In this paper I identify some current elaborations on the theme of participation and digital literacy in order to open further debate on the relationship between interaction, collaboration and learning in online environments. Motivated by an interest in using new technologies in the context of formal learning (Merchant, 2009), I draw on in-school…

The transformative powers of digital technology to improve student learning and the resulting effect of that technology to make the business of education more cost-effective are two of the more exciting dynamics in schooling today. Before the current school year ends, new products and upgrades will be available to replace much of the technology.…

The Australian Museum has been working with the Coalition of Knowledge Building Schools over the past five years. Students aged from 5-18 years have been advising the Museum on the development of exhibitions and programs, as well as how the Museum can best use the digital environment to showcase its research and collections. This paper outlines…

While development of the Internet has contributed to the spread of online education, online exams have not been widely adopted. An online exam is defined here as one that takes place over the insecure Internet, and where no proctor is in the same location as the examinees. This paper proposes an enhanced secure online exam management environment…

It has been reported that as many as fifty percent of adults, including first-year University students, have some sort of computer-related phobia. This report demonstrates that the use of computers still has some unpleasant side effects despite the Internet boom in the past decade. Past research shows that computer anxiety influences how users…

This article looks at new information and communication technologies (ICTs) as sites of public pedagogy in that they produce particular forms of knowledge and literacies and reproduce representations that are always mediated through specific social relations. Public pedagogy as a process that constitutes a broader category beyond classroom…

Content analysis has dominated computer-mediated communication and educational technology studies for some time, and a review of its practices applied to online corpus of data or messages is overdue. We are confronted with complexity given the various foci, nuances and models for theorising learning and applying methods. One common suggestion to…

Also known as the read/write or participatory Web, Web 2.0 includes such tools as blogs, podcasts, forums, wikis and social networks. It gives users the ability to take in information and create, organize and connect with others interested in the same topics. Web 2.0 is revolutionizing education because students and educators can easily and…

The Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA; 2000) requires an Internet filtering and public awareness strategy to protect children under 17 from harmful visual Internet depictions. This study compared high school students who went online with the CIPA restriction and college students who went online without the restriction in order to…

As blogs light up with lively conversations about iPads, netbooks, and smart phones, it's easy to forget one major roadblock to preparing all children for the future: the digital divide. Although middle-class students often take high-speed Internet access for granted, a full 65 percent of Americans who make less than $25,000 a year lack broadband…

Web resources in Latin American higher education institutions have been reported to show a much stronger emphasis on Information than on Communication. A Course Management System (CMS), according to Social Constructivism framework, is an opportunity for fostering learning through interaction in a virtual environment for learning; hence,…

In times of liberalization, privatization and globalization (LPG), countries are looking to establish effective systems of lifelong learning to prepare farmers for changing agricultural sector. But offering lifelong learning to farmers in developing countries) is a vital challenge as majority of them are residing in remote and rural areas and have…

2008 marked the 10-year Anniversary of the Open Source movement, which has had a substantial impact on not only software production and adoption, but also on the sharing and distribution of information. Technical communication as a discipline has taken some advantage of the movement or its derivative software, but this article argues not as much…

The purpose of this study was to identify instructional strategies used by teachers to support technology integration. In addition, relations between types of computer applications and teachers' classroom practices were examined. Data were direct observation results from 143 integration lessons implemented in schools receiving federal technology…

Many professionals in instructional education have experienced a relatively new potential virtual learning environment, called Second Life (SL). This article will connect the virtual world to the essential next step in our learning and communicating approach, electracy. Initially, humans utilized an oral mode to communicate, followed by literacy…