This small case study investigated the use of the Quality Talk framework to empower students to pool their knowledge in group discussions around a novel topic or event. The main goals of the Quality Talk approach were to provide teachers with a prescriptive framework for increasing their students' critical-analytical thinking by providing greater…

This paper reports on a qualitative case study of a teacher and her students in a postgraduate Tourism course in New Zealand in which a learning management system, discussion forums, and wikis were used to facilitate student engagement and deeper learning of course content. Although the teacher was experienced in face-to-face teaching contexts,…

This study explored the use of the Web-based virtual environment, Adobe Connect Pro, in a postgraduate online teacher education programme at the University of Waikato. It applied the tenets of Moore's Theory of Transactional Distance (Moore, 1997) in examining the efficacy of using the virtual classroom to promote quality dialogue and explored how…

As new technologies become less expensive, provide greater access to various forms of multimedia, and are integrated into all aspects of everyday life, online learning environments are becoming more prevalent. Online education, as experienced through course management systems, is being heralded as meeting the needs of students' lifestyles by…