The focus of this study is to explore the advances that Social Network Analysis (SNA) can bring, in combination with other methods, when studying Networked Learning/Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (NL/CSCL). We present a general overview of how SNA is applied in NL/CSCL research; we then go on to illustrate how this research method can…

This research was supported in part though an IMLS Kent State University Grant supporting Information Literacy. Based on the importance of teacher-school library media specialist collaboration, this study seeks to advance knowledge involving the dynamics of this special relationship. The subjects were a group of student librarians--themselves…

The ways that high school staff value, use, and share information about student background, performance, and behavior are an essential component of school improvement, especially in decisions involving the placement, instruction, and progress of disadvantaged students. Using survey data from seven high schools, the study summarized in this report…

A case study tested the premise that people cope with ambiguity in particular ways within an organizational context, negotiating for understanding and choice through the manipulation of power, ideology, and technology. The study focused on the implementation of a satellite communications network in local Catholic Church offices and on staff…

The writing-reading process is a total interacting system comprising four subsystems: the writer, the text, the reader, and the context. A model of the complex interactions among these four subsystems is useful to the extent that it provides a framework for established facts, and in so far as it explains phenomena and suggests hypotheses. While…

A mathematical model that describes attitude change in human communication networks is developed in this paper. The parameters of the model are drawn from a review of the literature related to network analysis, small group influence, mass communication, and attitude change. The literature review identifies key variables that influence attitude…

Intended as a resource for people interested in intiating or promoting networking and collaboration, this manual evolved from a federally funded training project of the Community Education Resource Center (CERC) at the University of Massachusetts. While the theories and activities described are designed to aid in the building of networks in the…

Ethnography provides a means to carry out interpretive science; it offers an alternative research perspective for vocational education and can be used to address questions concerning larger issues in the field. Interpretive science provides the appropriate research paradigm for those research questions studied by an ethnographer. (Author)

Provides a brief historical reconstruction of management communication in Italian companies. Suggests that dealing with communication technologies, communication professionals, and intercultural communication represent three future challenges. (NH)

Wenger's theory of communities of practice (CoPs) helps explain how a group of Ph.D. students in the Department of Management Communication at the University of Waikato in New Zealand met a need for emotional and academic support and reduced isolation as they developed regular opportunities for face-to-face and virtual discussions on theory and…

While many factors are taken into account when identifying appropriate practicum placements, effective technology use by the classroom teacher is rarely considered. This is disconcerting given the recent emphasis on teacher technology preparation. The research described in this article studies 30 preservice teachers' participation in a six-week…

This article connects teachers' experiences of reflective school portfolio development to the idea of teachers' knowledge communities, the different groups and individuals with whom teachers negotiate meaning for their stories of experience, lived and told, and re-lived and re-told, over time. The reflective analysis makes the case that the…

The aim of the present study was to investigate the challenges that relate to the implementation of virtual inquiry practises in middle school. The case was a school course in which a group of Finnish students (N = 14) and teachers (N = 7) completed group inquiries through virtual collaboration, using a web-based learning environment. The task was…

To comprehend the developments underlying the suicide attacks of recent years, we suggest that the organizational approach, which until recently was used to explain this phenomenon, should be complemented with a social network perspective. By employing a social network analysis of Palestinian suicide networks, the authors found that, in contrast…

This study investigated how different tools differentially mediate the way groups interact and how the differential tool use and interactivity influence interdependence in online collaborative activity. Activity Theory is used as a framework to examine and explain computer-mediated interactions among students during group work. The findings reveal…