This paper uses an Activity Theory framework to explore adult user activities and informal learning processes as reflected in their blogs and social network sites (SNS). Using the assumption that a web-based space is an activity system in which learning occurs, typical features of the components were investigated and each activity system then…

Student life has changed a lot since 2005 when the idea to create a Social Network Service (SNS) for students in the School of Systems Engineering at the University of Reading was conceived and went live in 2006. Over the next few years, this service (known as RedGloo) was offered to students at the university with the aim of supporting their…

This article reports on the use of e-portfolios to assess aspects of a one year, post-graduate pre-service teacher education programme in Northern Ireland within the specific context of special needs education. The rationale for using an e-portfolio for programme assessment and the potential it offers in demonstrating a range of teaching…

Although there are currently only a few undergraduate journals in economics, we expect their numbers to increase substantially in the future because of several developments: (1) research and writing activity is increasing in economics programs, (2) online publication is now more feasible and cost efficient than ever, and (3) students are…

This article identifies and examines a digital arm of creative writing studies and organizes that proposal into four categories through which to theorize the "craft" of creative production, each borrowed from Tim Mayers's "(Re)Writing Craft: Composition, Creative Writing, and the Future of English Studies": process, genre, author, and…

Three years ago, when K-12 schools started thinking seriously about creating digital libraries, the Mesquite Independent School District (TX) bought several Sony eReaders, loaded them with books, and circulated them to students. This initial attempt was not a rousing success. After the Mesquite ISD pulled the plug on its disastrous e-reader…

Herein, we present data from two studies of Twitter usage in different postsecondary courses with the goal of analyzing the relationships surrounding student engagement and collaboration as they intersect learning outcomes. Study 1 was conducted with 125 students taking a first-year seminar course, half of who were required to use Twitter while…

In 2009, the National Science Foundation funded the "Dynabook: A Digital Resource and Preservice Model for Developing TPCK" project through its Discovery Research K-12 program. Dynabook project leaders and the National Science Foundation (NSF) recognized that digital textbooks would soon be a primary instructional resource, and seized…

The city and school system in this research project is identified with a pseudonym as City X. This doctoral project, "Online publishing and authentic audience to improve student writing", is designed as one element of a district wide initiative to improve student writing literacy in the City X Public School district. In City X, as in…

Among the four skills in English teaching and learning, writing has a rather limited portion in high school classes. Requiring several steps, writing has been given less time than what it actually deserves. As a result, it takes a longer period of time for the student to submit their writing products. What we often forget is that the process of…

With the adoption of web services in daily life, people have access to tremendous amounts of information, beyond any human's reading and comprehension capabilities. As a result, search technologies have become a fundamental tool for accessing information. Furthermore, the web contains information in multiple languages, introducing another barrier…

This paper presents Ondigita, a platform developed at the University of Applied Sciences of Southern Switzerland for the management and delivery of digital documents to students enrolled in bachelor's courses in various curricula within the field of engineering. Ondigita allows our organization to have a cloud-based repository of educational…

The "achievement gap" for English learners and those of marginalized groups has been documented for well over a decade. It is widely recognized that socioeconomic status, language, and the fluid construct of culture play significant roles in school learning. However, despite the dismal academic progress of students learning English in…

The oz-Teachers listserv, an email list for teachers, ran continuously for 20 years, from 1995 to 2015. It provided the technical infrastructure for professional communication with the majority of its members being Australian teachers based in classrooms across the country. An analysis of the list archives provides us with interesting insights as…

With the emergence of mobile technologies, students' access to computing devices is omnipresent, as is their ability to collaborate through multiple modalities. This 21st-century affordance has generated a shift in the way preservice teachers are prepared to use, understand. and interact with social media (e.g., blogs) during their academic years.…