It wasn't long ago that an institution's primary social media options were Facebook and Twitter. Then, colleges and universities began diving into social media even if they didn't quite yet know what they should be trying to accomplish with these new channels. Now, as new platforms continually emerge, knowing when it's time to invest institutional…

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…

The media environment is currently being dramatically changed by social networking, mobile computing, augmented reality, and transmedia. Of these four, transmedia is probably the least familiar to most educators. Transmedia enhances a central story idea with a variety of media components that provide additional information, give increased…

Distance education (DE) practices around the world use a wide range of audio-visual technologies to overcome the lack of direct contact between teachers and students. These are not universally adopted by DE teachers, however, nor even encouraged by their institutions. This article discusses the organisational attitudes that can lead to outdated…

This case study investigated undergraduate students' first experience in online collaborative learning in a project-based learning (PBL) environment in Taiwan. Data were collected through interviews of 48 students, instructor's field notes, researchers' online observations, students' online discourse, and group artifacts. The findings revealed…

This study presents the results of a web-based questionnaire administered to 166 second language teachers and designed to obtain information about their use and needs of information and communication technologies (ICTs) as related to language learning (LL). Analyses revealed that, although teachers believe that second language acquisition is…

Podcasting is becoming more and more common as a method of delivery at universities and for training purposes. The concept to set up podcasting is simple, and the costs vary. The advantages of podcasting are enormous. Podcasting is especially effective for adult education programs. (Contains 17 online resources.)

The human brain contains an estimated 100 billion neurons, and browsing the Web, one might be led to believe that there's a Web site for every one of those cells. It's no surprise that there are lots of Web sites concerning the nervous system. After all, the human brain is toward the top of nearly everyone's list of favorite organs and of…

While the World Wide Web receives most of the publicity, another aspect of the Internet also draws considerable attention. IRC, more formally referred to as Internet Relay Chat, provides a means by which one user can type a message in real time to one or more Internet users, and almost instantaneously, the message appears on the monitors of all…

Identifies World Wide Web (Internet) sites useful for teachers. These include sites for locating lesson plans, conducting research or locating information sources, Web scavenger hunts, lesson enhancements, virtual field trips and explorations, sites that enhance collaboration, and sites for student research and for information about college…

Reports current governmental initiatives and projects on the elementary/secondary school and university level to provide a brief overview on the state of educational technology in Germany. Discusses conferences and exhibitions concerning the use of media in education, and uses of the Internet and distance education. (AEF)

ListServ allows all parties to speak in the same manner, regardless of their level of technology and bandwidth access. The entry barrier has always been lower than other related technologies. While the hyperbole continues to swirl around the Web as an educational medium, the quiet e-mail message, magnified through the use of ListServ, continues to…

Examines a nonintrusive model for technology training in teacher education and describes the University of Northern Iowa's basic preservice technology training course: educational media and classroom computing. Discusses media production, distance education, hypermedia, e-mail, telecommunications and the Internet, database construction,…

Information technology is integrated into biology courses through various mechanisms. Electronic mail distribution lists are used to answer student questions outside of class. The World Wide Web is used for posting interactive course syllabi and student-generated data. Most students surveyed indicated that integrating the Internet and the Web into…

Discusses a typology that can be used to guide educators in selection of cyberspace tools to accomplish specific tasks. The typology consists of four main divisions of properties: number of people communicating; real-time communications; permanency of communications; and automatic delivery to audience. These four divisions result in 16 possible…