Social annotation is a teaching and learning technique in which students post comments on electronic course materials in a shared space. The purpose of this study is to examine students' perceptions of social annotation in the context of motivation and social justice. In addition, the connections between social annotation and course grades were…

Students perceive care as a quality of highly effective faculty, and building positive relationships is essential to a successful college experience. However, many college students report never having developed caring relationships with faculty. We propose faculty have an opportunity to use technology to help build caring relationships in an…

This article analyses the pilot of an anonymous question and answer mobile application with a large cohort of undergraduate students (460) enrolled on an Operations Strategy Management module. The mobile application allowed students to pose anonymous questions to both peers and staff, create replies and vote on questions posted by other users. The…

This article explores the lived experiences of two academics in a UK Higher Education Institution who have embedded digital learning approaches within their curriculum delivery. Achieving student excellence can be impeded by a lack of engagement and sense of identity on large courses. Digital learning strategies can offer opportunities to overcome…

The inclusion of online elements in learning environments is becoming commonplace in Post Compulsory Education. A variety of research into the value of such elements is available, and this study aims to add further evidence by looking specifically at the use of collaborative technologies such as online discussion forums and wikis to encourage…

This study reports on an international project in which students taking the course "Contemporary Issues in Turkish Politics" in spring 2011 and fall 2011 at two institutions of higher education, "Gettysburg College" in the United States and "Izmir University of Economics" in Turkey, worked together in virtual learning…

This article explores academics' writing practices, focusing on the ways in which they use digital platforms in their processes of collaborative learning. It draws on interview data from a research project that has involved working closely with academics across different disciplines and institutions to explore their writing practices,…

We consider the principles of communities of practice (CoP) and networked learning in higher education, illustrated with a case study. iCollab has grown from an international community of practice connecting students and lecturers in seven modules across seven higher education institutions in six countries, to a global network supporting the…

In this paper, we draw on Actor-Network Theories (ANT) to explore how material components functioned to create gateways and barriers to a virtual learning network in the context of a professional development module in higher education. Students were practitioners engaged in family learning in different professional roles and contexts. The data…

Learning provision, including professional learning, needs to embrace mobility (of knowledge, cultures and contexts--physical and cerebral) to enable education practitioners to interact locally and globally, engage with new literacies, access rich contexts, and to question, co-construct and collaborate. Virtual mentoring, also known as distance,…

Synchronous hybrid delivery (simultaneously teaching on-campus and online students using web conferencing) is becoming more common; however, little is known about how students experience emotions in this learning environment. Based on Pekrun's (2006) control-value theory of emotions, the dual purpose of this study was first to compare synchronous…

This article presents an educational action research study examining how one online, classroom-based role-play simulation offers middle school students the opportunity to strengthen their agency and voice. The Jewish Court of All Time (JCAT) is a web-mediated simulation designed for middle school classrooms where students take on roles of various…

Two studies tested the hypothesis that use of learning technologies among undergraduate psychology students was associated with higher Internet self-efficacy (ISE). In Study 1, the ISE scores of 86 students were found not to be associated with either attitudes towards, or measured use of, blogs and wikis as part of an IT skills course. ISE was…

Online communication is increasingly used in education, but it is not without problems. One significant difficulty is a lack of social presence. Social presence relates to the need for users of technology-based communication to perceive each other as real people. Low social presence can be a particular issue in text-based, asynchronous systems…

This paper explores the experiences of two doctoral students who embraced Web 2.0 tools in their digital scholarship practices. The paper gives an insider perspective of the challenges and potential of working with online tools, such as blogs, and participating in online communities, such as Twitter's #phdchat. We explore by drawing on our…