This qualitative study explores networked collaborative learning in the context of an online undergraduate education course, analyzing the talk, thinking, and media that students jointly produced during a discussion hosted via video conference. Our work speaks to recent interest in online instruction, particularly in post-secondary institutions,…

With the recent COVID-19 pandemic and disruption of campus-based education, the use of mobile social networking applications to supplement formal education has attracted a great deal of attention. Teachers do have opportunities to join students' online groups to share, clarify, and exchange housekeeping information and course-related content with…

Participation in synchronous online learning is an increasing need for students' learning outcomes. Teachers generally cannot be sure about the fact that students who are seen in the participation lists are really following the online tasks. Recent studies have shown that gamification can be an effective way to support learners' participation in…

Social network sites in general, and Facebook in particular, allow users with common interests to meet, share ideas, and collaborate, creating new forms of informal learning. In order to understand and eventually take advantage of the many benefits that Facebook can bring to the academic world, we need to study its adoption process. The objective…

This study experimentally manipulated the way students submit their assignments and tested the number of new words that are learned in each condition. The results showed that students who submitted their assignments through Facebook learned as much as those who submitted their assignment in a traditional way. In the light of these findings, we can…

The use of technology to support learning is well recognised. One generation ago a major strand of human--computer interaction research focussed on the development of forms of instruction in how to interact with computers. Today, however, the advanced usability of modern technologies has all but removed the presence of many user manuals. Learners,…

This article is a theoretical study of the self-presentation strategies employed by higher education students online; it examines student identity work via profile information and avatars in a blended learning environment delivered through social networking sites and virtual worlds. It argues that students are faced with difficult choices when…

This article discusses the combination of methods used in a study of the use of Facebook as an educational resource by a class of five students at a sixth-form college in north-west England. Through a project in which teacher-researcher and student-participants co-constructed a Facebook group page about the students' scaffolded research into…

It is understood that microblogging (tweeting) which is a form of Web 2.0, has been a centre of attraction in some institutions of higher education. However, despite its hype and pomp as reported by some scholars in developed countries, integration of Twitter in a classroom environment in developing countries is just beginning to flourish. In…

This article focuses on learning and identity-related practices of young female fans of a popular British boy band called One Direction. Drawing on qualitative inquiry into a fanfiction community formed around the band, analysis highlights (a) the literate work fans engage in, including writing, reading, critiquing, and collaborating on multimodal…

Since its inception at Harvard in 2004, the social network, Facebook, has grown dramatically and spread across the globe. It will soon have 1 billion users and is now operative in over 75 languages. A large percentage of undergraduates are now active on Facebook. Much of the recent literature on Facebook focuses on business applications and how it…

The power to influence others in ever expanding social networks in the new knowledge economy is tied to capabilities with digital media production that require increased technological knowledge. This article draws on research in primary classrooms to examine the repertoires of cross-disciplinary knowledge that literacy learners need to produce…

This article outlines a learning intervention which the authors call Learning by Design. The goal of this intervention is classroom and curriculum transformation, and the professional learning of teachers. The experiment involves the practical application of the learning theory to everyday classroom practice. Its ideas are grounded in pedagogical…