This article deals with federal E-rate program's support of school leaders' Blackberry habit. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has cleared the way to allow money from the $2.25 billion program of subsidies for school technology to apply to e-mail service for mobile, wireless devices, such as the BlackBerry, which are increasingly…

Examines nicknames of Internet Relay Chat (IRC) users, whose identities are condensed into a single line which states their nicknames, the electronic address, and a slogan or the users' real names. Demonstrates that although people play games with their nicknames, the nicknames they choose are an inherent part of their Net identity and their…

Twitter (www.twitter.com) has become kind of a popular culture punch line. It's often used as a shorthand to represent how self-obsessed and self-involved the American culture has become, and while Twitter does lend itself to a kind of needless sharing, it also has some potentially useful features. Twitter is a microblogging service that allows…

What is the current thinking about cyberinfrastructure for the liberal arts, what models for transinstitutional collaboration and institution building are emerging, and what steps can campuses take to move this agenda forward? (Contains 23 notes.)

This paper reports on the uses of interactive whiteboards in "connected classrooms" in rural New South Wales, Australia. The research specifically focuses on the e[superscript 2] program, a senior school initiative among five schools that seeks to extend the range of curriculum options available for students by connecting classrooms…

This article features the WebQuest, an inquiry-oriented activity in which some or all of the information that learners interact with comes from resources on the Internet. WebQuests, when properly constructed, are activities, usually authentic in nature, that require the student to use Internet-based resources to deepen their understanding and…

Anytime, anywhere, learning provides opportunities to create digital learning environments for new teaching styles and personalized learning. As part of making sure the program is effective, the safety and security of students and assets are essential--and mandated by law. The Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) addresses Internet content…

The article reviews the popularity in networked learning designs for values of collaboration, and in particular, of community. Examples of this are drawn from the networked learning literature, highlighting corresponding arguments for networked learning providing the basis for a more democratic ethos within higher educational programmes. The…

Regardless of whether an institution is a reluctant passenger on the racing technology train or itching to throw another shovel of coal on the fire, continuing advancements in technology make it a formidable factor in life on college campuses today. While students are updating their most recent social networking sites, faculty, staff, and…

Internet Protocol (IP) Telephony, or voice-over IP (VoIP), has proved to be a wise decision for many organizations. This technology crosses the boundaries of public and private networks, enterprise and residential markets, voice and data technologies, as well as local and long-distance services. The convergence of voice and data into a single,…

Computer mediated communication (CMC) refers to communication between individuals and among groups via networked computers. Such forms of communication can be "asynchronous" or "synchronous" and serve a wide variety of useful functions ranging from administration to building understanding and knowledge. As such there are many reasons for interest…

Students today network with each other using technology as much as, if not more than, face-to-face communication. College administrators must not only recognize this phenomenon, but learn to use the variety of electronic media available in positive ways: to stay connected to college social networks, promote relevant events, and help students feel…

Discusses newsgroups, listservs, and Web-based discussion groups. Highlights include major categories of international USENET discussion groups; newsgroups versus mailing lists; newsreaders; news servers; newsgroup subscriptions; newsgroups versus Web discussion groups; linking newsgroups, mailing lists, and the Web; and setting up a news host. A…

Examines student use of a prototype networked collaborative design environment to support or augment learning about engineering design. Finds that students use the channels for a variety of activities to increase depth of communication, increase breadth of communication, and overcome technical difficulty. Suggests that students need multiple…

Provides an overview of the Gulfnet Academic network, set in the context of development in Saudi Arabia and the establishment of King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST). Goals and objectives of KACST are presented, Gulfnet members in the Gulf States are listed, and Gulfnet management, services, and facilities are discussed. (JKP)