A Personal Learning Environment or PLE is a potentially promising pedagogical approach for both integrating formal and informal learning using social media and supporting student self-regulated learning in higher education contexts. The purpose of this paper is to (a) review research that support this claim, (b) conceptualize the connection between PLE, social media, and self-regulated learning, and (c) provide a three-level pedagogical framework for using social media to create PLEs that support student self-regulated learning. Implications for future research in this area are provided.

/pdf/personal-learning-environments-social-media-and-self-26xeqaf0aa.pdf

Personal Learning Environments, social media, and self-regulated learning: A natural formula for connecting formal and informal learning

The purpose of this research was to explore teaching and learning when mobile computing devices, such as cellphones and smartphones, were implemented in higher education. This paper presents a portion of the findings on students' perceptions of learning with mobile computing devices and the roles social media played. This qualitative research study focused on students from three universities across the US. The students' teachers had been integrating mobile computing devices, such as cellphones and smartphones, into their courses for at least two semesters. Data were collected through student focus group interviews. Two specific themes emerged from the interview data: (a) advantages of mobile computing devices for student learning and (b) frustrations from learning with mobile computing devices. Mobile computing devices and the use of social media created opportunities for interaction, provided opportunities for collaboration, as well as allowed students to engage in content creation and communication using social media and Web 2.0 tools with the assistance of constant connectivity.

Mobile computing devices in higher education: Student perspectives on learning with cellphones, smartphones & social media

Since Windschitl first outlined a research agenda for the World Wide Web and classroom research, significant shifts have occurred in the nature of the Web and the conceptualization of classrooms. Such shifts have affected constructs of learning and instruction, and paths for future research. This article discusses the characteristics of Web 2.0 that differentiate it from the Web of the 1990s, describes the contextual conditions in which students use the Web today, and examines how Web 2.0’s unique capabilities and youth’s proclivities in using it influence learning and teaching. Two important themes, learner participation and creativity and online identity formation, emerged from this analysis and support a new wave of research questions. A stronger research focus on students’ everyday use of Web 2.0 technologies and their learning with Web 2.0 both in and outside of classrooms is needed. Finally, insights on how educational scholarship might be transformed with Web 2.0 in light of these themes are discussed.

/pdf/learning-teaching-and-scholarship-in-a-digital-age-research-4nkfgr85p9.pdf

Learning, Teaching, and Scholarship in a Digital Age Research News and Comment

/pdf/learning-teaching-and-scholarship-in-a-digital-age-web-2-0-3qrcu5f5sf.pdf

Learning, Teaching, and Scholarship in a Digital Age Web 2.0 and Classroom Research: What Path Should We Take Now?

/pdf/millennials-rising-the-next-great-generation-3011lw78bf.pdf

Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation

The ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2009

Like the clothes in their suitcases, the technologies students bring to campus change every year. Occasionally, the change can be dramatic. It’s hard to believe, but when the college seniors we surveyed for this year’s study began their education four years ago, netbooks, iPhones, and the Nintendo Wii had yet to hit the market. When they went home for the holidays during their freshman year, some returned with a brand new game called Guitar Hero for the PlayStation 2, and some may have been lucky enough to score a $250 4-GB iPod nano or an ultrathin digital camera. Today’s freshmen have mobile phones that hold more songs than that 4-GB nano, and they can use them to take digital photos and videos of the same quality as the $400 camera today’s seniors got for their high school graduation.

The ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2009—Key Findings

Google announced the launch of Gmail in a press release issued on April Fool’s Day in 2004. According to the release, Gmail was created after a Google user complained about existing e-mail services, although its title, “Search Is Number Two Online Activity—Email Is Number One; ‘Heck, Yeah,’ Say Google Founders,” is a pretty clear indication that this was a strategic decision. Hotmail, Yahoo, and several sites now long gone had been around for years and, according to the market research firm comScore, both Hotmail (Windows Live Hotmail today) and Yahoo have more users today. But Gmail, with its promise to let users keep all their e-mail available and searchable for years in a generously sized web-based mailbox, changed the game. By the time Gmail officially exited beta status in July 2009, Google had released a dazzling array of eponymously named add-ons and integrated applications that enabled users to manage calendars, contacts, and tasks as well as documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and forms, all on the web.

https://www.queensu.ca/secretariat/sites/webpublish.queensu.ca.uslcwww/files/files/council/agendasminutes/050711/subgroupf/Background1.pdf

The ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2010. Key Findings.

/pdf/the-ecar-study-of-undergraduate-students-and-information-1bkdy0y0wf.pdf

Judith Borreson Caruso

Papers

The ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2009

The ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2009—Key Findings

The ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2010. Key Findings.

The ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2007

The ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2008