Building strong bonds between home and school is one of National Middle School Association's (2003) 14 characteristics for successful middle schools set forth in "This We Believe". Getting teachers to actually believe in the value of parental involvement is not always easy. This article examines a range of key issues in the literature on…

Federal agencies are increasingly using electronic means to create, exchange, and store information, and in doing so, they frequently create federal records: that is, information, in whatever form, that documents government functions, activities, decisions, and other important transactions. As the volume of electronic information grows, so does…

In this paper, we describe and evaluate two state-of-the-art systems for identifying and correcting writing errors involving English articles and prepositions. Criterion[superscript SM], developed by Educational Testing Service, and "ESL Assistant", developed by Microsoft Research, both use machine learning techniques to build models of article…

This study investigated the negotiations and challenges experienced by five Chinese ESL (English as a second language) students of Commerce through their engagement in an academic presentation in a regular content course at a Canadian university. Multiple sources of data were collected, including interviews, class observations, group discussions,…

With the rapid development of mobile technologies, mobile learning has become a new trend in education. A better understanding of how to effectively use communication technologies to improve mobile learning is important. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the media richness of various message delivery methods in the proposed m-learning…

In this article, the author discusses text messaging and instant messaging (IM). In a nutshell, text messaging is another name for Short Message Service (SMS). SMS is a service available on most digital mobile phones that permits the sending of short messages (also known as SMSes, text messages, messages, or more colloquially texts or even txts)…

Despite the fact that e-mail has been firmly entrenched in offices and homes for some time, debate still rages online about e-mail usage and style. How should and e-mail message begin and end? If replying to a message, should the message be quoted before or after? What tone should be taken with a business e-mail? The author talked with some heavy…

This descriptive research study was conducted to determine if the International Education Technology cluster achieved its goals of increasing teachers' international knowledge, skills, and initiatives in global education. A cluster is a focused group of professional development experiences that lead to new knowledge and skills. Clusters are…

As a founder of the University Leadership Initiative, an advocacy group for undocumented students in Texas, Julieta Garibay sorts through the numerous e-mails her organization receives daily. Before the economic downturn, most of the e-mails were from students in the state. Now, because Texas is a rare exception in allowing undocumented college…

In this study, two data collection instruments were used to examine how Dutch secondary school teachers learn in the workplace. Firstly, they completed a questionnaire on their preferences for learning activities on two occasions. Secondly, during the intermediate period, they reported learning experiences in digital logs. Results of both…

The purpose was to examine the impact of an email intervention campaign to increase physical activity among women. Participants' activity levels were assessed at baseline, immediately following the intervention and one year post intervention. (N = 475) received weekly Walking Tips Intervention Emails (WTIE) for 6 weeks. Participants were primarily…

This paper describes how Chinese-English bilinguals in Taiwan use their languages in asynchronous computer-mediated communication, specifically, via Bulletin Board System (BBS) and email. The main data includes two types: emails collected from a social network and postings collected from two BBS websites. By examining patterns of language choice…

This article summarizes discussions on listservs. Topic covered are circulation policies regarding patrons from other colleges, the shelving of sacred books, laptop circulation, Ariel vs email attachment for interlibrary loan, best software for remote instruction, paper copies of ereserves, interlibrary loan privileges for alumni and policies…

Since the first postgraduate certificate in higher education teaching and learning was offered in Australia in the late 1970s, similar courses have become a major part of academic development in universities in Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. This paper describes the outcomes of a survey designed to determine the key higher…

Personal learning networks (PLNs) are not new. People have long relied on their families, friends, colleagues, and acquaintances to supplement their knowledge about the world. But the times are changing. Information and communication technologies (ICT), including an ever-growing repertoire of open source applications, have freed content from the…