Modern technology plays an important role in helping students from all walks of life to overcome barriers and benefit from teaching and learning. However, due to a lack of knowledge or skills with regards to educational technologies, K-12 teachers struggle to harness the full potential of digitalisation to support student learning and engagement,…

Digital equity and intercultural education continue to be areas of concern in the emerging knowledge-based society. The digital divide is present across the globe as the result of a complex of factors such as the inequality in: access to hardware and connectivity; autonomy of use; digital and literacy skills; availability of technical and social…

Digital skills are an important aspect of ensuring that all young people are digitally included. Yet, there tends to be an assumption in popular discourse that young people can simply learn these skills by themselves. While experience of technologies forms an important part of the learning process, other resources (i.e., access to technology and…

The rise of digital information and communication technologies (ICT) has made the acquisition of computer and information literacy (CIL) a leading factor in creating an engaged, informed, and employable citizenry. However, are young people, often described as "digital natives" or the "net generation," developing the necessary…

Researchers and policy makers have been exploring ways to reduce the digital divide. Parameters commonly used to examine the digital divide worldwide, as well as in this study, are: (a) the digital divide in the accessibility and mobility of the ICT infrastructure and of the content infrastructure (e.g., sites used in school); and (b) the digital…

Over the past decade, policy discussions about public access computing in libraries have focused on the role that these institutions play in bridging the digital divide. In these discussions, public access computing services are generally targeted at individuals who either cannot afford a computer and Internet access, or have never received formal…

Australia was once a world leader for laptop adoption in schools. Now overtaken by extensive roll-outs of laptops in Maine and Uruguay, this paper seeks to explain why this lead was lost. Six case studies of government primary schools were undertaken to gather data about current initiatives. Comparative analysis shows how the potential of…

A recent rise in home computer ownership has seen a growing number of children using computers and accessing the internet from a younger age. This paper examines the link between children's home computing and their academic performance in the areas of reading and mathematics. Data from the nine-year-old cohort of the Growing Up in Ireland survey…

The purpose of this study was to determine the awareness among students and levels regarding student access, use, and knowledge sharing during the teaching-learning process. The triangulation method was utilized in this study. The population of the research universe was 21,747. The student sample population was 1,292. Two different data collection…

The development of low cost and practical information and communication technologies (ICT) has led to increased pressure on social workers and other human service providers to insure their clients are not digitally disenfranchised. In fact, the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) and Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Standards for…

Background: Project @pple (Access & Participation for People with intellectual disability in Learning Environments) was about exploring the terms on which young people with intellectual disability access and participate with e-Learning and the Web. The current study is one of a number of related studies. It explores the culture of information and…

Three hosted federated search tools, Follett One Search, Gale PowerSearch Plus, and WebFeat Express, were configured and implemented in a school library. Databases from five vendors and the OPAC were systematically searched. Federated search results were compared with each other and to the results of the same searches in the database's native…

While much has been done to address the digital divide, awareness concerning the importance of information literacy (IL) has taken a back seat to a world that focuses on technology. This article traces the genesis of a global effort to address information literacy education and training beyond discussions taking place within the library and…

The Pacific eLearning Observatory at the University of the South Pacific (USP) conducted an online survey of educational technologists (n = 60) to assess levels of access to information and communication technologies (ICT) in education and identify ways of lowering the barriers to ICT in the Pacific region. Almost half of USP's 22,000 students are…

This article scopes some of the key political elements in the higher educational use of the read/write web, or Web2.0 as it is commonly known. It investigates ways in which these tools can be used to enhance deliberative democracy, the associations between individuals and their capability for decision-making. The structuring of spaces in which…