The purpose of this study is to present a review of Facebook as an educational environment, as research on its use within education is relatively new. The study is categorized into six sections: Facebook users; reasons people use Facebook; harmful effects of Facebook; Facebook as an educational environment; Facebook's effects on culture, language,…

This commentary reviews seven papers that study motivation with new media, contained in this special issue of "Educational Technology Research & Development" edited by Ruth Small. For each paper, this commentary summarizes exemplary contributions, offers an assessment of what is exciting, and suggests directions for future research. Some exciting…

The American Psychological Association's "Learner-Centered Principles" provide empirically-based approaches to improving teaching and learning. However, in order to facilitate learner-centered, technology-rich instruction to K-12 students, teachers must be afforded opportunities to develop key understandings and skills, rarely evident in most…

This paper identifies the need for developing new ways to study curiosity in the context of today's pervasive technologies and unprecedented information access. Curiosity is defined in this paper in a way which incorporates the concomitant constructs of interest and engagement. A theoretical model for curiosity, interest and engagement in new…

The demand for good instructional environments presupposes valid and reliable analytical instruments for educational research. This paper introduces the "SMD Technology" (Surface, Matching, Deep Structure), which measures relational, structural, and semantic levels of graphical representations and concept maps. The reliability and validity of the…

The purpose of this article is to review and critique each of the research studies published in this special issue. We will critique each article, derive one or more instructional design heuristics based on the findings for each study, and provide recommendations for extending particular lines of research. Three suggestions are provided concerning…

Presents a response to David Solomon's paper "Toward a Post-Modern Agenda in Instructional Technology" (issue 48 number 4 page 5 of "Educational Technology Research and Development"), by offering an example of how postmodern perspectives can be used in instructional technology research and development. (Contains 43 references.) (AEF)