Department of Applied Foreign Languages

We present a deterministic distributed depth-rst token passing protocol on a rooted network. This protocol uses neither the processor identi ers nor the size of the network, but assumes the existence of a distinguises hed processor, called the root of the network. The protocol is self-stabilizing, meaning that starting from an arbitrary state (in response to an arbitrary perturbation modifying the memory state), it is guaranteed to reach a state with no more than one token in the network. Our protocol implements a fair token circulation scheme, i.e., in every round, every processor obtains the token at least once. The proposed protocol has extremely small state requirement|only 3( +1) states per processor, i.e., O(log ) bits per processor, where is the degree of the network. The protocol can be used to implement a fair distributed mutual exclusion in any rooted network. This protocol can also be used to construct a DFS spanning tree.

This study developed a web-based multimedia whiteboard system to help students learning with mathematical problem solving. The purpose is to promote a new online mathematical learning model that students not only use electronic whiteboard to write down their mathematical problem solving solutions but also use voice recording tool to give oral explanations about their thinking behind the solutions. To cultivate studentsÕ critical thinking capability and encourage collaborative peer learning, the new learning model also requests students to criticize othersÕ solutions and reply to othersÕ arguments. With the multimedia supporting tools, students can communicate easily with each other about what they think and how they solve mathematical problems. We have conducted an experiment with sixth grade primary school students for evaluation. After the experiment, a questionnaire about studentsÕ attitude toward the multimedia whiteboard system for math learning was then held. The results show that students were satisfied with the use of the multimedia whiteboard system for helping them with learning fractional division. Most students were interested in studying mathematics with the multimedia whiteboard system and thought this tool is particularly useful for doing collaborative learning. After analyzing the recorded solving processes and discussions content of students, we found that the performance of female students was superior to male

Reflection plays a very important role in learning processes and is very helpful for promoting learning performance. Many higher education institutions today are actively promoting learners' reflection ability in order to help them cope with the fast changing world they will be entering when they graduate. Online learning provides potential for applying new teaching and learning strategies. However, it has not yet been systematically studied how to concretely apply reflection strategies in an online learning environment. The aim of this study is to explore how high level prompts and peer assessment can affect a learner's reflection levels in an online learning context. The participants were 157 university students and each individual was randomly assigned to one of the fourteen learning conditions. We found that the main factor affecting reflection levels is high level prompts followed by high quality observation that has a moderating effect on learners' reflection levels. However, peer feedback has no significant influence on reflection levels.

This paper investigates the correlation between the quality of instructional design and learning outcomes for early childhood students in the online synchronous cyber classroom. Today's generation of e-learners has access to highly engaging and well-designed multi-media synchronous classrooms. However little data exists on what constitutes 'good practice' in instructional design for online synchronous cyber lessons. The synchronous cyber classroom outperforms all other modes of instruction in enabling students to simultaneously integrate visual, auditory and kinaesthetic processes. The online synchronous cyber classroom provides learners with more authentic and engaging learning activities enabling higher levels of learning compared to purely asynchronous modes of self-paced learning. During 2001-2007 a group of students aged 5 to 8 years collaborated with their teacher at Brisbane School of Distance Education, Australia in a trial of online synchronous learning. The trial identified 'best practice' in the instructional design of synchronous lessons delivered through the Collaborative Cyber Community (3C) learning platform at the National Sun Yat-sen University, Taiwan. A guideline for 'best practice' in the instructional design of online synchronous cyber lessons for early childhood students has been developed and discussed.

This article discusses the application of the established principles of instructed language learning in a cyber factto-face environment supported by an advanced Synchronous Learning Management System (SLMS). Following a critical review of the use of SLMS in distance language learning, the main body of the article focuses on the discussion of results from an empirical study, in reference to the relevant principles of instructed language learning formulated by Ellis . These results indicate that principles of instructed language learning for traditional classroom-based learning are equally applicable in cyber face-to-face learning, but with their own characteristics. Recommendations for the effective use of SLMSs for online synchronous language learning are also put forward.

A number of studies have evidenced that handheld devices are appropriate tools to facilitate face-to-face collaborative learning effectively because of the possibility of ample social interactions. Group Area Network, or GroupNet, proposed in this paper, uses handheld devices to fill the gap between Local Area Network and Body Area Network. GroupNet is an independent network where all members are located at the same place and all handheld devices involved in it are interconnected by peer-to-peer wireless technologies. The GroupNet concept proposed in our study is more focus on how to design a mobile learning management system which can better support mobile learning for a small group of learners with effective social interaction within proximity. This paper describes the architecture of GroupNet and demonstrates its functionality in the specific area of mobile learning. GroupNet uses handheld devices as the main hardware and GroupNet architecture consists of four layers. Various mobile learning scenarios are also described in detail to give guidance to instructors. These scenarios apply GroupNet to collaborative learning activities and situated learning activities. With rapid growth of mobile technology and global business context, many more possible scenarios of using GroupNet are expected to emerge in the future.

This article described the experiences of an inservice professional development program for teachers with a focus on online synchronous discussions. Transcripts of six online synchronous discussions containing 3600 messages from an online teacher professional development course were analyzed. In addition, the researchers interviewed 10 participating teachers in order to understand their perceptions toward online synchronous discussions. According to the online discourse data, the online synchronous discussions served not only as a learning tool, but also an avenue for teachers to request and provide information, socialize and support each other. The analyses also revealed that the teachers posted more social messages in the beginning and the end of discussion, and most messages did not involve any cognitive and metacognitive skills. Moreover, the interview results showed that the information exchange during online synchronous discussion was not effective for some participating teachers. Based on the interview data, synchronous discussions appeared to hold little advantage when compared to face-toface discussions for several participating teachers that we interviewed. The problem may be resulted from lack of self-regulated skills by the participants or from the role played by the moderator.

Increasing organizations and educational institutions have implemented virtual learning communities to encourage knowledge sharing. However, this task can not be accomplished simply by grouping people together and telling them "sharing your knowledge will make you learn better". This research attempts to examine the factors influencing knowledge sharing from the perspective of human behavior. Theory of Planned Behavior is integrated with social network ties and empirical findings from virtual learning community literature to develop the research model. The current research model comprises eight hypotheses to explore questions of whether social network ties, learners' attitude toward knowledge sharing, learners' beliefs of their capabilities in performing online knowledge sharing, and subjective norms relate to knowledge sharing intention, which leads to actual behavior in a virtual learning environment. This study empirically validates the hypothesized relationships using a field survey of college students and MBA students enrolling courses conducted in a virtual learning community. Attitude, subjective norm, Web-specific self-efficacy and social network ties are shown to be good predictors of knowledge sharing intention which, in turn, is significantly associated with knowledge sharing behavior. Knowledge creation self-efficacy does not significantly impact knowledge sharing intention.

Web-based learning courses lack the explanation and interpretation of teaching materials coming from the teacher. According to Theory of Transactional Distance, web-based learning cannot reduce transactional distance if we ignore teacher's explanation and interpretation to teaching materials and just create "dialog" by using communication mechanism like on-line forum, BBS and e-mail. Therefore it's very important to have teachers' lectures available online for web-based courses. To solve this problem, we implement a stream-based lecturing system that can fully integrate with web-based teaching materials and recur traditional lecturing situation in limited network bandwidth. We propose three versions of stream-based lecturing system by using evolutionary prototyping development model. Version one is synchronization mode. The drawbacks of this mode are the need of special players for viewing, based-on IE browser, the mismatch of font size, the error of URL path and so forth. To improve these problems, we developed a version two named browser capture mode. It solves most of the problems that version one has, but one main issue remains and that is browser capture mode is still based-on IE browser. Therefore, we are proposing the version three named full screen capture mode. Version three will capture video, audio and annotation into a single streaming video file. Finally, we recommend that version three full screen capture mode is the best solution for delivering teacher's online lectures. Besides, this paper also indicates that we will be able to achieve the ideal of " Mobile classroom" by making good use of the stream-based lecturing system.

Many researchers have focused on the question of whether or not there is a difference in learning effectiveness between online and on campus courses. Using the SOLO taxonomy, we explore the quality of learning outcomes of students enrolled in "Computer Network and Internet" classes offered by an institution in wholly online and face to face (blended) learning modes. Students enrolled in the F2F course made much less use of the e-learning resources than those in the virtual course. Although there were significant differences between the two classes with respect to pre-test scores, at the end of the semester, there was no significant difference in post test scores or SOLO ranking. This is not to say that the two classes resulted in the same individual improvement in learning outcomes. This methodology, if adapted to include more assessment items and larger cohorts of students might be a useful model for evaluating the pedagogical effectiveness of various e-learning courses.

The principal objective of this study is to describe and evaluate a holistic training model for language teacher education in an e-learning context, specifically in a cyber face-to-face language learning context. This study first proposes an e-training model called the Practice, Reflective and Collaborative (PRC) model, and discusses the rationale underpinning each key component of the model. The article then proceeds to the crux of this research -the evaluation of the key components of the proposed model, drawing on the data from our 12-week e-teacher training program. The aim of this evaluation is to illustrate how this model worked in our case and how it was perceived by our trainees.

This paper describes the use of the synchronous cyber classroom with multiple participants from multiple locations and time-zones in socially networked learning communities around the world. It reports enhanced cognitive function, higher participation and lower attrition rates, and collaborative teaching and learning during facilitated synchronous sessions. Data was drawn from a seven year trial of synchronous teaching and learning with participants including students from early childhood to tertiary, teacher and parent groups, and educators in developing nations. The paper provides a guide for educators who want to use the synchronous cyber classroom with multiple participants from multiple locations and time-zones.

Hosted Learning Service Provider (HLSP) is a special operational model like Application Service Provider (ASP), educational and business organizations entrust their e-learning software and system maintain to HLSP. Through Internet, students can use learning software, programs, and other services rented from HLSP. After reaching an economic scale, an E-Learning Park would eventually be formed. This study would show the operational model of an E-Learning Park, and implement a HLSP web-based instructional system-"Wisdom Master", which is now actually running an E-Learning Park named "City Campus" (http://www.learn.com.tw). City Campus now has been entrusted by 14 educational training institutes, and has running for three years. Cyber University of NSYSU is one of them. More than fifty master level credit courses are being conducted in Cyber University of NSYSU for 3 years (totally 6 semesters), which includes, "EC and MIS Master's certificate program" has been issued (totally 3 semesters: 177 students in first semester, 348 students in second semester, 442 students in third semester). The result is sound.

This paper presents an efficient routing algorithm for realizing any permutation in LIN (linear-permutation-class) on single stage shuffle-exchange networks with k x k switching elements, where k = p is a prime number. For any positive integer number n there are N = kn processors connected by the network. The proposed algorithm can realize LIN in 2n -1 passes; it can be implemented by using N n processors in O ( n time. It can also be extended to the shuffle-exchange teger number. In addition, the routing of any arbitrary permutations on the networks with any integer k > 2 is discussed. Further, by using the techniques developed in this paper, we present an optimal O(log n) parallel algorithm for solving a set of linear equations with a nonsingular coefficient matrix when the arithmetic is over the finite field GF(pt). Index Terms-Permutation matrix, permutations, routing algorithm, shuffle-exchange network. networks with ( p switching elements, where t is a positive in-