In this study, a corpus of expert-graded essays, based on a standardized scoring rubric, is computationally evaluated so as to distinguish the differences between those essays that were rated as high and those rated as low. The automated tool, Coh-Metrix, is used to examine the degree to which high- and low-proficiency essays can be predicted by…

This study investigated the usefulness of the Cantonese Linguistic Communication Measure (CLCM) in monitoring changes of narrative production in five Chinese adults with aphasia in the period of spontaneous recovery (SR group) and four who underwent anomia therapies (Tx group). Language samples elicited from a picture description task were…

Retrieving a word in a sentence requires speakers to overcome syntagmatic, as well as paradigmatic interference. When accessing "cat" in "The cat chased the string", not only are similar competitors such as "dog" and "cap" activated, but also other words in the planned sentence, such as "chase" and "string". We hypothesise that both types of…

This paper explores the role of engaging teachers in constructive dialogue within ICT professional development activity. As part of an ICT professional development program, sixteen teachers across eight geographically removed schools participated in an online threaded discussion forum for a school year. Data reported in this paper are generated…

This contribution discusses problems of students' academic writing in Africa. It sketches the wide field of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and argues that reference, coherence and complexity are key concepts for evaluating student writing at university level. It uses material from African corpora to substantiate this claim and to illustrate…

Three experiments explored how pictures in award-winning children's storybooks contribute to their cohesion. In Experiment 1, one group of college students read storybooks with pictures, and another group read them with the pictures removed. Both groups answered questions inserted periodically. The source for about one half of the questions was…

In this article, we invite readers into a conversation about ways of being in teaching. Through e-mails, telephone calls, and face-to-face meetings, we use our first conversations with each other as shared moments that we returned to, seeking to better understand how we made meaning in our individual school teaching careers, and how we continue to…

Why is Norway, the first nation in the world defining digital literacy, as the fifth basic competence in the national curriculum? How has epistemological and ontological issues influenced educational technology and how has this influenced discourse of educational technology in curricula which have led to today's "technology friendly…

For the past number of years, experienced teachers have sometimes come to visit my office with a sense that they are working outside the official educational system. In many ways these teachers see themselves as subversives, acting on behalf of their students to deliver a better educational experience, but in many cases they feel that they are…

This paper is concerned with the empirical and theoretical literature that helped the author conceptualize educating for democracy as one social practice within social life. While empirical research on democratic education and theoretical literature exists, the author had not found any literature that examined the discursive production of ideology…

What is it that images can do that cannot be done by words alone? This article illustrates and discusses how visual expressions act as helpers of dialogue--anchors of meaning. The main argument is that the inclusion of pictorial material is a useful way to develop poststructuralist thinking technologies to further expand our understandings of the…

This article reviews and synthesizes over a decade of research that has used discourse analysis, dialogue modelling and empirical techniques to investigate educational argumentation and to design digital tools that support its practice. This approach--incorporating theoretical, empirical and design-based methods according to what tends to now be…

This article seeks to explain why spiritual education must be clear about the nature of spiritual knowledge and truth and how it differs from the knowledge and truth generated by science. The author argues this is important in order that spirituality and science are equally valued, and in order that spiritual pedagogy appropriately reflects the…

Teachers' knowing about students and their families is critical to ensuring relevant classroom instruction. The "Family Storytelling through Dichos" approach is explored as a culturally and linguistically appropriate mechanism for learning about students' backgrounds. This article posits that this approach may be a viable one, since it is rooted…

Siemens and Downes initially received increasing attention in the blogosphere in 2005 when they discussed their ideas concerning distributed knowledge. An extended discourse has ensued in and around the status of "connectivism" as a learning theory for the digital age. This has led to a number of questions in relation to existing learning…