This paper explores the importance of interaction in the online

This paper reports a qualitative study designed to investigate the issues of cybersafety and cyberbullying and report how students are coping with them. Through discussion with 74 students, aged from 10 to 17, in focus groups divided into three age levels, data were gathered in three schools in Victoria, Australia, where few such studies had been set. Social networking sites and synchronous chat sites were found to be the places where cyberbullying most commonly occurred, with email and texting on mobile phones also used for bullying. Grades 8 and 9 most often reported cyberbullying and also reported behaviours and internet contacts that were cybersafety risks. Most groups preferred to handle these issues themselves or with their friends rather then alert parents and teachers who may limit their technology access. They supported education about these issues for both adults and school students and favoured a structured mediation group of their peers to counsel and advise victims.

No abstract

The concept of blended learning has begun to change the nature of all teaching and learning in higher education. Information and communication technologies have impacted by providing a means of access to digital resources and interactive communication for all courses and the blending of pedagogy and technology has produced a range of approaches to teaching and learning. This paper discusses the research literature and the writers' research, defining what they have concluded are teaching practices that use the concept of blended learning effectively. In investigating how ICT can add variation for student learning, they analyze this from two dominant modes of pedagogy, learning environment and pedagogy through both on-campus and distance education. In both modes, students acknowledged the power and effectiveness of blended learning.

This paper draws on two studies which researched the use of online small group environments where collaborative leaming is a central structure for leaming. The establishment of social presence is facilitated through the socioaffective aspect of small group interaction which contributed to the effectiveness of leaming online. Social presence, the ability of online leamers to project thernselves into a textual environment which has few visual or contextual cues, will be explored as an important elernent in facilitating effective online leaming. The teacher's roJe in helping students project their online social presence and in establishing an environment for leaming within the larger group computer conference will also be discussed.