All that we are certain of today is that all is uncertain. Uncertainty has become the new normal, affecting our family lives and routines, our professional goals and activities and our relationship with local, regional and national governments. We have seen, in just a few months, how our freedom to move and associate has been challenged and…

In March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic brought great changes to classrooms and students around the world. As the virus swept into cities and communities, students were swept out of their routines--experiencing many sudden and profound losses. In one urban school district in the United States, elementary students lost the writing communities they had…

As we begin to witness a new phase in the integration of digital social media platforms with educational institutions, we ought to ask how learning exchanges may be altered as a result. Looking to transformations in knowledge exchanges outside of formal education, we find that these technologies have already modified the ways in which communities…

Amid the increasing digitisation of schools, relatively little work has examined the ways in which digital technologies are reconfiguring the work of school principals. With an approach based on the sociology of work, this paper draws on 19 in-depth interviews with Australian school principals to examine their everyday experiences of digital…

Work practices and learning are entangled processes that operate differently in each workplace. Central factors producing this diversity are the informal, social and affective cultures facilitated and supported in each workplace. Recent research findings further suggest that these informal modes of workplace practice are critical for how people in…

Collaborative learning can be a worthwhile and valuable part of a student's online course experience, and interpersonal exchanges among members of an online course community often rely on greater intentionality within the design of the learning experience. We present a synergistic framework for strategic design of collaborative learning in the…

As the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in early months of 2020, education at all levels was pushed to emergency fully remote, online formats. This emergency shift affected all aspects of teaching and learning with very little notice and often with limited resources. Educators were required to convert entire courses online and shift to remote…

The sudden emergence and rapid spread of COVID-19 is a reminder of our frailty, where the magnitude of the impact facing the world as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic has become increasingly apparent. One way that we have effectively responded to this emergency educationally, has to become innovative in our relationship with technology. The value…

This book addresses issues related to implementing Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for upgrading the educational framework. It pays special attention to the utilization of technological tools and means in the formation of a qualitatively upgraded teaching and learning environment, as well as in dealing with crisis phenomena, as…

"This is very scary. Everybody be safe, social distance, and wash hands please." "This has definitely been an odd semester. I'm very nervous for how the rest of the semester is going to go!" "I am trying to not to be too afraid. I work in the medical field. It can be so scary." These are statements taken directly from…

With the onset of COVID-19 and the continuing need to move both teaching and professional encounters online, novel approaches providing effective ways of doing both are gaining increasing attention. There was of course considerable work being done in virtual worlds long before COVID-19 became a factor, but now that it is becoming the norm for…

For better and worse, the COVID-19 crisis will necessarily advance a number of instrumental responses for online education under the global shutdown of face-to-face classrooms. COVID-19 has accelerated but did not begin the move to online education. This essay asks its readers to consider the online environment and the shutdown of face-to-face…

One of the main challenges for educators during the pandemic has been successfully transitioning to online teaching, in some cases without adequate training. This article will address these issues and suggest effective practices for teaching Spanish online, especially in emergency remote teaching situations. Given these circumstances, instructors…

In response to the interruption of all levels of education following COVID-19, we start by underlining the difference between emergency remote teaching and online learning. Next, we inquire into the question of presence in physical and virtual classrooms, and offer a discussion of presence as "being-here-now," a "movement toward…

Courses: Organizational Communication, Small Group Communication, Organizational Decision-making, and Communication Technology. Objective: The objectives of this activity are twofold: (1) to engage students in the practice of small-group decision making bounded by temporal, situational, and cognitive constraints; and (2) to demonstrate how these…