Journal articles on the topic 'Education, Higher Victoria Computer-assisted instruction'

This meta-analysis compared the academic achievement of students in grades six through twelve who received either traditional instruction or traditional instruction supplemented with computer-assisted instruction (CAI) across eight curricular areas. From the forty-two conclusions, an overall mean effect size of 0.209 was calculated, indicating that, on average, students receiving traditional instruction supplemented with CAI attained higher academic achievement than did 58.2 percent of those receiving only traditional instruction. The comparative effectiveness of CAI may be seen in the following descending order mean effect sizes: science, 0.639; reading, 0.262; music, 0.230; special education, 0.214; social studies, 0.205; math, 0.179; vocational education, −0.080; and English, −0.420.

This study evaluated the effects of a mathematics software program, the Building Blocks software suite, on young children's mathematics performance. Participants included 247 Kindergartners from 37 classrooms in 9 schools located in low-income communities. Children within classrooms were randomly assigned to receive 21 weeks of computer-assisted instruction (CAI) in mathematics with Building Blocks or in literacy with Earobics Step 1. Children in the Building Blocks condition evidenced higher posttest scores on tests of numeracy and Applied Problems after controlling for beginning-of-year numeracy scores and classroom nesting. These findings, together with a review of earlier CAI, provide guidance for future work on CAI aiming to improve mathematics performance of children from low-income backgrounds.

Computer-based teaching methods can improve the transfer of information, increase instructional focus on conceptual and methodological skills, enhance motivation, and stimulate the development of expressive skills. After reviewing a number of studies of computer-based applications, we report a correlational study of psychology students' attitudes and achievement in a technologically enhanced classroom. The results indicated that (a) students rated the computer-based instructional components positively, (b) those with weak academic backgrounds who consistently used the technology achieved higher test scores than weak students who did not use the technology, and (c) students who dropped out of college the following semester tended to be low users of technology. We also discuss the implications of computer technology for teaching.

This study focused on the specific questions: Do significant differences exist in the preference for CAI between male and female students? Do significant differences exist in the preference for CAI between undergraduate and graduate students (academic status)? And does an interaction exist between gender and academic status? Seventy-six students ( N = 76) were randomly selected to answer the questionnaire. Analyses of variance (at the .05 level) showed graduate students favor CAI more than do undergraduate students, probably because they have jobs and need to study using CAI at a more convenient time and place. This result confirms the assumption that graduate students have more computer experiences. Since computer literacy increases as time passes, the chance of “give CAI a try” becomes higher. In technologically sophisticated societies of today, the option of mixing CAI and traditional lectures must be the key to the success of any institution of higher education.

This work aims to investigate different teaching methodologies for university students, although legislation mandates that students with autism receive instruction linked to the general education core content, there is limited research supporting the effectiveness of interventions for teaching core content to these students. The current study was conducted at private universities. A quantitative way for analyzing this paper. In order to analyze this study, a questionnaire was carried out. 180 questionnaires were distributed, 171 were received, however of the 162 questionnaires were properly filled. According to multiple regression analyzes, computer-assisted academic method had the highest value. A computer-assisted academic lecture is one of the ways that can achieve educational objectives.

Educational benefits of computer-assisted instruction (CAI) were investigated. A quasi-experimental design contrasted learning outcomes of students in an introductory psychology class that incorporated CAI exercises to students in a lecture-only introductory psychology class. A number of potential mediating variables, such as instructor, size of class, textbook, and year in school, were controlled. Analysis of students’ final examination scores indicated that students in the lecture-plus-CAI section obtained higher scores than students in the lecture-only section, and these higher scores were due to their better performance on concepts that were taught in both lecture and CAI exercises. These findings offer modest support for the use of CAI as a supplement to lecture in teaching psychology, particularly for domain-specific learning.

CAI has been used for more than twenty years in the education of health professionals. A variety of different hardware and software systems have been used in the implementation of CAI for this population. While early CAI was written for mainframe computers, later courseware has been developed for microcomputers. Later applications have also focused on higher order skills such as problem solving and synthesis through the use of simulation. Despite the numerous reports of CAI use, there has not been a lot of research on the effectiveness of CAI in medical, nursing, and allied health education, nor has there been much work on those features of CAI that lead to improved learning. While CAI has a good deal to offer, these issues must be addressed if we are to prepare health professionals who can adapt to a constantly changing body of medical knowledge.

This study reports afield test of six research-based teaching strategies with 37 special education resource teachers and 176 students with mild disabilities. The approaches included peer tutoring, reciprocal teaching, effective teaching principles, computer-aided instruction, and two direct instruction models, all used in reading instruction. Comparisons with a control group and between approaches produced inconsistent results. Students in all groups, including the controls, showed higher levels of engagement during all approaches than other researchers have reported for either mainstream or resource room students. Student achievement was highest in the computer-assisted group, in the reciprocal teaching group, and in one of the direct instruction groups.

The study examined the impact of computer-assisted instruction (CAI) developed in the United States on the reading and math performance of students enrolled in the Grenada school system. Over a three year period students in standards one through five substituted CAI instruction in reading and math for part of their conventional instruction. These students were compared to students from three control schools thought to be comparable to the CAI school, and to a school in an urban area that had the reputation of being one of the better schools in the country. The results of reading tests indicated that an initial negative impact of CAI during the first two years of the study turned into a positive impact during the third year. The impact of CAI instruction in mathematics was uniformly positive over the three years of the project. The study also produced evidence that lower ability students may have benefited more from CAI instruction than higher ability students.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of theory-based CAI for reading with incarcerated adults reading below the ninth grade level. The participants were offenders drawn from participating correctional centers in Oklahoma who were randomly assigned to a CAI or a non-CAI instructional group. Reading assessment instruments were administered on a pre-test/post-test basis. Results showed a significant reading achievement gain for computer-assisted reading instruction when compared to traditional instruction for entry levels of 0–3.0 Grade Equivalency Level (GEL). Higher entry levels showed approximately the same gain for both groups. These findings are consistent with a cognitive components model of reading.

The study compared basic and elaborated corrections within the context of otherwise identical computer-assisted instruction (CAI) programs that taught reasoning skills. Twelve learning disabled and 16 remedial high school students were randomly assigned to either the basic-corrections or elaborated-corrections treatment. Criterion-referenced test scores were significantly higher for the elaborated-corrections treatment on both the post and maintenance tests and on the transfer test. Time to complete the program did not differ significantly for the two groups.

This paper reports a study that investigated effects of Experiential Computer Assisted Learning (ECAI) on learners’ achievement in Biology in Kenya. Solomon’s Non-Equivalent group four research design was used. Four schools were purposively sampled. The schools were randomly assigned to four groups, two experimental and two control groups. All the learners covered same content. Teachers of the experimental groups used ECAI while teachers of control groups used regular approaches. The study focused on the topic Genetics and involved a sample of 163 Form Four learners. Biology Achievement Test (BAT) was used to collect data. The instrument was validated by five experts in Educational Research. Reliability of BAT was estimated using Cronbach’s alpha coefficient. A co-efficient of 0.719 was obtained. The Constructivist and Experiential learning theories guided the study. Data collected were analyzed using ANOVA, t-test and ANCOVA. Hypotheses were tested at an alpha level of 0.05. The findings indicate that learners taught using ECAI had significantly higher scores than those in control groups. It is recommended that the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) incorporates ECAI in the teaching of school Biology to enhance learning. Science teacher education programmes should also incorporate ECAI to enhance its use in schools.

This paper reports a study that investigated effects of Experiential Computer Assisted Learning (ECAI) on learners’ achievement in Biology in Kenya. Solomon’s Non-Equivalent group four research design was used. Four schools were purposively sampled. The schools were randomly assigned to four groups, two experimental and two control groups. All the learners covered same content. Teachers of the experimental groups used ECAI while teachers of control groups used regular approaches. The study focused on the topic Genetics and involved a sample of 163 Form Four learners. Biology Achievement Test (BAT) was used to collect data. The instrument was validated by five experts in Educational Research. Reliability of BAT was estimated using Cronbach’s alpha coefficient. A co-efficient of 0.719 was obtained. The Constructivist and Experiential learning theories guided the study. Data collected were analyzed using ANOVA, t-test and ANCOVA. Hypotheses were tested at an alpha level of 0.05. The findings indicate that learners taught using ECAI had significantly higher scores than those in control groups. It is recommended that the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) incorporates ECAI in the teaching of school Biology to enhance learning. Science teacher education programmes should also incorporate ECAI to enhance its use in schools.

Offenders incarcerated in jails in Hillsborough County, Florida, had the opportunity to participate in an education program using computer-assisted instruction for basic literacy education and GED preparation. Although literacy levels were low with a tested mean of sixth grade prior to entering the program, participants made statistically significant gains in knowledge during 6 weeks of instruction. Overall, participants gained 2.40 grades during this period. Significance tests based on gender, race, and age were conducted with males, Blacks, and juveniles showing significantly higher gains in knowledge within these groups. However, when a logistic regression model was created using low/high gains as the dependent variable, only age remained significant indicating an interaction effect with gender and race. Participants in the program showed high levels of satisfaction with the program, and 90% had plans to continue their education upon release from incarceration. Based on the research conducted thus far, the program is operating successfully.

The Covid-19 pandemic has led millions of students worldwide to intensify their use of digital education. This massive change is not reflected by the scant scientific research on the effectiveness of methods relying on digital learning compared to other innovative and more popular methods involving face-to-face interactions. Here, we tested the effectiveness of computer-assisted instruction (CAI) in Science and Technology compared to inquiry-based learning (IBL), another modern method which, however, requires students to interact with each other in the classroom. Our research also considered socio-cognitive factors–working memory (WM), socioeconomic status (SES), and academic self-concept (ASC)–known to predict academic performance but usually ignored in research on IBL and CAI. Five hundred and nine middle-school students, a fairly high sample size compared with relevant studies, received either IBL or CAI for a period varying from four to ten weeks prior to the Covid-19 events. After controlling for students’ prior knowledge and socio-cognitive factors, multilevel modelling showed that CAI was more effective than IBL. Although CAI-related benefits were stable across students’ SES and ASC, they were particularly pronounced for those with higher WM capacity. While indicating the need to adapt CAI for students with poorer WM, these findings further justify the use of CAI both in normal times (without excluding other methods) and during pandemic episodes.

Although computer-assisted instruction (CAI) favorably affects academic performance and attitudes toward instruction, most CAI programs target mastery but not fluency. This study used a within-subjects, crossover design to compare the effects of CAI that included fluency training with traditional study (TS) conditions on test performance and attitudes toward CAI. The CAI condition consisted of 2 forms of CAI. The results showed that the mean test score in the CAI condition was about 7 percentage points higher than the mean score in the TS condition. Also, attitude scores favored the CAI condition. These data suggest that CAI procedures that use elements of both mastery learning and fluency training may help to improve academic performance and attitudes.

The research aims to provide ideas for improving college students’ physical quality in China. Firstly, the theories of the Delphi method and Computer-Aided Instruction (CAI) are introduced, and the basic process of the Delphi method is deduced. Secondly, the intelligent college Physical Education (PE) is discussed under the Delphi method combined with CAI, and the CAI-added Delphi method-based PE teaching model is proposed. The model verification results show that the proposed model presents an excellent teaching effect by combining intuitive expression and flexible courseware with higher teaching efficiency. As a result, students who have difficulty mastering the essentials of sports actions have shown significant improvement after CAI PE. Meanwhile, the teaching method of CAI is more flexible compared with traditional methods, especially, on-blackboard projection. The proposed teaching model is more vivid and memorable thanks to the video presentations voiced over by teachers. CAI can significantly improve students’ interests in sports and their sports performance. Meanwhile, the CAI PE teaching system is more suitable for theoretical knowledge instruction by replacing the dull teacher-centered word interpretation with vivid and intuitive video presentations voiced over by teachers. Therefore, the proposed CAI-added Delphi method-based PE teaching model has certain feasibility and plays a significant role in promoting PE teaching quality in China.

The article discusses ICT development issues in teaching mathematics to engineering students in the United States. The nature of trends in the convergence of information systems in higher technical education and other tendencies in the United States are described in the article. The primary historical stages of computer-assisted mathematics training for engineering students in the United States are defined. The study of historical sources has allowed six stages to be recognized. The use of ICT for teaching mathematics is examined at each stage. It demonstrates the inconsistencies and key elements of using ICT to teach mathematics to engineering students. This article covers the first three stages (1965-1989) of computer-assisted mathematics training for engineering students in the United States.

This quasi-experimental study investigated whether a strategy-oriented media-based reading program could improve English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students’ reading comprehension. Eighty-five students who were registered for English Reading at a university were recruited through convenience sampling to take part in the study. In this study, a web-based Strategy-oriented Multimedia-Assisted Reading Training (SMART) program was designed and implemented. On the basis of a literature review, four instructional strategies were selected and implemented in this program. The SMART program was used by students in the experimental group but not by students in the control group. Students in both groups were taught by the same instructor with the same instructional materials. The experiment lasted for 10 weeks, and the effects of the SMART program on students’ reading comprehension were investigated. A questionnaire on students’ attitudes toward the use of the strategies was given only to the experimental group. The results show that mean score of the reading test was significantly higher for the experimental group than for the control group. Students’ feedback about using the SMART program was positive and encouraging.

Although the use of computer-assisted instruction has rapidly increased, there is little empirical research evaluating these technologies, specifically within the context of teaching statistics. The authors assessed the effect of screencast tutorials on learning outcomes, including statistical knowledge, application, and interpretation. Students from four sections of a psychology course in statistics were randomly assigned to a control text tutorial or an experimental video tutorial group and were tasked with completing a novel statistics problem. Previous math experience, math and computer anxiety, and course grades were also controlled. The results demonstrate that screencast tutorials are an effective and efficient tool for enhancing student learning, especially for higher order conceptual statistical knowledge compared to traditional instructional techniques.

ABSTRACT This study modifies a popular business simulation game, Monopoly, to assess its effectiveness as a learning and teaching tool for helping high school accounting students acquire and apply foundational accounting concepts. The study compares an accounting-focused, Modified Monopoly simulation game with two other instructional methods. Using a quasi-experimental approach that involves three learning groups with random assignment of treatments based on school/class, a sample of 144 accounting students was obtained. This study found students using Modified Monopoly showed significantly greater improvement between their pre- and post-test scores than students in Computer-assisted instruction (CAI), but significantly less improvement than a paper-based extended accounting problem (EAP). However, students using Modified Monopoly, similar to CAI students, did not suffer the same significant decay in knowledge as students in EAP. These results offer evidence for the significant and more enduring learning benefits that Modified Monopoly can produce in students' higher-order thinking skills. Data Availability: Data are available upon request.

Abstract Background and study aims Better patient education prior to colonoscopy improves adherence to instructions for bowel preparation and leads to cleaner colons. We reasoned that computer assisted instruction (CAI) using video and 3 D animations followed by nurse contact maximizes the effectiveness of nurse counselling, increases proportion of clean colons and improves patient experience. Patients and methods Adults referred for colonoscopy in a high-volume endoscopy unit in the Netherlands were included. Exclusion criteria were illiteracy in Dutch and audiovisual handicaps. Patients were prospectively divided into 2 groups, 1 group received nurse counselling and 1 group received CAI and a nurse contact before colonoscopy. The main outcome, cleanliness of the colon during examination, was measured with Ottawa Bowel Preparation Scale (OBPS) and Boston Bowel Preparation Scale (BBPS). We assessed patient comfort and anxiety at 3 different time points. Results We included 385 patients: 197 received traditional nurse counselling and 188 received CAI. Overall patient response rates were 99 %, 76.4 % and 69.9 % respectively. Endoscopists scored cleanliness in 60.8 %. Comparative analysis of the 39.2 % of patients with missing scores showed no significant difference on age, gender or educational level. Baseline characteristics were evenly distributed over the groups. Bowel cleanliness was satisfactory and did not differ amongst groups: nurse vs. CAI group scores in BBPS: (6.54 ± 1.69 vs. 6.42 ± 1.62); OBPS: (6.07 ± 2.53 vs. 5.80 ± 2.90). Patient comfort scores were significantly higher (4.29 ± 0.62 vs. 4.42 ± 0.68) in the CAI group shortly before colonoscopy. Anxiety and knowledge scores were similar. Conclusion CAI is a safe and practical tool to instruct patients before colonoscopy. We recommend the combination of CAI with a short nurse contact for daily practice.

With the development of the Internet, “Internet Plus” has been widely used in various fields, and the Internet has become a great opportunity to transform CET. People’s demand for education, especially higher education, has also increased rapidly. With the attention and investment of the state in recent years, higher education has developed rapidly, accounting for half of China’s higher education. However, the increase in the number of students has brought great pressure to CET. How to improve the teaching efficiency of large classes is an urgent problem to be solved. The development of sci and tech, especially computer, has brought us new hope. Computer-assisted instruction has been introduced into CET. However, there are some unreasonable points in the design of computer-aided marking system in China, which is not suitable for CET. It is very important to research and design a computer-aided marking system that can expand CET methods and maximize the integration of English instructional resources. This paper introduces the principle, characteristics, and application fields of AI; analyzes the problems faced by CET; and puts forward a CET path based on computer-aided technology.

Mobile technology integration in Malaysia’s English language education has a bright future, owing to the many advantages offered by mobile devices. However, there are inadequate studies that systematically review existing work in Malaysia to uncover gaps in the use of mobile technologies for English teaching and learning. Thus, a systematic review was conducted to offer an up-to-date synthesis of Mobile-Assisted Language Learning (MALL) integration in Malaysia from January 2019 to January 2021. The review followed the PRISMA Statement's guidelines which resulted in the identification of eleven articles that met all the inclusion criteria. Following that, the eleven articles were analysed and synthesised quantitatively and qualitatively using seven codes derived from two earlier systematic reviews of the literature. The codes were: (1) research objectives, (2) research methodologies, (3) educational level, (4) learning context, (5) device types, (6) theories, and (7) research outcomes. The systematic review discovered several significant findings, including the fact that the majority of the studies examined the effect of MALL integration on students' English acquisition and performance, and that MALL was more prevalent in Malaysian higher education institutions than other levels of education, with the lowest prevalence in primary schools. In light of this information, recommendations for future research were proposed. Malaysian academics are encouraged to broaden the scope of their future research and engage students from all levels of education in future MALL practices in order to better understand MALL's usability in English language instruction in Malaysia.

Context Instruction of psychomotor skills is an important component of athletic training education. Accommodating the varied learning abilities and preferences of athletic training students can be challenging for an instructor initiating skill acquisition in a traditional face-to-face (F2F) environment. Video instruction available on mobile devices may offer an alternative teaching tool, allowing for student-initiated learning. Objective To compare outcomes of Quick Clips (QC) instruction with F2F instruction as measured by skill-examination scores. Design Quasi-experimental. Setting Five higher learning institutions with Commission on Accreditation of Athletic Training Education (CAATE) accredited athletic training education programs. Patients or Other Participants Seventy-four pre-athletic training students, average age 18.86 ± 1.0 years (49 women, 25 men), volunteered for this study. Participants were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 instructional groups (F2F or QC). Intervention(s) The principal investigator provided F2F instruction to 38 participants in 3 skills (knee valgus stress test, middle trapezius manual muscle test, and goniometric measurement of active ankle dorsiflexion). The remaining 36 participants watched 3 QC videos demonstrating the same skills. Main Outcome Measure(s) Three individual skill exam scores and the total score. Results A 1-way multivariate analysis of variance indicated a significant effect (P < .0001) of instructional method on exam scores. Follow-up univariate analysis of variance indicated knee valgus stress test exam scores were significantly higher after F2F instruction (P < .0001). Neither manual muscle test nor goniometric measurement exam scores were affected by instructional method. Conclusions The findings support the use of QC as an alternative to F2F instruction for 2 of the 3 skills. This finding is similar to studies reported in the nursing literature on computer-assisted learning, which found inconclusive evidence to support the superiority of one method over another. Mobile video instruction is an effective teaching strategy. It may be best utilized to supplement traditional F2F instruction.

Based on research conducted by PISA, the ability to solve problems and think critically of Indonesian students is still below the average score set by PISA. Problem based learning is one of the learning models recommended by the Ministry of Education and Culture to be applied in improving these abilities. However, the lack of problem-based learning that has been applied so far is the lack of use of media that can be used as support in learning activities, resulting in inconsistencies in the impact of problem-based learning in improving student skills. The importance of these skills for students to have in this era of the industrial revolution 4.0, makes educators have to be more creative and innovative in implementing learning. Therefore, this study aims at seeing efforts to improve problem solving skills and critical thinking skills through problem based integrated computer assisted instruction (CAI). This study used a quasi-experimental pre-test and post-test control group design. The population in this study were undergraduate students of Mechanical Engineering Education, Padang State University. The instrument used in this research is a questionnaire which is used to see students' problem solving and critical thinking skills. The data analysis technique in this study is in accordance with the research hypothesis, where research hypotheses 1 and 2 use independent sample t-test and research hypothesis 3 uses MANCOVA. The research covered by his study is in line with higher education's continuing search for effective SCL approaches

In the period 1985-1990, software and written learning materials have been developed in the project Computer-assisted Writing Instruction, a research-and-development project of the University of Twente. The courseware was intended to serve as a prototype for writing instruction in which much attention is to be paid to text planning, before and during writing. In the experimental lessons students used a word processor and a planning support program as an aid for composing their texts. An educational innovation, such as the use of the computer as a tool or approaching writing instruction in a process-oriented way, displays its effects on all levels in the instructional situation. One intends to influence the writing achievements of students positively, but at the same time the daily routine in classes changes, both for teacher and for students. Various effects of the experimental materials and the lessons realized with it, were studied in nine third grade classes of MAVO and HAVO (lower and higher general secondary education) and VWO (pre-university secondary education). A selection of results with regard to the effects on the writing achievements of students and with regard to changes in their writing processes are being presented. From the study it appeared that students improved their writing achievements during the experimental course: they wrote better letters after the course than they did before. The writing processes of students who wrote a letter (supported by the computer program) also appeared to be changed. The required letter was planned at a higher text level after the course. However, for some of the participating students this change appeared to be immature.

The purpose of this study was to identify the impact of implementing a Learning Management System (LMS) ‘TES Teach’ on students’ learning experiences in a computer-assisted language learning (CALL) course with flipped-class instruction. For the data collection procedure, an individual interview with ten undergraduate students from an Indonesian college was conducted to demonstrate the potential impacts of the LMS in students’ meaningful learning activities. The observation of students’ learning activities on the LMS was also recorded to support the interview data. The LMS was adopted to distribute and receive information, thus, the students were able to monitor learning activities, learn the contents before coming to class, evaluate learning process, and interact with others outside of class hours. The finding of this study suggests that the LMS TES Teach is recommended to be performed in teaching CALL for higher education in Indonesia. It offers students’ occasion to practice and enhances their listening, writing, reading and vocabulary skills in and out-of-class times. It also prepares students to get ready for classroom activities in term of conversations and speaking skills. The further use of the LMSs should become often-visited sites by students for learning activities and replaced other non-educational favorite websites. Finally, this study recommends that the Ministry of Research, Technology and Higher education or policymakers in Indonesia, including instructors, students, and community members, must be actively involved in developing, supporting, and maintaining a transformed learning culture, from being traditional to a technology-based learning environment.

The Accounting Education Change Commission (AECC) values and encourages pedagogical studies that would assist in attracting students through the delivery of First Course in Accounting. The AECC identifies content and instructional methods as the two most important areas that need attention. This study examines the effectiveness of a computer-based assisted learning (CBAL) on students' performance and attrition in the first introductory accounting course. The CBAL is a modified supplemental instruction program with an interactive lecture and computer-based IT component. In a three-year experimental study, the overall grade point average (GPA) of the CBAL students were compared to that of a matched paired control group. The two cohorts were further matched on SAT scores as strong and weak, respectively. We found that there was incremental value in terms of students' performance from CBAL. That is, the GPA of the CBAL students was significantly higher than that of the control group and the attrition rate of the CBAL students is directionally lower than that of the control group. Thus, it appears that the CBAL program is effective in enhancing and improving students' grades in the first introductory accounting course.

This three-year longitudinal study involved the use of hypermedia computer assisted instruction (CAI) to provide individualized reading instruction within a general classroom environment for students in grades K-3. The software provided reading lessons in a hypermedia format designed as supplementary material for a basal reader series. Because this project was interested in the maintenance of students with mild disabilities in the general education setting, particular attention was given to the reading progress of low-achieving students, as they appeared to be the most at risk for being referred to special education classes. Analysis of the achievement test data indicates: Year One. Entire-class significance was shown with experimental classes outperforming control classes at kindergarten, second grade, and third grade. When the classrooms were broken down into ability groups, low students in the kindergarten, second grade, and third grade experimental classes achieved significantly higher total test scores than their control peers. Year Two. No entire class significance was shown at the first, second, or third grade levels. When the classrooms were broken down into ability groups, at the first, second, and third grade levels, the low group students in the experimental classrooms had significantly higher total test scores than the students in the control classroom low groups. Year Three. When comparing entire classes on total test scores, no entire class significance was shown at the kindergarten, second, or third grade levels. When classrooms were divided into ability groups, low students in the kindergarten experimental class achieved significantly higher total test scores than the control students.

The abrupt disruption of the traditional face-to-face language instruction due to the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic has forced many schools and higher learning institutions in Oman and around the globe to establish a virtual learning environment. This crisis-prompted remote learning has been a new experience for most teachers and students alike, a variable that may affect students' learning. Thus, it is significant to understand the students' experience with online teaching and learning. This study explicitly examines online teaching and learning as perceived by English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students of a higher learning institution in Oman. A total number of (112) undergraduate students in Oman acted as a data source by responding to a computer-assisted survey questionnaire. The survey focused on the following themes: overall first-time online language learning experience; online courses; online learning mode and attainment of graduate attributes; effectiveness of online teaching and delivery; utilization and usefulness of electronic learning devices; and e-learning language skills. The findings highlight the significance of exploring learners' online learning experience and its implications for planning, implementing, teaching, and assessing online language education.

The relevance of the use of educational technology by educators in the classroom, to improve academic achievement, has been a debatable query in the literature for decades. The purpose of this research is to scientifically quantify and determine the impact of technology use in the classroom (specifically, Computer-Assisted-Instruction and Integrated-Learning-System) on the academic scores attained by level 2 MCAST students. By employing a two-stage quasi-experimental methodology: First, controlling for respondents’ characteristics and consequently by delivering the sessions using alternating teaching tools – the study ensured homogeneity between the control and treatment groups. Findings from the Bi-Point serial correlation test prove statistically significant negative returns of the use of educational technology by educators in the classroom on level 2 students’ test scores, since on average, the group that was not exposed to educational technology, achieved higher test scores than the treatment group. These results can help teachers of such a student cohort to improve the plan for their lesson; and help institutions such as MCAST, the Ministry for Education and the European Union to design appropriate policies that ensure more effective learning.

AbstractIn this study, we used a data-mining approach to identify hidden groups in a corpus-based second-language (L2) vocabulary experiment. After a vocabulary pre-test, a total of 132 participants performed three online reading tasks (in random orders) equipped with the following glossary types: (1) concordance lines and definitions of target lexical items, (2) concordance lines of target lexical items, and (3) no glossary information. Although the results of a previous study based on variable-centred analysis (i.e. multiple regression analysis) revealed that more glossary information could lead to better learning outcomes (Lee, Warschauer & Lee, 2017), using a model-based clustering technique in the present study allowed us to unearth learner types not identified in the previous analysis. Instead of the performance pattern found in the previous study (more glossary led to higher gains), we identified one learner group who exhibited their ability to make successful use of concordance lines (and thus are optimized for data-driven learning, or DDL; Johns, 1991), and another group who showed limited L2 vocabulary learning when exposed to concordance lines only. Further, our results revealed that L2 proficiency intersects with vocabulary gains of different learner types in complex ways. Therefore, using this technique in computer-assisted language learning (CALL) research to understand differential effects of accommodations can help us better identify hidden learner types and provide personalized CALL instruction.

Background: E-learning is a method of teaching and learning using electronic media. It is also called web-based learning, online learning, distributed learning, computer-assisted instruction and internet-based learning. With the development of information technology, the use of e-learning has rapidly increases. E-learning is becoming omnipresent in higher education and increases the student’s motivation and satisfaction in learning.Methods: The descriptive cross sectional study was conducted at three different health science colleges among bachelor level students of Public Health, Pharmacy and Nursing at Kathmandu, Nepal. Total 135 respondents were randomly selected. The self administered questionnaire was used for the data collection and the obtained data were analyzed by using SPSS version 16.Results: Study shows that majority of respondents were from 19-22 years and 71.9% were female. All the respondents use electronic devices for learning and majority (97.8%) believes that electronic device influence the academic performance of students. Laptop is the commonly used electronic device followed by smart phone. Among the respondents only 63.7% follow the correct posture. Similarly, majority (80.7%) of the respondents spent 1-4 hours on electronic device for learning purpose that is mainly used for searching clinical guidelines, reference drug guidelines and journal articles.Conclusions: The use of electronic device is common among the health science students for learning. The uses of such devices have positive effect on their education since they get updated information quickly as needed. However necessary guidance is necessary to get appropriate sites and for limiting excessive use such devices.

To improve online learning pedagogy within the field of paralegal education, this study investigated how paralegal students and paralegal instructors perceived the effectiveness of synchronous and asynchronous online paralegal courses. This study intended to inform paralegal instructors and course developers how to better design, deliver, and evaluate effective online course instruction in the field of paralegal studies.Survey results were analyzed using independent samples t-test and correlational analysis, and indicated that overall, paralegal students and paralegal instructors positively perceived synchronous and asynchronous online paralegal courses. Paralegal instructors reported statistically significant higher perceptions than paralegal students: (1) of instructional design and course content in synchronous online paralegal courses; and (2) of technical assistance, communication, and course content in asynchronous online paralegal courses. Instructors also reported higher perceptions of the effectiveness of universal design, online instructional design, and course content in synchronous online paralegal courses than in asynchronous online paralegal courses. Paralegal students reported higher perceptions of asynchronous online paralegal course effectiveness regarding universal design than paralegal instructors. No statistically significant differences existed between paralegal students’ perceptions of the effectiveness of synchronous and asynchronous online paralegal courses. A strong, negative relationship existed between paralegal students’ age and their perceptions of effective synchronous paralegal courses, which were statistically and practically significant. Lastly, this study provided practical applicability and opportunities for future research. Akyol, Z., & Garrison, D. R. (2008). 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A change in teaching delivery at a large Australian university, from two semesters to three trimesters, was the occasion for using more formative assessment in a core first-year mathematics unit. This study compared evidence about learning outcomes for two cohorts in adjacent years. Cohort 1 was the last taught over a semester, and Cohort 2 the first taught over a trimester. There was no change in overall workload, and no change in the unit's total teaching hours, syllabus or materials. Assessments were changed for class tests during the teaching period by giving Cohort 2 access to unlimited practice and computer-assisted feedback on the questions in the test database, followed by doing the tests under examination conditions. For Cohort 2, a written assignment was also added, focused on giving a clear solution to a mathematics problem, and awareness of the need for appropriate evidence, both background and internal to the problem. Learning outcomes were compared using closely comparable tasks from the final examinations, and examining students' answers in the examination scripts. Outcomes were assessed by a method derived from the solo taxonomy, which afforded a common scale to measure the quality of learning outcomes observable in final examination scripts. Results on separate tasks, plus those for a composite score, favoured Cohort 2. The effect size for the composite score was 0.457. This indicates that the unlimited practice with computer feedback for class tests, and the writing assignment, were functioning as intended in promoting learning with understanding. References S. Bengmark, H. Thunberg, and T. M. Winberg. Success-factors in transition to university mathematics. Int. J. Math. Ed. Sci. Tech., 48(7):988–1001, 2017. doi:10.1080/0020739X.2017.1310311. J. B. Biggs and K. F. Collis. Evaluating the quality of learning: The SOLO taxonomy. Academic Press, New York, 1981. 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Researched since the early 1990s, computer-assisted instruction (CAI) continues to prove beneficial for learners across the curriculum. While research has been growing greatly with a focus on higher education, its K-12 education counterpart– specifically secondary education where the use of technology is prevalent– remains largely unexplored. Moreover, as technology advances, students are increasingly exposed to CAI. However, with the rapidly increasing speed of technological advancements, it has become difficult for educational research to progress at the same pace. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic advancing the utilization of instructional technology, it is imperative that all educational stakeholders are introduced to the benefits that CAI can provide: an education that caters to students’ learning preferences, equal educational opportunities for all students, and an enhancement of students’ motivation in the classroom. With educators more readily integrating technology to support traditional lesson plans, demonstrating its positive impacts on all educational stakeholders can help to alleviate reservations and foster more effective implementation of CAI.

The trend toward increased technology in traditional higher education classrooms has been met with both optimism and criticism. One of the major criticisms of technology in the college classroom is that it does little, if anything, to improve student learning. Taking this view of technology into account, this study examined how the use of technology contributed to student learning outcomes after controlling for key student demographic variables. More specifically, this study investigated the use of computer mediated conferencing (CMC) tools (i.e., email and electronic discussion boards) and computer aided instructional (CAI) resources (i.e., the computer and Internet) to determine whether they contribute to student learning.The sample utilized in this study consisted of 2000 college students, randomly drawn from the 2003 College Student Experience Questionnaire database. The survey included 53 Likert scale items with reliability ranges from .78 to .88 on each of the composite scales. The analysis of data consisted of four multiple regressions conducted on specific student learning outcomes. The student learning outcomes included four composite scales, measuring student 1) personal and social development, 2) general education gains, 3) intellectual development, 4) science and technology gains, and 3) vocationalpreparation.After controlling for student's background variables, the findings of this study revealed that the use of technology in the college classroom does contribute to student learning. The model, including technology variables, explained 4% to 7% of the gains in student learning, while student background variables contributed an additional .03% to 2% of the gains. These findings, though modest, suggest that incorporating technologies in the college classroom can aid students in the learning process.

Technological advancements and competition in student recruitment have challenged educational institutions to expand upon traditional teaching methods in order to attract, engage and retain students. One strategy to meet this shift from educator-directed teaching to student-centered learning is greater computer utilization as an integral aspect of the learning environment. The purpose of the present study was to assess the effectiveness of utilizing Computer-Assisted Instruction (CAI) to teach administration and management content in Physical Therapy (PT) education. It was hypothesized that CAI is equally effective for assimilation of information when compared to traditional lecture instruction (TLI). The sample consisted of third-year entry-level PT students enrolled in an Administration and Management course. Thirty-three of forty students who met the inclusion criteria consented to participate. Both the Mercy College and Seton Hall University IRB boards approved the project and all students signed informed consents. Participants were randomly assigned to the control (TLI, n=16) or experimental (CAI, n=17) group. Each participant completed a pretest on the material to be covered and a demographic survey to assess grade point average (GPA), gender, age and computer literacy. Students then attended the course in the designated medium and took a post-test at the end of the semester. There were no significant differences between the two groups for GPA, age or gender. Both groups showed significant improvement from pretest to post-test (51.5±12.7 to 80.6±7.8; p<0.001), and (52.0±9.5 to 85.1±6.1; p<0.001), respectively. No significant difference was found between the groups for baseline knowledge (52.0±9.5 vs. 51.5±12.7; p=0.905), final exam scores (80.6±7.8 vs. 85.1±6.1; p=0.073) or final course grades (90.2±3.0 vs. 90.5±3.1; p=0.763). The hypotheses that CAI is equally effective for assimilation and retention of information presented in a professional management and administration PT class, when compared to TLI, was supported. Areas for further analysis include examining student satisfaction levels, work efficiency and long-term retention of material. With both teaching methods found to be equally effective, educators can utilize CAI to promote a student-centered experience for the high tech learners of today. Hiring faculty from remote locations to fill positions for which candidates are unavailable locally, and allowing instructors to teach multiple sections of the same course at different geographic campuses, is also possible with CAI. Additionally, if the instructor or student is absent or a lecture is not finished in the classroom, the material can be placed online. This new evidence supports the use of CAI in teaching administration and management material to PT students, providing institutions of higher learning with an alternative teaching strategy to meet the needs of today’s students.

<span>This study reports on creative ways of using technology in the classroom, specifically the development of multimedia courseware on World Heritage through which learners are able to upgrade their knowledge and cognition regarding historical and cultural legacies from the past, and to improve English skills. The content of the pilot courseware included introductory texts about ten famous World Heritage sites combined with integrative English learning skills: reading, listening, speaking, writing and translation. An online evaluation system with an instant self-checking function was created to allow learners to examine work for themselves immediately and understand their learning progress and achievements. The courseware design was based on Mayer's multimedia learning cognitive theory, and the language learning focus drew on Chapelle's suggested criteria for development of multimedia, computer-assisted language learning (CALL). The courseware has been tried and used by two groups of students: sophomore and junior students of English as a foreign language (EFL) in a technical university in Taiwan. Initial evaluations suggest that students were satisfied with learning through courseware integration and their vocabulary comprehension was significantly improved. Junior students with higher English proficiency became more focused on practices of English skills and related learning activities, also also more satisfied with the content and design of the courseware.</span>

Computer-assisted learning (CAL) interventions have been used in contemporary allied health and medical education to supplement classroom instruction. Emphasis has shifted from tutorial activities to creating interventions that address higher level critical thinking skills. Purpose: The purpose of this mixed methods study was to investigate student perceptions of their critical thinking skills and overall impression of a CAL intervention. Methods: Videotape of patient treatment activities were embedded into a Microsoft PowerPoint™ presentation to guide students through the processes of evaluation and treatment to create a CAL module. Physical therapy students from two neighboring universities volunteered to participate. Students were randomly assigned to either Group 1 (CAL module) or Group 2 (video) and viewed their intervention following traditional lecture and lab activities. Students then completed Minute Papers and members of Group 1 participated in a Focus Group Discussion. Common threads and themes were generated by triangulating the numerical data from the Minute Papers with the written and verbal responses from the Minute Papers and Focus Group Discussion. Results: Significant differences were detected with the Mann Whitney U tests of the median Likert scores comparing the CAL module and video groups on the Minute Papers on four of seven items. The qualitative data generally revealed positive student perceptions related to the interventions, with the responses being more favorable towards the module than the video intervention. The majority of students felt that the interventions offered visual reinforcement, supplemented their learning experience, and further developed their clinical reasoning skills. Conclusions:Student response to the CAL module was more favorable than to the video alone. This instructional intervention warrants further investigation.

Background and Objective: The COVID-19 pandemic has created a need to deliver much content for the Human Structure (HS) course virtually. Because osteology is a fundamental component of human gross anatomy, the goal of this project was to create quality interactive osteology modules for HS that can be delivered online. Project Methods: To ground our module development in best practices for teaching and learning human gross anatomy, we reviewed 100 articles from PubMed databases and selected 9 for discussion during weekly literature review meetings. Key search terms included: education research, computer-assisted instruction (CAI), technology-enhanced learning (TEL), clinically based anatomy, integrated learning, medical education, and more. We created the modules using Microsoft PowerPoint™ and EndNote X9™ for referencing purposes. Bone images were captured and edited with a Nikon USA™ D850 DLSR camera and Adobe Photoshop, respectively. Additional images were obtained from IUSM online textbooks, miscellaneous websites, and the radiology database Radiopaedia™. Each module includes pertinent clinical correlations, radiology, and post-module quizzes for students to assess their higher-order knowledge. Results: We created 7 osteology modules using best practices for human gross anatomy teaching and learning: (1) Vertebral Column, (2) Thorax, (3) Shoulder Girdle & Brachium, (4) Elbow, Antebrachium, Hand, (5) Pelvic Girdle & Thigh, (6) Knee, Leg, Foot, (7) Cranium & Hyoid. Conclusion and Potential Impact: Studies have demonstrated that CAI/TEL and radiological imaging work synergistically with traditional didactic methods to facilitate learning of human gross anatomy. Our modules will be used statewide in the HS course for first-year medical students as a CAI learning tool. Looking forward, we plan to use both qualitative and quantitative methods to determine if use of these modules results in better exam performance or aids in other aspects of the learning process.

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The Canadian Modern Language Review (University of Toronto Press) 62.3 (2006), 449–467.07–31Goldberg, Erin (U Alberta, Canada), Motivation, ethnic identity, and post-secondary education language choices of graduates of intensive French language programs. The Canadian Modern Language Review (University of Toronto Press) 62.3 (2006), 423–447.07–32Greidanus, Tine (Vrije U Faculteit der Letteren De Boelelaan, the Netherlands; dt.greidanus@let.vu.nl), Bianca Beks & Richard Wakely, Testing the development of French word knowledge by advanced Dutch- and English-speaking learners and native speakers. The Canadian Modern Language Review (University of Toronto Press) 62.4 (2006), 509–532.07–33Howard, Martin (U Cork, Ireland), Variation in advanced French interlanguage: A comparison of three (socio)linguistic variables. The Canadian Modern Language Review (University of Toronto Press) 62.3 (2006), 379–400.07–34Hsieh, Shu-min (Yuanpei Institute of Science and Technology, Taiwan; floramouse@yahoo.com.tw), Problems in preparing for the English impromptu speech contest: The case of Yuanpei Institute of Science and Technology in Taiwan. RELC Journal (Sage) 37.2 (2006), 216–235.07–35Kaschak, Michael, P. (Florida State U., USA) & Jenny R. Saffran, Idiomatic syntactic constructions and language learning. Cognitive Science: A Multidisciplinary Journal (Lawrence Erlbaum) 30.1 (2006), 43–63.07–36Kissau, Scott (U Windsor, Canada), Gender differences in motivation to learn French. The Canadian Modern Language Review (University of Toronto Press) 62.3 (2006), 401–422.07–37Knutson, Elizabeth (U Pennsylvania, USA), Focus on the classroom. The Canadian Modern Language Review (University of Toronto Press) 62.4 (2006), 591–610.07–38Kobayashi, Yoko (Iwate U, Morioka, Japan), Interethnic relations between ESL students. 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The Canadian Modern Language Review (University of Toronto Press) 62.4 (2006), 533–562.07–42Liao, Posen (National Taipei U, Taiwan; posen@mail.ntpu.edu.tw), EFL learners' beliefs about and strategy use of translation in English learning. RELC Journal (Sage) 37.2 (2006), 191–215.07–43Little, Deborah, M. (U Illinois & U Brandeis, USA; little@uic.edu), Lauren M. Mcgrath, Kristen J. Prentice & Arthur Wingfield, Semantic encoding of spoken sentences: Adult aging and the preservation of conceptual short-term memory. Applied Psycholinguistics (Cambridge University Press) 27.3 (2006), 487–511.07–44Loucky, John Paul (Seinan Women's U, Japan), Combining the benefits of electronic and online dictionaries with CALL web sites to produce effective and enjoyable vocabulary and language learning lessons. 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05–135Armstrong, Kevin (Leicester U, UK; ka50@le.ac.uk), Sexing up the dossier: a semantic analysis of phrasal verbs for language teachers. Language Awareness (Clevedon, UK) 13.4 (2004), 213–224.05–136Baker, William & Boonkit, Kamonpan (Silpakorn U, Thailand; willmlbaker@yahoo.co.uk), Learning strategies in reading and writing: EAP contexts. RELC Journal (Thousand Oaks, CA, USA) 35.3 (2004), 299–328.05–137Bell, N. (Indiana U of Pennsylvania, USA), Exploring L2 language play as an aid to SLL: a case study of humour in NS–NNS interaction. Applied Linguistics (Oxford, UK) 26.2 (2005), 192–218.05–138Bohn, Mariko T. (Stanford U, USA; mbohn@stanford.edu), Japanese classroom behavior: a micro-analysis of self-reports versus classroom observations – with implications for language teachers. Applied Language Learning (Monterey, CA, USA) 14.1 (2004), 1–35.05–139Bryan, S. (Arizona State U East, USA), The relationship between negotiated interaction, learner uptake, and lexical acquisition in task-based computer-mediated communication. TESOL Quarterly (Alexandria, VA, USA) 39.1 (2005), 33–58.05–140Byon, Andrew Sangpil (U at Albany, State U of New York, USA; abyon@albany.edu), Learning linguistic politeness. Applied Language Learning (Monterey, CA, USA) 14.1 (2004), 37–62.05–141Cekaite, A. & Aronsson, K. (Linköping U, Sweden), Language play, a collaborative resource in children's L2 learning. Applied Linguistics (Oxford, UK) 26.2 (2005), 169–191.05–142Culhane, Stephen F. (Kagoshima U, Japan; culhane@pacall.org) & Umeda, Chisako (Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific U, Japan), Authentic second language interaction in an instructional setting: assessing an inter-class exchange programme. RELC Journal (Thousand Oaks, CA, USA) 35.3 (2004), 281–298.05–143Dancer, Diane & Kamvounias, Patty (Sydney U, Australia; d.dancer@econ.usyd.edu.ac), Student involvement in assessment: a project designed to assess class participation fairly and reliably. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education (Abingdon, UK) 30.4 (2005), 445–454.05–144Dong, Naiting (Jiangsu Polytechnic U, China), Failures of intercultural communication caused by translating from Chinese into English. English Today (Cambridge, UK) 21.1 (2005), 11–16.05–145Egi, Takako (Florida U, USA; tegi@aall.ufl.edu), Verbal reports, noticing, and SLA research. Language Awareness (Clevedon, UK) 13.4 (2004), 243–264.05–146Fernández Toledo, Piedad (Murcia U, Spain; piedad@um.es), Genre analysis and reading of English as a foreign language: genre schemata beyond text typologies. Journal of Pragmatics (Amsterdam, the Netherlands) 37.7 (2005), 1059–1079.05–147Fisher, Linda, Evans, Michael & Esch, Edith (U of Cambridge, UK; igf20@cam.ac.uk), Computer-mediated communication: promoting learner autonomy and intercultural understanding at secondary level. Language Learning Journal (Rugby, UK) 30 (2004), 50–58.05–148Gass, Susan & Alvarez Torres, Maria José (Michigan State U, USA; gass@msu.edu), Attention when? An investigation of the ordering effect of input and interaction. Studies in Second Language Acquisition (Cambridge, UK) 27.1 (2005), 1–31.05–149Hawkins, M. (U of Wisconsin, USA), Becoming a student: identity work and academic literacies in early schooling. TESOL Quarterly (Alexandria, VA, USA) 39.1 (2005), 159–182.05–150Hosali, Priya (CIEFL, Hyderabad, India), Butler English. English Today (Cambridge, UK) 21.1 (2005), 34–39.05–151Jackson, Jane (Chinese U of Hong Kong, China; jjackson@arts.cuhk.edu.hk), Language and cultural immersion: an ethnographic case study. RELC Journal (Thousand Oaks, CA, USA) 35.3 (2004), 261–279.05–152Kintsch, W. (Colorado U, USA), An overview of top-down and bottom-up effects in comprehension: the CI perspective. Discourse Processes (Mahwah, NJ, USA) 39.2/3 (2005), 125–128.05–153Koyama, Jill P. (Columbia U, USA), Appropriating policy: constructing positions for English language learners. Bilingual Research Journal (Tempe, AZ, USA) 28. 3 (2004), 401–423.05–154Lambacher, Stephen G. (Aizu U, Japan; steeve@u-aizu.ac.jp), Martens, William, L., Kakehi, Kazukiko, Marasinghe, Chandrajith, A. & Molholt, Garry, The effects of identification training on the identification and production of American English vowels by native speakers of Japanese. Applied Psycholinguistics (Cambridge, UK), 26.2 (2005), 227–247.05–155McDonough, Kim (U of Illinois, USA; mcdonokr@uiuc.edu), Identifying the impact of negative feedback and learners' responses on ESL question development. Studies in Second Language Acquisition (Cambridge, UK) 27.1 (2005), 79–103.05–156Meara, Paul (U of Wales Swansea, UK; p.m.meara@swansea.ac.uk), Lexical frequency profiles: a Monte Carlo analysis. Applied Linguistics (Cambridge, UK) 26.1 (2005), 32–47.05–157Read, John (Victoria U of Wellington, New Zealand; john.read@vuw.ac.nz), Research in teaching vocabulary. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics (Cambridge, UK) 24 (2004), 146–161.05–158Richardson, John T. (Open U, UK; j.t.e.richardson@open.ac.uk), Instruments for obtaining student feedback: a review of the literature. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education (Abingdon, UK) 30.4 (2005), 387–415.05–159Savage, Robert (Institute of Education, London U, UK) & Carless, Sue, Learning support assistants can deliver effective reading interventions for ‘at-risk’ children. Educational Research (Abingdon, UK) 47.1 (2005), 45–61.05–160Schmenk, B. (U of Waterloo, Canada), Globalizing learner autonomy. TESOL Quarterly (Alexandria, VA, USA) 39.1 (2005), 107–118.05–161Sheard, Susan & Markham, Selby (Monash U, Australia), Web based learning environments: developing a framework for evaluation. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education (Abingdon, UK) 30.4 (2005), 353–368.05–162Smartt, Jerry, T. (Friends U, USA) & Scudder, Rosalind R., Immersion study abroad in Mexico: using repair behaviors to assess proficiency changes. Foreign Language Annals (Alexandria, VA, USA) 37.4 (2004), 592–601.05–163Takahashi, Satomi (Rikkyo U, Japan; satomit@rikkyo.ne.jp), Pragmalinguistic awareness: is it related to motivation and proficiency?Applied Linguistics (Cambridge, UK) 26.1 (2005), 90–120.05–164Timmis, I. (Leeds Metropolitan U, UK), Towards a framework for teaching spoken grammar. ELT Journal (Oxford, UK) 59.2 (2005), 117–125.05–165Torres, Germán (Georgia State U, USA), Practical ways to integrate literature into Spanish for international business courses. Foreign Language Annals (Alexandria, VA, USA) 37.4 (2004), 584–591.05–166Vandergrift, Larry (Ottawa U, Canada; lvdgrift@uottawa.ca), Listening to learn or learning to listen?Annual Review of Applied Linguistics (Cambridge, UK) 24 (2004), 3–25.05–167Vandergrift, Larry (Ottawa U, Canada; lvdgrift@uottawa.ca), Relationships among motivation orientations, metacognitive awareness and proficiency in L2 listening. Applied Linguistics (Cambridge, UK) 26.1 (2005), 70–89.05–168Webb, Stuart (Koran Women's Junior College, Japan; swebb@fka.att.ne.jp), Receptive and productive vocabulary learning: the effects of reading and writing on word knowledge. Studies in Second Language Acquisition (Cambridge, UK) 27.1 (2005), 33–52.05–169Wee, Lee (Singapore National U, Singapore; ellweeha@nus.edu.sg), Intra-language discrimination and linguistic human rights: the case of singlish. Applied Linguistics (Cambridge, UK) 26.1 (2005), 48–69.05–170Williams, Marion, Burden, Robert, Poulet, Gérard & Maun, Ian (U of Exeter, UK; m.d.williams@exeter.ac.uk), Learners' perceptions of their successes and failures in foreign language learning. Language Learning Journal (Rugby, UK) 30 (2004), 19–29.

04–538 Allford, D. Institute of Education, University of London. d.allford@sta01.joe.ac.uk‘Grasping the nettle’: aspects of grammar in the mother tongue and foreign languages. Language Learning Journal (Rugby, UK), 27 (2003), 24–32.04–539 Álvarez, Inma (The Open U., UK). Consideraciones sobre la contribución de los ordenadores en el aprendizaje de lenguas extranjeras. [The contribution of computers to foreign language learning.] Vida Hispánica (Rugby, UK), 28 (2003), 19–23.04–540 Arkoudis, S. (U. of Melbourne, Australia; Email: sophiaa@unimelb.edu.au). Teaching English as a second language in science classes: incommensurate epistemologies?Language and Education (Clevedon, UK), 17, 3 (2003), 161–173.04–541 Bandin, Francis and Ferrer, Margarita (Manchester Metropolitan U., UK). Estereotípicos. [Stereotypes.] Vida Hispánica. Association for Language Learning (Rugby, UK), 28 (2003), 4–12.04–542 Banno, Eri (Okayama University). A cross-cultural survey of students’ expectations of foreign language teachers. Foreign Language Annals, 36, 3 (2003), 339–346.04–543 Barron, Colin (U. of Hong Kong, Hong Kong; Email: csbarron@hkusua.hku.hk). Problem-solving and EAP: themes and issues in a collaborative teaching venture. English for Specific Purposes (Amsterdam, The Netherlands), 22, 3 (2003), 297–314.04–544 Bartley, Belinda (Lord Williams's School, Thame). Developing learning strategies in writing French at key stage 4. Francophonie (London, UK), 28 (2003), 10–17.04–545 Bax, S. (Canterbury Christ Church University College). The end of CLT: a context approach to language teaching. ELT Journal (Oxford, UK), 57, 3 (2003), 278–287.04–546 Caballero, Rodriguez (Universidad Jaume I, Campus de Borriol, Spain; Email: mcaballe@guest.uji.es). How to talk shop through metaphor: bringing metaphor research to the ESP classroom. English for Specific Purposes (Amsterdam, The Netherlands), 22, 2 (2003), 177–194.04–547 Field, J. (University of Leeds). Promoting perception: lexical segmentation in L2 listening. ELT Journal (Oxford, UK), 57, 4 (2003), 325–334.04–548 Finkbeiner, Matthew and Nicol, Janet (U. of Arizona, AZ, USA; Email: msf@u.Arizona.edu). Semantic category effects in second language word learning. Applied Psycholinguistics (Cambridge, UK), 24, 3 (2003), 369–384.04–549 Frazier, S. (University of California). A corpus analysis of would-clauses without adjacent if-clauses. TESOL Quarterly (Alexandria, VA, USA), 37, 3 (2003), 443–466.04–550 Harwood, Nigel (Canterbury Christ Church University College, UK). Taking a lexical approach to teaching: principles and problems. International Journal of Applied Linguistics (Oxford, UK), 12, 2 (2002), 139–155.04–551 Hird, Bernard (Edith Cowan U., Australia; Email: b.hird@ecu.edu.au). What are language teachers trying to do in their lessons?Babel, (Adelaide, Australia) 37, 3 (2003), 24–29.04–552 Ho, Y-K. (Ming Hsin University of Science and Technology, Taiwan). Audiotaped dialogue journals: an alternative form of speaking practice. ELT Journal (Oxford, UK), 57, 3 (2003), 269–277.04–553 Huang, Jingzi (Monmouth University, West Long Branch, NJ, USA). Chinese as a foreign language in Canada: a content-based programme for elementary school. Language, Culture and Curriculum (), 16, 1 (2003), 70–89.04–554 Kennedy, G. (Victoria University of Wellington). Amplifier collocations in the British National Corpus: implications for English language teaching. TESOL Quarterly (Alexandria, VA, USA), 37, 3 (2003), 467–487.04–555 Kissau, Scott P. (U. of Windsor, UK & Greater Essex County District School Board; Email: scotkiss@att.canada.ca). The relationship between school environment and effectiveness in French immersion. The Canadian Journal of Applied Linguistics (Ottawa, Canada), 6, 1 (2003), 87–104.04–556 Laurent, Maurice (Messery). De la grammaire implicite à la grammaire explicite. 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Beyond Struwwelpeter: using German picture books for cultural exploration. Die Unterrichtspraxis (Cherry Hill, NJ, USA), 36, 1 (2003), 15–27.04–562 Morley, J. and Truscott, S. (University of Manchester; Email: mfwssjcm@man.ac.uk). The integration of research-oriented learning into a Tandem learning programme. Language Learning Journal (Rugby, UK), 27 (2003), 52–58.04–563 Oliver, Rhonda (Edith Cowan U., Australia; Email: rhonda.oliver@cowan.edu.au) and Mackey, Alison. Interactional context and feedback in child ESL classrooms. The Modern Language Journal (Madison, WI, USA), 87, 4 (2003), 519–533.04–564 Pachler, N. (Institute of Education, University of London; Email: n.pachler@ioe.ac.uk). Foreign language teaching as an evidence-based profession?Language Learning Journal (Rugby, UK), 27 (2003), 4–14.04–565 Portmann-Tselikas, Paul R. (Karl-Franzens Universität Graz, Austria). Grammatikunterricht als Schule der Aufmerksamkeit. Zur Rolle grammatischen Wissens im gesteuerten Spracherwerb. 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On May 18, 2003, the Australian Minister for Education, Brendon Nelson, appeared on the Channel Nine Sunday programme. The Yoda of political journalism, Laurie Oakes, attacked him personally and professionally. He disclosed to viewers that the Minister for Education, Science and Training had suffered a false start in his education, enrolling in one semester of an economics degree that was never completed. The following year, he commenced a medical qualification and went on to become a practicing doctor. He did not pay fees for any of his University courses. When reminded of these events, Dr Nelson became agitated, and revealed information not included in the public presentation of the budget of that year, including a ‘cap’ on HECS-funded places of five years for each student. He justified such a decision with the cliché that Australia’s taxpayers do not want “professional students completing degree after degree.” The Minister confirmed that the primary – and perhaps the only – task for university academics was to ‘train’ young people for the workforce. The fact that nearly 50% of students in some Australian Universities are over the age of twenty five has not entered his vision. He wanted young people to complete a rapid degree and enter the workforce, to commence paying taxes and the debt or loan required to fund a full fee-paying place. Now – nearly two years after this interview and with the Howard government blessed with a new mandate – it is time to ask how this administration will order education and value teaching and learning. The curbing of the time available to complete undergraduate courses during their last term in office makes plain the Australian Liberal Government’s stance on formal, publicly-funded lifelong learning. The notion that a student/worker can attain all required competencies, skills, attributes, motivations and ambitions from a single degree is an assumption of the new funding model. It is also significant to note that while attention is placed on the changing sources of income for universities, there have also been major shifts in the pattern of expenditure within universities, focusing on branding, marketing, recruitment, ‘regional’ campuses and off-shore courses. Similarly, the short-term funding goals of university research agendas encourage projects required by industry, rather than socially inflected concerns. There is little inevitable about teaching, research and education in Australia, except that the Federal Government will not create a fully-funded model for lifelong learning. The task for those of us involved in – and committed to – education in this environment is to probe the form and rationale for a (post) publicly funded University. This short paper for the ‘order’ issue of M/C explores learning and teaching within our current political and economic order. Particularly, I place attention on the synergies to such an order via phrases like the knowledge economy and the creative industries. To move beyond the empty promises of just-in-time learning, on-the-job training, graduate attributes and generic skills, we must reorder our assumptions and ask difficult questions of those who frame the context in which education takes place. For the term of your natural life Learning is a big business. Whether discussing the University of the Third Age, personal development courses, self help bestsellers or hard-edged vocational qualifications, definitions of learning – let alone education – are expanding. Concurrent with this growth, governments are reducing centralized funding and promoting alternative revenue streams. The diversity of student interests – or to use the language of the time, client’s learning goals – is transforming higher education into more than the provision of undergraduate and postgraduate degrees. The expansion of the student body beyond the 18-25 age group and the desire to ‘service industry’ has reordered the form and purpose of formal education. The number of potential students has expanded extraordinarily. As Lee Bash realized Today, some estimates suggest that as many as 47 percent of all students enrolled in higher education are over 25 years old. In the future, as lifelong learning becomes more integrated into the fabric of our culture, the proportion of adult students is expected to increase. And while we may not yet realize it, the academy is already being transformed as a result. (35) Lifelong learning is the major phrase and trope that initiates and justifies these changes. Such expansive economic opportunities trigger the entrepreneurial directives within universities. If lifelong learning is taken seriously, then the goals, entry standards, curriculum, information management policies and assessments need to be challenged and changed. Attention must be placed on words and phrases like ‘access’ and ‘alternative entry.’ Even more consideration must be placed on ‘outcomes’ and ‘accountability.’ Lifelong learning is a catchphrase for a change in purpose and agenda. Courses are developed from a wide range of education providers so that citizens can function in, or at least survive, the agitation of the post-work world. Both neo-liberal and third way models of capitalism require the labeling and development of an aspirational class, a group who desires to move ‘above’ their current context. Such an ambiguous economic and social goal always involves more than the vocational education and training sector or universities, with the aim being to seamlessly slot education into a ‘lifestyle.’ The difficulties with this discourse are two-fold. Firstly, how effectively can these aspirational notions be applied and translated into a real family and a real workplace? Secondly, does this scheme increase the information divide between rich and poor? There are many characteristics of an effective lifelong learner including great personal motivation, self esteem, confidence and intellectual curiosity. In a double shifting, change-fatigued population, the enthusiasm for perpetual learning may be difficult to summon. With the casualization of the post-Fordist workplace, it is no surprise that policy makers and employers are placing the economic and personal responsibility for retraining on individual workers. Instead of funding a training scheme in the workplace, there has been a devolving of skill acquisition and personal development. Through the twentieth century, and particularly after 1945, education was the track to social mobility. The difficulty now – with degree inflation and the loss of stable, secure, long-term employment – is that new modes of exclusion and disempowerment are being perpetuated through the education system. Field recognized that “the new adult education has been embraced most enthusiastically by those who are already relatively well qualified.” (105) This is a significant realization. Motivation, meta-learning skills and curiosity are increasingly being rewarded when found in the already credentialed, empowered workforce. Those already in work undertake lifelong learning. Adult education operates well for members of the middle class who are doing well and wish to do better. If success is individualized, then failure is also cast on the self, not the social system or policy. The disempowered are blamed for their own conditions and ‘failures.’ The concern, through the internationalization of the workforce, technological change and privatization of national assets, is that failure in formal education results in social exclusion and immobility. Besides being forced into classrooms, there are few options for those who do not wish to learn, in a learning society. Those who ‘choose’ not be a part of the national project of individual improvement, increased market share, company competitiveness and international standards are not relevant to the economy. But there is a personal benefit – that may have long term political consequences – from being ‘outside’ society. Perhaps the best theorist of the excluded is not sourced from a University, but from the realm of fictional writing. Irvine Welsh, author of the landmark Trainspotting, has stated that What we really need is freedom from choice … People who are in work have no time for anything else but work. They have no mental space to accommodate anything else but work. Whereas people who are outside the system will always find ways of amusing themselves. Even if they are materially disadvantaged they’ll still find ways of coping, getting by and making their own entertainment. (145-6) A blurring of work and learning, and work and leisure, may seem to create a borderless education, a learning framework uninhibited by curriculum, assessment or power structures. But lifelong learning aims to place as many (national) citizens as possible in ‘the system,’ striving for success or at least a pay increase which will facilitate the purchase of more consumer goods. Through any discussion of work-place training and vocationalism, it is important to remember those who choose not to choose life, who choose something else, who will not follow orders. Everybody wants to work The great imponderable for complex economic systems is how to manage fluctuations in labour and the market. The unstable relationship between need and supply necessitates flexibility in staffing solutions, and short-term supplementary labour options. When productivity and profit are the primary variables through which to judge successful management, then the alignments of education and employment are viewed and skewed through specific ideological imperatives. The library profession is an obvious occupation that has confronted these contradictions. It is ironic that the occupation that orders knowledge is experiencing a volatile and disordered workplace. In the past, it had been assumed that librarians hold a degree while technicians do not, and that technicians would not be asked to perform – unsupervised – the same duties as librarians. Obviously, such distinctions are increasingly redundant. Training packages, structured through competency-based training principles, have ensured technicians and librarians share knowledge systems which are taught through incremental stages. Mary Carroll recognized the primary questions raised through this change. If it is now the case that these distinctions have disappeared do we need to continue to draw them between professional and para-professional education? Does this mean that all sectors of the education community are in fact learning/teaching the same skills but at different levels so that no unique set of skills exist? (122) With education reduced to skills, thereby discrediting generalist degrees, the needs of industry have corroded the professional standards and stature of librarians. Certainly, the abilities of library technicians are finally being valued, but it is too convenient that one of the few professions dominated by women has suffered a demeaning of knowledge into competency. Lifelong learning, in this context, has collapsed high level abilities in information management into bite sized chunks of ‘skills.’ The ideology of lifelong learning – which is rarely discussed – is that it serves to devalue prior abilities and knowledges into an ever-expanding imperative for ‘new’ skills and software competencies. For example, ponder the consequences of Hitendra Pillay and Robert Elliott’s words: The expectations inherent in new roles, confounded by uncertainty of the environment and the explosion of information technology, now challenge us to reconceptualise human cognition and develop education and training in a way that resonates with current knowledge and skills. (95) Neophilliacal urges jut from their prose. The stress on ‘new roles,’ and ‘uncertain environments,’ the ‘explosion of information technology,’ ‘challenges,’ ‘reconceptualisations,’ and ‘current knowledge’ all affirms the present, the contemporary, and the now. Knowledge and expertise that have taken years to develop, nurture and apply are not validated through this educational brief. The demands of family, work, leisure, lifestyle, class and sexuality stretch the skin taut over economic and social contradictions. To ease these paradoxes, lifelong learning should stress pedagogy rather than applications, and context rather than content. Put another way, instead of stressing the link between (gee wizz) technological change and (inevitable) workplace restructuring and redundancies, emphasis needs to be placed on the relationship between professional development and verifiable technological outcomes, rather than spruiks and promises. Short term vocationalism in educational policy speaks to the ordering of our public culture, requiring immediate profits and a tight dialogue between education and work. Furthering this logic, if education ‘creates’ employment, then it also ‘creates’ unemployment. Ironically, in an environment that focuses on the multiple identities and roles of citizens, students are reduced to one label – ‘future workers.’ Obviously education has always been marinated in the political directives of the day. The industrial revolution introduced a range of technical complexities to the workforce. Fordism necessitated that a worker complete a task with precision and speed, requiring a high tolerance of stress and boredom. Now, more skills are ‘assumed’ by employers at the time that workplaces are off-loading their training expectations to the post-compulsory education sector. Therefore ‘lifelong learning’ is a political mask to empower the already empowered and create a low-level skill base for low paid workers, with the promise of competency-based training. Such ideologies never need to be stated overtly. A celebration of ‘the new’ masks this task. Not surprisingly therefore, lifelong learning has a rich new life in ordering creative industries strategies and frameworks. Codifying the creative The last twenty years have witnessed an expanding jurisdiction and justification of the market. As part of Tony Blair’s third way, the creative industries and the knowledge economy became catchwords to demonstrate that cultural concerns are not only economically viable but a necessity in the digital, post-Fordist, information age. Concerns with intellectual property rights, copyright, patents, and ownership of creative productions predominate in such a discourse. Described by Charles Leadbeater as Living on Thin Air, this new economy is “driven by new actors of production and sources of competitive advantage – innovation, design, branding, know-how – which are at work on all industries.” (10) Such market imperatives offer both challenges and opportunity for educationalists and students. Lifelong learning is a necessary accoutrement to the creative industries project. Learning cities and communities are the foundations for design, music, architecture and journalism. In British policy, and increasingly in Queensland, attention is placed on industry-based research funding to address this changing environment. In 2000, Stuart Cunningham and others listed the eight trends that order education, teaching and learning in this new environment. The Changes to the Provision of Education Globalization The arrival of new information and communication technologies The development of a knowledge economy, shortening the time between the development of new ideas and their application. The formation of learning organizations User-pays education The distribution of knowledge through interactive communication technologies (ICT) Increasing demand for education and training Scarcity of an experienced and trained workforce Source: S. Cunningham, Y. Ryan, L. Stedman, S. Tapsall, K. Bagdon, T. Flew and P. Coaldrake. The Business of Borderless Education. Canberra: DETYA Evaluation and Investigations Program [EIP], 2000. This table reverberates with the current challenges confronting education. Mobilizing such changes requires the lubrication of lifelong learning tropes in university mission statements and the promotion of a learning culture, while also acknowledging the limited financial conditions in which the educational sector is placed. For university scholars facilitating the creative industries approach, education is “supplying high value-added inputs to other enterprises,” (Hartley and Cunningham 5) rather than having value or purpose beyond the immediately and applicably economic. The assumption behind this table is that the areas of expansion in the workforce are the creative and service industries. In fact, the creative industries are the new service sector. This new economy makes specific demands of education. Education in the ‘old economy’ and the ‘new economy’ Old Economy New Economy Four-year degree Forty-year degree Training as a cost Training as a source of competitive advantage Learner mobility Content mobility Distance education Distributed learning Correspondence materials with video Multimedia centre Fordist training – one size fits all Tailored programmes Geographically fixed institutions Brand named universities and celebrity professors Just-in-case Just-in-time Isolated learners Virtual learning communities Source: T. Flew. “Educational Media in Transition: Broadcasting, Digital Media and Lifelong Learning in the Knowledge Economy.” International Journal of Instructional Media 29.1 (2002): 20. There are myriad assumptions lurking in Flew’s fascinating table. The imperative is short courses on the web, servicing the needs of industry. He described the product of this system as a “learner-earner.” (50) This ‘forty year degree’ is based on lifelong learning ideologies. However Flew’s ideas are undermined by the current government higher education agenda, through the capping – through time – of courses. The effect on the ‘learner-earner’ in having to earn more to privately fund a continuance of learning – to ensure that they keep on earning – needs to be addressed. There will be consequences to the housing market, family structures and leisure time. The costs of education will impact on other sectors of the economy and private lives. Also, there is little attention to the groups who are outside this taken-for-granted commitment to learning. Flew noted that barriers to greater participation in education and training at all levels, which is a fundamental requirement of lifelong learning in the knowledge economy, arise in part out of the lack of provision of quality technology-mediated learning, and also from inequalities of access to ICTs, or the ‘digital divide.’ (51) In such a statement, there is a misreading of teaching and learning. Such confusion is fuelled by the untheorised gap between ‘student’ and ‘consumer.’ The notion that technology (which in this context too often means computer-mediated platforms) is a barrier to education does not explain why conventional distance education courses, utilizing paper, ink and postage, were also unable to welcome or encourage groups disengaged from formal learning. Flew and others do not confront the issue of motivation, or the reason why citizens choose to add or remove the label of ‘student’ from their bag of identity labels. The stress on technology as both a panacea and problem for lifelong learning may justify theories of convergence and the integration of financial, retail, community, health and education provision into a services sector, but does not explain why students desire to learn, beyond economic necessity and employer expectations. Based on these assumptions of expanding creative industries and lifelong learning, the shape of education is warping. An ageing population requires educational expenditure to be reallocated from primary and secondary schooling and towards post-compulsory learning and training. This cost will also be privatized. When coupled with immigration flows, technological changes and alterations to market and labour structures, lifelong learning presents a profound and personal cost. An instrument for economic and social progress has been individualized, customized and privatized. The consequence of the ageing population in many nations including Australia is that there will be fewer young people in schools or employment. Such a shift will have consequences for the workplace and the taxation system. Similarly, those young workers who remain will be far more entrepreneurial and less loyal to their employers. Public education is now publically-assisted education. Jane Jenson and Denis Saint-Martin realized the impact of this change. The 1980s ideological shift in economic and social policy thinking towards policies and programmes inspired by neo-liberalism provoked serious social strains, especially income polarization and persistent poverty. An increasing reliance on market forces and the family for generating life-chances, a discourse of ‘responsibility,’ an enthusiasm for off-loading to the voluntary sector and other altered visions of the welfare architecture inspired by neo-liberalism have prompted a reaction. There has been a wide-ranging conversation in the 1990s and the first years of the new century in policy communities in Europe as in Canada, among policy makers who fear the high political, social and economic costs of failing to tend to social cohesion. (78) There are dense social reorderings initiated by neo-liberalism and changing the notions of learning, teaching and education. There are yet to be tracked costs to citizenship. The legacy of the 1980s and 1990s is that all organizations must behave like businesses. In such an environment, there are problems establishing social cohesion, let alone social justice. To stress the product – and not the process – of education contradicts the point of lifelong learning. Compliance and complicity replace critique. (Post) learning The Cold War has ended. The great ideological battle between communism and Western liberal democracy is over. Most countries believe both in markets and in a necessary role for Government. There will be thunderous debates inside nations about the balance, but the struggle for world hegemony by political ideology is gone. What preoccupies decision-makers now is a different danger. It is extremism driven by fanaticism, personified either in terrorist groups or rogue states. Tony Blair (http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page6535.asp) Tony Blair, summoning his best Francis Fukuyama impersonation, signaled the triumph of liberal democracy over other political and economic systems. His third way is unrecognizable from the Labour party ideals of Clement Attlee. Probably his policies need to be. Yet in his second term, he is not focused on probing the specificities of the market-orientation of education, health and social welfare. Instead, decision makers are preoccupied with a war on terror. Such a conflict seemingly justifies large defense budgets which must be at the expense of social programmes. There is no recognition by Prime Ministers Blair or Howard that ‘high-tech’ armory and warfare is generally impotent to the terrorist’s weaponry of cars, bodies and bombs. This obvious lesson is present for them to see. After the rapid and successful ‘shock and awe’ tactics of Iraq War II, terrorism was neither annihilated nor slowed by the Coalition’s victory. Instead, suicide bombers in Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Indonesia and Israel snuck have through defenses, requiring little more than a car and explosives. More Americans have been killed since the war ended than during the conflict. Wars are useful when establishing a political order. They sort out good and evil, the just and the unjust. Education policy will never provide the ‘big win’ or the visible success of toppling Saddam Hussein’s statue. The victories of retraining, literacy, competency and knowledge can never succeed on this scale. As Blair offered, “these are new times. New threats need new measures.” (ht tp://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page6535.asp) These new measures include – by default – a user pays education system. In such an environment, lifelong learning cannot succeed. It requires a dense financial commitment in the long term. A learning society requires a new sort of war, using ideas not bullets. 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There’s no reason to think that Jesus wouldn’t have Facebooked or twittered if he came into the world now. Can you imagine his killer status updates? Reverend Schenck, New York, All Saints Episcopal Church (Mapes) The fundamental problem of religious communication is how best to represent and mediate the sacred. (O’Leary 787) What would Jesus tweet? Historically, the quest for sacred connections has relied on the mediation of faith communication via technological implements, from the use of the drum to mediate the Divine, to the use of the mechanical clock by monks as reminders to observe the canonical hours of prayer (Mumford). Today, religious communication practices increasingly implicate Web 2.0, or interactive, user-generated content like blogs (Cheong, Halavis & Kwon), and microblogs like “tweets” of no more than 140 characters sent via Web-based applications like text messaging, instant messaging, e-mail, or on the Web. According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project’s latest report in October 2009, 19% of online adults said that they used a microblogging service to send messages from a computer or mobile device to family and friends who have signed up to receive them (Fox, Zickuhr & Smith). The ascendency of microblogging leads to interesting questions of how new media use alters spatio-temporal dynamics in peoples’ everyday consciousness, including ways in which tweeting facilitates ambient religious interactions. The notion of ambient strikes a particularly resonant chord for religious communication: many faith traditions advocate the practice of sacred mindfulness, and a consistent piety in light of holy devotion to an omnipresent and omniscient Divine being. This paper examines how faith believers appropriate the emergent microblogging practices to create an encompassing cultural surround to include microblogging rituals which promote regular, heightened prayer awareness. Faith tweets help constitute epiphany and a persistent sense of sacred connected presence, which in turn rouses an identification of a higher moral purpose and solidarity with other local and global believers. Amidst ongoing tensions about microblogging, religious organisations and their leadership have also begun to incorporate Twitter into their communication practices and outreach, to encourage the extension of presence beyond the church walls. Faith Tweeting and Mobile Mediated Prayers Twitter’s Website describes itself as a new media service that help users communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to the question, “What are you doing?” Some evangelical Christian groups harness these coincident messaging flows to create meaningful pathways for personal, intercessory and synchronised prayer. Using hashtags in a Twitter post creates a community convention or grouping around faith ideas and allows others to access them. Popular faith related hashtags include #twurch (Twitter + church), #prayer, #JIL (Jesus is Lord) and #pray4 (as in, #pray4 my mother). Just as mobile telephony assists distal family members to build “connected presence” (Christensen), I suggest that faith tweets stimulating mobile mediated prayers help build a sense of closeness and “religious connected presence” amongst the distributed family of faith believers, to recreate and reaffirm Divine and corporeal bonds. Consider the Calvin Institute of Worship’s set up of six different Twitter feeds to “pray the hours”. Praying the hours is an ancient practice of praying set prayers throughout certain times of the day, as marked in the Book of Common Prayer in the Christian tradition. Inspired by the Holy Scripture’s injunction to “pray without ceasing” ( 1 Thessalonians 5:17), users can sign up to receive hourly personal or intercessory prayers sent in brief verses or view a Tweetgrid with prayer feeds, to prompt continuous prayer or help those who are unsure of what words to pray. In this way, contemporary believers may reinvent the century-old practice of constant faith mediation as Twitter use helps to reintegrate scripture into people’s daily lives. Faith tweets that goad personal and intercessory prayer also makes ambient religious life salient, and preserves self-awareness of sanctified moments during normal, everyday activities. Furthermore, while the above “praying the hours” performance promotes a specific integration of scripture or prayer into individuals’ daily rhythms, other faith tweets are more focused on evangelism: to reach others through recurrent prayers or random inspirational messages sent throughout the day. For instance, as BBC News reports, religious leaders such as Cardinal Brady, head of Ireland’s Catholic Church, encourage parishioners to use Twitter to spread “the gift of prayer”, as they microblog their daily prayers for their friends and family. Cardinal Brady commented that, “such a sea of prayer is sure to strengthen our sense of solidarity with one another and remind us those who receive them that others really do care" (emphasis mine). Indeed, Cardinal Brady’s observation is instructive to the “Twitness” of faithful microbloggers who desire to shape the blogosphere, and create new faith connections. “JesusTweeters” is a faith-based social networking site, and a service which allows users to send out messages from any random tweet from the Bible Tweet Library, or their own personal messages on a scheduled basis. The site reports that over 500 members of JesusTweeters, each with an average of 500 followers, have signed up to help “spread the Word” worldwide through Twitter. This is an interesting emergent form of Twitter action, as it translates to more than 2.5 million faith tweets being circulated online daily. Moreover, Twitter encourages ‘connected presence’ whereby the use of microblogging enables online faith believers to enjoy an intimate, ‘always on’ virtual presence with their other congregational members during times of physical absence. In the recently released e-book The Reason Your Church Must Twitter, subtitled Making Your Ministry Contagious, author and self-proclaimed ‘technology evangelist’ Anthony Coppedge advocates churches to adopt Twitter as part of their overall communication strategy to maintain relational connectedness beyond the boundaries of established institutional practices. In his book, Coppedge argues that Twitter can be used as a “megaphone” for updates and announcements or as a “conversation” to spur sharing of ideas and prayer exchanges. In line with education scholars who promote Twitter as a pedagogical tool to enhance free-flowing interactions outside of the classroom (Dunlap & Lowenthal), Coppedge encourages pastors to tweet “life application points” from their sermons to their congregational members throughout the week, to reinforce the theme of their Sunday lesson. Ministry leaders are also encouraged to adopt Twitter to “become highly accessible” to members and communicate with their volunteers, in order to build stronger ecumenical relationships. Communication technology scholar Michele Jackson notes that Twitter is a form of visible “lifelogging” as interactants self-disclose their lived-in moments (731). In the case of faith tweets, co-presence is constructed when instantaneous Twitter updates announce new happenings on the church campus, shares prayer requests, confirms details of new events and gives public commendations to celebrate victories of staff members. In this way, microblogging helps to build a portable church where fellow believers can connect to each-other via the thread of frequent, running commentaries of their everyday lives. To further develop ‘connected presence’, a significant number of Churches have also begun to incorporate real-time Twitter streams during their Sunday services. For example, to stimulate congregational members’ sharing of their spontaneous reactions to the movement of the Holy Spirit, Westwind Church in Michigan has created a dozen “Twitter Sundays” where members are free to tweet at any time and at any worship service (Rochman). At Woodlands Church in Houston, a new service was started in 2009 which encourages parishioners to tweet their thoughts, reflections and questions throughout the service. The tweets are reviewed by church staff and they are posted as scrolling visual messages on a screen behind the pastor while he preaches (Patel). It is interesting to note that recurring faith tweets spatially filling the sanctuary screens blurs the visual hierarchies between the pastor as foreground and congregations as background to the degree that tweet voices from the congregation are blended into the church worship service. The interactive use of Twitter also differs from the forms of personal silent meditation and private devotional prayer that, traditionally, most liturgical church services encourage. In this way, key to new organisational practices within religious organisations is what some social commentators are now calling “ambient intimacy”, an enveloping social awareness of one’s social network (Pontin). Indeed, several pastors have acknowledged that faith tweets have enabled them to know their congregational members’ reflections, struggles and interests better and thus they are able to improve their teaching and caring ministry to meet congregants’ evolving spiritual needs (Mapes).Microblogging Rituals and Tweeting Tensions In many ways, faith tweets can be comprehended as microblogging rituals which have an ambient quality in engendering individuals’ spiritual self and group consciousness. The importance of examining emergent cyber-rituals is underscored by Stephen O’Leary in his 1996 seminal article on Cyberspace as Sacred Space. Writing in an earlier era of digital connections, O’Leary discussed e-mail and discussion forum cyber-rituals and what ritual gains in the virtual environment aside from its conventional physiological interactions. Drawing from Walter Ong’s understanding of the “secondary orality” accompanying the shift to electronic media, he argued that cyber-ritual as performative utterances restructure and reintegrate the minds and emotions of their participants, such that they are more aware of their interior self and a sense of communal group membership. Here, the above illustrative examples show how Twitter functions as the context for contemporary, mediated ritual practices to help believers construct a connected presence and affirm their religious identities within an environment where wired communication is a significant part of everyday life. To draw from Walter Ong’s words, microblogging rituals create a new textual and visual “sensorium” that has insightful implications for communication and media scholars. Faith tweeting by restructuring believers’ consciousness and generating a heightened awareness of relationship between the I, You and the Thou opens up possibilities for community building and revitalised religiosity to counteract claims of secularisation in technologically advanced and developed countries. “Praying the hours” guided by scripturally inspired faith tweets, for example, help seekers and believers experience epiphany and practice their faith in a more holistic way as they de-familarize mundane conditions and redeem a sense of the sacred from their everyday surrounds. Through the intermittent sharing of intercessory prayer tweets, faithful followers enact prayer chains and perceive themselves to be immersed in invariable spiritual battle to ward off evil ideology or atheistic beliefs. Moreover, the erosion of the authority of the church is offset by changed leadership practices within religious organisations which have experimented and actively incorporated Twitter into their daily institutional practices. To the extent that laity are willing to engage, creative practices to encourage congregational members to tweet during and after the service help revivify communal sentiments and a higher moral purpose through identification and solidarity with clergy leaders and other believers. Yet this ambience has its possible drawbacks as some experience tensions in their perception and use of Twitter as new technology within the church. Microblogging rituals may have negative implications for individual believers and religious organisations as they can weaken or pervert the existing relational links. As Pauline Cheong and Jessie Poon have pointed out, use of the Internet within religious organisations may bring about an alternative form of “perverse religious social capital building” as some clergy view that online communication detracts from real time relations and physical rituals. Indeed, some religious leaders have already articulated their concerns about Twitter and new tensions they experience in balancing the need to engage with new media audiences and the need for quiet reflection that spiritual rites such as confession of sins and the Holy Communion entail. According to the critics of faith tweeting, microblogging is time consuming and contributes to cognitive overload by taking away one’s attention to what is noteworthy at the moment. For Pastor Hayes of California for example, Twitter distracts his congregation’s focus on the sermon and thus he only recommends his members to tweet after the service. In an interview with the Houston Chronicle, he said: “If two people are talking at the same time, somebody’s not listening”, and “You cannot do two things at once and expect you’re not going to miss something” (Patel). Furthermore, similar to prior concerns voiced with new technologies, there are concerns over inappropriate tweet content that can comprise of crudity, gossip, malevolent and hate messages, which may be especially corrosive to faith communities that strive to model virtues like love, temperance and truth-telling (Vitello). In turn, some congregational members are also experiencing frustrations as they negotiate church boundaries and other members’ disapproval of their tweeting practices during service and church events. Censure of microblogging has taken the form of official requests for tweeting members to leave the sanctuary, to less formal social critique and the application of peer pressure to halt tweeting during religious proceedings and activities (Mapes). As a result of these connectivity tensions, varying recommendations have been recently published as fresh efforts to manage religious communication taking place in ambience. For instance, Coppedge recommends every tweeting church to include Twitter usage in their “church communications policy” to promote accountability within the organisation. The policy should include guidelines against excessive use of Twitter as spam, and for at least one leader to subscribe and monitor every Twitter account used. Furthermore, the Interpreter magazine of the United Methodist Church worldwide featured recommendations by Rev. Safiyah Fosua who listed eight important attributes for pastors wishing to incorporate Twitter during their worship services (Rice). These attributes are: highly adaptive; not easily distracted; secure in their presentation style; not easily taken aback when people appear to be focused on something other than listenin; into quality rather than volume; not easily rattled by things that are new; secure enough as a preacher to let God work through whatever is tweeted even if it is not the main points of the sermon; and carried on the same current the congregation is travelling on. For the most part, these attributes underscore how successful (read wired) contemporary religious leaders should be tolerant of ambient religious communication and of blurring hierarchies of information control when faced with microblogging and the “inexorable advance of multimodal connectedness” (Schroeder 1). To conclude, the rise of faith tweeting opens up a new portal to investigate accretive changes to culture as microblogging rituals nurture piety expressed in continuous prayer, praise and ecclesial updates. The emergent Twitter sensorium demonstrates the variety of ways in which religious adherents appropriate new media within the ken and tensions of their daily lives. References BBC News. “Twitter Your Prayer says Cardinal.” 27 April 2009. ‹http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/8020285.stm›. Cheong, P.H., A. Halavis and K. Kwon. “The Chronicles of Me: Understanding Blogging as a Religious Practice. Journal of Media and Religion 7 (2008): 107-131. Cheong, P.H., and J.P.H. Poon. “‘WWW.Faith.Org’: (Re)structuring Communication and Social Capital Building among Religious Organizations.” Information, Communication and Society 11.1 (2008): 89-110. Christensen, Toke Haunstrup. “‘Connected Presence’ in Distributed Family Life.” New Media and Society 11 (2009): 433-451. Coppedge, Anthony. “The Reason Your Church Must Twitter: Making Your Ministry Contagious.” 2009. ‹http://www.twitterforchurches.com/›. Dunlap, Joanna, and Patrick Lowenthal. “Tweeting the Night Away: Using Twitter to Enhance Social Presence.” Journal of Information Systems Education 20.2 (2009): 129-135. Fox, Susannah, Kathryn Zickuhr, and Aaron Smith. “Twitter and Status Updating" Pew Internet & American Life Project, 2009. Oct. 2009 ‹http://www.pewinternet.org/~/media//Files/Reports/2009/PIP_Twitter_Fall_2009_web.pdf›. Jackson, Michele. “The Mash-Up: A New Archetype for Communication.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 14.3 (2009): 730-734. Mapes, Diane. “Holy Twitter! Tweeting from the Pews.” 2009. 3 June 2009 ‹http://www.nbcwashington.com/.../Holy_Twitter__Tweeting_from_the_pews.html›. Mumford, Lewis. Technics and Civilization. New York: Harcourt, 1934. Patel, Purva. “Tweeting during Church Services Gets Blessing of Pastors.” Houston Chronicle (2009). 10 Oct. 2009 ‹http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6662287.html›. O’Leary, Stephen. ”Cyberspace as Sacred Space: Communicating Religion on Computer Networks.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 64.4 (1996): 781-808. Pontin, Jason. “Twitter and Ambient Intimacy: How Evan Williams Helped Create the New Social Medium of Microblogging.” MIT Review 2007. 15 Nov. 2009 ‹http://www.technologyreview.com/communications/19713/?a=f›. Rice, Kami. “The New Worship Question: To Tweet or Not to Tweet.” Interpreter Magazine (Nov.-Dec. 2009). ‹http://www.interpretermagazine.org/interior.asp?ptid=43&mid=13871›. Rochman, Bonnie. “Twittering in Church, with the Pastor’s O.K.” Time 3 May 2009. ‹http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1895463,00.html›. Schroeder, Ralph. “Mobile Phones and the Inexorable Advance of Multimodal Connectedness.” New Media and Society 12.1 (2010): 75-90. Vitello, Paul. “Lead Us to Tweet, and Forgive the Trespassers.” New York Times 5 July 2009. ‹http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/05/technology/internet/05twitter.html›.

IntroductionIn late 2016, I undertook a short-term, three-month project to share some of my research through my Instagram account using the categorising hashtag #AustralianBeachspace. Much of this work emerged from my PhD thesis, which is being published in journal articles, but has yet to be published in any accessible or overarching way. I wanted to experiment with the process of using a visual social media tool for research dissemination. I felt that Instagram’s ability to combine text and image allowed for an aesthetically interesting way to curate this particular research project. My research is concerned with representations of the Australian beach, and thus the visual, image-based focus of Instagram seemed ideal. In this article, I briefly examine some of the existing research around academic practices of research dissemination, social media use, and the emerging research around Instagram itself. I then will examine my own experience of using Instagram as a tool for depicting curated, aesthetically-driven, research dissemination and reflect whether this use of Instagram is effective for representing and disseminating research. Research DisseminationResearchers, especially those backed by public funding, are always bound by the necessity of sharing the findings and transferring the knowledge gained during the research process. Research metrics are linked to workload allocations and promotion pathways for university researchers, providing clear motivation to maintain an active research presence. For most academics, the traditional research dissemination strategies involve academic publications: peer-reviewed scholarly books and journal articles.For academics working within a higher education policy climate that centres on measuring impact and engagement, peer-reviewed publications remain the gold standard. There are indicators, however, that research dissemination strategies may need to include methods for targeting non-academic outputs. Gunn and Mintrom (21), in their recent research, “anticipate that governments will increasingly question the value of publicly funded research and seek to evaluate research impact”. And this process, they argue, is not without challenges. Education Minister Simon Birmingham supports their claim by suggesting the Turnbull Government is looking to find methods for more meaningful ways of evaluating value in higher education research outcomes, “rather than only allocating funding to researchers who spend their time trying to get published in journals” (para 5).It therefore makes sense that academics are investigating ways of using social media as a way of broadening their research dissemination, despite the fact social media metrics do not yet count towards traditional citations within the university sector.Research Dissemination via Social MediaThere has been an established practice of researchers using social media, especially blogging (Kirkup) and Twitter, as ways of sharing information about their current projects, their findings, their most recent publications, or to connect with colleagues. Gruzd, Staves, and Wilk (2348) investigated social media use by academics, suggesting “scholars are turning to social media tools professionally because they are more convenient for making new connections with peers, collaboration, and research dissemination”. It is possible to see social media functioning as a new way of representing research – playing an important role in the shaping and developing of ideas, sharing those ideas, and functioning as a dissemination tool after the research has concluded.To provide context for the use of social media in research, this section briefly covers blogging and Twitter, two methods considered somewhat separated from university frameworks, and also professional platforms, such as Academia.edu and The Conversation.Perhaps the tool that has the most history in providing another avenue for academics to share their work is academic blogging. Blogging is considered an avenue that allows for discussion of topics prior to publication (Bukvova, 4; Powell, Jacob, and Chapman, 273), and often uses a more conversational tone than academic publishing. It provides opportunity to share research in long form to an open, online audience. Academic blogs have also become significant parts of online academic communities, such as the highly successful blog, The Thesis Whisperer, targeted for research students. However, many researchers in this space note the stigma attached to blogging (and other forms of social media) as useless or trivial; for instance, in Gruzd, Staves, and Wilk’s survey of academic users of social media, an overwhelming majority of respondents suggested that institutions do not recognise these activities (2343). Because blogging is not counted in publication metrics, it is possible to dismiss this type of activity as unnecessary.Twitter has garnered attention within the academic context because of its proliferation in conference engagement and linking citation practices of scholars (Marht, Weller, and Peters, 401–406). Twitter’s platform lends itself as a place to share citations of recently published material and a way of connecting with academic peers in an informal, yet meaningful way. Veletsianos has undertaken an analysis of academic Twitter practices, and there is a rise in popularity of “Tweetable Abstracts” (Else), or the practice of refining academic abstracts into a shareable Tweet format. According to Powell, Jacob, and Chapman (272), new media (including both Twitter and the academic blog) offer opportunities to engage with an increasingly Internet-literate society in a way that is perhaps more meaningful and certainly more accessible than traditional academic journals. Like blogging, the use of Twitter within the active research phase and pre-publication, means the platform can both represent and disseminate new ideas and research findings.Both academic blogs and Twitter are widely accessible and can be read by Internet users beyond academia. It appears likely, however, that many blogs and academic Twitter profiles are still accessed and consumed primarily by academic audiences. This is more obvious in the increasingly popular specific academic social media platforms such as ResearchGate or Academia.edu.These websites are providing more targeted, niche communication and sharing channels for scholars working in higher education globally, and their use appears to be regularly encouraged by institutions. These sites attempt to mediate between open access and copyright in academic publishing, encouraging users to upload full-text documents of their publications as a means of generating more attention and citations (Academia.edu cites Niyazov et al’s study that suggests articles posted to the site had improved citation counts). ResearchGate and Academia.edu function primarily as article repositories, albeit with added social networking opportunities that differentiate them from more traditional university repositories.In comparison, the success of the online platform The Conversation, with its tagline “Academic rigour, journalistic flair”, shows the growing enthusiasm and importance of engaging with more public facing outlets to share forms of academic writing. Many researchers are using The Conversation as a way of sharing their research findings through more accessible, shorter articles designed for the general public; these articles regularly link to the traditional academic publications as well.Research dissemination, and how the uptake of online social networks is changing individual and institution-wide practices, is a continually expanding area of research. It is apparent that while The Conversation has been widely accepted and utilised as a tool of research dissemination, there is still some uncertainty about using social media as representing or disseminating findings and ideas because of the lack of impact metrics. This is perhaps even more notable in regards to Instagram, a platform that has received comparatively little discussion in academic research more broadly.Instagram as Social MediaInstagram is a photo sharing application that launched in 2010 and has seen significant uptake by users in that time, reaching 700 million monthly active users as of April 2017 (Instagram “700 Million”). Recent additions to the service, such as the “Snapchat clone” Instagram Stories, appear to have helped boost growth (Constine, para 4). Instagram then is a major player in the social media user market, and the emergence of academic research into the platform reflect this. Early investigations include Manikonda, Hu and Kambhampati’s analysis social networks, demographics, and activities of users in which they identified some clear differences in usage compared to Flickr (another photo-sharing network) and Twitter (5). Hochman and Manovich and Hochman and Schwartz examined what information visualisations generated from Instagram images can reveal about the “visual rhythms” of geographical locations such as New York City.To provide context for the use of Instagram as a way of disseminating research through a more curated, visual approach, this section will examine professional uses of Instagram, the role of Influencers, and some of the functionalities of the platform.Instagram is now a platform that caters for both personal and professional accounts. The user-interface allows for a streamlined and easily navigable process from taking a photo, adding filters or effects, and sharing the photo instantly. The platform has developed to include web-based access to complement the mobile application, and has also introduced Instagram Business accounts, which provide “real-time metrics”, “insights into your followers”, and the ability to “add information about your company” (Instagram “Instagram Business”). This also comes with the option to pay for advertisements.Despite its name, many users of Instagram, especially those with profiles that are professional or business orientated, do not only produce instant content. While the features of Instagram, such as geotagging, timestamping, and the ability to use the camera from within the app, lend themselves to users capturing their everyday experience in the moment, more and more content is becoming carefully curated. As such, some accounts are blurring the line between personal and professional, becoming what Crystal Abidin calls Influencers, identifying the practice as when microcelebrities are able to use the “textual and visual narration of their personal, everyday lives” to generate paid advertorials (86). One effect of this, as Abidin investigates in the context of Singapore and the #OOTD (Outfit of the Day) hashtag, is the way “everyday Instagram users are beginning to model themselves after Influences” and therefore generate advertising content “that is not only encouraged by Influences and brands but also publicly utilised without remuneration” (87). Instagram, then, can be a very powerful platform for businesses to reach wide audiences, and the flexibility of caption length and visual content provides a type of viral curation practice as in the case of the #OOTD hashtag following.Considering the focus of my #AustralianBeachspace project on Australian beaches, many of the Instagram accounts and hashtags I encountered and engaged with were tourism related. Although this will be discussed in more detail below, it is worth noting that individual Influencers exist in these fields as well and often provide advertorial content for companies like accommodation chains or related products. One example is user @katgaskin, an Influencer who both takes photos, features in photos, and provides “organic” adverts for products and services (see image). Not all her photos are adverts; some are beach or ocean images without any advertorial content in the caption. In this instance, the use of distinctive photo editing, iconic imagery (the “salty pineapple” branding), and thematic content of beach and ocean landscapes, makes for a recognisable and curated aesthetic. Figure 1: An example from user @katgaskin's Instagram profile that includes a mention of a product. Image sourced from @katgaskin, uploaded 2 June 2017.@katgaskin’s profile’s aesthetic identity is, as such, linked with the ocean and the beach. Although her physical location regularly changes (her profile includes images from, for example, Nicaragua, Australia, and the United States), the thematic link is geographical. And research suggests the visual focus of Instagram lends itself to place-based content. As Hochman and Manovich state:While Instagram eliminates static timestamps, its interface strongly emphasizes physical place and users’ locations. The application gives a user the option to publicly share a photo’s location in two ways. Users can tag a photo to a specific venue, and then view all other photos that were taken and tagged there. If users do not choose to tag a photo to a venue, they can publically share their photos’ location information on a personal ‘photo-map’, displaying all photos on a zoomable word map. (para 14)This means that the use of place in the app is anchored to the visual content, not the uploader’s location. While it is possible to consider Instagram’s intention was to anchor the content and the uploader’s location together (as in the study conducted by Weilenmann, Hillman, and Jungselius that explored how Instagram was used in the museum), this is no longer always the case. In this way, Instagram is also providing a platform for more serious photographers to share their images after they have processed and edited them and connect the image with the image content rather than the uploader’s position.This place-based focus also shares origins in tourism photography practices. For instance, Kibby’s analysis of the use of Instagram as a method for capturing the “tourist gaze” in Monument Valley notes that users mostly wanted to capture the “iconic” elements of the site (most of which were landscape formations made notable through representations in popular culture).Another area of research into Instagram use is hashtag practice (see, for example, Ferrara, Interdonato, and Tagarelli). Highfield and Leaver have generated a methodology for mapping hashtags and analysing the information this can reveal about user practices. Many Instagram accounts use hashtags to provide temporal or place based information, some specific (such as #sunrise or #newyorkcity) and some more generic (such as #weekend or #beach). Of particular relevance here is the role hashtags play in generating higher levels of user engagement. It is also worth noting the role of “algorithmic personalization” introduced by Instagram earlier in 2017 and the lukewarm user response as identified by Mahnke Skrubbeltrang, Grunnet, and Tarp’s analysis, suggesting “users are concerned with algorithms dominating their experience, resulting in highly commercialised experience” (section 7).Another key aspect of Instagram’s functionality is linked to the aesthetic of the visual content: photographic filters. Now a mainstay of other platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, Instagram popularised the use of filters by providing easily accessible options within the app interface directly. Now, other apps such as VCSO allow for more detailed editing of images that can then be imported into Instagram; however, the pre-set filters have proven popular with large numbers of users. A study in 2014 by Araújo, Corrêa, da Silva et al found 76% of analysed images had been processed in some way.By considering the professional uses of Instagram and the functionality of the app (geotagging; hashtagging; and filters), it is possible to summarise Instagram as a social media platform that, although initially perhaps intended to capture the everyday visual experiences of amateur photographers using their smart phone, has adapted to become a network for sharing images that can be for both personal and professional purposes. It has a focus on place, with its geotagging capacity and hashtag practices, and can include captions The #AustralianBeachspace ProjectIn October 2016, I began a social media project called #AustralianBeachspace that was designed to showcase content from my PhD thesis and ongoing work into representations of Australian beaches in popular culture (a collection of the project posts only, as opposed to the ongoing Instagram profile, can be found here). The project was envisaged as a three month project; single posts (including an image and caption) were planned and uploaded six times a week (every day except Sundays). Although I have occasionally continued to use the hashtag since the project’s completion (on 24 Dec. 2016), the frequency and planned nature of the posts since then has significantly changed. What has not changed is the strong thematic through line of my posts, all of which continue to rely heavily on beach imagery. This is distinct from other academic social media use which if often more focused on the everyday activity of academia.Instagram was my social media choice for this project for two main reasons: I had no existing professional Instagram profile (unlike Twitter) and thus I could curate a complete project in isolation, and the subject of my PhD thesis was representations of Australian beaches in literature and film. As such, my research was appropriate for, and in fact was augmented by, visual depiction. It is also worth noting the tendency reported by myself and others (Huntsman; Booth) of academics not considering the beach an area worthy of focus. This resonates with Bech Albrechtslund and Albrechtslund’s argument that “social media practices associated with leisure and playfulness” are still meaningful and worthy of examination.Up until this point, my research outputs had been purely textual. I, therefore, needed to generate a significant number of visual elements to complement the vast amount of textual content already created. I used my PhD thesis to provide the thematic structure (I have detailed this process in more depth here), and then used the online tool Trello to plan, organise, and arrange the intended posts (image and caption). The project includes images taken by myself, my partner, and other images with no copyright limitations attached as sourced through photo sharing sites like Unsplash.com.The images were all selected because of their visual representation of an Australian beach, and the alignment of the image with the themes of the project. For instance, one theme focused on the under-represented negative aspects of the beach. One image used in this theme was a photo of Bondi Beach ocean pool, empty at night. I carefully curated the images and arranged them according to the thematic schedule (as can be seen below) and then wrote the accompanying textual captions. Figure 2: A sample of the schedule used for the posting of curated images and captions.While there were some changes to the schedule throughout (for instance, my attendance at the 2016 Sculpture by the Sea exhibition prompted me to create a sixth theme), the process of content curation and creation remained the same.Visual curation of the images was a particularly important aspect of the project, and I did use an external photo processing application to create an aesthetic across the collection. As Kibby notes, “photography is intrinsically linked with tourism” (para 9), and although not a tourism project inherently, #AustralianBeachspace certainly engaged with touristic tropes by focusing on Australian beaches, an iconic part of Australian national and cultural identity (Ellison 2017; Ellison and Hawkes 2016; Fiske, Hodge, and Turner 1987). However, while beaches are perhaps instinctively touristic in their focus on natural landscapes, this project was attempting to illustrate more complexity in this space (which mirrors an intention of my PhD thesis). As such, some images were chosen because of their “ordinariness” or their subversion of the iconic beach images (see below). Figures 3 and 4: Two images that capture some less iconic images of Australian beaches; one that shows an authentic, ordinary summer's day and another that shows an empty beach during winter.I relied on captions to provide the textual information about the image. I also included details about the photographer where possible, and linked all the images with the hashtag #AustralianBeachspace. The textual content, much of which emerged from ongoing and extensive research into the topic, was somewhat easier to collate. However, it required careful reworking and editing to suit the desired audience and to work in conjunction with the image. I kept captions to the approximate length of a paragraph and concerned with one point. This process forced me to distil ideas and concepts into short chunks of writing, which is distinct from other forms of academic output. This textual content was designed to be accessible beyond an academic audience, but still used a relatively formal voice (especially in comparison to more personal users of the platform).I provided additional hashtags in a first comment, which were intended to generate some engagement. Notably, these hashtags were content related (such as #beach and #surf; they were not targeting academic hashtags). At time of writing, my follower count is 70. The most liked (or “favourited”) photo from the project received 50 likes, and the most comments received was 6 (on a number of posts). Some photos published since the end of the project have received higher numbers of likes and comments. This certainly does not suggest enormous impact from this project. Hashtags utilised in this project were adopted from popular and related hashtags using the analytics tool Websta.me as well as hashtags used in similar content styled profiles, such as: #seeaustralia #thisisqueensland #visitNSW #bondibeach #sunshinecoast and so on. Notably, many of the hashtags were place-based. The engagement of this project with users beyond academia was apparent: followers and comments on the posts are more regularly from professional photographers, tourism bodies, or location-based businesses. In fact, because of the content or place-based hashtagging practices I employed, it was difficult to attract an academic audience at all. However, although the project was intended as an experiment with public facing research dissemination, I did not actively adopt a stringent engagement strategy and have not kept metrics per day to track engagement. This is a limitation of the study and undoubtedly allows scope for further research.ConclusionInstagram is a platform that does not have clear pathways for reaching academic audiences in targeted ways. At this stage, little research has emerged that investigates Instagram use among academics, although it is possible to presume there are similarities with blogging or Twitter (for example, conference posting and making connections with colleagues).However, the functionality of Instagram does lend itself to creating and curating aesthetically interesting ways of disseminating, and in fact representing, research. Ideas and findings must be depicted as images and captions, and the curatorial process of marrying visual images to complement or support textual information can make for more accessible and palatable content. Perhaps most importantly, the content is freely accessible and not locked behind paywalls or expensive academic publications. It can also be easily archived and shared.The #AustralianBeachspace project is small-scale and not indicative of widespread academic practice. However, examining the process of creating the project and the role Instagram may play in potentially reaching a more diverse, public audience for academic research suggests scope for further investigation. Although not playing an integral role in publication metrics and traditional measures of research impact, the current changing climate of higher education policy provides motivations to continue exploring non-traditional methods for disseminating research findings and tracking research engagement and impact.Instagram functions as a useful platform for sharing research data through a curated collection of images and captions. Rather than being a space for instant updates on the everyday life of the academic, it can also function in a more aesthetically interesting and dynamic way to share research findings and possibly generate wider, public-facing engagement for topics less likely to emerge from behind the confines of academic journal publications. 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