A survey of Advanced Placement and National Writing Project teachers shows that digital tools are widely used in their classrooms and professional lives. Yet, many of these high school and middle school teachers worry about digital divides when it comes to their students' access to technology, and those who teach low-income students face obstacles…

With privacy concerns growing on a daily basis, it is important to understand how college students guard their personally identifiable information. Despite the students' perceived readiness and several studies on the topic, it is not fully understood what personally identifiable information college students are sharing via online social networks…

YouTube is an Internet phenomenon, a video sharing Web site where individuals can upload videos to be viewed by anyone visiting the site. The purpose of this study was to search for and categorize videos related to disability on YouTube and explore the educational potential of the site for the disability community. A seven-day time period in…

Online social networking is more than just a passing fad; it's a phenomenon that unifies people of all ages across the Internet and around the world. The most popular social networking sites are Facebook and MySpace--both founded in the United States. However, the United States does not have a corner on the market. Hi-5 is rooted in Asia, Skyrock…

Since Windschitl first outlined a research agenda for the World Wide Web and classroom research, significant shifts have occurred in the nature of the Web and the conceptualization of classrooms. Such shifts have affected constructs of learning and instruction, and paths for future research. This article discusses the characteristics of Web 2.0…

Evolve or dissolve. That advice, from a recent report on virtual universities, played out in two news stories last May 2009. The University of Texas' online division is staring down a deep budget hole as it loses a longtime subsidy. In Utah, budget cuts have killed a 10-campus online consortium. Those and other predicaments reflect the growing…

Wikis are collaborative websites where visitors can edit anything they want, anytime they want. Essentially online "whiteboards," wikis allow groups of people to create documents and projects together. Internet forums, also known as message boards or discussion boards, are web applications that provide online discussions. Like wikis, your forum…

In today's world of instant everything, everyone has been exposed to some form of Web 2.0 technology, and higher education is not exempt from its long reach. Libraries of all types are incorporating Web 2.0 features to attract users as well as to showcase library services. The Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC) has become more user-friendly with…

So, what if one lives in a remote, rural area, but still has important knowledge and insights that others might benefit from learning? What if one is the only school librarian for multiple districts, and one just cannot justify the time to travel to a regular, traditional class meeting These are questions that school librarians in Iowa, as well as…

Pursuing professional development (PD) is contractual for some, and oxygen for others. As technology has increased access to anytime-anywhere learning, many of the hurdles for conquering time and space constraints have been addressed with online learning in web-based classroom environments, webinars, and even some of the newer social networking…

Across a giant swath of desert and mountain terrain southeast of Tucson, one yellow school bus has been carrying an extra passenger since last fall. Along with dozens of students, the bus rolls through the Vail School District's most far-flung portions equipped with a wireless router. It delivers the Internet to students for as many as three hours…

Many Canadian Educational Psychology classes currently emphasize and model constructivist teaching practices in addition to integrating the notion of connectivity and Web 2.0 into educational theory. This study examines "Moodle" as a technological tool to further enhance participation and performance in addition to the regularly used…

As increasing numbers of educators explore the use of virtual worlds for education, there is a need to consider which pedagogical approaches can provide an opportunity to do more than recreate the traditional classroom by leveraging the unique characteristics and potential that the technology can offer. This study identifies Communal…

The Open University, an open distance learning institution, is increasingly using a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) that requires internet access. This paper investigates how the move to a VLE has affected one group of students who do not have internet access--offender learners studying in prison. Members of the armed forces and secure hospital…

The rapid development of computer-supported collaborative environments has highlighted the need for collaborative knowledge construction devices. Because most available mindtools do not promote collaboration, there is a need for social mindtools that can be used in collaborative learning situations. We have used activity theory as a conceptual…