High levels of consumption in the industrialised parts of the world such as Europe mark a central threat to global sustainable development. In recent years, growing attention has been paid to the contributions of education and educational organisations to the socialisation of youths and young adults into consumer culture. It is the contention of…

After Greek independence from the Ottoman Empire (1827), a newly formed Greek state looked to retrieve its past through the teaching of a Greek national history. For much of the nineteenth century Greek schools forged common religious, linguistic, and historical ties among the Greek people through the teaching of a Greek historical past (Zervas…

Informal science educators play a key role in promoting science literacy, safety, and health by teaching pesticide toxicology to the large, at-risk Latino farmworker population in the United States (US). To understand the experiences of informal science educators and the nature of farmworker education, we must have knowledge of farmworker…

During the winter of 2011-2012, Weardale, England, was the setting for an ambitious informal adult education project. In this rural area in the northeast part of the country, the local arts collective, Jack Drum Arts, established a community play project entitled "The Bonny Moorhen." This dramatic undertaking aimed to retell the story of…

This paper highlights reasons for SMEs low uptake of training and argues that current offerings are not suitable for their needs. It highlights the need to leverage the benefits of work based learning through the use of technology. Social media and web 2.0 has significantly changed the way people learn and access knowledge. The body of knowledge…

A fifth of US children live in rural areas with limited access to the informal learning opportunities available to their metropolitan counterparts. High-speed broadband internet access can be an important vehicle for delivering opportunities at home and outside of the classroom. In an attempt to explore what current data say about children's…

This article reports on an inquiry into ecological understanding and the professional practice of a selection of teachers in alternative and/or independent non-systemic schools in Australia, Canada and the United States. Through a reflective, participatory framework, based on the premise that it is one thing to observe "an ecology",…

This paper uses an Activity Theory framework to explore adult user activities and informal learning processes as reflected in their blogs and social network sites (SNS). Using the assumption that a web-based space is an activity system in which learning occurs, typical features of the components were investigated and each activity system then…

Parents of young children often wonder how they can prepare their preschoolers to read. Many understand the importance of reading to their children and teaching the alphabet but they are unaware of another critical literacy skill needed for children to comprehend the reading process, phoneme awareness. In this study 34 preschool children, 3 to 5…

The description of the self-defined expert instructional technologist is unclear. Technologists in the field are identified in various ways. To determine the characteristics and competencies of self-defined expert instructional technologists, an interpretive field study consisting of interviews was conducted. The results revealed three core…

While there have been many efforts to define community music, definitions have tended to be either too specific or too general to be of great use to practitioners. Much of the published research on the topic seems to be based on single projects, often conducted by the facilitators involved. While this has led to valuable contributions to…

Introduction: Nowadays, language and intercultural competences have become core employability skills in many fields, supporting the development of other skills which emphasizes the necessity for specific pedagogic approaches in developing online learning materials and courses that would develop learners' language competence and other relevant 21st…

Background: Photovoice is one method that enables an educator to view an experience from a student's perspective. This study examined how teachers might use photovoice during an informal learning experience to understand the students' experiences and experiential gain. Design and methods: Participants in this study consisted of six students, three…

Informal learning is often treated as simply an alternative to formal, didactic instruction. This chapter discusses how the organization of informal learning differs across distinct settings but with important commonalities distinguishing informal learning from formal learning: Informal learning is nondidactic, is embedded in meaningful activity,…

Diffusion of digital games and the trend of gamification in various fields have increased scholars' attention on how digital games or their elements can be introduced into formal and informal learning practices. Majority of the research in this field has been conducted in economically developed regions and not so much in emerging economies. With…