This qualitative study analyzed data from participant observations, in-depth interviews, artifacts and a focus group to determine how the Technology Learning Community (TLC) located in the Department of Industrial Education and Technology (IEdT) at Iowa State University had an impact on the educational experience of new and transfer students to the department. Based on an interpretivist perspective and grounded theory approach, two themes emerged from the data relative to the research question: the development of personal connections to the IEdT Department through planned collaborative learning activities among peer mentors and team members and the development of professional networks and relationships with IEdT faculty, staff, and industry professionals through weekly seminars and team-based activities. Findings from the analysis of the study based on the first theme include the ability of the TLC to foster intellectual connections and interactions that enhance knowledge construction among student participants and collaborative learning team activities such as social outings, industrial field trips, and peer and industrial mentor meetings enhance student knowledge construction and transfer. Based on the second theme, these findings include the creation of networks and relationships between TLC participants and TLC/IEdT faculty and staff which enable a sense of community and opportunities to learn from diverse perspectives, and networks between TLC participants and TLC faculty, staff, and industry professionals enable students to make classroom to work connections, expose students to potential employment environments and opportunities, humanizes the teacher to student relationship and enables reciprocal learning.

The Design, Experience and Practice of Networked Learning Edited by: Vivien Hodgson, Maarten de Laat, David McConnell and Thomas Ryberg This book brings together a wealth of new research that opens up the meaning of connectivity as embodied and promised in the term ‘networked learning’. Chapters explore how contexts, groups and environments can be connected rather than just learners; how messy, unexpected and emergent connections can be made rather than structured and predefined ones; and how technology connects us to learning and each other, but also shapes our identity. These exciting new perspectives ask us to look again at what we are connecting and to revel in new and emergent possibilities arising from the interplay of social actors, contexts, technologies, and learning. Caroline Haythornthwaite, University of British Columbia Despite creating fundamentally new educational economics and greatly increasing access - teaching and learning in networks is a tricky business. These chapters illuminate the complex interactions amongst tools, pedagogy, educational institutions and personal net presences – helping us design and redesign our own networks. In the process, they take (or extract) network theory from the practice of real teaching and learning contexts, making this collection an important contribution to Networked Learning. Terry Anderson, Athabasca University What kinds of learning can social networking platforms really enable? Digging well beneath the hype, this book provides a timely, incisive analysis of why and how learning emerges (or fails to) in networked spaces. The editors do a fine job in guiding the reader through the rich array of theories and methods for tackling this question, and the diverse contexts in which networked learning is now being studied. This is a book for reflective practitioners as well as academics: the book's close attention to the political, pedagogical and organisational complexity of effective practice, and the lived experience of educators and learners, helps explain why networked learning has such disruptive potential — but equally, why it draws resistance from the establishment. Simon Buckingham Shum, The Open University The networked learning conference, a biannual institution since 1998, celebrates its 14th year in this volume. Here a range of studies, reflecting networked learning experiments across Europe and other global contexts , show important shifts away from a conservative tradition of Œe-learning1 research and unpeel dilemmas of promoting learning as an elusive practice in virtual environments. The authors point towards important futures in online learning research, where notions of knowledge, connectivity and Œcommunity1 become increasingly elastic, and engagements slide across material and virtual domains in new practices whose emergence is increasingly difficult to apprehend. “p>Tara Fenwick – University of Stirling. The chapters in this volume explore new and innovative ways of thinking about the nature of networked learning and its pedagogical values and beliefs. They pose a challenge to us to reflect on what we thought networked learning was 15 year ago, where it is today and where it is likely to be headed. Each chapter brings a particular perspective to the themes of design, experience and practice of networked learning, the chosen focus of the book. The chapters in the book embrace a wide field of educational areas including those of higher education, informal learning, work-based learning, continuing professional development, academic staff development, and management learning. The Design, Experience and Practice of Networked Learning will prove indispensable reading for researchers, teachers, consultants, and instructional designers in higher and continuing education; for those involved in staff and educational development, and for those studying post graduate qualifications in learning and teaching. This, the second volume in the Springer Book Series on Researching Networked Learning, is based on a selection of papers presented at the 2012 Networked Learning Conference held in Maastricht, The Netherlands.

"Education, arts and social sciences, natural and technical sciences in the United States and Canada".

This study examined Ukrainian language teacher notions, attitudes, feelings, and experiences related to participation in informal online Communities of Practice (CoPs) as an alternative means of professional learning. Findings from samples in Canada and Ukraine indicate opportunities for, and some challenges to, professional learning within virtual (online, Web-based) communities. In addition to traditional data collection methods, the study involved a novel case study analysis of two focus groups (4-6 teachers each), one in Lviv, Ukraine, which was physically co-located, and another in Edmonton, Alberta, conducted using the Adobe Connect online meeting platform. Group members in each city participated in a Repertory Grid activity, the aim of which was for participants to move towards consensus on elements and constructs they felt characterize informal online CoP experiences for professional learning-itself an exercise in community-building (Gaines & Shaw, 2012b). A theoretical framework was developed to guide the investigation, called the "Autonomous Learning Framework for Informal Online CoPs (ALFIO-CoPs)," which helps to elucidate knowledge creation in informal online inquiry communities. The framework was used to address some of the factors which influence the broader informal online CoP experience for personally meaningful professional learning. The Ukrainian language teachers involved in this investigation strongly approved of the informal online CoP for professional learning, some even suggesting that it is the only distinct form of alternative online professional learning, while viewing other online networks and groups as more casual or personal in nature. As professionals, they recognized that emotional self-efficacy, technological self-efficacy, and technological pedagogy are uniquely supported in these communities, owing to such factors as community self-determination, mentorship, apprenticeship, and the ubiquity of the learning experience. Nonetheless, other factors, such as awareness of this form of professional learning, Internet access, time commitment, praxis issues, and professional recognition of the community experience were among the challenges to participation identified by the teachers involved in the study, and which warrant further research.

Provides specific information on how to transform schools into results-oriented professional learning communities, describing the best practices that have been used by schools nationwide.

Learning Technologies and User Interaction explores the complex interplay between educational technologies and those who rely on them to construct knowledge and develop skills. As learning and training continue to move onto digital platforms, tools such as artificial intelligence, predictive analytics, video games, virtual reality, and more hold considerable potential to foster advanced forms of synergy across contexts. Showcasing a variety of contributors who are attuned to today’s networked technologies, environments, and learning dynamics, this book is ideal for students and scholars of educational technology, instructional design, professional development, and research methods.

Diversity among university students plays a significant role in raising awareness of numerous issues surrounding cultural heritage, language differences, cross-cultural collaboration, and international education. The integration of technological tools can assist students in cooperating nationally and internationally both in their current educational and future professional settings. Multicultural Awareness and Technology in Higher Education: Global Perspectives encompasses the latest research on the impact and integration of technology into international education and culturally diverse learning environments. Providing the latest teaching and learning methods, technologies, and approaches at the university level, this publication is a useful reference for academics, educational administrators in public and private institutions, and information society researchers.