An educational blog was created for the purposes of extending learning beyond the reach of organized classes and supplementing the core themes of the Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program. Focus group members reacted to the format, content, visual appeal, and writing style of the blog and addressed their likelihood of reading the blog…

State education agencies are investing more time and effort to communicate effectively and engage with district, school and classroom leaders, parents, students and other key audiences about the important changes happening in their States. They are using myriad tools to do so, including forums, meetings, direct contact, mainstream and social…

Teaching in a diverse, urban community college, it has become apparent that students spend most of their free (and classroom) time participating in social media. In response, we decided to incorporate social media, blogs specifically, as a way to increase student engagement, retention and achievement. The learning objective was for our students to…

In winter 2009, Barnard College began the process of adopting Drupal 7 as its content management system. The move included Barnard Library's Zine Collection website, an information resource dedicated to the library's special collection of do-it-yourself (DIY) publications by women. Recently, as a Barnard Zine intern, the author had the challenging…

In this paper I examine the music learning and teaching in the Banjo Hangout online music community (www.banjohangout.org/) using cyber ethnographic methods of interview and participant observation conducted entirely through computer-mediated communication, which includes Skype and written narrative texts--forum posts, email, chat room…

Visits to 81 academic library websites in the New York State reveal that 42% of them adopted one or more Web 2.0 tools such as blogs while implementation of those tools in individual libraries varies greatly. We also propose a conceptual model of Academic Library 2.0 in this report. (Contains 4 tables and 6 figures.)

This article reports on findings from a study that explored blogging (a web-based log) as a tool for literacy graduate students to deliver support to preservice teachers who were working in an afterschool intervention program. Its effectiveness is compared to the use of an online literacy instructional module. Analyses of the discussions in nine…

This article considers how instructors with larger classes can utilize Web 2.0 tools to help students develop as writers. Meeting the needs of readers defines strong writing, yet students need to interact with authentic audiences to learn to do this well. A growing body of educators is exploring how blogging can be used to enhance student…

This guide describes emerging social media practices among State education agencies and other governmental organizations and suggests key steps and considerations for those interested in using social media to advance education reform.

When a beloved school closes, community emotions run high. De Witt and Moccia, administrators in the Averill Park School District in upstate New York, describe how their district navigated through parents' anger and practical matters in closing a small neighborhood elementary school and transferring all its students to another school. With a group…

The City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate School of Journalism is testing a new model for journalism with an innovative hyperlocal news project with The New York Times. CUNY is not only providing interactive media instruction to budding professional journalists, but some of its students are helping train citizen journalists to contribute…

As part of an outreach program, we integrated chemistry apps with blogging to enhance the learning experience of students in and outside the classroom. Our outreach program involved college mentors who participated in the development and implementation of chemistry lessons alongside the classroom teacher. Three technology-rich modules that focused…

This essay describes a blended (hybrid) course collaboration used to facilitate policy dialogues between graduate students at two institutions (one in Canada and the other in the US) as a way to teach about policy. The course content and design is informed by three trends in research and practice: increased policy borrowing across boundaries and…

In this digital world, being a "viewer" is passe. Web 2.0 tools--social networks, wikis, blogs, voicestream, YouTube, Google Docs--allow users to be participants. Instead of creating isolated users, such technologies foster community and collaboration. In this article, the author describes how schools in New York, Florida, New Jersey,…

This article discusses the challenges faced when integrating new technologies into the classroom. Viewing the experiences of teaching a first year learning community through the lens of the principles of the Reflective Teaching Portfolio, the author looks to answer the question: "How should Technology relate to our Teaching Philosophy?"…