Mark Bullen

Interaction and interpersonality in online discussion forums

This longitudinal study evaluated the amount and type of interaction and interpersonal content in messages posted by online graduate students in small group asynchronous forums. It also assessed the relationship between interpersonality and interactivity. To achieve this, a new coding scheme was developed to categorize the content of online forums. The results suggest that cultivating interpersonality online leads to increased participation and expands the depth of discussion, thus facilitating online collective knowledge building. Finally, regulating the complexity of interactions and fostering the development of a cohesive group of participants through increased interpersonal exchanges may render more controlled patterns of interactive online behavior and improve collective learning.

The impact of e-learning on the use of campus instructional space

The use of e-leaning is growing in universities and colleges across North America but these institutions do not fully understand how and in what form it can contribute to their missions, what the indicators of the successful implementation of e-learning would be, and how to assess the changes caused by e-learning. The study approaches e-learning from the institutional perspective, outlining the effects of e-learning on the use of the instructional space on campus.

Student communication and study habits of first-year university students in the digital era | Communication étudiante et habitudes d’étude des étudiants universitaires de première année à l’époque numérique

This paper reports on research into how first-university students communicate with peers and professors and their general study habits and to examine the possible relationship between students’ use of digital technologies. The research is positioned in the interpretive paradigm. We conclude that most students feel comfortable with digital technologies and they see Facebook/MySpace as more about connecting and interacting with friends than for academic communication. Results show that students prefer face-to-face communication for both academic/school and social communication. Regarding study habits, students prefer to learn by themselves, work independently and to study at home. Cet article presente la recherche sur les habitudes d’etude des etudiants universitaires, leur usage des technologies numeriques et leur facon de communiquer entre eux et avec leurs professeurs. Nous concluons que la plupart des etudiants se sentent a l’aise avec les technologies numeriques et qu’ils utilisent les medias sociaux pour leurs liens et interactions avec leurs amis plutot que pour la communication scolaire. Les etudiants preferent les communications en personne en ce qui a trait aux communications scolaires et sociales et preferent apprendre par eux-memes, travailler de maniere autonome et etudier a la maison.

Teacher education in Bhutan: improving access and quality through the use of ICTs

This paper reports on a research project to implement and evaluate an ICT supported teacher education program in Bhutan. The project involves using ICTs to provide learner support and expand access to a print-based, correspondence style teacher education program (DTEP) that has been delivered by the National Institute for Education, Samste, since 1995. In January 2005 four modules were revised to include ICT support through the use of the Moodle open source learning management system. Later in 2005 the use of ICTs in this program will be evaluated to determine their effectiveness in terms of improving quality and access. This paper discusses the proposed research and some of the local issues that affect the implementation of this project.