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Mobile learning, or the ability to utilize technology in the classroom, is slowly growing in popularity as a technique to assist in acquisition of knowledge and achievement of obtaining learning outcomes. However, challenges remain related to comfort level for both the student and instructor. The research will assist in identifying methods to increase the use of mobile technology in the classroom, and perhaps lead to further study in shifting the paradigm in the nursing classroom from traditional pedagogy, to one that meets the needs of the future student. Extending an original study, an exploratory design was used with descriptive statistics to measure central tendency, frequency and variation as noted in the original study to determine if a relationship or association existed. Convenience sampling was utilized with the modified survey tool distributed through Survey Monkey to twenty institutions offering baccalaureate nursing programs within the Appalachian College Association. A total scores variable was calculated, and parametric tests, specifically the one-way variance (ANOVA) was conducted. Demographic variables were compared to determine if there were any significant differences in central tendencies between the mean, median and the mode, and to note any variability or variance using the standard deviation from the mean related to rank and teaching experience and the impact on technology adoption.

Like virtually all discourse, the professional literature on conflict resolution depends heavily on metaphor to explain its central concern: What is conflict and how may it be resolved? Readers are conscious of explicit distinctions, evaluations, and logic, but unconscious metaphors frame thinking, structure assumptions and inferences, and guide reasoning. Are these metaphors adequate, robust, and creative enough to describe and explain our highly specialized knowledge of the complexities of conflict and how to resolve it? This study uses cognitive linguistics methodology to identify metaphors and unpack their mappings in a sizable corpus of mainstream expert literature on mediation and in a small corpus of dynamical systems literature on conflict. In both, two highly conventional conceptual metaphors are found to dominate: conflict metaphorically understood as a journey, including paths, movement, and force dynamics, and conflict metaphorically understood as a material substance or physical object. Building construction, war/struggle and personificationanimation metaphors are frequently used and several others are occasionally used; novel or unusual metaphors are rare. Overwhelmingly the same conceptual metaphors are used in the literature studied here as are commonly found elsewhere in a wide variety of discourse types. Yet certain innovative elaborations and extensions that explicate the complexities that conflict scholars have labored over for decades were found in the dynamical systems corpus. Their value in helping us comprehend and teach the nature of conflict and suggestions for their conscious elaboration are discussed.

The intuitive appeal of a metaphor to describe and explain a negotiator's point of view has become more popular but requires better theoretical and empirical grounding than seen so far. This study adapts psycholinguistic and lexicographic methods to take a different look at negotiation from the perspective of conceptual metaphor. As predicted by interdisciplinary research, certain metaphors and combinations are found widely used in diverse negotiation dialogs, negotiators are only minimally conscious of them, and capitalize on them infrequently. The structural attributes of metaphors found in this analysis correspond to those found in a body of research on conceptual metaphor concerned with the intersection of thought, talk, and action. From a research standpoint these findings, coupled with this demonstrated methodology, offer to help put metaphor study in conflict resolution on a more sound footing. From the point of view of practice improved understanding of opposing positions, additional avenues to mutual gain, and several negotiator training suggestions are discussed.

This paper discusses in general how metaphors are basic to human thought, and in particular the paper documents metaphors occurring with high frequency in mediation and negotiation dialog. The author argues that if a mediator were skilled with just these few metaphor domains, he or she would find frequent opportunity to apply that skill to better facilitate the mediation process. A three-level curriculum is outlined for mediators to become metaphor-aware.

This article argues that a mediator, conscious of the metaphors disputants use, aware of their implications and skilled in their use, will hear more, be better able to reframe, disentangle and guide communications to explore meanings, enhance self-reflection, and expand possibilities. A growing body of work in cognitive science known as conceptual metaphor theory reveals the anatomy of metaphor and its inner workings. The distinctions between source and target domains, the mapping of entailments, correspondences, and inference patterns have been studied extensively and their direct application to mediation is explained and illustrated here. The paper concludes with suggestions for teaching and learning about metaphor intended for its practical use in the mediation process.

While metaphor has been of some interest to mediators and negotiators, little has been done to take advantage of the growing body of work in cognitive science known as conceptual metaphor theory. A cognitive approach to metaphor promises valuable insights into the nature of conflict and its resolution. The distinctions between source and target domains, conventional and novel metaphor, the mapping of entailments, correspondences, and inference structure have been studied extensively and have direct application to conflict resolution practice. The paper concludes with suggestions for teaching and learning about metaphor intended for its practical use in the negotiation process.

[This is an extended version of of an article later published as "When Experts Educate, What Do Their Metaphors Say? Complex Metaphor Structure in the Professional Conflict Resolution Literature" in Iberica 17 [2009]: 175-196, http://ssrn.com/abstract=1330827]Much of what mediators do will be influenced by how they think about the mediation process. This, in turn, depends on powerful, implicit metaphors - consciously or unconsciously adopted - about what the mediation process is and what mediators and negotiators do. Metaphors are needed not only because mediation is a complex, subjectively experienced process involving inner states and abstract concepts that are best understood figuratively, but also because metaphoric language can communicate so much richness so quickly. For example, mediation is often understood as a journey, not only for disputants but also for mediators who prepare their clients to leave their positions, take steps to discover what underlies them, consider optional routes and follow the one leading to the best available destination.The training of mediators depends heavily on metaphors that give concrete form to abstract ideas. What mediators learn or understand from a book or article about mediation comes partly from the explicit logic and literal meanings expressed, and partly from everyday metaphors used in the text. When underlying metaphors are known we can better ask the questions needed for improved understanding.This is a report on the descriptive phase of an ongoing study of the metaphor structure in expert mediator texts. The study draws on conceptual metaphor theory - an interdisciplinary effort in cognitive linguistics and psychology. Metaphors were detected in 700 pages of selected professional literature. Seven interrelated clusters of metaphors were found to be used repeatedly. Any of these metaphors alone oversimplifies and distorts descriptions of conflict and the mediation process. When the metaphor clusters are used together much of the complexity is reconstituted, if somewhat rearranged. Due to unconscious and uncoordinated use of metaphor, expert mediators inevitably are innocent of what their metaphors say. Greater awareness of the metaphors documented here could reduce inconsistency between literal and figurative meanings, promote more coherence and allow greater complexity and realism to be achieved.