Social networking tools have been getting quite a bit of press in libraryland for the past couple of years. It is considered to be one of the key aspects of a library joining what is referred to as the Library 2.0 movement. In this context, social networking is seen as a library service or library outreach mechanism that utilizes popular social…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe some of the problems and issues faced by online library catalogues. It aims to establish how libraries have undertaken the mission of developing the next generation catalogues and how they compare to new tools such as Amazon. Design/methodology/approach: An expert study was carried out in January…

Over the past decade, technology has become increasingly important in the lives of adolescents. As a group, adolescents are heavy users of newer electronic communication forms such as instant messaging, e-mail, and text messaging, as well as communication-oriented Internet sites such as blogs, social networking, and sites for sharing photos and…

Emergent ethnographic research disentangles "social capital" from other components of social class (e.g., material and human capital) to show how class-stratified parental social networks exacerbate educational inequality among schoolchildren. The authors build upon this research by using survey data to reexamine whether certain forms of parental…

Social contexts in which confidants get to know each other affect the composition of their personal networks, inter alia the similarity among confidants. Results from analyses on a representative sample of the Dutch population between 18 and 65 years of age (SSND 2000), support the idea that differences in similarity among confidants can be…

Much contemporary theorising on educational decision-making starts from the premise that the process of decision-making is a deeply embedded social practice, which is inextricably linked to behaviours, attitudes and dispositions which hold sway within an individual's social network. Drawing on data from a project focusing on decision-making…

Background/Context: Though cast in many styles and given different labels, the notion that one can improve schools by improving or changing the social context of learning is a common thread that runs through the arguments of many education reformers and scholars. Indeed, a common assertion in education reform is that one needs to create school…

This instrumental case study investigates the use of a team mentoring approach in a first-year seminar, which was created in response to concerns about first-year student attrition. The seminar was developed in the department of Organizational Leadership at Purdue University--West Lafayette in 2004. The aims of the course were to familiarize…

This paper examines the affordance of the Danish social networking site Mingler.dk for peer-to-peer learning and development. With inspiration from different theoretical frameworks, the authors argue how learning and development in such social online systems can be conceptualised and analysed. Theoretically the paper defines development in…

As support and professional-development opportunities for teachers begin to move from conference rooms to chat rooms, a burgeoning number of states and districts are drawing on features from course-management software and popular social-networking sites to establish online networks connecting teachers to peers who may live dozens or even hundreds…

Purpose: The objective of this paper is to assess the effectiveness of innovation diffusion under group-oriented and individual-oriented extension. Current theoretical notions of innovation diffusion in social networks shall be briefly reviewed, and the concepts of "search" and "innovation" vis-a-vis "transfer" and…

With the advances in computational power, Internet access and speed, and graphical 3D reproductions possible on an "ordinary" home computer, and with the development of new software products that place the ability to create new digital content in the hands of "ordinary" people, everyone is beginning to see in virtual worlds emergent behaviors that…

When it comes to technologies like digital games, simulations, and social networking, teachers and students may find themselves at cross purposes. Often, students find that these technologies, so prevalent in their lives outside of school, are unwelcome in their classrooms. Many teachers can tell stories about the disruptive influence of video…

In this study, the authors examined the combined effects of caregiver mental health, alcohol use, and social network support/satisfaction on child mental health needs among African American caregiver-child dyads at risk of maltreatment. The sample included 514 eight-year-old African American children and their caregivers who participated in the…

This grounded theory study was designed to generate theory to understand how student academic support is communicated between students during the freshmen transition. No literature exists on the process of how students informally communicate support for academics during the college transition. The diary-interview method was utilized with college…