Many early childhood practitioners use pedagogical documentation as an important process that enables children's thinking to be represented in a form that can be readily shared with others (Dahlberg et al., 1999). Documentation in the form of a professional portfolio provides a vehicle for reflection and an appreciation of the complexities and…

Shadow netWorkspace (SNS) is a web application system that allows a school or any type of community to establish an intranet with network workspaces for all members and groups. The goal of SNS has been to make it easy for schools and other educational organizations to provide network services in support of implementing a learning community. SNS is…

As a statewide initiative, New Jersey has been hosting teen leadership conferences for students with disabilities. The focus of the conferences is to address skills necessary to be successful in school and for transition to life after high school. The conferences are held throughout New Jersey at universities and colleges. Students with…

The Communities of Practice approach offers state agency personnel a lens for exploring the human aspects of problems. They can be used as a technical assistance approach for bringing together multiple stakeholders to address complex issues facing special education. The IDEA Partnership has pioneered the use of a website for its national…

In this article, the authors considered the use of the software Knowledge Forum to complete a curriculum-based project with students enrolled in asynchronous, Web-based Advanced Placement courses in Canada and the United States. Knowledge Forum is an online database that promotes written interaction in a social constructivist environment. The…

Traditionally, universities focus primarily on instructionist teaching. Such an understanding has been criticized from theoretical and practical points of view. We believe that "socio-cultural theories of learning" and the concepts of "social capital" and "social creativity" hold considerable promise as a theoretical…

This paper examines the interactions between literacy teachers and instructional leaders and their effects on students' reading achievement gains. The results of this study have implications for how instructional leaders work with colleagues and how these relationships may impact student achievement. Forty-two suburban elementary and middle school…

This account of practice is about starting action learning set meetings. It focuses on a process sometimes known as the "check-in". The paper is based upon the experience of one of the authors (Mark). It raises questions about the contribution of the check-in to an action learning set meeting and whether the checking-in process has a…

This is an account of one particular set meeting during a year long programme for social entrepreneurs. It triggered a number of questions and insights for me about the amazing value of honesty, and its power. It released a great deal of energy, ownership and "control". I realized how important it was to highlight, discuss and reflect on…

Preparing students to be effective leaders in their organizational and professional settings is a common goal of leadership preparation programs. However, students often lack confidence to share their knowledge and expertise in public forums. This study addressed whether the use of the rich environments for active learning (REAL) instructional…

With a growing number of courses offered online and degrees offered through the Internet, there is a considerable interest in online education, particularly as it relates to the quality of online instruction. The major concerns are centering on the following questions: What will be the new role for instructors in online education? How will…

The authors report on two projects in which the role of documents as temporal boundary objects mediating information practices across multiple timelines was explored. It has been suggested that studying workplace documents will uncover the information practices of professionals beyond traditional information needs and uses studies. Two workplaces…

This study used qualitative research procedures to evaluate the learning impact of a long term (3.5 years) leadership education program on participants' cognitive models of leadership. Situated learning theory (Lave & Wenger, 1991) and communities of practice principles (Wenger, McDermott, & Snyder, 2002) were used to develop research…

We describe the evolving learning design of a computer-based exercise called "Director's Cut" that challenges students to create their own video sequence from a set of clips we provide. The context is a film theory course where the community of educators have been interested in introducing practical exercises so students can, for…

The Internet provides opportunities for students in developing countries to interact both with a wide variety of educational resources and with distant students and teachers. For a decade the authors have researched the essential elements to ensure success when technology is introduced in classrooms. Therefore this article focuses on developing…