There is a growing population of young adults who are underserved by community colleges in the United States, students who are poorly prepared for college work and are at risk of poverty, social problems and failure to realize their full potential. Educational programs offered by community colleges represent this group's best hope of overcoming…

The experience of engaging with the knowledge and views of others is arguably as important as the actual knowledge with which one engages. Engagement is shaped by social and organizational norms, past experiences, personal preferences, and other factors. These authors each select a particular mixture of knowledge-engaging experiences (such as…

The purpose of researching the digital balance between industrialised and developing countries was to discover how information and communication technology (ICT), content and e-services developed in Finland will work on the African continent, and vice versa. Globalisation and the associated new international division of labour and well-being…

The University of Kentucky Engaging Differences (UK-ED) project focused on developing, evaluating, and disseminating a web-based performance support system (WPSS) to enhance accommodations provided by personnel at the University of Kentucky (UK), the Lexington Community College (LCC), and the Kentucky Community and Technical College System…

The authors discuss the joining of 12 Virginia community colleges from the Appalachian region of southwestern Virginia with Radford University to form the Regional Technology Education Consortium (RTEC), a three-year project funded by the National Science Foundation Advanced Technological Education program and designed to develop articulation…

Video is currently a key element of numerous professional development programs, yet relatively little is known about how video fosters changes in teachers' thinking. This study examines how a particular type of video-based professional development, namely video clubs, supports teacher development. Video clubs are professional development…

This paper describes the findings of a qualitative research study examining the perceptions and practices of inservice teachers who blog. Open-ended interviews and electronic dialogues were conducted with 16 K-12 bloggers to identify emergent themes. A content analysis of each participant's Weblogs was conducted to confirm these findings. Findings…

This case study analyzed how an online learning community developed among a cohort of 18 students in an instructional design and technology master's degree program taught at a distance. Students' reflections about the effectiveness of the program revealed that a community-centered approach to learning, a constructivist learning environment, and…

This paper investigates the accessibility and attractiveness of different types of ICT applications in education for girls and boys and for pupils from families with an ethnic minority background and from the majority population in the Netherlands. A study was conducted in seven schools (primary and secondary). Data were collected on…

This article reviews the literature and practice concerned with the evaluation of science, technology, and innovation (STI) policies and the way these relate to theories of the innovation process. Referring to the experience of the European Union (EU), the authors review the attempts to ensure that the STI policy theory is informed by advances in…

This case study illustrates the application of Mega--adding measurable value for all stakeholders including society--as the central and ultimate focus for needs assessment. In this case, two needs assessment studies were conducted within a five-year period (1999-2003) with the State of Ohio's Workforce Development (WD) program. An initial needs…

This article describes two emerging technologies--Skype and podcasting. Both Skype and podcasting can be considered "disruptive technologies" in that they allow for new and different ways of doing familiar tasks, and in the process, may threaten traditional industries. Skype, the "people's telephone," is a free, Internet-based alternative to…

This article reports on a phenomenological research study that was undertaken to provide cultural understanding about the nature of distance education experiences of Arab graduate students pursuing degree programs in the United States. As a theoretical framework, Hofstede's international difference dimensions and Hall's concept of low and high…

This paper considers some of the benefits of reading and writing e-literature, including its influences on prints texts, challenges to the imagination, and attention to metafictive devices and processes. The less cohesive, more fragmented quality of e-literature creates a subjunctive space for creation where writers can consider interesting…

This report provides a two-part evaluation of the IntelliMetric[SM] automated essay scoring system based on its performance scoring essays from the Analytic Writing Assessment of the Graduate Management Admission Test[TM] (GMAT[TM]). The IntelliMetric system performance is first compared to that of individual human raters, a Bayesian system…