The COVID-19 pandemic has forced an immediate implementation of online learning. However, little is known about its effectiveness and challenges faced by the students. Thus, this study is aimed at examining the effectiveness of online learning and the challenges that it presents to pupils' abilities to learn. This study employed a case study…

Background/Context: The rapid pace of technological change, undergirded by near ubiquitous access to the web, is producing a new learning ecology--a new ecology of information, of knowledge, of reading, of teaching, and of thinking. This instant availability of digital resources frees both time and cognitive energy that may be used to facilitate…

In 2013, we undertook research in a New Zealand University to gain insights into students' understandings of informal learning, its connection to formal learning and how they engaged in informal learning using digital and mobile technologies. A total of 765 students (postgraduate, undergraduate and first-year students) completed a questionnaire.…

Collaborative learning theory points to knowledge construction as an outcome of peer interaction, justifying widespread implementation of collaborative activities (like small group discussion) that scaffold toward individual writing projects. This article offers a qualitative investigation into the process of collaborating with peers and the…

Recent shifts in web map technology away from proprietary software and toward development on the Open Web Platform have increased the number and complexity of technical skills needed to do cartography on the Web. Web-based cartography curricula likewise must be adapted to prepare geography, cartography, and GIS students with the skills needed to…

In many countries it has become commonplace for students at school to undertake their own composing in the classroom. At the same time students often develop their own creative musical interests outside school hours. This paper looks at how teachers might re-evaluate students' self-initiated compositional activity. By utilising Martin Heidegger's…

This paper presents a qualitative investigation on key skills for co-learning and co-inquiry in the digital age. The method applied was cyber-ethnography with asynchronous observation (forum and wiki) and synchronous discussions (webconference) for analysing skills developed by a co-learning community. This study focuses on participants from…

This study investigated factors that influence the extent and type of information job seekers reveal about themselves when using social networking to search for employment opportunities and advance their careers. It examined how user concerns regarding privacy influence the level of content they provide and their interactions with fellow community…

We report on our development of an educational social machine based on the concept that feedback in communities is an effective means to support the development of communities of learning and practice. Key challenges faced by this work are how best to support educational and social interactions, how to deliver personalised tuition, and how to…

This paper reports on a case study of aspiring Canadian school leaders participating in a postgraduate online course in which the instructional approach was grounded in critical social theory. The focus was on using dialogue, questioning and critique as a means of uncovering assumptions, values and tensions as participants related their lived…

Purpose: The emergence of Web 2.0 opened a new route for education to use the values derived from this development. The future of e-learning is social learning, where individuals can learn online due to the facility of social media. Social media such as online communities are places for social interactions between users. These social interactions…

Internet and electronic databases today offer the opportunity to reach an unlimited amount of information in a short time. Owing to this advantage, the Internet has become an important provider of "e-knowledge" and a basic tool in the process of research. It is essential that research undertaken by academic students on the internet…

Purpose: The purpose of this self-reflective paper is to focus on practical efforts to combat inequality and foster intercultural dialogue in education. It introduces "knowledge alliances", a type of social practice open for education technologies. Design/methodology/approach: The paper is structured in a theoretical and an empirical…

Despite significant research in the field of educational technology, there is still much we do not fully understand about students' experiences with technology. This article proposes that research in the field of educational technology would benefit from a sociological framing that pays attention to the understandings and lives of learners. Within…

Background: Although much has been written about the ways in which new technology might transform educational practice, particularly in the area of literacy learning, there is relatively little empirical work that explores the possibilities and problems--or even what such a transformation might look like in the classroom. 3D virtual worlds offer a…