This study surveyed 399 incoming first-year students at two colleges in the Midwest on their use of social network sites before college entry and its impact on various dimensions of the first-year experience. Significant correlations were found for two pairs of variables: (a) students who used social network sites before arriving on campus…

Recently, interest has sparked in collaboration and networking within and between universities, industry, government and the wider populace. Knowledge transfer has gradually become a strategic issue, so that many governments and funding bodies now use economic-based incentives to mandate collaboration in hope of stimulating innovation, improving…

Education. Democracy. These are two sides of the same coin: Society. How can be a society, democratic, if it does not offer a sound education to its fellow citizens? My central question is: Will the 'Digital Divide', in Higher Education, be filled, globally, by MOOCs? Or on the contrary, the claim "Anyone with an Internet connection can have…

The purpose of this study was to identify dimensions of students' communication satisfaction in an asynchronous discussion forum. An asynchronous discussion may be defined as text-based human-to-human communication via computer networks that provides a platform for the participants to interact with one another to exchange ideas, insights, and…

The aim of this study is to discover secondary school students' perceptions related to information technologies and the connections between concepts in their cognitive structures. A word association test consisting of six concepts related to information technologies is used to collect data from 244 secondary school students. Concept maps that…

This research aims to discover interpersonal trust in online communities. Two novel trust models are built to explain interpersonal trust in online communities drawing theories and models from multiple relevant areas, including organizational trust models, trust in virtual settings, speech act theory, identity theory, and common bond theory. In…

Instructional designers need to be able to assess the level of knowledge construction generated by participants of a virtual learning community (VLC). Such participants include the learners engaged in threaded discussions within online courses. Assessing the level of knowledge construction enables course revisions that scaffold such knowledge…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to use the Objective Knowledge Growth Framework (OKGF) in the development and maintenance of the Canadian Principal Learning Network (CPLN) to advance principals' knowledge and skills in the area of decision making. First, the paper presents the inception of the CPLN, to assist principals in making decisions…

Nudged by scholars to make their practice public and to "put [themselves] out there" by participating in professional conversations online, many English teachers are turning to the Web to enhance their professional development. This article draws from a qualitative study investigating five English teachers' experiences participating…

Research exists that applies the dualistic model of passion to face-to-face teaching, but no research has applied this model to online instruction. Distance education theories imply a need to discover factors contributing to online faculty motivation to engage students. Although there has been extensive exploration of intrinsic and extrinsic…

This study presents a case study of asynchronous online discussions' (AOD) growth patterns in an undergraduate blended course to address the gap in our current understanding of how threads are developed in peer-moderated AODs. Building on a taxonomy of thread pattern proposed by Chan, Hew and Cheung (2009), growth patterns of thirty-six forums…

cMOOCs, which are based on connectivist learning theory, bring challenges for learners as well as opportunities for self-inquiry. Previous studies have shown that learners in cMOOCs may have difficulties learning, but these studies do not provide any in-depth, empirical explorations of student difficulties or support strategies. This paper…

Despite the emerging phenomenon of sexting, scientific investigation with criminological perspectives has been limited. Utilizing data collected from 1,612 randomly selected youth in South Korea, this study begins the investigation into which criminological theory best explains sexting behaviors. Theories considered include self-control, social…

Most undergraduate students arrive on campus fluent in electronic communication methods and social media (SM). This cultural or communication shift presents both opportunities and challenges in pedagogy. Social media allows users to share and network with geographically diverse individuals and has the potential for engaging students both inside…

The aim of this study was to determine the effects of different types of language tasks performed in Second Life (SL) on the oral performance of beginners of Chinese as a Second Language (CSL), focusing on oral accuracy. The 30 CSL beginners who participated in this study were randomly divided into two groups (n = 15 per group), required to…