It is well-known that digital learning materials influence the classroom curriculum and didactics. At the same time, few studies examine the role of the data visualizations offered by digital learning materials. Data visualizations signpost the emergence of students as data subjects who can be observed and compared on a computer screen. They thus…

This article examines the role of social media metadata in conducting studies of professional development in social media spaces. It traces the brief history of research surrounding social media spaces, noting the lack of research that drills into social media metadata in research on professional development. Framed through a software studies…

Educators can use video to gain invaluable information about their students. A concern is that collecting videos online can create an increased security risk for children. The purpose of this article is to provide ethical and legal guidelines for designing video-based apps for mobile devices and the web. By reviewing the literature, law, and code…

Easy A's may be even easier to score these days, with the growing popularity of online courses. Tech-savvy students are finding ways to cheat that let them ace online courses with minimal effort, in ways that are difficult to detect. The issue of online cheating may rise in prominence, as more and more institutions embrace online courses, and as…

Due to its complex and microscopic nature, genetics is a difficult subject for many learners to conceptually grasp. Graphics, animation and video material can be extremely helpful to their understanding. A wealth of educational online content about genetics has been created over the past decade in the wake of the human genome being sequenced.…

This paper offers a compilation of technologies that provides either free or low-cost solutions to the challenges of teaching online courses. It presents various teaching methods the outlined tools and technologies can support, with emphasis on fit between these tools and the tasks they are meant to serve. In addition, it highlights various…

This essay regards the licensing of digital content in universities. The author states that the academic community has overwhelmingly adopted course-management software systems such as Blackboard to distribute electronic course materials to students. She argues that such use presents a significant problem: the absence of any institutional…