At the end of 2010, for the first time ever, smartphones outsold PCs. Mobile device adoption rates continue to rise rapidly around the world. A recent forecast by Cisco found that global mobile data traffic more than doubled last year, and by the end of 2012, the number of mobile devices in use will outnumber the world's population. In the United…

Motivation, engagement, goal attainment and effective interaction are essential components for college students to be successful in the online educational environment. The popularity and influx of electronic media applications has allowed educators the opportunity to incorporate social media (Facebook, Twitter), and volitional messages (Simple…

This article describes parents' and educators' perceptions of home-school relationships that benefited children and their families in one school district. Family involvement literature and social network theory, especially Burt's (2001) structural holes, served as the theoretical framework. In semistructured interviews, 39 participants, including…

Members of the Net Generation are increasingly using social networking sites to interact with individuals both on and off campus. In this study, we employed a quantitative approach with an exploration of descriptive data to examine "Facebook" site features pre-service educators use and how those features are utilized in personal and…

In this article, the authors examine contemporary pluralistic, technologically-driven societies where human spirituality, in terms of human experiences of connectedness, is eroded and overwhelmed by high levels of cultural and religious diversity and hi-tech devices. Without connectedness, empathy and compassion become missing elements resulting…

This report draws on 53 focus group interviews conducted with students aged 13 and 15 in both representative and innovating UK secondary schools. The schedule for these discussions covered a wide range of issues relating to the use of Web 2.0 services both in and out of school. These young people were often deeply engaged with this technology and…

Geographical inquiry involves collecting, using and making sense of the data to investigate some geographical phenomena. With the increasing number of mobile devices equipped with Internet access capabilities, there is a wide scope for using it in field inquiry where learning can take place in the form of social interactions between team members…

This column posits enhancing professional development through uses of digital tools to create professional learning communities (PLCs) designed to support collective inquiry and action research leading to schoolwide improvement. These digital tools include a social networking/discussion forum for teacher collaboration; teachers' individual…

To date, little empirical research on professional use of social network sites has been conducted, particularly with reference to groups of teachers on Facebook. The paper presents the results of two surveys addressed to the founders of five Italian Facebook groups and their members (n = 1107), with the aim of investigating mechanisms underlying…

This paper reports on a case study investigating students' participation and learning presence in an educational blog implemented as a cross-thematic inquiry activity exploring and debating on the acid rain problem. Twenty-one secondary education students (14-15 years aged), coming from two separate classes, were involved. The content and…

This study aimed to investigate the relationships between college students' behavioral and cognitive engagements while performing an online collective information searching (CIS) activity. The activity aimed to assist the students in utilizing a social bookmarking application to exploit the Internet in a collective manner. A group of 101 college…

It was the aim of this study to investigate physical education undergraduate students' views on the use of social networking, one of the most typical representations of Web 2.0 technologies. In order to do so, the researcher, who was the instructor of the class, entitled "Fair Play Education in Sport", introduced Ning and its educational…

This article shares findings from a year-long study about social practices of high school youth with mobile devices during school time. In particular, this study found that students see their school time as fluidly social and academic. Educators and policy-makers need to carefully consider these social practices when preparing 21st century youth…

Facebook and other social media have been hailed as delivering the promise of new, socially engaged educational experiences for students in undergraduate, self-directed, and other educational sectors. A theoretical and historical analysis of these media in the light of earlier media transformations, however, helps to situate and qualify this…

The purpose of the study was to examine pre-service teachers' sense of community, perception of collaborative learning, and perceived learning. Fifty pre-service teachers from two undergraduate ICT courses which incorporated blogs participated in this study. The data were obtained via three online questionnaires (Collaborative Learning scale,…