Social networking sites (SNSs) are increasingly used to communicate and to maintain relationships with people around the globe, and their usage has certainly led to incidental language gains for second language (L2) users. Language instructors are just beginning to utilize SNS sites to manage their courses or to have students practice language…

University initiatives that enhance a students' sense of belonging may increase student retention and the overall student experience. Previous initiatives have largely focussed on face-to-face interactions however with the high usage of social networking, an online initiative may prove beneficial. The aim of this study was to establish a Facebook…

This article investigates the online information practices of persons grieving and mourning via Facebook. It examines how, or whether, these practices and Facebook's terms of use policies have implications for the bereaved and/or the memory of the deceased. To explore these questions, we compared traditional publicly recorded asynchronous…

Cork and Limerick have conducted Lifelong Learning Festivals, Cork for ten years and Limerick for the past three years. This paper reviews aspects of this experience and considers the question of whether successful Lifelong Learning Festivals can be seen as a pathway to building sustainable learning cities. Discussed in the context of an…

The notion of school collaboration has become widely recognised as an effective means of fostering cultural links and supporting communication between geographically separated schools. As shall be acknowledged in this paper, school collaboration follows on from a long history of collaborative initiatives across the past 50 years. However, the…

Self-regulated learning behaviors such as goal setting and monitoring have been found to be crucial to students' success in computer-based learning environments. Consequently, understanding students' self-regulated learning behavior has been the subject of increasing attention. Unfortunately, monitoring these behaviors in real-time has…

Functional connectivity changes in the language network (Price, 2010), and in a control network involved in second language (L2) processing (Abutalebi & Green, 2007) were examined in a group of Persian (L1) speakers learning French (L2) words. Measures of network integration that characterize the global integrative state of a network (Marrelec,…

This study examined the motivation to participate in social networks maintained by mothers who blog and raise children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The qualitative data analyzed in this study originated from a larger project that examined the perceptions, experiences, and meanings among mothers who maintained public blogs while parenting…

It is apparent that individuals using text abbreviations as a written convention is a continuingly growing phenomenon. This special writing convention has been referred to as textism usage. However, there is surprisingly little research investigating the impacts of textism use on dyslexic children's cognitive abilities associated with literacy…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of transforming a traditional university computer lab to create a collaborative learning community known as the CIS Sandbox, by remodeling a physical space and supporting it with a virtual presence through the use of social media tools. The discussion applies Selander's "designs for…

This study examined the nature of television, video game, and social media use in children (ages 8-18) with autism spectrum disorders (ASD, n = 202) compared to typically developing siblings (TD, n = 179), and relative to other activities. Parents completed measures assessing children's screen-based and other extracurricular activities. Children…

Game-based learning (GBL) combines pedagogy and interactive entertainment to create a virtual learning environment in an effort to motivate and regain the interest of a new generation of "digital native" learners. However, this approach is impeded by the limited availability of suitable "serious" games and high-level design…

This article documents how the authors, two Chicana tenured professors from immigrant and working-class backgrounds, drew upon their graduate school experiences as resources for navigating the tenure track. They discuss lessons learned not in the official classroom but in other spaces inhabited by women of color. Such lessons included: networking…

Purpose: In order to alleviate the impacts of traffic congestion that undermine the mobility and accessibility conditions of the Aristotle University campus, the paper aims at the presentation and description of a complementary network of alternative modes (i.e. pedestrian and bicycle) and the discussion of the appropriate measures for its…

Dance is a viable and enjoyable activity -- and potential career -- for young people with disabilities, yet they face several barriers to participation and training. The aim of this article, by Imogen J. Aujla of the University of Bedfordshire and Emma Redding of Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, is to review the literature on…