Computer‐mediated communication in the university classroom: An experiment with on‐line discussions

1997 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 158-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott L. Althaus
10.47908/9/15 ◽  
2013 ◽  
pp. 165-280
Author(s):  
Maria De Santo ◽  
Luisa Boardman

The Self-Access Language Centre of the University of Naples “L’Orientale” (CILA) promotes the development of autonomy in language learning, offering a wide range of technology-based resources and a language counselling service. In the last few years, to satisfy the growing need for independent language learning in our university, we have integrated autonomous learning in the SAC with online pathways and multimedia materials. We started by offering online Self-Access activities in blended courses, integrating face-to-face classroom teaching with online modules. This experiment enabled us to develop a kind of blended autonomous learning, combining a real-life SAC with online Self-Access Centres. Virtual SACs suggest a variety of language learning activities and allow learners to study a language while reflecting on their learning process. In the online SAC, language counsellors implement the language learner’s autonomy promoted in presence in the SAC, interacting with them through computer-mediated communication. In this paper we shall look at how the promotion of autonomy in language learning can be enhanced through the integration of technology-based materials and activities made available in self-access modality. Our aim is to present online resources designed to help students learn a foreign language autonomously.


Author(s):  
Suelene Vaz da SILVA ◽  
Francisco José Quaresma de FIGUEIREDO

ABSTRACT This paper presents data from a computer-mediated communication study conducted between a group of Brazilian university students - from Instituto Federal de Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia do Estado de Goiás, Campus Goiânia, Goiás, Brazil - who wanted to learn English, and a group of German university students - from the University of Worms, in Germany - who wanted to learn Portuguese. The cross-cultural bilingual communication was conducted in the second semester of 2010 and involved discussions on environmental issues. Adopting a qualitative perspective in the analysis, the data were derived from conversation sessions through a webconferencing software known as Openmeetings and through e-mails and some written activities developed by the students. All these were analyzed by means of sociocultural theory. Among the conclusions we reached, we observed that the participants used the software features to help them in their language learning process, discussed issues related to environmental science, as well as topics related to their personal and academic life. Regarding the languages used, the participants used English during the teletandem sessions as an anchoring language to assist their partners in learning English itself and Portuguese, as well as introduced the German language in the interaction sessions.


1999 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 62-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Stubbs

This article, concentrating on contemporary Croatia, explores the role of computer-mediated communication in new relationships between the homeland at war and diaspora. Computer mediated diasporic public spheres are discussed as forms of creative imaginings of a national space from diverse global sites. The text is critical of any suggestion that diasporic identifications are able to be read off, simplistically, from dominant forms of homeland nationalism. Through an exploration of the socio-historical bases of Croatian diaspora communities, and the complexities of callings from the homeland in the 1990s, a more nuanced picture of contestation emerges. A ‘netnography’ of the Soc/Culture/Croatia newsgroup reveals a dominant habitus of processes, forms and content, in particular, the construction of Croatian identity in relation to a, more or less, monolithic ‘Other’ but, also, emerging innovative currents. More work on diasporic affinities as complex, contingent, and fluid is clearly needed, with political as well as theoretical importance.


2010 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 27.1-27.24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lan Liana Tan ◽  
Gillian Wigglesworth ◽  
Neomy Storch

In today’s second language classrooms, students are often asked to work in pairs or small groups. Such collaboration can take place face-to-face, but now more often via computer mediated communication. This paper reports on a study which investigated the effect of the medium of communication on the nature of pair interaction. The study involved six pairs of beginner participants in a Chinese class completing seven different tasks. Each task was completed twice, once face to face (FTF), and once via computer mediated communication (CMC). All pair talk was audio recorded, and on-line communication was logged. Using Storch’s (2002) model of patterns of pair interaction, five patterns were identified: collaborative, cooperative, dominant/dominant, dominant/passive and expert/novice. The medium of communication was found to affect the pattern of interaction. In CMC some pairs became more collaborative, or cooperative. The implications of these findings for language teaching, particularly for the use of CMC in language classes, are discussed.


Author(s):  
Dubravka Cecez-Kecmanovic ◽  
Andy Busuttil

This case is about a university, named Uni-X, which adopted and appropriated CMC to support a university-wide consultative process to inform its future strategic directions. Strategic change was required in response to a number of external political and economic factors. The President and the Executive Committee decided to use the consultative process both to increase staff awareness of the circumstances being faced by the university and to engage them in an exploratory process leading to the decisions that were to be made. The CMC system used was intended to provide equal access to information by all staff, to enable a university-wide electronic forum for discussion, and to support the coordination of a multitude of the other in-vivo tasks arising from the process. The case enables examination of (at least) three controversial issues of CMC deployment: equality of access, equality of participation, and democratizing potential. Equality of access means that all the participants have an equal opportunity to access the communication network and information resources in the system. Equality of access has to be distinguished from the equality of participation, which denotes equal opportunity to contribute to the discussion, both to affect and be affected by the opinion of others. CMC’s democratizing potential is an even more complex issue that refers to CMC’s contribution to the openness and transparency of organizational processes and to consensus-based participatory decision making. Understanding the use and appropriation of CMC by individuals as members of different groups and as members of the Uni-X University, together with understanding the uniqueness of their specific local contexts, is a prerequisite for exploring the richness of social impacts, and why and how they emerged.


Author(s):  
Linda D. Grooms

<p>The axiom of humanity’s basic need to communicate provides the impetus to explore the nature and quality of computer-mediated communication as a vehicle for learning in higher education. This exploratory study examined the experiential communication perceptions of online doctoral students during the infancy of their program. Eighty-five students were electronically queried through a 32 item open-ended questionnaire within a 13 day time frame. Preliminary findings supported the experience of Seagren and Watwood (1996) at the Lincoln Campus of the University of Nebraska, that “more information widens learning opportunities, but without interaction, learning is not enhanced” (p. 514). The overarching implications stress that faculty development and instructional planning are essential for the effective delivery of online courses, and even more so when collaborative learning is used. Facilitating group communication and interaction are areas beckoning attention as we continue to effectively organize the online classroom of this new millennium.</p> <p><B>Key Words:</B> Computer-mediated communication, online instructional pedagogy, virtual classroom, online learning, higher education, interaction, immediacy</P>


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arab World English Journal ◽  
Hady Hamdan

This paper seeks to unveil the attitudes of a sample of students at the University of Jordan towards the use of romanized Arabic in computer--mediated communication (CMC). In particular, it provides answers to two questions. First, do the subjects encode Arabic characters, including numbers, in a romanized version in their CMC? If yes, how often and why? Second, does the students' major and the language of instruction used therein (i.e. English or Arabic) affect their choice of Arabic romanization and their attitudes towards it? The data are collected by means of a questionnaire completed by students from four different majors: (1) Applied English, (2) Arabic, (3) Medicine, and (4) Islamic Sharia. While the majority of students of Applied English and Medicine tend to use Romanized Jordanian Arabic, the students of Arabic and Sharia show a clear preference for the use of Arabic letters. The users of Romanized Arabic cite a number of reasons for their choice. Some believe that Romanized letters are easier and faster to type than Arabic letters. Some posit that English is the language of the Internet and technology and, thus, the use of romanization gives communication a special flavor. A third group report that their devices do not support Arabic language. This study is expected to contribute to identifying the youth attitudes towards the use or avoidance of romanized Arabic, which in turn may help develop a better understanding of this issue and assist cyber Arabic users to make the right choice when interacting with others in Arabic online.


2013 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 17-31
Author(s):  
Nuria Hernández

This paper introduces a new corpus of computer-mediated communication which is currently being compiled at the University of Duisburg-Essen. Based on the experience from this project, the paper also discusses the possibility of implementing major issues in corpus construction into the academic curriculum of young linguists in the form of project-based learning. A variety of new challenges and possible solutions regarding the compilation and processing of new media language are presented.


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