In this article, we describe the rationale, design and evaluation of a widget-based dashboard to support scholars' awareness of their Research Networks. We introduce the concept of a Research Network and discuss Personal Research Environments that are built of as a development parallel to Personal Learning Environments. Based on the results…

Situated within an informal learning context, this study examines how a group of pre-service teachers in Hong Kong use Facebook and Google Sites on their own initiative to fulfil their academic and socio-emotional needs during their teaching practice. Also included in the study are the motivating and inhibiting factors that influence student…

The rhetoric on the potential of Web 2.0 technologies to democratize online engagement of students often overlooks the discomforting, differential participation and asymmetrical engagement that accompanies student adoption of emerging technologies. This paper, therefore, constitutes a critical reality check for student adoption of technology to…

Conole and Alevizou's social media typology (Conole and Alevizou, 2010) includes amongst its ten categories: media sharing; conversational arenas and chat; social networking and blogging. These are all media with which language learners are increasingly engaging (Lamy and Zourou, 2013). Social networking tools, in particular, which encourage…

Over the past two decades policies and speculations have been evident about the importance of internet use including technologies in education and learning at all levels to individuals and societies. The purposes, theories and ways in which learning with technologies ought to be conceptualised and functionalised is generating an increased body of…

Supervision of teaching practice is an important aspect of training teachers in improving their teaching skills. Barriers such as distance and time factor are the constraints faced by the lecturers at the National University of Malaysia to communicate with the teacher trainees under their supervision. Therefore, this study aims to develop and…

The use of an online learning community is one possible approach to teachers' professional development that can enhance the opportunity for collaboration. Discussions in online learning communities not only allow community members to share resources, ideas and expertise, but also contribute to the fulfilment of teachers' needs in terms of…

The purpose of this study was to examine the spectrum of undergraduate students' social interactions and related technological tools. Qualitative methods were used for this phenomenological study exploring 35 in-person interviews, with horizonalization in an open coding system secured by in-depth analysis which revealed nuanced themes and…

The aim of this article is to gain knowledge about what it means to be a learner using social media in an educational setting. The article presents an ethnographic study of students in a multiethnic community in Oslo who participate in a social networking site called Space2cre8 (S28). In this article, we set out to explore the kind of space for…

With continued development of related technologies, Web 2.0 has become an important site of learning innovation. In particular, social networking sites such as Facebook, which have become popular, have the potential to function as an educational tool enabling peer feedback, interaction, and learning in a social context. Preparing appropriate…

Social networking tools have become an integral part of a pre-service teacher's educational experience. As a result, the educational value of social networking tools in teacher preparation programs must be examined. The specific problem addressed in this study is that the role of social networking tools in teacher education learning communities…

This article reports on an exploratory study that examines how social networks can be used in foreign language teaching and learning. Qualitative data including interviews, online observations, and students' responses to open-ended survey questions was collected. The data suggests that there are both advantages and challenges associated with using…

In a typical South African contact university, where learning and instruction is done following a strict class schedule, the challenge of providing personalized learning support is still prevalent. This paper argues that the advent of Web 2.0 affords varied opportunities to cushion this challenge, faced by learners. In this paper, social presence…

Frequently interacting with other people or working in an information-rich environment can foster the "accidental discovery of information" (ADI) (Erdelez, 2000; McCay-Peet & Toms, 2010). With the increasing adoption of social web technologies, online user-participation communities and user-generated content have provided users the…

In this study, an e-learning environment was designed for teacher candidates. Teacher candidates developed multimedia-based projects by means of multimedia tools. This research aims to determine the effects of online and blended learning approaches on the success level of multimedia projects and the teacher candidates' attitudes, opinions and…