This paper argues that methods used for the classification and measurement of online education are not neutral and objective, but involved in the creation of the educational realities they claim to measure. In particular, the paper draws on material semiotics to examine cluster analysis as a 'performative device' that, to a significant extent,…

Social networking sites (SNSs) are popular technologies used frequently among youth for recreational purposes. Increasing attention has been paid to the use of SNSs in educational settings as a way to engage youth interest and encourage academically productive discussion. Potential affordances of using SNSs for education include knowledge…

This article examines the emergence of "digital governance" in public education in England. Drawing on and combining concepts from software studies, policy and political studies, it identifies some specific approaches to digital governance facilitated by network-based communications and database-driven information processing software…

Within the academy, signals of a scholar's academic influence are made manifest in indices like the "h"-index, which rank output. In open scholarly networks, however, signals of influence are less codified, and the ways in which they are enacted and understood have yet to be articulated. Yet the influence scholars cultivate in open…

The Net Generation (those born in or after 1980) rely heavily on ICTs for social and professional interactions, and it has been suggested that they have the expectation that technology will be an integral part of their education. At the same time, it is argued that "Facebook" has educational potential, and that today's learners should be…

It could be said that in the fast-changing field of education technology the initial excitement for a tool or application usually fades away as the next technology emerges on the horizon--leaving little or no room for critical evaluation of how it may best be used in educational settings. Some critics have identified this endless "pursuit of the…

This paper explored informal (after-school) and formal (elective course in-school) learning contexts as contributors to middle-school student attitudinal changes in a guided discovery-based and blended e-learning program in which students designed web games and used social media and information resources for a full school year. Formality of the…

This article scopes the connections between the educational use of Web 2.0 technologies in social learning spaces, and the concept of individual self-efficacy. At issue is whether the individual learner can be empowered "both" in her/his engagement with a task based upon a perception that s/he will be successful "and" in taking…

All students today are increasingly expected to develop technological fluency, digital citizenship, and other twenty-first century competencies despite wide variability in the quality of learning opportunities schools provide. Social network sites (SNSs) available via the internet may provide promising contexts for learning to supplement…

Research suggests that teachers who personalize their teaching through the use of humor, stories, enthusiasm, and self-disclosure are perceived by their students to be effective in explaining course content. This experimental study examined the effects of computer-mediated teacher self-disclosure on perceptions of teacher credibility. Participants…

This paper discusses writing as a social practice and speculates on how wikis might be used to promote higher quality academic writing and support collaborative learning. This study of undergraduate teacher trainees' online learning activities focuses on how shared spaces--wikis--might be used to communicate ideas and generate course-specific…

University staff are now encouraged to supplement their classroom activity with computer-based tools and resources accessible through virtual learning environments (VLEs). Meanwhile, university students increasingly make recreational use of computer networks in the form of various social software applications. This paper explores tensions of…

Virtual worlds have been linked with e-learning applications to create virtual learning environments (VLEs) for the past decade. However, while they can support many educational activities that extend both traditional on-campus teaching and distance learning, they are used primarily for learning content generated and managed by instructors. With…

Enthusiasts for new social software do not always acknowledge that belonging to e-learning communities depends upon complex and often unresolved identity issues for learners. Drawing on the author's previous research on belonging in social learning, the paper presents a theory of identity congruence in social learning and brings to the foreground…