With smartphone saturation at 100% among Japanese university students, educators are developing new and innovative ways to bring them to the forefront of learning, ensuring students are as engaged with their technology in their formal learning as they are with their informal learning. Smartphones of today are small, portable, have high spec…

This paper reports the results of a pencil-and-paper test developed to assess young children's understanding of mass measurement. The innovative element of the test was its use of photographs. We found many children of the 295 6-8 year-old children tested could "read" the photographs and diagrams and recognise the images as…

Web 2.0 technologies create opportunities for distance learning with particular promise for students while they are on international exchange. The current generation of students departing for study abroad is electronically literate or "digital natives", who have thoroughly integrated internet and communication technologies into their…

This article is derived from a larger study of the Family Learning Network (FLN) which evaluated the effectiveness of school and community agency partnerships in enhancing student engagement. In particular it describes how photo elicitation methodology was used with 8 year old primary school children in three schools to discuss their views of the…

Five different ways that viewers conceptualize and take stances toward a photograph are identified from a study that involved 384 written responses to a photograph. Subjects included 63 faculty members from Queensland (Australia) Institute of Technology, 80 school teachers, 67 photographers, and 174 12-year-olds. In focus group discussions, 25…