On February 10, 2004, Alex Bick contacted Chris Dede, the Timothy E. Wirth Professor of Learning Technologies at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, seeking a mentor for his work to determine whether handheld computers regularly carried by high school students generally affect academic achievement. At the time, Bick was a 10th grader…

This paper reports a study that attempts to explore how using mobile technologies in direct physical interaction with space and with other players can be combined with principles of engagement and self-motivation to create a powerful and engaging learning experience. We developed a mobile gaming experience designed to encourage the development of…

With increasing frequency, communities are seeing the arrival of a new class of noncommercial broadband providers: community wireless networks (CWNs). Utilizing the same wireless technologies that many colleges and universities have used to create wireless networks on campus, CWNs are creating broadband access for free or at costs well below…

Under current policies, cell phone consumers face a lower probability of finding the best carrier for their usage patterns than winning at roulette. Corroborating survey data consistently show significant dissatisfaction among cell phone users, network performance is a major issue, and customer "churn" is high. This problem may be traced to a new…

An understanding of the structure and functions of expressive communication in face-to-face communication and audiovisual media can inform the development of new educational services for human development across cultures in the emerging broadband environment.

Handheld computers give students access to the larger world of information beyond the classroom. Wireless access allows students real time access to all networks resources, including downloading e-books and documents, searching the library media centres catalog and searching databases to which the library has subscribed.

Collaborative learning is widely used in elementary classrooms. However, when working without technological support, some problems can be detected. We describe how weaknesses in coordination, communication, organization of materials, negotiation, interactivity and lack of mobility can be solved with a mobile computer supported collaborative…

Do vendor reps provide librarians with the information they need in the way they need it? Do vendors feel they are communicating effectively with their librarian clients? A recent survey of North American and European academic librarians commissioned by Jim McGinty, vice chair of Cambridge Information Group, and carried out by consultants David…

Speakers in conversation routinely engage in audience design. That is, they construct their utterances to be understood by particular addressees. Standard accounts of audience design have frequently appealed to the notion of common ground. On this view, speakers produce well-designed utterances by expressly considering the knowledge they take as…

Wireless Local Area Networks are the most widely adopted networking technology to hit the market in the last three years. They have the potential to make network applications and the Internet available anywhere on a campus so that students and faculty are no longer tethered to their offices or shared computer laboratories in order to connect to a…

For more than a decade, the economic, social, political and cultural effects of globalisation have been central topics of debate. Those who see globalisation as a combination of economic transactions and worldwide telecommunications tend to believe that its impact is profound, inasmuch as it is fundamentally altering the way in which we live and…

Argues that understanding the psychological drivers behind SMS uptake among key user groups could open the door to a range of user-centred applications capable of transforming handset usability--and hence operator revenues--for this inexpensive form of text messaging. Combines the findings of our own web-based survey of SMS users with…

Therapists often struggle with managing intersession contact with clients diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, particularly when dangerous and life-threatening symptoms are communicated (Gunderson, 1996). Difficulties have arisen, in part, because previous phone contacts with this population have failed to recognize the importance of…

Everyday communication demands can be tamed with a few simple strategies: (1) restrict; and (2) redirect. In this article, the author recommends that one should launch a quiet campaign to restrict the communication systems in one's office. She talks about how to manage voice mails, the perils of e-mail, and interruptions. She emphasizes that one…

Lots of things have changed since the baby boomers began overfilling postwar schoolhouses in the 1950s. The sparkling new buildings erected across the United States to handle the population surge have lost their luster, and in many cases, their functionality. This is not new information; in a 1995 General Accounting Office report, nearly half of…