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The infiltration of technology into our daily lives, which often combines multiple modes of learning, has expanded how we make meaning in language and literacy education. Although teachers and learners interact with multimodal texts for various purposes, in multiliterate research, few explorations have been conducted to examine teachers' pedagogical use of multimodal resources within critical framing. This study investigated the ways in which ESOL teachers utilized multimodal resources in their lessons and how they used multimodal resources for transformative purposes. In a graduate TESOL education online methodology course, the researchers included a multimodally-oriented curriculum that had a potential for empowering identities through critical perspectives and transformed practice. An analysis of 43 teachers' lesson plans, teaching videos, and reflections showed that most teachers utilized multimodal resources to primarily present information, not to have ELLs critically engage in using multimodal texts. Only a few teachers were found to scaffold students for critical perspectives and encouraged students' linguistic and cultural identity development. The findings suggest that multimodality was utilized in a limited sense in our sample ESOL lessons, which has implications for teacher educators and multimodality research.

This paper reflects an OER (Open Educational Resources) critical literacy project, Global Conversations in Literacy Research (GCLR), (www.globalconversationsinliteracy.wordpress.com), now in its fourth year. GCLR annually hosts seven web seminars presented by internationally recognized literacy and education scholars. We outline key dimensions of GCLR not only as an OER but as an open educational practice (OEP) (Andrade et al., 2011) that through its design, not only provides open access to scholarship, but also understands the critical nexus among resources, practices and theory. Informed by data from a longitudinal study, this paper situates these dimensions within professional development literature, and outlines GCLR as a critical space designed for critical times, and the importance of intentionality when accessing OER. Like scholars before us, we argue that that availability is not the only consideration when using OER (Andrade et al., 2011); OER must be considered in relation to pedagogical considerations and how OER are used as a critical component to online professional development.

This study examined the effectiveness of a Cyber Home Learning System (CHLS), an online learning system currently being employed in South Korea to improve the access and quality of public education as well as to reduce private tutoring expenditures. The quasi-experimental research design used experiment and survey methods to learn about the impact of CHLS on student performance and to ascertain students' perceptions of the system. The results of the experiment indicated that no statistically significant differences in test performance existed between the experimental and control groups. This finding suggested that CHLS did not have an impact on student performance overall. However, after the data were disaggregated according to ability level, students in the advanced level showed statistically significant differences between the experimental and control groups. Results from the survey indicated that the CHLS was particularly effective for those who are motivated to voluntarily participate in academic activities and who have the capability for self-initiated study. The CHLS can be considered a useful supplement but not a replacement for secondary private tutoring. To better address the needs of other learners, the English content of CHLS may need to be further modified to match students' varying proficiency levels and learning styles.

Purpose: This study aimed to explore how educational technology influenced a preparatory teacher education program using heteroglossic and global approaches. Design/Approach/Methods: The researchers drew upon the theoretical framework of multilingual digital storytelling (MDST), which emphasizes the intercultural awareness attributes of multilingual learners (MLs) and takes a heteroglossic perspective in linguistic pedagogy. This qualitative case study examined the experiences of 11 U.S.-based preservice teachers (PSTs) and 12 MLs elementary students in Korea in the MDST project of a TESOL methods course. Findings: The findings showed that PSTs and MLs enhanced their appreciation for educational technology, multilingualism, and intercultural awareness. Although the project aimed to decenter English as a hegemonic language, both PSTs and MLs maintained traditional discourses that privileged English over MLs' home language and targeted literacy correctness in written English only, moving away from the heterogeneous goals of the course project. PSTs and MLs also faced challenges in navigating technological tools, which negatively affected their perception of the project. Originality/Value: This study contributes to heteroglossic approaches in preparatory TESOL teacher education programs and improves the understanding of challenges in educational technology use for global multilingual exchanges to promote global citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent morphometric magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies suggested the possibility that valproate (VPA) use is associated with parieto‐occipital cortical thinning in patients with heterogeneous epilepsy syndromes. In this study, we examined the effect of VPA on the brain volume using a large number of homogenous patients with idiopathic generalized epilepsy. Voxel‐based morphometry was used to compare regional gray matter (GM) volume between 112 patients currently taking VPA (VPA+ group), 81 patients not currently taking VPA (VPA– group), and 120 healthy subjects (control group). The VPA+ group showed a significant GM volume reduction in the bilateral cerebellum, hippocampus, insula, caudate nucleus, medial frontal cortex/anterior cingulate cortex, primary motor/premotor cortex, medial occipital cortex, and anteromedial thalamus, as compared to the control group. The VPA– group showed a significant GM volume reduction in the anteromedial thalamus and right hippocampus/temporal cortex, as compared to the control group. Compared to the VPA– group, the VPA+ group had a significant GM volume reduction in the bilateral cerebellum, primary motor/premotor cortex, and medial frontal cortex/anterior cingulate cortex. We have provided evidence that VPA use could result in GM volume reductions in the frontal cortex and cerebellum. Our findings should be acknowledged as a potential confounding factor in morphometric MRI studies that include subjects taking VPA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the United States experienced a remarkable growth of the immigrant population and witnessed scientific and medical developments that facilitated the selection of desirable and respectable immigrants. Between the 1890s and the 1920s, the American government passed several immigration acts to exclude newcomers with mental or physical defects and expanded the excludable classes of immigrants. The actual number of deportees was small, but their presence alerted the American public of the danger of the "new" immigrants. Compared to physical defects, insanity was difficult to detect due to its relative invisibility and cultural differences in its manifestations and diagnoses. Nevertheless, insanity was often discussed to prove the undesirable nature of the immigrant population, and the popular eugenic ideas of the time period justified its exclusion. Financial concerns at the American borders also posed a problem in detecting immigrants with mental defects. In 1912, against the criticism that immigration officials failed to implement the immigration acts, the Acting Secretary of the Department of Immigration asserted: "A dollar will only go so far, and we cannot get two dollars worth of work for one dollar." The medical deportation of the "alien" insane was not just a political measure against diseased immigrants; it reflected social anxieties of the time period, and the causes and symptoms of insanity among immigrants revealed deeply ingrained gender and racial stereotypes of the "strangers in the land."

There are growing populations of Korean children who studied abroad in the English as a second language (ESL) context and had to return to Korea for various reasons before reaching college age. These returnees are concerned about how to maintain (or improve) their English proficiency in the EFL (English as a foreign language) context. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to investigate two Korean-English bilinguals who recently returned to Korea after learning English in the US for more than four years. The research questions were as follows: 1) How do Korean returnees perceive the change of learning status as Korean-English bilinguals in the US and Korea, and 2) What motivated Korean returnees to sustain their English proficiency while acquiring academic literacy in Korean? By using the case study method, an extensive and in-depth description of two Korean returnees' English language learning experiences was provided. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and observation. The analysis showed that the switch from ESL to EFL learning environments, which includes the change of language, culture, and social contexts, influenced how Korean returnees maintain/improve their English proficiency, specifically with their language learning strategies (LLS). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]