligned to the authentic learning framework. It appears that web-based tools were beneficial as the pre-service teachers designed their own K-12 online classes. Findings show that the pre-service teachers' comfort increased when using the using online web building applications in the authentic environment. Furthermore, a high level of engagement in reflective and collaborative learning was uncovered during the activities. This research acts as a springboard for educators who are interested in designing online higher education courses incorporating authentic learning experiences.

This paper will explore how a portfolio approach to teaching and learning can help the educator incorporate unique forms of reflective practice into his or her daily work. By being able to express ideas more clearly to himself, the educator can better promote the relational construction of knowledge in his educational communities. This paper, as part of a larger body of research asks, how can a portfolio approach to teaching and learning help the educator develop unique forms of reflective practice that will help him express his ideas more clearly, first to himself and then secondly to his educational communities? Research methodology is primarily participatory action research and includes an autoethnographic review of the author's work, reviews, interviews, observations, and focus groups with student teachers and professional teachers in the United Arab Emirates. The research concludes that in consideration of McLuhan's (1964) notion that the "medium is the message," the interactions that arise through the use of new media tools can lead us to relational, co-constructed ideas that are not those simply passed on from other texts. By making our thinking visible, the portfolio approach allows the educator to capture the contextual relationship between the author, the audience or community, and the knowledge being created.

The concept of Learning Analytics, as we understand it today, is relatively new but the practice of evaluating user behavior is not innovative. For years, technological development, along with other educational aspects, have encouraged, developed and facilitated this practice as a way of providing a personalized quality experience to students. The main goal of this study, carried out in the Primary Education Degree of the University of Murcia, was to research, from the perspective of Social Learning Analytics, how students learn and collaborate in online environments, specifically through their use of social media. With the idea of improving and optimizing future teaching experiences, a pilot study was conducted using weblog, Twitter and Facebook to work with different topics on the subject. The method used in this research was a participant observation and the analysis performed was both quantitative, based mainly on the data gathered from the learning analytics, and qualitative (analyzing students' content from comments). Results show that there was greater interaction on Facebook than weblogs, where students interacted to deal with aspects related to the learning process and the topic of the subject. This exchange of information grew during the development of the experience. In addition, learning analytics shows that there is a relationship between group members and their interaction and behavior in networks.

Although ethical guidelines for doing Internet research are available, most prominently those of the Association of Internet Researchers (www.aoir.org), ethical decision-making for research on publicly available, naturally-occurring data remains a major challenge. As researchers might also turn to others to inform their decisions, this article reviews recent research papers on publicly available, online data. Research involving forums such as Facebook pages, Twitter, YouTube, news comments, blogs, etc. is examined to see how authors report ethical considerations and how they quote these data. We included 132 articles published in discourse analysis-oriented journals between January 2017 and February 2020. Roughly one third of the articles (85 out of 132) did not discuss ethical issues, mostly claiming the data were publicly available. Quotations nevertheless tended to be anonymized, although retrievability of posts was generally not taken into account. In those articles in which ethical concerns were reported, related decisions appeared to vary substantially. In most cases it was argued that informed consent was not required. Similarly, approval from research ethics committees was mostly regarded unnecessary. Other ethical issues like consideration of users' expectations and intentions, freedom of choice, possible harm, sensitive topics, and vulnerable groups were rarely discussed in the articles. We argue for increased attention to ethical issues and legal aspects in discourse analytic articles involving online data beyond mentioning general concerns. Instead, we argue for more involvement of users/participants in ethical decision-making, for consideration of retrievability of posts and for a role for journal editors.

Using data for 2,717 journals and more than 9,000 acquisition opportunities, this study shows how journal prices vary by level of aggregation (single-journal subscription or full-text database), resource provider type (scholarly society, university press, other nonprofit organization, commercial publisher, or library vendor), and broad subject field. The journals acquired through commercial publishers' databases cost less than half as much as those acquired through the databases of scholarly societies, university presses, and library vendors. Across all provider types, full-text databases are more cost-effective than single-journal subscriptions. These results are more realistic than those reported in earlier investigations, since (1) unlike previous studies, this one accounts for the prices of both single-journal subscriptions and full-text journal databases; (2) this assessment is based on actual prices, including consortial and negotiated prices, rather than list prices; and (3) this investigation focuses on the journals identified by faculty as important titles for their teaching and research.

Drawing on an original methodology using citations, downloads, and survey data, this paper analyzes journal usage patterns across 28 Canadian universities. Results show that usage levels vary across disciplines and that different academic platforms varied in their importance to different institutions, with for-profit platforms generally exhibiting lower usage. These results suggest economic inefficiencies exist in "big deal" academic journal subscriptions for universities, as most journals in such bundles are seldom or never used. We recommend that universities coordinate resource sharing and negotiate strategies with academic journal expenditures based on shared interests and usage trends.

This paper describes the results of a study to compare contemporary e-journal licenses from two research universities in the United States and Spain in terms of e-reserves, interlibrary loan, text and data mining, authors' rights and treatment of copyright exceptions, usage statistics, governing law, data privacy, and obligations entailing security. The data include a higher proportion of scholarly society and academic press publishers than earlier license analyses. This analysis compares license terms over time, across publisher types and between the two libraries, and it compares findings with recommendations from model licenses. The results show progress toward model license goals in some areas, but deficiencies in others including self-archiving, usage statistics clauses, and clauses related to e-resource data privacy and library security and disciplinary obligations. Our findings also raise questions about international ILL and governing venue clauses in library licenses outside the North American context.

In his book "Letters to a Young Scientist," renowned biologist Edward O. Wilson recounted his own coming-of-age story as a scientist, and distilled the motivating qualities of science down to curiosity and creativity. Individuals become scientists when they are curious about a phenomenon in the world around them and ask about the real nature of that phenomenon: What are its origins, its causes, or its consequences? Scientists then employ some creativity to answer their questions through a systematic testing of hypotheses (the scientific method), and form some conclusion based on their findings. Wilson described the broad field of science as a "culture of illuminations dedicated to the most effective way ever conceived of acquiring factual knowledge." His description points to another critical aspect in becoming a scientist: not only acquiring some knowledge but contributing that knowledge to a shared culture and community. Scientists engage with others in their field through collaborations, presentations, and publication, thereby strengthening their own findings and assessing information within a broader context of knowledge. While public school students should receive more resources and guidance to do science in schools, motivated students have typically had very limited avenues to experience being a scientist--that is, by sharing their research with the larger scientific community. "The Journal of Emerging Investigators" ("JEI") was established to address this challenge. A nonprofit online science publication exclusively for middle and high school students, "JEI" (www. emerginginvestigators.org) gives students an opportunity to submit original research, receive feedback on their work from expert scientists, and have their work published.

The aim of this study was to evaluate differences in physical education students' perception on an educational innovation based on formative and peer assessment through the blogosphere. The sample was made up of 253 students from two Spanish universities. Data was collected using a self-reported questionnaire and t tests were employed in order to find differences among students' groups. Results show significant differences in almost all of the items on which the students were questioned. Basque students were more satisfied with the assessment tool used than the Valencian students. Students found the blogosphere more active, meaningful, functional and motivating and that it made for collaborative learning in comparison to other traditional evaluation methods. They also showed disapproval related to the demands on attendance, continuity and the greater effort required. For future occasions, negotiation about assessment criteria with the students should be implemented right at the very start of the course.

Most learners studying English language feel that their educators use irrelevant, uninteresting, and culturally unfamiliar reading materials for teaching reading. As a result, most of them struggle to comprehend the English language texts used by the teachers. Therefore, the aim of this research is to investigate the genre and content preferences of ESL tertiary learners in UiTM Kedah, Malaysia. A two-part questionnaire was administered to 132 respondents aged 20 to 23 years old who are presently furthering their undergraduate studies in Accountancy, Administrative Science and Policy Studies, Business Management, Industrial Design, and Information Management. The results of the study show that these ESL tertiary learners prefer texts from the websites and blogs; and their preferred reading contents are dealing with Business Management, watching movies and listening to music. This article offers guidance to ESL teachers to select L2 reading texts based on the students' preferred genre and content.

This study is a content analysis of theses concerning cooperative learning prepared in Turkey between the years 1993 and 2014. A total of 220 theses which were accessible online (open access) at the site of Council of Higher Education (CoHE) were analyzed. The publishing classification form used in this study was prepared analyzing similar forms in the literature. Each thesis was subjected to content analyses using this form and the data were stored in electronic media. The data were analyzed and are presented in graphics, frequency and percentage tables, and in a descriptive manner. Results show that theses on the topic of cooperative learning increased in large numbers with the adoption of the 2005 constructivist learning curriculum. Results also show that most often quantitative methods were used, the effect of the method on academic success was studied, and percentage and frequency tables in particular were used as the data analysis technique.

This article sets out to conduct a systematic review of the current literature on active video games as potential educational tools for physical education or physical activity. To begin with, research on active video games for educational and physical purposes has been examined with the purpose of verifying improvement of attitudes, intellectual skills, knowledge, motor skills and physical properties associated with physical activity and physical education. A second aim will be to determine the effectiveness of active video games compared with traditional approaches to physical activity. From this perspective, a systematic literature search from relevant international databases was conducted from January to July 2015 in order to find papers published in journals or conference proceedings from January 2010 onwards. Then, 2648 references were identified in database searches and 100 of these papers met the inclusion criteria. Two main conclusions are to be drawn from this research. Firstly, controlled studies demonstrate that active video games increase capacities in relation to physical activity and education. Secondly, Research also shows that physical activity interventions designed and measured using behavioural theories are more likely to be successful in comparison with traditional exercise activities.

This study explores Qzone weblog for critical peer feedback (CPF) in Business English writing (BEW) among the Chinese undergraduates. A qualitative case study is conducted by Nvivo 8 to analyze the three research data of semi-structured interviews, BEW writing assignments, and CPF artifacts on Qzone weblog. Three research questions are focused to study the case participants' perception of this study, the strength and weakness of Qzone for critical peer feedback, and online features of Qzone affecting critical peer feedback in Business English writing. The study aims to explore how Qzone weblog affect critical peer feedback in the online environment. The findings indicate that Qzone is a suitable type of weblog for online critical peer feedback, especially, for the Chinese undergraduates. The strength and online features of Qzone are models by Nvivo 8 for description by figures. The six aspects of strength and five online features are coded by Nvivo 8. The only weakness of Qzone is the character number limitation for each blog and feedback. The conclusion of this study will be implied for the use of Qzone weblog and other kinds of weblog for online peer feedback in English writing.

Academic libraries face the dual challenges of decreasing budgets and increasing demand for electronic resources. Librarians at three midwestern US public research universities discuss the electronic resources environment, the direction of content development, and using future-proof as well as future-driven licensing language to best provide for the needs of today's library collections decisions. Trends are discussed in both content development areas and the negotiated license framework. This article offers pragmatic approaches to answer current questions for electronic resources librarians as they experience inflation increases and the greater Serials Crisis while still looking to build access to their digital investments.

This paper discusses the role of Multi-User Virtual Environments (MUVEs) in the development of epistemic learner identity. MUVEs might help educators create the types of tasks and intellectual open spaces helping students with learner identity development in the information age. MUVEs can create new possibilities for dissemination and sharing of critical information (e.g. nonhierarchical, non-linear), opening up spaces of (safe) rebellion against top-down, teacher directed educational processes, helping students become more autonomous thinkers, ready to question information, and search for multiple sources in problem-solving. The experiment reported here follow two General Education classes for pre-service teachers (58 students) that integrated the MUVE "Second Life" as a major part of their curriculum. The experimental MUVE condition was compared to two classes (59 students) using the same curricula approach and the same instructor but without using a MUVE. Individual student blog posts (weekly assignments) were extracted for both groups (experimental, active control) from three different time points over the semester. The posts were coded for levels of complexity/uncertainty, critical perspective and source of information. It was expected that students in the experimental (MUVE integrated) group would show increases over the semester as compared to the active control group. Growth curve analyses suggests students in the experimental (MUVE-integrated) condition did indeed increase in modes of thinking that question authority through increased complexity/uncertainty and critical thinking in their assigned academic/intellectual tasks, suggesting possibilities for epistemological shifts.

Higher education can use technology in the classroom to meet students where they are and reduce the digital divide. Recent events with the COVID-19 pandemic forced schools to rely on multiple forms of technology and underlined the priority for its adoption and effective use. Therefore, understanding the options and role that easily accessible applications can play in the on-ground or online classroom is an important research need. This study assessed graduate students' perceptions of five different types of technology that were incorporated in the classroom across six different semesters. These technologies included classroom response systems, a mobile communication app, and Twitter, blogging, and video production assignments. Overall, the majority of students identified positive characteristics of all of the technology used. With respect to learning, almost all students self-identified increases in their learning from the classroom response systems (88%), Twitter discussion (81%), blogging (93%), and video production (90%). The methods used to incorporate this technology can be applied to multiple disciplines with few or no changes, thereby making these options for many instructors interested in engaging students in digital learning environments.

Academic self-efficacy is an essential element for effective and engaging learning. In order to improve academic self-efficacy, students need to engage in regular and effective self-reflection to form realistic beliefs about their own academic capabilities. However, students may not be motivated to sustain effective self-reflection. Suitable tools are needed to assist students to self-reflect effectively. The objectives of this study were to determine the effect of writing personalized weekly e-learning journals on students' academic self-efficacy, the perception of its usefulness, and how it has helped students improve their academic self-efficacy. Multiple data collection methods were used in order to provide data for better explanations on the causality of the dependent and independent variables. Fifty-four students studying a degree program wrote personalized weekly e-learning journals over a ten-week period. Pre-tests and post-tests on their academic self-efficacy were administered in study week one and eleven respectively. The personalized weekly e-learning journals contained personalized prompts. The purposes of these prompts were not only to scaffold students to self-evaluate and self-reflective effectively but also to collect weekly time series data on academic self-efficacy and perceived usefulness in writing these journals. The post-test scores and time series data showed that the academic self-efficacy and the perceived usefulness of writing e-learning journals over the intervention period have improved. Writing personalized weekly e-learning journals has motivated the students to self-evaluate regularly, sustain their self-reflection, and promote positive academic self-efficacy. This study highlighted the benefits of writing personalized e-learning journals.

The 4th Industrial Revolution fuelled technological and communication disruptions within professional work sectors. The technology-enhanced sports industry necessitates graduates to disseminate knowledge utilising various technological platforms. In this regard, higher education institutions need to develop students' technology-enhanced communication skills to succeed in the workplace. This study aimed to develop a practical conceptual framework for student vlog creation and delivery with an emphasis on enhancing communication skills while displaying content learning. The study used the ADDIE model to develop and implement the conceptual framework of instruction to embed the five canons of rhetoric for enhanced communication skills development within student vlog creation and delivery.

This article utilizes the term "digital authoring" in order to explore the ways in which children create multi-modal, digital media texts. Drawing on the notion of "emergent literacy" we share vignettes from different pedagogical and research contexts where children use media to tell stories in different forms with different technologies. These accounts demonstrate the value to children of opportunities to make volitional choices about the mode, media, and form of their own texts. We reflect on moments of authoring in our vignettes which provide insights into the intrinsic pedagogic affordances of cultural practices such as vlogging and video diaries situated as they are, in wider socio-cultural practices. In doing so, we draw on the notion of "playful tinkering" as a key pedagogical approach which recognizes the value of children's volitional engagements with digital media, to their emerging skills and dispositions as authors of digital media texts.

Science communicators who explicitly seek to achieve specific outcomes and goals efficiently and effectively are engaged in strategic science communication. The current study used qualitative interviews to explore how science bloggers view and practice strategic science communication. Interviews with 20 science bloggers who cover various scientific topics suggest that many science bloggers actively apply a range of techniques in their writing but vary in the degree to which they are strategic in using these techniques to try to achieve specific communication outcomes. The findings highlight the value of science blogs in terms of their potential to have a collective and cumulative impact on audiences and provide a window to the future development of online science communication, particularly in areas of objective setting.

There are currently no databases dedicated to indexing the research literature for disability studies. To identify which databases have more robust indexing of the literature of this field, the author compiled a list of relevant journals and searched for them in databases either frequently recommended in libraries' disability studies research guides or indicated by "Ulrich's" data to index a high number of the journals. Notable disconnects were found between frequently recommended databases and those with substantial indexing of disability studies journals. Challenges for research in this field were also encountered and documented, including inadequate indexing, particularly for open access journals.

Scientific journal publishers have rapidly converted during the past 25 years to predominantly electronic dissemination, but the reader-pays business model continues to dominate the market. Open Access (OA) publishing, where the articles are freely readable on the net, has slowly increased its market share to near 20 percent but has failed to fulfill the visions of rapid proliferation predicted by many early proponents. The growth of OA has also been very uneven across fields of science. We report market shares of open access in 18 Scopus-indexed disciplines ranging from 27 percent (agriculture) to 7 percent (business). The differences become far more pronounced for journals published in the four countries that dominate commercial scholarly publishing (US, UK, Germany, and the Netherlands). We present contrasting developments within six academic disciplines. Availability of funding to pay publication charges, pressure from research funding agencies, and the diversity of discipline-specific research communication cultures arise as potential explanations for the observed differences.

Direct instruction (PowerPoint presentations, lectures) often imposes hierarchical classroom structures where the teachers are considered experts, imparting knowledge to passive learners. However, the emergence of tools like Multi-User Virtual Environments (MUVEs) encourages the creation of democratic learning environments. We hypothesize that these tools lead to higher degrees of civil discourse within the classroom and create transformative learning trajectories for students, allowing them to create shared purpose to incite social change. By comparing reflectivity displayed in weekly students' blogging assignments in a classroom using an MUVE (Second Life), and one using direct instruction, we sought to gauge the effect MUVEs had on students' reflectivity with the passage of time. Results indicated that MUVEs facilitated more critical reflection and transformative learning trajectories as compared to direct instruction frameworks.

For the past ten years, the author has been teaching a dual credit college first-year writing course to seniors in high school. In this article, the author presents a framework for writing instruction and evaluation that centers on students responding to current topics and issues through digital writing for an authentic audience.

As universities cut library funding and forego expensive journal subscriptions, many academic organizations and researchers, including the American Educational Research Association (AERA), are moving toward open-access publications that are freely downloadable by anyone with a working internet connection. However, the impact of paywalls on the consumption of academic articles is unclear. We provide novel evidence on this question by exploiting a natural experiment in which six high-impact, usually gated AERA journals became open access for a 2-month period in 2017. Using monthly download data and an always-open-access journal as a comparison group, we show that making journals open access likely increased article downloads in those journals by 55% to 95% per month. Given a per-article download price of $36, this suggests a relatively elastic response: The average price elasticity of demand for downloads is 1.2, with individual journal elasticities ranging from 0.6 to 2.

This study aims to explore the university students' perception on integration of blogging in EFL classes. In this study, the participants were first year university students (n=103) who created their group blogs in order to share their blog entries during their oral communication classes. Students interacted with their peers via blogs simply by reading and commenting on each other's blog posts. The data was collected from the blog entries and a questionnaire administered at the end of the project in order to understand the perceptions of students on effectiveness of using blogs in developing their language use. It is hoped that the findings of this study provides some insights into a number of pedagogical and theoretical issues.

While many educational premises including higher learning institutions favor blended learning over traditional approach and merely online learning, some academicians are still apprehensive about teaching in blended learning. The aim of this review is to synthesize the available evidence in the literature on challenges faced in implementing blended learning as well as the recommendations or lessons learnt from the experience. Eight articles published between January 2010 and December 2013 were appraised. This review revealed that among the challenges faced by the instructors are increased workload and time devotion, lack of pedagogical and technical skills to conduct the program and difficulty in finding the right blend between face-to-face and online learning. The review also discovered the importance of staff training, support and networking as strategies to help instructors deal with such issues.

This study explores the narratives of eight students who served as journal reviewers on a non-course-related service activity. The aim of this study was to develop an understanding of their experiences. The review board was multi-disciplinary in composition; the majority of its student and faculty members were from communities historically excluded from, and marginalized within, structures of U.S. higher education. Student engagement in learning how to manage an online journal fostered academic socialization through collaboration and collective learning. Students' perceptions of the benefits of working on the journal were categorized across five themes: Academic Career Enhancement, Practicing Faculty Work, Illuminating Faculty Roles, Demystifying Writing for Publication, and Grappling with Prioritization. The benefits and challenges of promoting academic socialization through service learning and mentorship, as well as showing how service engagement can be integrated in academic and personal identities, are discussed.

This literature review surveys fifty years of English language teaching scholarship on the topic of culture teaching. The review segments the available literature according to decade and applies two guiding questions to each resource found: "How is culture defined" and "What does culture teaching look like." The report of findings details how authors in each decade literature set define culture and culture teaching. Discussion of the findings offers general observations of developments as well as consistencies over the entire literature set (1965-2015). This literature review will be of interest to current and emerging English language teaching scholars involved in culture teaching scholarship. It is dedicated to ASOCOPI's fifty-year anniversary (1965-2015).

For those receiving funding from the UK HEFCE-funded Open Educational Resource Programme (2009-2012), the sustainability of project outputs was one of a number of essential goals. Our approach for the hosting and distribution of health and life science open educational resources (OER) was based on the utilisation of the WordPress.org blogging platform and search engine optimisation (SEO) techniques to curate content and widen discovery. This paper outlines the approaches taken and tools used at the time, and reflects upon the effectiveness of web strategies several years post-funding. The paper concludes that using WordPress.org as a platform for sharing and curating OER, and the adoption of a pragmatic approach to SEO, offers cheap and simple ways for small-scale open education projects to be effective and sustainable.

The emergence of web 2.0 technologies has created new opportunities and challenges in the field of second and foreign language learning. Among all web 2.0 tools, blogs can be considered the most well-known one. The present study was an attempt to determine the effectiveness of using blogs as an independent learning tool to develop students' reading skills. Blogs can be divided into three main types; teacher's blog, class blog, and learner's blog. Participants were 22 first level students in the English Department at Qassim Private Colleges in Saudi Arabia. The experimental group (N = 11) used teacher's blog with an independent reading program, whereas the control group (N = 11) didn't have any additional exercises. This program ran for two months during the second semester, 2014/2015. The pre-posttest comprised two reading comprehension passages. Results of the t. test analysis revealed that using blogs yielded significant effects on students' reading skills, i.e. the experimental group outperformed the control group.

Technology is becoming increasingly popular in higher education in the way students are asked to communicate and collaborate. The student teaching experience is an integral part of developing critical thinking skills in pre-service teachers. During this experience, it is important that student teachers practice the theory they have been taught in their preparatory programs. This study determined the frequency in which student teachers at Iowa State University posted blogs in an electronic community of practice at each level of critical thinking, the relationship between the number of blogs posted by each student teacher and student teachers' average level of critical thinking displayed in those blog posts. The Florida Taxonomy of Cognitive Behavior was used to code student teacher blog posts. Six levels of critical thinking, according to Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, were present. Of the student teachers' blog posts (n = 942), 89.5% (f = 843) were at lower-order levels of critical thinking, consistent with prior research. The results did not indicate a significant relationship between the number of posts per student teacher (N = 21) and student teachers' average level of critical thinking. Teacher preparation programs should focus on modeling critical thinking in order for student teachers to incorporate and practice problem-solving, evaluating, creating, and many other critical thinking skills during the student teaching experience.

A "threshold concept" is a challenging concept that acts as a doorway leading to deeper understanding and a dramatic shift in perception. A learner that is involved in grasping a threshold concept is said to be undergoing a threshold experience within a "liminal space" or learning environment. We used the blog as a liminal space for our students to engage with the theory of evolution, which is a threshold concept. In order to teach evolution effectively it is necessary to address both understanding and acceptance of evolutionary theory. To explore the latter in an introductory biology course, we used a series of reflection assignments, submitted by students using a blog format, designed to inform, engage, and probe students' views on evolution without dismissing their prior beliefs. Using the blog feature on our learning management system (LMS), students were asked to feel free to express their views on the nature of science (NOS), evidence for evolution and natural selection, and the application of the concept of non-overlapping magisteria (NOMA) to the evolution-versus-creationism debate without fear of being graded poorly for a wrong response. Grades were based solely on the level of engagement expressed via thoughtful responses to the specific prompts within each reflection assignment. A student reflection rubric was used to grade and assess student performance and allowed us to examine how students integrated evolution into their prior knowledge. We found the blog to be a highly effective online tool to closely analyze students' written reflections on a topic that can be both intellectually and emotionally challenging.

Embedding web-based learning systems in education has drawn increasing popularity and growing interest among the contemporary language education community in recent time. In particular, blogs have become a profound phenomenon in the present landscape of online education. However, research addressing the instructor's perspective about the engagement of blog technology in second language education is still lagging behind. The current study seeks to explore and survey the perspectives of six Malaysian academicians on the use of blogs in teaching English as second language to Malaysian students at higher education institutions. A qualitative approach was adopted to collect responses from the participants via a semi-structured interview. In addition, a checklist of features of the blog was used to investigate the blogging activities in the courses conducted by the participants. The collected data from the interview were analyzed qualitatively, whereas the blog checklist data were analyzed quantitatively. The obtained results indicated that the surveyed instructors had a positive reflection on using blogs in the teaching and learning of the English as second language.