This article describes expertise development in a player group in the massively multiplayer online game World of Warcraft using visualization of chat log data. Charts were created to get a general sense of chat trends in a specific player group engaged in "high-end raiding", a 40-person collaborative activity. These charts helped identify patterns…

This article presents an idea of "digital social creativity" as part of social media and examines an approach emphasising openness and experimentation and collaborative learning in the world of information and communication technologies. Wikipedia and similar digital tools provide both challenges to and possibilities for building learning sites in…

In this article it is argued that communities of enquiry can and should be developed in courses delivered online. These communities make the most of the available technological resources and overcome some otherwise daunting challenges faced in online course delivery. Indeed, asynchronous tools like discussion boards offer a range of benefits for…

In the Western Pacific, the People First Network project has since 2001 been building a growing network of rural email stations across the conflict-ridden Solomon Islands. These stations are based on robust technology and consist of solar panels, short-wave radios and compatible modems, laptop computers and printers to provide email communication…

This article aims to explore the potential of certain future studies techniques to provide insight into the question of the impact of higher education information and communication technology (ICT) strategies on student learning. The approach is to consider three case studies of new universities in different countries, and to identify the main…

It is commonly agreed that professional development of teachers in the use of information and communication technologies should be sustained over time. Most professional development, however, is delivered in single or short sequences of face-to-face sessions, paying little heed to this requirement. Once the face-to-face training is completed, a…

In the United States, government funding underwrites the cost of child care services for over 1.7 million children from income-eligible families. About one in four American children served by these subsidies is cared for in a setting where a state-issued license to operate is not required, but in many states the percentages are higher. In…

In this article, the authors work across issues of information and communication technologies (ICT) in education to explore the meaning of emotional experience in the context of online learning. In light of Mestrovic's (1997) notion of a "post-emotional" society and the increasing role of ICT in education, it is argued that educators need to…

Meaning making in new media is rapidly presenting new opportunities and new challenges for those working in formal and informal educational contexts. This article provides an overview of current theory, thinking and commentary in order to map the field of digital literacy and to identify key questions for research and policy development. It…

This article argues that "new literacies" is a useful construct for recognizing and understanding the extent to which changes in the current conjuncture are extending social practices of using codes for making and exchanging meanings in directions that warrant serious rethinking of how and why we research literacies. It provides a…

This article attempts to articulate in broad outline the post-industrial regime of knowledge and information and point out its fatal flaw. The Internet is treated as a socio-technological complex animated by capital and information. The notion of information is interrogated and an alternative notion closer to our everyday intuitions is proposed.…

Drawing on ancient Greek mythology, this article traces the learning experiences of 164 pre-service education students as they make the transition from a conventional face-to-face (f-2-f) learning environment to an Information and Communication Technology (ICT) rich setting. Influenced by Social Presence Theory (Short, Williams & Christie,…

This article looks at the ethical implications of the use of information and communications technology (ICT) in bringing about development in developing societies. Any proposed means to enhance development has costs as well as benefits. Hence, the evaluation of a given means to development should always be a matter of "applied ethics".…

This article addresses an impasse in debates about online education in university education. One side presents a story of the progressive development of technology as it is applied to the organisation of higher education, leading to pedagogical advances and to the new forms of administration required for the realisation of the technology's full…

The United Kingdom and other governments have demonstrated faith in information and communications technology (ICT) as a means of achieving a participative and inclusive society through various high-profile initiatives. It is also claimed that ICT or e-learning can bring about new patterns of power and participation for excluded learners. In this…