In this article I report the findings of a descriptive and interpretative qualitative study carried out in a public school in Bogotá, Colombia. The study aimed at analyzing, describing and exploring teenage students' social identity representation as observed in their participation in a learning community on Facebook. Data were collected from…

The purpose of this study is to understand the relationship between quality social support networks developed through high quality afterschool programming and achievement amongst middle school and high school aged youth. This study seeks to develop a deeper understanding of how quality after-school programs influence a youth's developmental…

School librarians and educators have specific copyright questions that are often glossed over in larger books on the subject. Now, thanks to best-selling copyright authority Carrie Russell, there's a resource just for them, offering clear guidance for providing materials to students while carefully observing copyright law. Using whimsical…

The purpose of this study was to reveal the perceptions of African American engineers on how college choice influenced their success, ethnic identity, and professional sense of belonging by documenting the unique experiences and success stories of African American engineers who attended four-year institutions, historically Black colleges and…

Research demonstrates that parental involvement can have a positive impact on students' academic, emotional, and social success; however, there are few studies of how to improve parent advocacy and home-school collaboration in special education. The focus of this qualitative case study was to understand perceptions of the special educators…

The purpose of the study was to define families' of children with intellectual disabilities, needs on education and support services. Descriptive survey model was used in the study. Data was collected via semi-structured interviews. The study was conducted in 9 Training Application Schools (Egitim Uygulama Okulu) that were formal special education…

In this paper, we propose a grouping strategy to enhance the learning and testing results of students, called Pairing Strategy (PS). The proposed method stems from the need of interactivity and the desire of cooperation in cooperative learning. Based on the social networks of students, PS provides members of the groups to learn from or mimic…

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…