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…

In this article, Howard Doughty examines how today's technological devices alter and increasingly substitute for one's body/mind, sociality and (a)morality. He claims that today, under the crushing weightlessness of virtuality, citizens are less confident, more willing to retreat into the idiocy of private life. He goes on to address the…

This commentary reflects on the contributions to learning analytics and theory by a paper that describes how multiple theoretical frameworks were woven together to inform the creation of a new, automated discourse analysis tool. The commentary highlights the contributions of the original paper, provides some alternative approaches, and touches on…

A well-researched report has listed the technologies that should increasingly feature in teaching. It is projected that in the coming year there will be increased use of cloud computing, mobile applications, social exchanges, and tablet computing. The New Media Consortium (NMC) that produced the report is an international association of…

The Amy Hestir Student Protection Act, also known as the Missouri Facebook Law, forbids exclusive or private conversations between teachers and students on Facebook. A judge has granted an injunction against it, but this issue has sparked a debate among teachers about whether they should be Facebook friends with current students and in what ways…

It could be said that in the fast-changing field of education technology the initial excitement for a tool or application usually fades away as the next technology emerges on the horizon--leaving little or no room for critical evaluation of how it may best be used in educational settings. Some critics have identified this endless "pursuit of the…

This article focuses on the reflexive deliberations of student mentors during an e-mentoring programme at a South African university. Based on semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions with student mentors, located in a number of different student residences, this article examines how they engage with their learning and use…

The author has been a witness to the birth of the personal computer culture, with its intense one-on-one relationships with machines, and then to the development of the networked culture, with people using the computer to communicate with each other. In her most recent work on the revolutions in social networking and sociable robotics, she sees a…

Twitter provides rapid information in a short form, and it is extremely easy to follow the updates of others because of myriad software applications with which it works on both mobile devices and traditional computing hardware. Currently, most academic librarians are using Twitter primarily as a tool at library conferences and seminars to capture…

In this edition of Innovate-Ideagora, Denise Easton and Alan McCord announce the consolidation of Innovate-Live, "Innovate's" venue for author webcasts, with Ideagora; webcasts will now be accessed from Ideagora, and archives will be made available through Ideagora. This change will simplify presentation and merge our multimedia presentations,…

Two seismic forces beyond our control--the advent of Web 2.0 and the inexorable influx of tech-savvy Millennials on campus--are shaping what Roger McHaney calls "The New Digital Shoreline" of higher education. Failure to chart its contours, and adapt, poses a major threat to higher education as we know it. These forces demand that we as educators…

The film "No Impact Man" tells the story of 40-something Colin Beavan, his wife Michelle Conlin, their 2-year-old daughter Isabella, and dog Frankie and their decision to go "off the grid" in an effort to have no personal net impact on the environment for a year while living in New York City. The film highlights the family's struggles to stay true…

The recent creation of Web 2.0 applications dramatically alters the ways in which universities recruit and educate students. Technology insiders usually attribute the phrase "Web 2.0" to Tim O'Reilly, author and publisher of the ubiquitous O'Reilly series of technology books (http://oreilly.com). Although there is no shortage of definitions of Web…

In this essay, the author examines the digital circulations of representations of one Afghan women's rights organization--the Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan (RAWA)--to demonstrate the importance of a global and digital field for feminist rhetorical analysis. Specifically, this analysis traces how women's self-representations are…

Technology is not just a tool but an amalgam of conceptual, institutional, and interactional issues that occupy the space of technical reason. In this space, parents' identity is becoming narrowed according to a limited conception in which the place of "caring" is in danger of being lost. Parents are increasingly required to adopt knowledge on…