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Camps provide positive outcomes for adolescents' and serve as a buffer for a wide array of risky behaviors. These results relate to the unique setting and its ability to develop social connectedness between campers and staff. The purpose of this study was to develop an online eCommunity to better engage campers during the off-season and understand the keys to encourage campers to use social media to increase maintain their sense of connectedness. By adopting Ber's Positive Technology Development (PTD) perspective, an eCommunity digital project was developed for campers to maintain their sense of connectedness through interpersonal interaction and intrapersonal involvement opportunities as an extension to the camp experience. At the conclusion of a five-day residential camp for Asian American immigrant youth in southern California, the eCommunity project was held for four weeks. Data was collected to explore the eCommunity project ability to extend a sense of connectedness by campers via focus groups with 9 campers and 9 camp staff. The authors identified six attributes: social media, social interaction and involvement, a sense of community, accessible paths, multimedia use, and attractive incentives. The significance of the digital landscape in maintaining a sense of connectedness to camp has been established. The implications of this study provide innovative insights in delivering and evaluating online extension activities for researchers and youth practitioners who desire to take the advantage of online technology to engage campers., Author(s): Yi-Ju Wu [sup.1] , Corliss Outley [sup.2] Author Affiliations: (1) https://ror.org/02pgvzy25, grid.411804.8, 0000 0004 0532 2834, Dept of Leisure and Recreation Management, Ming Chuan University, , Taoyuan City, Taiwan [...]

Adopting the approaches of "pattern hunting" and "pattern refining" (Kennedy & Miceli, 2001, 2010, 2017), this study investigates how seven freshman English students from Taiwan used the Corpus of Contemporary American English to discover collocation patterns for 30 near-synonymous change-of-state verbs and new ideas about the topic of "change" in the drafting stage of their essay writing. The study used a mixed-methods approach to examine the learning outcomes, learners' corpus use, and their perceptions of the process. Results were drawn by analyzing writings in three time frames (pre-test, post-test, delayed posttest), video files of corpus consultation, questionnaires, and stimulus recall-session interviews. The results showed that the learners successfully discovered and incorporated collocation patterns in change-of-state verbs and ideas about the topic of change into their essays, although some difficulties emerged. Their performance on change-of-state verbs improved, and this improvement remained three months after the treatment. The study also demonstrated learners' different perceptions and actualizations of the affordances offered by the corpus. While all learners used the corpus to correct collocation errors, they had diverse attitudes and uses of the corpus to address content ideas or collocation complexities in their writing. The study concludes by discussing the theoretical and pedagogical implications of the results.

The Test-of-English-for-International-Communication (TOEIC) is an important proficiency test for achieving the benchmark of future employment for English language learners worldwide. However, game-based apps for acquiring TOEIC vocabulary have remained scarce. Therefore, an empirical study was conducted to examine the effects of the self-developed the smartphone app "Saving Alice" for optimizing the acquisition of TOEIC vocabulary and spelling among EFL learners. Multiple sources of data were collected to investigate how "Saving Alice" affected vocabulary acquisition, including a demographic survey, pre- and post-tests on TOEIC vocabulary, and semi-structured interviews. Both the quantitative and qualitative findings showed that "Saving Alice" significantly enhanced the student learning outcomes, and that frequency of using game-based mobile apps (GBMAs) correlated with learning outcomes.

This study explores the effects of how collaborating in a virtual world (VW) enhanced learners' healthcare professional-patient communicative skills, including physician-patient and inter-professional communication in medical discourse. Through a quasi-experimental design case study, 47 Taiwanese Freshman English students from a College of Medicine participated in this study for 3 weeks. Research data included video analysis of students' role-play creations in two different media (on the stage versus VW program), transcripts of learners' role-plays, and questionnaire results of students' perceptions of role-playing. The results include (1) rich description of the scenarios and plots created by students in the VW group, (2) VW group learners' better performance in using effective communicative skills when role-playing via the VW, including building rapport with the patients and colleagues and showing empathy and understanding toward patients; and (3) VW group learners' higher evaluation of how the role-play helped their English language skills, healthcare professional-patient communication and learning in general. The study concludes by discussing the theoretical and pedagogical implications of the results.

Herein we demonstrate an "in‐ring establishing" strategy for assembling interlocked molecules through dynamic imine formation, "establishing" the host recognition sites in situ. Using Zn2+ ions to template the assembly of a pyridine‐containing macrocycle with semidumbbell‐shaped triazole‐containing aldehyde and amine derivatives, we obtained the corresponding [2]rotaxane in high yield (85 %) after subsequent imine reduction (NaBH4) and amine protonation (NH4PF6). We performed the same three steps (assembly, reduction, protonation) to prepare a stable and highly symmetrical [5]molecular necklace ([5]MN) from 12 components (two almost‐90°‐oriented dialdehydes, two almost‐90°‐oriented diamines, four macrocycles, four Zn2+ ions) in an overall yield of 69 %. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]