This study was conducted to investigate the student-to-student interactions that take place in an online community college course, and how the interactions impact an online learning community. The literature review revealed three related themes: (a) the impact of the teaching/learning environment on student interaction, (b) barriers in the online environment, and (c) peer collaboration in the online environment. The case was selected using four selection criteria: (a) the class was offered completely online (b) the instructor was experienced teaching online classes, (c) computer technology was not the primary content of the course, and (d) the level of interaction was sufficient to investigate student interaction. Data were collected from public transcripts including bulletin board forum postings, email, group papers, and interviews. Six of the 16 students enrolled in the class and the instructor were interviewed. In this case, the environment impacted the way students interacted, collaborated, and socialized with peers. It changed the way participants existed within the learning community and impacted how students interpreted meaning and perceived time. The study generated findings with implications for community college instructors and participants of online learning communities. The online environment may impact: (1) how conflict is handled, (2) the quality of discussion among peers, (3) student involvement with peers, (4) the formation of cohesive groups, (5) a student's ability to interpret the meaning of comments made by others, (6) a student's expectations of the time needed to complete tasks and respond to others, and (7) the ability to design a flexible structure that encourages students to explore outside their comfort zone. Additional research is warranted. It is recommended that future studies be conducted to investigate how conflict, time, and collaboration impact an online learning community. / Graduation date: 2002

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the interactional practices of Foreign language learners in an online Distance Education course. Additionally, this study sought to investigate whether a relationship exists between participant interaction and course completion and linguistic learning outcomes. The dissertation tracked the practices of 43 participants. The data of the study included log reports from the course website that gave detailed information as to what tasks each participant completed on the course website. These log reports were then coded and analyzed to provide insight to the overall number of tasks students completed, the partner with which they were interacting, the purpose of their tasks, the collaborative nature of their tasks and the media types participants preferred. The purpose of this study is two-fold. The first goal is descriptive: to gain an indepth understanding of how learners spend their time in an online course to better understand how they use online materials and opportunities for communication to learn a language. There is little known about actual student practices in DE as the majority of research conducted relies on self-assessment measures or assumptions. Many researchers believe that communication is vital for both FL learning and DE learning. However, some of the most recent studies on interaction have questioned whether more communication and interaction in DE is necessarily better, revealing that certain interactions are possibly more effective than others. To test this assumption, this study employed an inferential design to investigate the relationship of tasks in the online learning environment to course completion and learner outcomes. The results of this research found three variables were significant predictors of both course completion and linguistic outcomes: total tasks completed, total assignments completed and language tasks. Additionally, foreign language, collaborative and asynchronous tasks also correlated to course completion and individual tasks to linguistic outcomes. Further discussion of the research findings, along with a host of recommendations for further research in this field is presented for consideration. / text

The contemporary classroom currently faces an evolving world of computer based training, online courses, instructor-led learning and several blended approaches in-between. With the increased presence of computers and communication in every facet of students' lives, students have changed to adapt to the continuous presence of technology in their daily lives. These recent rapid developments have changed the relationship between technology and communication. Indeed, communication and technology have become linked to such a degree that it is difficult to differentiate one from the other, thereby altering our rhetorical situation as instructors. Instructors can no longer deny the presence of technology in the contemporary classroom, much less in the contemporary composition classroom. This case study serves as a post-modern analysis of the technology based blended classroom. A gap exists between what online learning is (being) today and what it is (becoming) tomorrow. This dissertation explores the gap by examining two rich data sources: online visitor navigational patterns and instructor interviews. The fundamental ideas that this text explores are the following: - Web server logs and PHP logs can be analyzed to yield relevant information that assists in the design, architecture, and administration of online and blended learning courses. - Technology in the writing classroom does not necessarily solve traditional problems associated with the composition classroom. Technology is a tool, not a solution. - Technology has changed the rhetorical situation of the composition classroom. As a result, instructors must adapt to the changed rhetorical environment. Via this study, readers will hopefully gain a better understanding of the relatively unexplored margins between instruction, composition and technology paradigms. Instructors, trainers, technical writers, pedagogues, industry and academia alike must step forward to research technology-assisted pedagogy so that they can de-privilege the paradigms that position technology itself as a solution, and move forward toward realistic and real-world expectations for instructors in technology mediated learning environments.