This article provides a context for understanding how social networks among teachers support or constrain school improvement in terms of instructional practice, professional development, and educational reform. It comments on the articles in this special issue, summarizing their contributions to the field. This analysis reveals several important…

In the library context, they depend on sophisticated business applications specifically designed to support their work. This infrastructure consists of such components as integrated library systems, their associated online catalogs or discovery services, and self-check equipment, as well as a Web site and the various online tools and services…

In recent years, scholars have focused on students' use of social networking sites (SNSs) such as Myspace and Facebook. Research about such technologies is largely descriptive or based on theoretical assumptions and anecdotal evidence, although some authors have studied frequency of use, adoption of technology, and computer usage among college…

This article analyses an experience in collaborative learning in an asynchronous writing environment through discussion forums on a WebCt platform of the University of Huelva's virtual campus, and was part of an innovative teaching project in 2007-08. The main objectives are to describe the processes of collaborative knowledge construction and the…

Discussion forums have been used to support organizational communication and they have become a candidate for study of organizational behaviors. However, online behaviors of NGOs have been insufficiently studied compared to those studies conducted in education and industries. Our empirical study examined how social workers in one NGO used an…

As the ranks of educators on Twitter grow, more and more are heard about the importance of their "PLNs" (a term reportedly coined by educational technology guru David Warlick). A PLN, or Personal Learning Network, is a group of like-minded professionals with whom one can exchange ideas, advice, and resources. So why shouldn't students have PLNs of…

If six degrees of separation is all that is needed for anyone to find anyone else, and if three clicks can find almost anything on the World Wide Web, perhaps analyzing how social networks form and connect people to each other offers a useful way to reconsider how the rehabilitation profession pursues job placement and employer development. Social…

Twitter provides rapid information in a short form, and it is extremely easy to follow the updates of others because of myriad software applications with which it works on both mobile devices and traditional computing hardware. Currently, most academic librarians are using Twitter primarily as a tool at library conferences and seminars to capture…

This review of the theoretical framework for Mastery Learning Theory and Sense of Community theories is provided in conjunction with a review of the literature for mobile technology in relation to language learning. Although empirical research is minimal for mobile phone technology as an aid for language learning, the empirical research that…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to study the characteristics of the participants and the success of the recruitment methods and increase in knowledge of participants in reproductive health peer education. Dutch perinatal mortality rates are relatively high compared to other European countries. Non-Western ethnic minorities show particularly…

Twitter is becoming increasingly popular as a medium for language learning. This study explores self-directed learning via social interactions that use Twitter as an interactive learning environment. The participants in this study were thirty university students of Chinese as a foreign language at levels 1 and 2 of the "Hanyu Shuiping…

The 19th biennial AFMLTA National Languages Conference was held in Canberra in July 2013. The conference, along with other professional learning activities conduced at a local level and for individual languages, aims to provide teachers of languages with the opportunity to work toward the professional learning outcomes outlined in the AITSL…

Though a few empirical studies on acceptance of Web 2.0 as a social networking tool in teaching and learning exist, apparently none consider students' and faculties' views from different cultures, which is the focus of this study. This article reports on a pilot study that begins to fill this gap by investigating the perceptions, attitude and…

Aiming at empowering students with the NCTE's 21st century literacies, this discussion investigated what role Web 2.0 technologies play in first-year college students' writing practices and what challenges students face while using computer technology for writing. Based on input from a national sample of 37 writing teachers, pedagogical…

Numerous studies have attempted to explain the role of social networking platforms within educational environments, though none of them has reported on their potential for enhancing professional development in education. The purpose of this qualitative research was to explore the reflections of prospective teachers who were assigned to design and…