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This research aims to gain a holistic understanding of how video conferencing (VC) apps' media characteristics influence individuals' perceptions of VC apps and, ultimately, their use and continued use in professional settings.

A conceptual research model is developed by integrating constructs from media synchronicity theory (MST), social presence theory and the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT2) model, as well as ubiquity, technicality and perceived fees. Structural equation modeling (SEM) is used to empirically test the conceptual model using data collected from 252 working professionals from the European Union.

The results reveal that while performance expectancy (PE) and facilitating conditions (FC) are fundamental to VC app use, these factors alone do not explain the use and continuing use of VC apps in the professional context. Media characteristics that include synchronicity, social presence, and ubiquity are equally crucial to professionals using VC apps. It also confirms the moderating effect of convergence on the relationship between synchronicity and PE and the moderating effect of technicality and perceived fees on the relationship between ubiquity and FC.

For researchers, the study offers insights into the extent to which technological and socially derived characteristics of VC apps influence the routine tasks undertaken by professionals in virtual work settings. For practitioners, recommendations pivotal to the use of VC apps are presented to promote higher acceptance and improved well-being of the professional workforce.

Purpose – This chapter provides the reader with a discussion of a peer-conferencing component, called “cadre conferencing,” which was incorporated into undergraduate and graduate reading clinics. University students were placed into cadres based on the grades of the children they were tutoring. Cadres met during scheduled class time to discuss assessments, strategies, and materials.

Design – Graduate and undergraduate students were asked to provide feedback about the cadre conferencing model. They identified what they liked about the peer conferencing and what changes they would make. The feedback was used as a way for the faculty member to evaluate an instructional change in existing courses.

Implications – Both graduate and undergraduate students reported benefits to the cadre conferencing component. Graduate students were in-service teachers who reported that they benefited most from sharing ideas about strategies and materials. Undergraduate students reported that they benefited from sharing ideas, but also from the personal support they experienced from members of their cadre. Both groups recommended that cadre conferencing continue to be included in the two courses.

Practical and social implications – Observations of the cadres in their meetings and feedback from a course survey indicate that peer conferencing can be a powerful tool for groups of educators. The model would transfer best into programs that are designed to include shared decision-making and peer collaboration. Schools that adopt a professional learning communities model or team-teaching approach could integrate the cadre conferencing into their existing group structures.

For writing instruction, reflection has been an essential tool. Typically, educators ask students to reflect in a structured written, individual format. Less explored is the role that small and whole group reflective conversations have in fostering students’ understandings about writing. The purpose of this paper is to explore several conversations from a young writers’ camp to examine how three high school students engaged in four different kinds of reflective talk during the writing process.

This paper draws from a larger qualitative study about how campers constructed and enacted their writer identities in a two-week young writers’ camp. Five researchers observed, video/audio recorded, engaged in interviews and collected artifacts with 58 campers for ten consecutive days. Qualitative analysis was used to examine how young writers (Grades 9-12) engaged in reflective talk to develop understandings about writing.

Data illustrated that students engaged in four types of reflective talk: prospective, reflective-in-action, introspective and retrospective. The paper provides one example for each kind of reflective conversation and provides analysis related to how those conversations shaped campers’ understandings about writing.

This paper illustrated how adolescent writers used prospective, reflective-in action, introspective and retrospective talk during conversations to tell their stories of learning about writing, a topic less studied in the field. This work offers insight into teaching students how to have such reflective conversations so that they are productive and supportive during writing practices.

Media considerations are pedagogical rather than technological in nature. In online courses, we use technology to enable learner interaction. In this chapter, we focus on a process through which we identify media that will help bring our course to life. Technology tools come and go, quickly. While some specific tools are suggested, it is the process by which to identify and select media that is enduring. We begin with a discussion of media-enabled course activities that are used to guide the selection process. The 10 activities are organized by type of interaction they represent and the media characteristics they require. Media have affordances or functions that can be matched with identified course activities to meet learner interaction needs. These needs help to narrow the scope of our selection decisions. After exploring a variety of functions and tools, we exemplify the media selection process. We extend the work started in previous chapters by identifying media needs in light of design and interaction decisions under the playground and symphony metaphors. In so doing, we demonstrate how the phases of the redesign process inform our technology choices.

To facilitate teacher–researcher collaboration in order to implement an informational writing research project using the framework of Browse, Collect, Collate, and Compose embedded within the writing workshop.

This study was conducted using a qualitative (Merriam, 1998) method of inquiry, more specifically, case study research design. A researcher and a practitioner came together to explore problems related to authentic use of expository genre and collaborated to help fourth graders write informational books.

The development of an authentic informational book was in contrast to the inauthentic purposes whereby students studied expository writing as preparation for statewide testing of student writing achievement. The study advocates the usage of authentic literacy contexts where students can enjoy writing for personal purposes.

Collaboration between classroom teachers of writing and researchers contributes to the theoretical and practical knowledge base of the teacher and researcher. Overall literacy development is enhanced when students read and write out of their own interest. Students use trade books as mentor texts to compose and create their informational books. The value of seeing fourth graders as researchers and making an informational book serves the authentic purpose of writing.

To review and synthesize findings from peer-reviewed research related to students’ sources of ideas for writing, and instructional dimensions that affect students’ development of ideas for composition in grades K-8.

The ideas or content expressed in written composition are considered critical to ratings of writing quality. We utilized a Systematic Mixed Studies Review (SMSR) methodological framework (Heyvaert, Maes, & Onghena, 2011) to explore K-8 students’ ideas and writing from a range of theoretical and methodological perspectives.

Students’ ideas for writing originate from a range of sources, including teachers, peers, literature, content area curriculum, autobiographical/life experiences, popular culture/media, drawing, and play. Intertextuality, copying, social dialogue, and playful peer interactions are productive strategies K-8 writers use to generate ideas for composing, in addition to strategies introduced through planned instruction. Relevant dimensions of instruction include motivation to write, idea planning and organization, as well as specific instructional strategies, techniques, and tools to facilitate idea generation and selection within the composition process.

A permeable curriculum and effective instructional practices are crucial to support students’ access to a full range of ideas and knowledge-based resources, and help them translate these into written composition. Instructional practices for idea development and writing: (a) connect reading and writing for authentic purposes; (b) include explicit modeling of strategies for planning and “online” generation of ideas throughout the writing process across genre; (c) align instructional focus across reading, writing, and other curricular activities; (d) allow for extended time to write; and (e) incorporate varied, flexible participation structures through which students can share ideas and receive teacher/peer feedback on writing.

The use of mobile wireless data services continues to increase worldwide. New fourth‐generation (4G) wireless networks can deliver data rates exceeding 2 Mbps. The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework of 4G mobile applications that utilize such high data rates and run on small form‐factor devices.

The author reviews existing literature of mobile applications development and proposes using network‐related characteristics to create a conceptual framework of these applications.

Combining traffic symmetry and latency yields a 2×3 framework with six categories that characterize current and emerging 4G mobile applications, such as augmented reality, mobile social networking and m‐health.

With the advent of high‐speed 4G networks, completely new mobile applications can be developed to leverage such high data rates, and a framework of such development efforts is highly desirable.

The framework is developed based on a perspective of technical characteristics because these characteristics intrinsically constrain the kinds of broadband mobile applications that can be developed. The framework should be useful in exploring opportunities of mobile application development and guiding future research in this area.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the teachers implemented innovative feedback approaches in their writing classroom and the extent to which the innovative feedback approaches impacted upon student attitude and performance in writing. In the writing classroom, teacher feedback serves as an assessment as well as a pedagogical tool to enhance the teaching and learning of writing. While there is no shortage of literature on the topic of feedback per se, there is scant research on teachers’ attempts to implement change to conventional feedback practices, as well as the impact of such feedback innovation on student learning. Drawing on data gathered from individual teacher interviews, student questionnaires, student focus group interviews, pre-and post-writing tests and classroom observations, this study seeks to explore two teachers’ change initiative in their writing feedback approaches.

The study used multiple sources of data including individual teacher interviews, student questionnaires and student focus group.

The results suggest that the innovative feedback approaches helped to enhance the motivation and writing performance of the students. The paper concludes with implications and insights to help teachers implement similar feedback innovations in their contexts.

First, the findings suggest that focused written corrective feedback is a viable option for responding to student writing, especially for low proficiency students in English as a foreign language (EFL) contexts. Second, teachers might consider the option of removal or delay in the reporting of scores, where appropriate. Third, more intensive training might be necessary to help students improve their peer evaluation skills and their ability to write more constructive comments for their peers.

The significance of the study lies in the contribution it can make to existing writing feedback research that pays insufficient attention to teacher feedback in real classroom contexts, uncovering the process through which teachers attempt to bring improvement to conventional feedback practices, as well as the impact of feedback innovation on student learning in naturally occurring classroom contexts.

E‐Portfolio is a powerful tool for demonstrating evidence of learning and achievements in graduate research. The purpose of this paper is to examine the concept, structure and functions of e‐Portfolio in graduate research and discuss the significance of the role of e‐Portfolio in enhancing the quality of graduate research students and their learning environment.

The discussion starts with the concept of e‐Portfolio in the context of modern digital technology and innovative educational perspectives, which emphasise critical thinking, social interaction, task‐based learning, and independent learning.

It is found that e‐Portfolio greatly enhances three important aspects of research students: academic development, research profile and social networking. E‐Portfolio empowers research students to take full control of their own learning and research journey.

The paper shows that e‐Portfolio contributes to the enhancement of educational practices in terms of moving the teaching and learning focus from supervisor‐centred to student‐centred learning and research, as well as from technological control to technological empowerment.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the authors, two teacher educators, planned for and guided 23 students (teacher candidates) through a multi-genre historical inquiry experience, integrating instruction on the Inquiry Arc and writing process, during a co-taught literacy and social studies methods course. The authors describe the ways in which the students demonstrated both active and passive participation and resistance to this process/project, and the related implications.

Using an action research approach, this paper reports analysis and interpretation of lesson plans, course materials, debriefing notes, field notes, student response notebooks and intermediate and final inquiry project artifacts.

All students demonstrated gains in content knowledge through their products, oral presentations, group discussions, or conferences with the authors; and all gained experience with the Inquiry Arc and process writing. Many students saw the benefits of collaboration and social construction of knowledge as they moved toward more central participation.

Instructors cannot mandate full participation in any task, but can influence the conditions (i.e. pedagogy, task, scaffolding) to increase the possibility of positive peer interactions and learning.

This paper contributes to the knowledge of teaching and learning innovation in teacher preparation coursework.