Social software is increasingly being used in higher and further education to support teaching and learning processes. These applications provide students with social and cognitive stimulation and also add to the interaction between students and educators. However, in addition to the benefits the introduction of social software into a course…

Helping students develop criteria for judgment and apply examination skills is essential for promoting scientific literacy. With the increasing availability of the Internet, it is even more essential that students learn how to evaluate the science they gather from online resources. This is particularly true because publishing information on the…

Success in today's global market requires students to attain numerous 21st-Century skills, including collaborative and communication skills, and knowledge of how to use technology to both locate and create information. The use of instructional blogging in the classroom is one way to help students develop such skills. The Children's Internet…

Web-based applications offer teachers, students, and school districts a convenient way to accomplish a wide range of tasks, from accounting to word processing, for free. Cloud computing has the potential to offer staff and students better services at a lower cost than the technology deployment models they're using now. Saving money and improving…

Since 2002 the "Zurich E-Learning Certificate" offers lecturers and academic staff from the three main universities in Zurich the possibility to take part in a professional development program which supports the acquirement of eCompetence. The program is the result of a cooperation between the University of Zurich (UZH), the Swiss…

This article presents the features, design and architecture of the Myst pervasive game platform that has been applied in creating pervasive mobile learning games in various contexts such as science festivals and museums in Finland. Based on our experiences with the development, we draw a set of design principles for creating successfully a…

The enterprise software market is seeing the rise of a new business model--selling Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), in which a standard piece of software is owned and managed remotely by the vendor and delivered as a service over the Internet. Despite the hype, questions remain regarding the rise of this new service model and how it would impact the…

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Library, where the author serves as the digital services librarian, is increasingly challenged to make it easier for users to find information from many heterogeneous information sources. Information is scattered throughout different software applications (i.e., library catalog, federated search engine, link…

This paper provides insights on the adoption or use of OpenCourseWare (OCW) to support broader research, training and institutional capacity development goals, based on the experience of the United Nations University. Specifically, it explains the strategic context for the use of OCW in the university through its related efforts in the area of…

Psychological interventions provide linguistic data that are particularly useful for testing mechanisms of action and improving intervention methodologies. For this study, emotional expression in an Internet-based intervention for women with breast cancer (n = 63) was analyzed via rater coding and 2 computerized coding methods (Linguistic Inquiry…

The current development of educational applications for language learning has experienced a qualitative change in the criteria of interaction between users and devices due to the technological advances of input and output data through keyboard, mouse, stylus, tactile screen, etc. The multiple interactions generated in a natural way by humans…

This article deals with gender phenomena in the context of digital literacy. Studies show that computer use, computer skills, and computer-related self-concepts are subject to gender differences. These differences may affect classroom interactions as well as learning processes and have therefore to be considered carefully by teachers who apply…

New social-sharing applications are transforming the Internet from a "read-only" (Web 1.0) environment to a "read-write" ecology that many are calling Web 2.0. These tools (e.g., weblogs and wikis) enable Internet users to publish information online almost as easily as they can read online, and they have tremendous potential for learning. This…

Purpose: The aim of this research is to enable web-based tracking and guiding by integrating location-awareness with the Worldwide Web so that the users can use various location-based applications without installing extra software. Design/methodology/approach: The concept of web-based tracking and guiding is introduced and the relevant issues are…

An important aspect of education is to promote higher-order thinking skills to learners. However, in the lecture environment, learners are passively engaged and it is unlikely for higher-order thinking to occur. Although interventions such as "clickers" can be used to increase engagement in lectures, this does not necessarily promote…