About the CRLT The CRLT has as its mission to promote and support a community of scholars dedicated to research on the design, use, and implementation of technology to improve learning. Three primary themes underlie the work at the Center: • research that contributes to the development of new pedagogical models for continuing professional development in the 21st century; • research on and evaluation of interactive distance learning environments that inform our understanding of student learning; and • research on teaching strategies for using current and emerging technologies to support student interaction, collaboration, and engagement in the issues being studied. This report is one of a series from our on-going research on learning and technology. If you have any questions or comments on this report, or if you would like to find out more about the activities of the CRLT, contact:

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Traditionally, individuals engaged in correspondence course study were isolated in that they had no venue to communicate with fellow students. They used the telephone if and when they needed assistance from the instructor. Computer-mediated communication (CMC) has changed distance education study. Students are now engaged in computer conferences as part of the course requirements. The students are now able to interact with fellow students and the instructor. Most computer systems have the capability of producing a transcript of these interactions. The transcript becomes a valuable resource in charting patterns of interaction within the course conference(s). This study utilized a content analysis research design to determine the patterns of interaction in one computer-mediated conference from a graduate-level distance education university course. The Computer Mediated Communication Transcript Analysis Tool (CMC TAT) was used to conduct the content analysis. The CMC TAT has four categories: Questioning, Statements and Supports, Reflecting, and Scaffolding. Sixteen subjects (fifteen students and the instructor) in one

The purpose of this research has been to investigate the purposeful use of asynchronous telecommunications in a science education methods/curriculum course involving the use of a non-restrictive, public Web-based forum for facilitating reflective discourse with preservice science teachers. Thirty-two preservice secondary school science teachers participated in a public science teaching forum on the World Wide Web during their student teaching internship. The forum was designed with NetForum software to be a place where science teachers share ideas, reflections and conversations on teaching and implementation of technology in the classroom and other instructional pedagogy, while also providing support for each other as members of an electronic professional community. A combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods were used to explore interaction patterns that facilitated collaborative preservice teacher reflective discourse on the forum and participants ’ attitudes towards using asynchronous telecommunications during their student teaching internship. Data from forum discourse analysis,

Certain researchers suggest that a teaching method which encapsulates collaboration and interaction would likely work well within the framework of Internet based distance education courses. In order to verify how interaction and collaboration work between students in distance education courses, we observed and researched two undergraduate university courses offered via the Internet. All communications were text based and in asynchronous mode relying upon e-mail, group discussions and hypertext navigation to facilitate the collaborative work process. This exploratory study has enabled us to identify some problematic elements which can hamper collaboration between distance education students. For example, even though most of the distance education students enjoyed communicating with one another, with the professor and with the teaching assistant, the collaborative learning assignments were not always a successful endeavour. To begin with, some students complained of tec...