Learning is becoming increasingly self-directed and often occurs away from schools and other formal educational settings. The development of a myriad of new technologies for learning has enabled people to learn anywhere and anytime. Web 2.0 technology allows researchers to shed a new light on the importance and prevalence of informal learning.…

"Ensemble" is an interdisciplinary research and development project exploring the potential role of emerging Semantic Web technologies in case-based learning across learning environments in higher education. Empirical findings have challenged the claim that cases "bring reality into the classroom" and that this, in turn, might…

The rich learning resources and contexts learners experience in their everyday life could play important roles in complementing formal learning, but are often neglected by learners and teachers. In this paper, we present an intervention study in "Move, Idioms!", a mobile-assisted Chinese language learning approach that emphasizes contextualized…

Scholars participate in online social networks for professional purposes. In such networks, learning takes the form of participation and identity formation through engagement in and contribution to networked practices. While current literature describes the possible benefits of online participation, empirical research on scholars' use of online…

This paper presents an original approach to designing social media that support informal learning in the digital workplace. It adapts design-based research to take into account the embeddedness of interactions within digitally mediated work-based contexts. The approach is demonstrated through the design, implementation, and evaluation of software…

Two recent emerging trends are that of Web 2.0, where users actively create content and publish it on the Web, and also location awareness, where a digital device utilizes a person's physical location as the context to provide specific services and/or information. This paper examines how these two phenomena can be brought together so that…

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…