Provides information, strategies, and activities designed specifically to aid instructors and students in developing collaborative group processes that promote teamwork in an online environment. Outlines an instructional module that was developed and formatively tested with graduate students, and describes a workshop designed for faculty members…

Suggests that business students need to be prepared to manage the communication of intercultural teams. Discusses strategies for success such as: developing a network of good relationships built on trust and understanding; showing respect for other cultures and languages; and understanding how diversity strengthens the team. (SG)

Virtual field trips offer a new way for teachers and students to visit historical sites and museums. Most notably, virtual field trips provide access to places that normally would be impossible for classrooms to visit, and this, in turn, provides a plethora of learning possibilities for the classroom. Why should teachers consider creating a…

A hands-on lab for a lower division research methods course used an online format with Web page, Web forms, an e-mail listproc, and chat room. The virtual section received a higher rating for overall value than did the in-person labs. Students liked its convenience and flexibility. There were no significant differences in examination performance…

Water quality experiments, especially the use of macroinvertebrates as indicators of water quality, offer an ideal context for connecting statistics and science. In the STAR program for secondary students and teachers, water quality experiments were also used as a context for teaching statistics. In this article, we trace one activity that uses…

Focuses on the mode of instructional technology rapidly growing and the potential to make a dramatic transformative impact on teaching and learning, the virtual classroom. Discusses how Web-based instructional technologies affect the traditional university role and impact faculty roles, skills, and identity in higher education. (KDR)

Virtual project rooms (VPRs) may support collaborative project-based learning groups by facilitating project management, documentation and communication. In this study a set of experiments was carried out at Eindhoven University of Technology using the MS Outlook/Exchange software as a groupware platform for design-oriented group projects. The…

The notion of "culture" as an essential attribute of individuals and groups, owed to national or ethnic background, is critiqued in this article as unhelpful to the project of understanding how diverse participants in virtual learning environments (VLEs) individually and jointly construct a culture of interaction. An alternative…

This article explores the experience of a researcher who was part of a pan-European team exploring one of the currently available avatar worlds used for educational purposes. The article reports research undertaken as part of the European Union (EU)-funded project EQUEL (e-quality in e-learning) from the point of view of a single researcher. The…

Where the role of instructor discourse has been the focus of much recent research on asynchronous online instruction, the anatomy of effective instructional discourse of foreign language educators has yet to be examined. Indeed, the majority of work in the area of foreign language and telecommunications has concentrated on student-student,…

This paper presents a case study that describes and discusses the problems encountered during the design and implementation of a blended learning course, largely taught online through a web-based learning environment. Based on Moore's theory of transactional distance, the course was explicitly designed to have dialogue at its heart. However, the…

The Technology Enhanced Elementary and Middle School Science II project (TEEMSS), funded by the National Science Foundation, produced 15 inquiry-based instructional science units for teaching in grades 3-8. Each unit uses computers and probeware to support students' investigations of real-world phenomena using probes (e.g., for temperature or…

Background: The literature on immersive virtual worlds and e-learning to date largely indicates that technology has led the pedagogy. Although rationales for implementing e-learning have included flexibility of provision and supporting diversity, none of these recommendations has helped to provide strong pedagogical location. Furthermore, there is…

The work outlined here provides a comprehensive report and formative observations of the development and implementation of hypermedia resources for learning and teaching used in conjunction with the BSCW managed learning environment (BSCWMLE). This is based on the experience from the FISTE on-line course. FISTE is an European project that focus on…

Nearly all Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) states have a state-sponsored virtual school, and the remaining states are either planning or beginning initial implementation. Just 12 years ago, none of the 50 states used the Web to provide courses to middle grades or high school students. By 2000, several SREB states, including Florida,…