Technology-mediated teaching and learning

This study investigated teacher educators’, prospective teachers’, and K-12 teachers’ opinions about the effectiveness of ICT related courses and the ways to improve the courses in Turkey’s pre-service teacher education programs. The researchers used both quantitative and qualitative research approaches within the data
collection and analysis processes. The data were collected from 111 teacher educators, 1,330 prospective teachers, and 1,429 K-12 teachers through questionnaires; and from 6 teacher educators, 6 prospective teachers, and 6 K-12 teachers through interviews. Even though a majority of the participants felt that ICT related courses are effective, most participants recommended that these courses need to be redesigned to be more beneficial in
practice.

Purpose-With the rapid transition of education from the traditional, classroom-or campus-based to the online format, there grows a need for not only taking advantage of online technology but also assessing actual and potential effects it can make on the learners, learning, education, and society.

This study examines the relationship of fear of missing out (FOMO) with heavy social networking among Turkish university students (aged 17 - 55). Factor analysis of FOMO scale led us to evaluate the construct under two dimensions as (1) fear of missing experience and (2) fear of missing activity. The results revealed that fear of missing activity increases social media intrusion while fear of missing experience is found to have no significant effect. The reverse relationship is also valid: an urge to use social media predicts fear of missing out (activity and experience). Fear of missing experience is associated with problematic social media use (PSMU) and a high desire to use social media.

The purpose of this integrative review of theory and research is to assess the economic impact of digital media in ways that are unreached by instrumental means of measuring economic activity. Specifically, we use three overarching arguments identified from a review of the literature that broadly defines the economic force of digital media content in contemporary society. We contextualize those arguments in terms of current issues in the field and gaps in the research base before concluding with a discussion of the implications of what we learned for education, civic engagement, social practice, and policy.

This article examines how two African American females composed counter-selves using a computer motherboard and a stand-alone microphone as critical identity texts. Situated within sociocultural and critical traditions in new literacy studies and black feminist thought, the authors extend conceptions of language, literacy and black femininity via the agentic, powerful and knowledgeable selves of African American women, constructs that are often missing from the scholarship on young African American women and their practices of self-definition. The motherboard and microphone serve as analytical constructs for understanding critical new literacies and subject malleability, which crisscrosses in complex configurations across the experiences, histories and relationships that carry meaning for those who struggle through scenes of silence. Motherboards and microphones act metaphorically as technologies of the self, which resist and reformat cosmologies of black femininity that have long patterned gender oppression. The findings suggest that technologies exist everywhere, and technology related to literacy and language exists in many forms, including vocabularies of motherboards and microphones. The authors conclude that using such vocabularies for expressing identity can work through the power of metaphor in its richest sense to offer new conceptions of self, whereby the subject becomes a personal artifact capable of immense transformative potential.

Data visualizations are now commonplace in the public media. The ability to interpret and create such visualizations, as a form of data literacy, is increasingly important for democratic participation. Yet, the cross-disciplinary knowledge and skills needed to produce and use data visualizations and to develop data literacy are not fluidly integrated into traditional K–12 subject areas. In this article, we nuance and complicate the push for data literacy in STEM reform efforts targeting youth of color. We explore a curricular reform project that integrated explicit attention to issues pertaining to the collection, analysis, interpretation, representation, visualization, and communication of data in an introductory computer science class. While the study of data in this unit emphasized viewing and approaching data in context, neither the teacher nor the students were supported in negotiating the racialized context of data that emerged in classroom discussions. To better understand these dynamics, we detail the construct of racial literacy and develop an interpretative framework of racial-ideological micro-contestations. Through an in-depth analysis of a classroom interaction using this framework, we explore how contestations about race can emerge when data visualizations from the public media are incorporated into STEM learning precisely because the contexts of data are often racialized. We argue that access to learning about data visualization, without a deep interrogation of race and power, can be counterproductive and that efforts to develop authentic data literacy require the concomitant development of racial literacy.

Background/Context: One of several challenges to fusing reading and science instruction through the use of reflective practice arises from recent claims that it is questionable whether anyone can “make” preservice teachers into reflective practitioners. This challenge has implications for researchers and teacher educators in general, especially if one assumes that novices are without sufficient resources for reflecting on their own experiences and interactions.

Two frequently cited commissioned reviews of reading research conclude that skills-based instruction in graphic organizing, self-questioning, summarizing, and other similar generic reading strategies can improve adolescents’ comprehension of written texts. However, there is a growing consensus about the importance of domain-specific pedagogical knowledge, and preservice teachers who view science instruction as largely concept oriented may not view reading instruction as highly relevant. Little research has been directed toward understanding how preservice science teachers learn to integrate what they know about their subject matter with the generic reading strategies they are taught in content literacy courses.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: The researchers documented a prospective science teacher’s struggle to make sense of an online content literacy course that attempted to strengthen her capabilities to combine skills-based instruction (reading) with concept-based instruction (science). Specifically, the researchers were interested in her reflections on the feedback she received from the course instructors and, in turn, how her struggle caused the researchers to reflect on several contradictory discourses in the online course that needed addressing before offering it in subsequent semesters. While looking at the course through the eyes of this student’s experiences and interactions, the researchers were also mindful of how her professional identity as a science teacher was being informed by those same contradictory discourses in small but incremental ways throughout the semester.

Research Design: In the context of an online content literacy course, 11 pairs of prospective and mentor teachers worked as partners in the instruction of middle school students reading one or more grade levels below actual grade placement in one or more content areas. This interpretive case study focused on one of those pairs. The concept of approximations of practice framed this study and led to a focus on the clinical aspects of reflective practice manifested during periods of preactive teaching (e.g., lesson planning) and reflective teaching (e.g., explaining and receiving feedback on the planned lessons).

Data Collection and Analysis: Data sources included a prospective teacher’s four intervention lessons plans and e-mails containing reflections on those lesson plans from the prospective teacher, her mentor teacher, and the teaching team. Analysis was a four-step process that included coding key sources and writing analytic memos through the use of deductive and inductive methods. The primary researcher used discourse analysis to interpret the researchers' and participants’ written reflections related to preactive and reflective teaching.

Conclusions/Recommendations: Implications derived from the study’s findings for literacy educators point to the value of collaborating with colleagues in schools of teacher education who have expertise in teaching their specific discipline’s content. Most importantly, the implications point to the need to reexamine the assumption that prospective teachers are without sufficient resources for reflecting on their own experiences and interactions in situations that call for fusing skills-based reading instruction with concept-based science instruction.

Taking the notion of the postdigital as its starting point, this chapter begins with my experience teaching in postgraduate teacher education courses. In postgraduate teacher education, professional learning is understood as being a ceaseless process. Mirroring the way, the concept of the postdigital illuminates our almost seamless relationship with digital technologies in education, the concept of lifelong learning highlights that education is now conceptualised as a continuous process of upskilling. This chapter explores the public pedagogical implications that occur with the use of social media sites for networked professional learning. Drawing on feminist theorising and postdigital conceptualisations of education, this chapter asks critical questions about the promotion of social networking sites and reflects on the implications of those questions for postgraduate education. This postdigital analysis of Twitter demonstrates the utility of postdigital theory as a reflective tool when applied to postgraduate education.

This article argues that models for the integration of ICT in teacher training should be based on a holistic understanding of digital literacy that considers the ongoing change in knowledge production, management and consumptions connected with the generalised rise of open and participatory societies. In order to understand how this could be done, the article analyses a few digital literacy frameworks, including the recent DigCompEdu framework by the European Commission, looking for the space given to competencies related to openness and collaboration, and proposes some reflections on how critical competences could be included in contemporary digital literacy frameworks for teachers. The article concludes that more should be done by teacher training initiatives to transform educators into critically literate actors able to participate competently in digital practices but also to transform these practices into an active, inclusive and open way.

Critics of artificial intelligence have suggested that the principles of fairness, accountability and transparency (FATE) have been used for 'ethics washing', in order to appease industrial interests. In this article, we develop this relational and context-dependent analysis, arguing that ethics should not be understood as abstract values or design decisions, but as socio-technical achievements, enacted in the practices of students, teachers and corporations. We propose that the ethics of using AI in education are political, involving the distribution of power, privilege and resources. To illustrate this, we trace the controversies that followed from an incident in which a student was misclassified as a cheat by an online proctoring platform during the Covid-19 lockdown, analysing this incident to reveal the socio-technical arrangements of academic integrity. We then show how Joan Tronto's work on the ethics of care can help think about the politics of these socio-technical arrangements-that is, about historically constituted power relations and the delegation of responsibilities within these institutions. The paper concludes by setting the immediate need for restorative justice against the slower temporality of systemic failure, and inviting speculation that could create new relationships between universities, students, businesses, algorithms and the idea of academic integrity.

Researchers have focused on identifying factors which might reduce the negative consequences associated with cyber victimization. One prominent factor receiving attention is the role of parental mediation in adolescents’ digital technology usage, and how such mediation reduces the risk of cyber victimization. Less attention has focused on different mitigating agents (i.e., teachers, friends) and their influence on adolescents’ cyber victimization. Another area that has received little attention is the buffering effects of different mitigating agents on the psychosocial adjustment difficulties (i.e., depression, loneliness, anxiety) associated with cyber victimization. To address this gap in the literature, the present study investigated the role of different mitigating agents (i.e., parents, teachers, friends) in buffering against the psychosocial adjustment difficulties associated with cyber victimization  among 483 Chinese (49% female) and 467 American (52% female) adolescents in the eighth grade (ages ranging from 13-15). Findings revealed that all adolescents experienced more mediation by their parents, with Chinese adolescents reporting more parental mediation when compared to American adolescents. Chinese adolescents also reported more teacher mediation, while American adolescents experienced more friend mediation. In addition, high levels of parental mediation made the relationship of cyber victimization to depression and anxiety more negative for both Chinese and American adolescents. The relationships of cyber victimization to depression and anxiety were moderated by teacher mediation for Chinese adolescents, whereas this pattern was not found for American adolescents. On the other hand, friend mediation moderated the relationship of cyber victimization to depression and anxiety for American adolescents, but not for Chinese adolescents. The results of this study are discussed in terms of cultural values and how such values alter the role of adults and friends in adolescents’ lives.

Background: While there is evidence to suggest that teaching practices in clinical education should include activities that more accurately reflect the real world, many educators base their teaching on transmission models that encourage the rote learning of knowledge and technical skills. Technology-mediated instruction may facilitate the development of professional attributes that go beyond “having” knowledge and skills, but there is limited
evidence for how to integrate technology into these innovative teaching approaches.
Methods: This study used a modified Delphi method to help identify the professional attributes of capable practitioners, the approaches to teaching that may facilitate the development of these attributes, and finally, how technology could be integrated with those teaching strategies in order to develop capable practitioners. Open-ended questions were used to gather data from three different expert panels, and results were thematically analysed.
Results: Clinical educators should not view knowledge, skills and attitudes as a set of products of learning, but rather as a set of attributes that are developed during a learning process. Participants highlighted the importance of continuing personal and professional development that emphasised the role of values and emotional response to the clinical context. To develop these attributes, clinical educators should use teaching activities that are learner-centred, interactive, integrated, reflective and that promote engagement. When technology-mediated teaching activities are considered, they should promote the discussion of clinical encounters, facilitate the sharing of resources and experiences, encourage reflection on the learning process and be used to access content outside the classroom. In addition, educational outcomes must drive the
integration of technology into teaching practice, rather than the features of the technology.
Conclusions: There is a need for a cultural change in clinical education, in which those involved with the professional training of healthcare professionals perceive teaching as more than the transmission of knowledge and technical skills. Process-oriented teaching practices that integrate technology as part of a carefully designed curriculum may have the potential to facilitate the development of capable healthcare graduates who are able
to navigate the complexity of health systems and patient management in ways that go beyond the application
of knowledge and skills.

The study identifies appropriate Mind mapping techniques to enhance the EFL learners’ writing ability. It
reviews and examines the traditional techniques used in teaching writing to the Saudi intermediate learners
and identifies appropriate Mind mapping techniques along with an application procedure to enhance the
writing skill. The sample included 40 intermediate learners and 20 English language teachers at the English
Language Institute. The study divided into two phases; a Survey Phase and an Experiment Phase; started with
the learners’ placement test and a questionnaire distributed in EL teachers to collect the data on practicing
usual techniques and problems faced while teaching writing. Since, the main focus of the study was to identify
the appropriate Mind mapping techniques to enhance the learners’ writing ability, the experiment phase
continued for 7-8 weeks. The statistical analysis of the data was carried out by using Microsoft Excel and
SPSS. The results indicated that the learners, who were taught through Mind maps, improved cohesion and
coherence; content paragraph structure and length in writing. The results manifested that the hierarchical
structure of the Mind mapping techniques used in the pre-writing process enhanced the EFL learners’
writings.

PowerPoint is one of the most frequently used tools to present multimedia for educational purposes. Nevertheless, little is known about the users' needs when using PowerPoint during lecturing. Our study focused on the presenter's needs in this context of use. We interviewed nine university lecturers from the computer science department by means of a questionnaire. The results show that users require features that are not yet realised with PowerPoint. For example, the control and use of other media should be adequately integrated. Or the navigation within the slide collection should be improved to better meet the users' needs. Based on our findings, we outline required system features and suggest solutions in form of a prototype.

Revolusi Industri 4.0 mendorong perubahan pada proses pendidikan dan pembelajaran daring merupakan salah satu tantangan yang harus dihadapi. Blended Learning merupakan salah satu solusi untuk menuju perubahan tersebut. Tujuan penelitian ini adalah untuk mengetahui sikap siswa terhadap proses pembelajaran berbasis Blended Learning pada sampel kelas Statistika di Universitas Teknokrat Indonesia. Proses pembelajaran daring dilakukan dengan menggunakan Google Classroom. Teknik pengumpulan dan analisa data menggunakan angket skala sikap yang terdiri dari dua variabel, sikap terhadap proses pembelajaran dan sikap terhadap pemahaman materi, yang didukung oleh 9 indikator dan 26 pernyataan. Hasil penelitian ini menunjukan bahwa peserta didik merasa proses pembelajaran dengan Metode Blended Learning melalui Google Classroom ini membuat proses pembelajaran menjadi menarik, efektif, menumbuhkan motivasi, menumbuhkan sikap belajar mandiri, aktif, dan kreatif. Selain itu, metode ini juga dapat meningkatkan pemahaman dan hasil belajar peserta didik. Namun, peserta didik merasa proses pembelajaran menjadi tidak efisien karena mengharuskan mereka mempunyai paket data. Oleh karena itu, peran pemerintah dirasa sangat penting, salah satunya dalam hal pengadaan sarana dan prasarana untuk mendukung proses pembelajaran Blended Learning agar dapat memudahkan peserta didik untuk tetap terhubung dengan internet secara gratis.

In this introduction to the Focus Section “Learning as a Geographical Process,” I provide a context for the four articles that follow, by means of (1) making explicit the threefold rationale for this initiative; (2) relating this initiative with previous geographical scholarship on the problematic of learning; (3) highlighting the significance of the self-referential character of our work; (4) providing a brief outline of the articles that follow; and (5) pointing out the important fact that both “learning” and “geographical process” constitute semantically rich categories and that relating the two involves a many-to-many type of logical mapping.

We all live in a digital-driven world where some communities and countries are provided with high quality broadband connectivity, while others are deprived. Most people faced digital discrepancies due to a lack of funding and physical access to resources. Underserved and underrepresented populations are not provided with equal opportunities for healthcare, education, social enrichment, and employment due to digital divides. Researcher van Deursen and van Dijk (found that even though some of these communities are provided with broadband connectivity, access is restricted, and connections are unreliable. Even academic institutions, public libraries, and other public entities are not left out of the digital split. Older adults still lag behind younger generations but mostly due to their preferability and academic and nancial stance. It will take a collective eort to bridge the digital gaps, as potential solutions are addressed. Also, for theoretical support, van Dijk resources and appropriation theory (RAT) is applied to aid in understanding the digital divide phenomenon. Although there is no distinctive header, this is the abstract. This submission template allows authors to submit their papers for review to an ACM Conference or Journal without any output design specications incorporated at this point in the process. The ACM manuscript template is a single column document that allows authors to type their content into the pre-existing set of paragraph formatting styles applied to the sample placeholder text here. Throughout the document you will nd further instructions on how to format your text. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing ! Accessibility.

In the latter half of the 1990s the digital
image became prevalent, easy to manipulate, and consequently, easy to recontextualize,
meaning that now just about any image is available to any computer user for any occasion. To use Bolter's terminology, the "interpenetration" of textual and pictorial space in digital environments, especially on the Web, has increased
markedly, so that the predominance of the digital image now rivals that of the digital word. Indeed, a number of thinkers have noted the digital image's ascendancy in communicating
information via the computer. But how are we to think about, to analyze the rhetorical dimensions of these images? This essay focuses on using classical rhetoric 'as a way of
thinking about the persuasive power of computer-based images.

The aim of this study is to explore the way of modding an existing digital game for learning. World Editor of Warcraft III was selected as the modding tool. The attitude evaluation was conducted by inviting two classes of junior high school students as combat and adventure group respectively. Results of evaluation showed that students' attitudes toward the modding game are positive. This study provides learning game designers an alternative approach in considering the way of developing digital games for students' concept learning.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the current status of K-12 teachers’ Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) perceptions and ICT usage in their courses. The researchers used both quantitative and qualitative research approaches within data collection and analysis section. Quantitative data were collected with a questionnaire from 1429 K-12 teachers in 92 K-12 schools at 35 provinces of 12 different regions in Turkey through a representative convenience sampling method. Qualitative data were collected, through open-ended items in the questionnaire from the same participants and through interviews with 6 K-12 teachers. The results provided some evidence that there are positive perceptions about the integration of ICT into K-12 schools. The results also showed that at least one-fourth of the K-12 teachers used computer laboratories and integrated ICT into their courses. The remaining teachers either do not integrate ICT into their courses or they lack of sufficient ICT facilities.

[Bu çalışmanın amacı, ilköğretim ve ortaöğretim okullarındaki öğretmenlerin Bilişim Teknolojileri’ne (BT) karşı algılarını ve derslerinde BT’yi kullanımlarıyla ilgili var olan durumu ortaya çıkarmaktır. Araştırmacılar veri toplamada ve verilerin analizinde nitel ve nicel yaklaşımları birlikte kullanmışlardır. Nicel veriler, 12 bölge, 35 il ve 92 okuldaki 1429 öğretmenden uygun örnekleme tekniği kullanılarak anketler yoluyla toplanmıştır. Nitel veriler ise aynı anketlerdeki açık uçlu sorularla ve 6 öğretmenle yapılan görüşmelerden elde edilmiştir. Bulgular, öğretmenlerin BT’nin ilk ve orta öğretime bütünleştirilmesi konusundaki algılarının olumlu olduğunu göstermektedir. Öğretmenlerin %25’i bilgisayar laboratuarlarını kullanmakta ve derslerine BT’yi bütünleştirmektedir. Diğer öğretmenler ise ya BT’yi derslerinde kullanmamakta veya yeterli BT kaynaklarına erişememektedirler.]

Mobile technology is pervasive in society and in particular among young people. The use of such technology in the classroom can be controversial and case studies and data on student perceptions of the technology are rare. This study presents the results of an iPad Pilot Project sponsored by a college at mid-sized university in a rural area in the United States. The study intersects the use of the iPad in the classroom with the reinvention of liberal arts education. Using case studies and student perceptions from survey data, the study concludes that the use of the iPads in the classroom can enhance critical thinking, collaboration, and participation and that the iPads were not a distraction in the classroom.  The study details the different uses of the iPad in the classroom and how the technological use addressed several different problems raised by the use of technology. 

Many platforms for civic engagement, whether online or offline, are inconvenient and disconnected from the source of issues they are meant to address. They require that citizens leave the places they normally inhabit physically or virtually and commit to a separate space and set of processes. Town hall meetings are still a key point of engagement, occurring during specific times and in specific places. Online forums function similarly, in that deliberation occurs within profile-based websites for which you need to sign up and regularly return. This paper responds to the design challenge and research question: How do you address barriers to “minimum effective engagement” in community projects, and ensure that all citizens can have their voice heard on how to improve their local communities?

In order to raise levels of participation in community projects and expand the range of voices heard in governmental decision-making, there is a need for civic technology that is lightweight and compelling enough to enjoy continued use and to promote civic learning. In this paper, I develop a theoretical basis for effective citizenship through crowdsourcing monitorial activity by finding connections between several theories of citizenship and learning, which point to this activity fostering civic learning through reflective political practice.

Using a needs assessment of Boston-area municipalities, I reinforce my argument and concretize a set of design goals for a new socio-technical system to foster local civic learning and engagement around issues like urban planning. In the end, I respond to the research challenge and design goals by introducing a prototype for a location-based survey platform for Android smartphones called Action Path, and discuss early-stage user feedback and future work.

This paper introduces the use of technology in the classroom and highlights the growing challenges and opportunities teachers face in its application. One specific technique, the use of teacher-made and annotated YouTube videos to preteach class-specific course content for English language learners is presented. These videos were created to 1) be under five minutes, 2) annotated with text to reinforce the key concepts, 3) specific to the teacher's classes and not necessarily for a wider audience, and 4) offer in-class incentives for online work. Qualitative and quantitative results of the use of this technique are described over four semesters of data, two before the preteaching videos intervention and two after. The results conform to the previous research about preteaching in specific and the use of technology overall, but isolating the particular effect of the preteaching videos on learning remains a point for a future study. The paper concludes with a summary of the results and a discussion of the increasing role of technology in teaching and an exhortation for classroom teachers to make the most of these tools to remain relevant to learners.

Computer mediated communication (CMC) tends to erase power structures because such communication somehow undermines or escapes discursive limits. Online discussions seem to promote rhetorical experimentation on the part of the participants. Finding a way to explain disparities between electronic discussion and oral discussion has proven difficult. Those in composition studies have tried to theorize CMC by reference to postmodern theory, but another form of theory that might help in the investigation of the nature of online communities derives from cybernetics and from information theory. Cybernetics' wider implications have led to the advent of a second-order cybernetics or systems theory--self-organizing, self-making, or autopoietic. Reflexivity provides an implicit reason for the difficulty of controlling electronic class discussion. Third wave cybernetics can be used in conjunction with social applications of systems theory to think about what happens when machines, teachers, and students are all "spliced" into one grand system. It seems that traditional approaches to class discussion with the instructor controlling the flow and order make it natural for teachers to view electronic communities as the early cyberneticists did, as allopoietic mechanisms whose goals can be set and observed. Though control of a system with multiple, dynamic elements may be somewhat difficult, a lack of control does not, in terms of systems theory, preclude an instructor's valuable involvement in an online community.

Digital learning is being transformed by changes in copyright law. This article discusses the author's personal journey as a copyright education activist through two rounds of rulemaking proceedings before the Copyright Office concerning the anti-circumvention provisions of one part of the copyright law, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which is the law that exempts YouTube and other ISPs from liability from copyright claims and criminalizes the circumvention of digital rights management (DRM) software that protects DVDs from being copied. Every three years, petitioners can claim their rights have been compromised by the current law; the Copyright Office pores over the petitions, weighs the pros and cons, and then offers recommendations to the Librarian of Congress, who ultimately grants or denies the exemptions. The author was successful in expanding the rights of K-12 teachers to legally " rip " DVDs by using the Section 1201 rulemaking process, which is one of the only significant ways that educators can expand their rights to use copyrighted material for teaching and learning purposes. By asserting the rights of K-12 educators to circumvent encryption to make fair use of copy-protected DVDs and online digital media for teaching and learning, the law begins to move beyond the needs of large-scale content owners to include the rights of educators and students.

The paper reports the findings of a research project that seeks to explore and understand adult educators’ and learners’  xperiences and perceptions of distance learning courses in the Open University of Cyprus and the Hellenic Open University. The ultimate aim of the paper is to unveil and illuminate some of the adult distance teaching and learning processes at work in these courses. The research harnesses a case study approach within a qualitative paradigm. It draws upon the experiences of 16 learners (open university students) and 8 educators (open university tutors) who embarked on an undergraduate programme in Greek civilization and a postgraduate programme in education studies in the two case study universities. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with the above participants. For the analysis of the data, a heuristic was used that brings together a set of key stages
on adult programme development. These are: needs identification, planning, design, climate, and evaluation. The findings highlighted a number of issues/factors that relate to the above stages of programme development and proved as influencing adult distance teaching and learning processes in the contexts under exploration."

Writing is viewed hugely important, yet it is a daunting task for both English as a second language (ESL) teachers and learners. With the development of different approaches to teaching in general, numerous approaches to the teaching of writing have been evolved such as product, process and post-process approaches. Although these approaches have changed the role and status of writing over the years, writing still appears as one of the difficult areas to tackle as students lack academic writing skills and they are de-motivated to write in English. In view of this, researchers show an interest in looking into the possibilities of using Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools for language teaching and learning. This paper discusses the application of the latest ICT tool, which is known as weblog as an effective tool in ESL classrooms. The aim of this study is to explore the pedagogical potentials of weblog in developing the writing skills of ESL learners. In particular, this paper wishes to identify and discuss the characteristics of weblogs as an appropriate and effective tool in assisting the learners in various ways to improve their writing skills. This study will further highlight the benefits of web logging activities and the impacts of these activities on students’ motivation to write in English as autonomous learners.

This study employed a survey research design to identify factors that facilitate university faculty to integrate computer-based technologies into their teaching practice. The purpose of the study was to measure the practices and perceptions of higher education faculty toward instructional technology. The designed survey instrument established a series of five personal profile categories. The five categories were used as variables manipulated to enable a series of statistical analyses to examine factors that enable faculty to use technology in their teaching. The survey was electronically administered to faculty in 36 universities in the Appalachian Region; a target population of approximately 4000 potential survey respondents. A total of 427 faculty from 22 of these institutions responded to the survey, which was approximately 10% of the total population.
The findings, showed statistically significant correlations between the teaching with technology subscale and personal technology use subscale. This may suggest that personal use and personal knowledge are indicators of whether or not university faculty will use technology in their teaching. Additionally, a statistically significant difference was found between the extent to which female faculty reported using technology compared to male faculty members. The generational factor (age), was not shown to have any significant relationship with the frequency of faculty members‘ use of technology, but results indicated generational differences on the personal requirements profile. Lastly, one finding related to the personal requirements profile indicated that the most common requirement for using technology reported by the faculty was the knowledge that doing so would enhance students‘ learning.

The current study was conducted to investigate the effect of task-based and topic-based speaking activities on improving the speaking ability among Iranian EFL learners. The study used quasi-experimental design. The subjects consisted of 60 male and female students who were selected from among 90 EFL learners by applying the nelson proficiency test. 30 subjects formed a control group which received conventional method. The other with 15 subjects formed experimental group A which received the task-based speaking activities. Another 15 formed the experimental group B which received the topic-based speaking activities. Oral interviews were used both as the pretest and posttest in order to evaluate the speaking proficiency of subjects before and offer the treatment, the results indicated that task-based speaking activities enhanced speaking ability of Iranian EFL learners, but not significantly enough to reject the stated null hypothesis.