There is a dramatic shift in the tools that are used in today's technology-based distance education. While distance education is not new, there are new types of socially rich, mobile technologies that empower learners to be more in control of what they learn, when they learn it, and how they learn it. Students are taking more responsibility for…

How does a parent stay connected with an infant or toddler during a prolonged separation? Research has shown how important early connections are for child development. When a parent is not present physically, there are strategies that military parents have been using to keep a parent and child connected, promoting mindfulness. Because infants and…

Research has begun to address the use of social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, for supplementing and enhancing classroom-based learning. However, the use of social media platforms for less formal learning has received little attention. Study One of this dissertation presents the results from semi-structured interviews with twenty-one…

Mentoring programs for beginning teachers have garnered much attention in the field of education in the past decade. There is an increasing call for the redefinition of the traditional mentoring program, which often caters only to the first-year teacher, providing primarily emotional and procedural support. The Plymouth Public Schools (PPS) has…

How are technologies are designed and used tactically by activists? As the HCI community starts to contend with social inequalities, there has been debate about how HCI researchers should address approach this type of research. However, there is little research examining practitioners such as social justice activists who confront social problems,…

The purpose of this quantitative study was to investigate six factors that may influence adoption of virtual private network (VPN) technologies in small businesses with fewer than 100 employees. Prior research indicated small businesses employing fewer than 100 workers do not adopt VPN technology at the same rate as larger competitors, and the…

The role that social media should play in education is being hotly debated in school districts across the country. The adoption of social networking for educational purposes lags behind the public's general usage because educators fear that students will be exposed to inappropriate online content, unwanted adult interactions, and bullying from…

This dissertation presents the results of an exploratory study which examined the use of synchronous text-based communication technologies (SMS texting and instant messaging) by undergraduate university students generally 18 to 24 years old. Preliminary focus groups were conducted in order to gain additional understanding of their usage of these…

This dissertation uses quantitative and geographic analysis techniques to examine the historical and geographical processes that have shaped California's linguistic diversity. Many questions in California historical linguistics have received diminishing attention in recent years, remaining unanswered despite their continued relevance. The studies…

Online social networks provide rich opportunities to interact with friends and other online community members. At the same time, the addition of emerging location-sharing technologies--which broadcast a user's location online, including who they are with and what is happening nearby--is creating new dimensions to the types of interactions…

This study examined the networking and mentoring practices of female superintendents in California. Through a mixed-methods approach, quantitative data was collected from a survey using electronic questionnaires, and qualitative data was collected from open-ended questions on the survey and interviews. The survey response rate was 50%. Of the…

Education has continued to follow a traditional teaching model which may not prepare students with needed workforce skills. Social networking has been viewed as a technology tool useful for enhancing communication at both the business and educational level. The theory of connectivism underscores the need for social group interaction to provide…

This dissertation contributes to the growing base of theory relating to Transnational Public Sector Knowledge Networks (TPSKNs) presented by Dawes, Gharawi, and Burke (2012). A case study explores the TPSKN formed between the United States Center for Disease Control and the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Health ahead of the 2009 Hajj, one of the…

This thesis describes new approaches to the formal modeling of narrative discourse. Although narratives of all kinds are ubiquitous in daily life, contemporary text processing techniques typically do not leverage the aspects that separate narrative from expository discourse. We describe two approaches to the problem. The first approach considers…

This dissertation explores the website usage of adolescent sexual minorities, examining notions of information seeking and sexual identity development. Sexual information seeking is an important element within human information behavior and is uniquely problematic for young sexual minorities. Utilizing a contemporary gay teen website, this…