Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are courses offered for free for any students with an internet connection. Many institutions now offer free MOOCs, including prestigious state universities and private schools. MOOCs are differentiated from ordinary online classes in several ways. Some MOOCs may have as many 50,000 students enrolled in a course…

Disclaimer: I have been an active "free" user of LinkedIn for 5.463 years with more than 3000 (1st degree) connections from all over the world. I have no vested interest in LinkedIn other than as a user of the services it provides. Despite the fact that LinkedIn was originally designed as a network for business professionals, not…

It is widely recognized today that a teacher's surrounding professional community inevitably affects the kind of teaching that students are offered. However, until recently, it has been difficult to quantify and systematically study the nature of professional relationships in schools and districts. The articles in this special issue provide a…

Recent critiques have drawn important attention to the depoliticized consensus and empty promises embedded in network discourses of educational policy. While acceding this critique, this discussion argues that some forms of network analysis--specifically those adopting actor-network theory (ANT) approaches--actually offer useful theoretical…

While online teaching may be the wave of the future, it is not for this author, who writes "I trained for it, I tried it, and I'll never do it again." An instructor with years of experience successfully teaching in collegiate classrooms, she says online teaching does not compare. So she will chalk up her first and only venture to experience and…

Here, we argue that action learning (AL) has been evolving into different variations, whose respective advocates appear to concentrate on one of the several components inherent in Revans' formulation of AL as L = P + Q. They do this--sometimes inappropriately--to the virtual or relative exclusion of other aspects, and this has consequences for the…

"Impersonal, disconnected, and unfulfilling." That is how the author would have answered if anyone asked her 10 years ago what she thought of online teaching. As a teacher, she feeds off the energy of the crowd and thrives on exciting and entertaining her students to the point of drawing even the most resistant into attending class. When the…

Two years ago, a former student of the author was raped. That should have been awful enough. But a few months later, his student discovered that her personal horror was being openly discussed--or, more accurately, mocked--on the gossip Web site JuicyCampus, where some of her classmates told her, and anyone else who happened to read the site, that…

Twitter provides rapid information in a short form, and it is extremely easy to follow the updates of others because of myriad software applications with which it works on both mobile devices and traditional computing hardware. Currently, most academic librarians are using Twitter primarily as a tool at library conferences and seminars to capture…

As regular attendees at the Academy of Human Resource Development (AHRD) Conference, the authors enjoyed interacting with the highly relevant study by Diane Chapman and her colleagues (Chapman, Wiessner, Morton, Fire, Jones, & Majekodunmi, 2009). In the study, they use several theoretical tools to understand the learning experiences of doctoral…

While the growing prevalence of Web 2.0 in education opens up exciting opportunities for universities to explore expansive, new literacies practices, concomitantly, it presents unique challenges. Many universities are changing from a content delivery paradigm of eLearning 1.0 to a learner-focused paradigm of eLearning 2.0. In this article, we…

It's official: Online social networking is mainstream. Once the domain of teenagers and techno-geeks, sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, and Twitter are rapidly gaining popularity with the multi-aged masses. Last year, in fact, Facebook reported its fastest growing demographic was those 25 years and older. There's no question that this new…

Most state governments in Australia have banned popular online networking sites from public schools after these sites were accused of supporting a broad host of threats to young people. This paper questions the effectiveness of these bans in light of recent empirical research that highlights the social and educational benefits that can accrue from…

Argues that the traditional centralized model of the public telecommunication networks is being undermined by a host of centrifugal forces, and that a new and open network concept is emerging that breaks down the dichotomy between the telecommunications sector and the rest of the economy. (JD)

Argues that the metaphor of "networks" is valid only in reference to formal relationships, not informal connections such as self-help groups or family and friends. Evaluates uses of network analysis and concludes that "circle" may be a better metaphor for informal connections. Contains 63 references. (SK)