PTAs have always faced the challenge of competing for volunteer time. A PTA's primary volunteer base is made up of parents of public school children, and parents are being pulled in many directions, as their children are more engaged than ever in multiple extracurricular activities that may have their own specialized parent groups. Parents with…

This article describes Training 2012 Conference & Expo which began with a bang and finished with a splash--literally. The Drum Cafe got participants' blood pumping with rhythmic tribal music early in the morning on the first day of the conference, February 13, at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta. The drum leader established the…

Purpose: This paper aims to propose a framework which connects perspectives on knowledge and learning to various approaches of social networks studies. The purpose is twofold: providing input for the discourse in organizational studies about the way different views on knowledge and networks drive design choices and activities of researchers,…

This paper outlines concerns for inclusive classrooms involving personal digital image modifications and selections, as well as avatar configurations. Classroom interactions incorporate various dimensions of personal appearance; however, educators try to make them primarily about knowledge and wisdom. Students in environments where they can…

Homophily promotes the development of social relationships within social groups and increases segregation across groups. Although prior research has demonstrated that network segregation operates in many dimensions such as race and gender, sexual orientation has received little attention. This study investigates what accounts for the segregation…

Purpose: This study aims to investigate how an organic cotton production network learns to maintain its hybrid network and its sustainability in the face of internal and external pressures. Design/methodology/approach: A qualitative case study was conducted in Justa Trama, a Brazilian-based organic cotton production network formed by six members…

The purpose of this study was to identify and analyze the processes of seeking information online and evaluating this information. We hypothesized that individuals' social network, in-out group categorization, and cultural proclivity would influence their online information-seeking behavior. Also, we tested whether individuals differentiated…

Tinto's integration framework is often assumed to be inapplicable to the study of student persistence at community colleges because one of the linchpins of the framework--social integration--is considered unlikely to occur for students at these institutions. Community college students are thought to lack the time to participate in activities, such…

This study examined the dynamics of popularity in adolescent friendship networks across 3 years in middle school. Longitudinal social network modeling was used to identify selection and influence in the similarity of popularity among friends. It was argued that lower status adolescents strive to enhance their status through befriending higher…

In this article, centrality is explored as a measure of computer-mediated communication (CMC) in networked learning. Centrality measure is quite common in performing social network analysis (SNA) and in analysing social cohesion, strength of ties and influence in CMC, and computer-supported collaborative learning research. It argues that measuring…

Education providers and employers working together to prepare young people and adults for employment is internationally accepted as a key factor in effective technical and vocational education. In the English context, however, we argue that two related orthodoxies have prevailed -- 'employer engagement' and 'skills supply' -- in which education…

Recent trends in higher education have initiated an increase in the attention given to the quality of teaching offered to the students, and significant changes in student populations since 2000, such as increasing social diversity (Biggs & Tang, 2011), have required educators to relook at their teaching and instructional practices. As…

This dissertation examines the economic value of online storage resources that could be traded and shared as potential commodities and the consequential investments and deployment of such resources. The value proposition of emergent business models such as Akamai and Amazon S3 in online storage grids is capacity provision and content delivery at…

Sensors are used to monitor and control the physical environment. A Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is composed of a large number of sensor nodes that are densely deployed either inside the phenomenon or very close to it [18][5]. Sensor nodes measure various parameters of the environment and transmit data collected to one or more sinks, using…

Networks have emerged as the dominant organizational structures of our time. In the networked era, social networks underpinned by the internet are crucial to obtaining and filtering information as well as reaching audiences and collaborators. To remain relevant in this era, educational institutions must foster "network literacy," teaching students…