This article examines key issues in how new technologies are impacting upon how we teach, learn and collaborate, and uses an educational research project called GRAIL (Graduate Researcher's Academic Identity Online) under development to illustrate some fundamental issues in adopting new technologies. A significant challenge to the effective use of…

This article aims to explore the potential of certain future studies techniques to provide insight into the question of the impact of higher education information and communication technology (ICT) strategies on student learning. The approach is to consider three case studies of new universities in different countries, and to identify the main…

In information systems and end-user computer research, "using" appears to encapsulate a range of activities, such as reading, writing, viewing and so on. And yet it is a grossly inadequate descriptor for any of these activities, failing to account for the fact that texts--digital or otherwise--are produced and engaged by humans for a variety of…

Meaning making in new media is rapidly presenting new opportunities and new challenges for those working in formal and informal educational contexts. This article provides an overview of current theory, thinking and commentary in order to map the field of digital literacy and to identify key questions for research and policy development. It…

This article attempts to articulate in broad outline the post-industrial regime of knowledge and information and point out its fatal flaw. The Internet is treated as a socio-technological complex animated by capital and information. The notion of information is interrogated and an alternative notion closer to our everyday intuitions is proposed.…

This article looks at the ethical implications of the use of information and communications technology (ICT) in bringing about development in developing societies. Any proposed means to enhance development has costs as well as benefits. Hence, the evaluation of a given means to development should always be a matter of "applied ethics".…

This article focuses on the social practices of propagating and circulating memes within Internet environments as a significant dimension of cultural production and transmission. Memes (pronounced "meems") are contagious patterns of cultural information that are passed from mind to mind and which directly shape and transmit key actions and…

In this article the author explores the seamlessness between children's online and offline worlds. For children, there is no dichotomy of online and offline, or virtual and real; the digital is so much intertwined into their lives and psyche that the one is entirely enmeshed with the other. Despite early research pointing to the differences that…

This article has two objectives: to explore the changing power relationships within the quality management practices of United Kingdom higher education with specific reference to online learning and the role of learning technologists; and to explore some of the issues surrounding the potential to represent academic discourse through media other…

The United Kingdom and other governments have demonstrated faith in information and communications technology (ICT) as a means of achieving a participative and inclusive society through various high-profile initiatives. It is also claimed that ICT or e-learning can bring about new patterns of power and participation for excluded learners. In this…