The first comprehensive, research-based textbook on Internet-infused education, "Educational Psychology and the Internet" offers students an accessible guide to important issues in the field. Michael ...Glassman begins with an overview of the history that traces the evolution of the Internet and its significance for education. He outlines the current state of research, clearly defining terms that students will need to discuss larger concepts, such as hypertext and cyberspace. The second part of the book explores the practical applications of this research, which range from the individual-oriented to the generalized, including massive open online courses (MOOCs), open educational resources, and augmented reality. Key issues that affect teachers and students today, such as Net Neutrality and Creative Commons and Open Source licenses, are explained in straightforward terms, and often-overlooked differences--for example, between course management systems and learning management systems, and between blogs, social networking sites, and short messaging systems--are highlighted. This book discusses concepts that are applicable to a wide variety of fields, including education, communication, computer science, and Internet studies and clearly defines relevant terms and explains their origins, allowing students to develop a strong vocabulary and an accurate understanding of larger concepts. Additionally, it outlines important issues that affect students today, such as Net Neutrality and Creative Commons and Open Source licenses.
A number of strategies have emerged over the last decades to guide the development of online learning communities where members share, augment and co-create information but few tools to measure their ...success. This paper suggests that some online communities’ success can be understood through the lens of online collective efficacy. Albert Bandura introduced the idea of collective efficacy as an emergent variable where members have agency in community success. Collective efficacy sees group success as dependent on relationships between members of the group on two levels: the degree to which individuals feel that they able to contribute to the existing group, and the degree to which individuals perceive a fit between their own abilities, desires and goals and those of the other members of the group. The present paper describes the development and validation of a 35-item Likert-scale measure of online collective efficacy to capture this phenomenon. The Confirmatory Factor Analysis corroborated the fit of the data (n = 634) to the proposed theoretical structure of the scale (comprising 6 factors), and the convergence validity analysis yielded significant moderate correlations between the proposed scale and other instruments measuring related constructs. The developed measure has both descriptive value helping researchers/instructors understand the effectiveness of their strategies in managing online learning communities; and prescriptive value, helping offer guidance in how to move towards a more successful online community.
This paper suggests formal education must take new approaches to meet the social opportunities and challenges brought about through the information revolution, in particular access to new ...information, capabilities for new types of communities that can challenge place-based agendas, and distributed power and voice. The tools of the Internet are unique in that they offer new types of individual agency capable of ameliorating injustice and oppression that thrives in the shadows, but also leading to unprecedented social dangers. Tools that open up new possibilities for especially marginalized and oppressed to join together as a community and common voice, impacting the trajectory of their own lives. Internet tools can also remove many of the social guardrails restricting social activity, few if any in place social boundaries, allowing for painful and destructive discourse without consequence. Society must find a way to teach about the power and responsibilities of these new technologies without controlling them or those that use them to create new arenas of social activity. Participatory Action research (PAR) is proposed as one possible framework to formal education that meets these uniquely twenty-first century needs. PAR emerged mid-twentieth century in response to decolonization, social oppression and the need to help marginalized populations find voice and meaning in a fast changing world in ways that preserve their identities. PAR may offer an important path for educators and learners struggling to adapt to the new demands of the twenty-first century.
► We develop a theoretically sound Internet Self-efficacy Scale (ISS). ► We refine scale using Exploratory Factor Analysis and then Confirmatory Factor Analysis with two separate populations. ► The ...ISS showed good convergent validity.
Internet self-efficacy is a pivotal construct for understanding a wide range of online activities. Human activity has been developing in new directions along with the evolution of the Internet over the last few decades. A self-efficacy measure which might appropriately reflect these changes is still lacking in the literature. To address this research gap, the current study developed the Internet Self-efficacy Scale (ISS) and tested its validity and reliability. A sample of 349 undergraduate students completed an assessment battery including the ISS. A 17-item five-factor model was extracted from an EFA. Using a CFA, the 17-item five-factor model obtained from the EFA was cross-validated and the results revealed acceptable model fits where χ2(df=107)=198.987, NFI=.918, CFI=.960, and RMESA=.067 (95% C.I.; 052, .081). Also, the ISS showed good convergent validity, evidenced by the significant relationships with Internet outcome expectancy and Internet anxiety.
This study puts forward a comprehensive digital citizenship scale based on carefully calibrated, overarching, inclusive components of digital citizenship that can be used to measure abilities, ...perceptions, and levels of participation of young adults in Internet based community. The Digital Citizenship Scale (DCS) had a 26-item five-factor model that was extracted using an Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), and then cross-validated through a Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA). The DCS had respectable good reliability and construct validity, supported by a concept analysis of digital citizenship, the expert panel review, EFA, and CFA. In addition, the DCS was shown to have a convergent relationship with Internet self-efficacy and a divergent relationship with Internet anxiety. As a theoretically rigorous and well developed digital citizenship scale, this study will help understand individuals' perceptions of their abilities and trajectories as active and/or critical members of online communities as part of their everyday lives on local, national, and global levels.
•We developed a valid and reliable digital citizenship scale.•Exploratory factor analysis extracted a 26-item five-factor model.•Confirmatory factor analysis cross-validated the model.•Digital citizenship was associated with Internet self-efficacy & Internet anxiety.
Since early development of information technologies, in particular computers and the Internet, there has been tension between those who believe these new technologies and their applications they have ...been mired in tension. Originally conceived and developed as tools for enabling high level, nonhierarchal engagement in problem-solving and development of information sources they have more recently been appropriated by those who believe the new technologies are best used for creating expert driven systems that guide users in obtaining important outcomes. One of the most eloquent social/educational theorists in recognizing this tension was Ivan Illich. Some of the most important early pioneers in computing technology were influenced by Illich's writings on tools conviviality, while many of the networking researchers were highly sympathetic to his ideas. In spite of this the idea of development of closed networks gained traction in popular culture, including in education. Many Internet-based education interventions, for instance, focus on creating directive systems that mimic traditional educational tools and goals in guiding students and/or teachers. One of the most important things education can do is teach students to reclaim conviviality of new information tools, especially applications focusing on engagement that have emerged in the last decade.
This paper focuses on the (continuing) GameStop (GME) saga, where users of the subreddit Wallstreetbets (and later r/GME) subreddit challenged the flow of financial information from legacy media ...outlets in understanding financial manipulations and possibilities involved in the GME stock price. An extraordinary surge in value was attributed to activity on Wallstreetbets subreddit where users had been touting the stock for almost a year. While initially portrayed by traditional media as an almost humorous attempt to strike back at Wall Street, legacy reporting soon turned negative. Financial outlet news and information used top down, expert driven communication strategies to claim the surge was ephemeral and the product of crowd sourcing manipulation techniques. They soon stopped reporting altogether. The subreddit communities evolved, using bottom-up communication strategies to challenge “old” media narratives while using open source analysis and platform functionalities to maintain and expand an organized information and support system that functioned outside of traditional media boundaries. Different approaches to gatekeeping (expert driven vs. moderator/user driven) and analysis and dissemination (legacy/historically valid vs. open source) led to very different, often time conflicting, development of information, perspectives and calls to action. These differences, and the way they are treated in the larger society highlight how the Internet has reanimated the Lippman-Dewey debate over information and decision making from the early part of the twentieth century. While Lippman might claim Reddit sites are an illusion, Dewey might recognize possibilities for different type(s) of distributed activities crucial to a vibrant participatory democracy.
This qualitative study presents 27 students' insights about four teachers' implementation of an immersive Native American history curricular unit designed to equip students with digital skills to ...critically navigate complex, polarizing social issues. The Digital Civic Learning (DCL) curriculum used Google Suite and Google Classroom or Schoology to provide collaborative slides supporting immersive 2D-graphics, children's books/resources, immersive activities/artefact-creation, and multimodal tools (e.g., discussion posts, Flipgrid video-essays). Teachers regulated student thinking/behavior towards cohesive outcomes, and encouraged open-ended exploration, operationalizing the design framework as a zone of proximal development (ZPD). The history unit incorporates four cybernetic design features (DF) that enable teachers to steer student-centered collaboration within the curricular unit. The teacher serves four diverse roles (guide, facilitator, modeler, participant observer) mapping onto the DF. Results of focus group interviews with students, which were analyzed based on a theory-informed coding scheme and narrative inquiry, suggest ways for social studies teachers to operationalize the DCL immersive history unit as a cybernetic ZPD by adapting its basic structure to technologies accessible in their schools by adapting its basic structure to technologies accessible in their schools.
Current distance education practices can be susceptible to the types of content-heavy, top-down instruction often seen in physical classrooms. These practices are similar to the activities of ...corporations, which use recommendation systems and game theory to mold the public sphere and fragment it. We propose that free knowledge creation through open, multichannel communication needs to be used in distance education to permit both individual and collective agency for students to process knowledge and develop higher order reflectivity. Such frameworks would help students of distance education and instructors to use critical thinking to discuss concepts as equal stakeholders and develop varied ideological outcomes that could contribute to creating social change. This conceptual paper places current distance education practices within Habermasian theory, discusses ways in which the Internet and its educative potential has come to be viewed thus far, and suggests platforms that could open distance learning to new possibilities.
Abstract Substance abuse treatment providers commonly provide services for men and women involved in sex work. Sex workers often present to treatment with a complicated array of challenges (M. L. ...Burnette et al., 2008a; D. C. Ling, W. C. W. Wong, E. A. Holroyd, & S. A. Grayson, 2007; M. Young, C. Boyd, & A. Hubbell, 2000), and, while many scholars have posited the need for adapted interventions for sex workers (L. Nuttbrock, A. Rosenblum, S. Magura, C. Villano, & J. Wallace, 2004; A. Weiner, 1996), there is still a lull in the development of comprehensive, tailored services for sex workers seeking substance abuse treatment (L. Nuttbrock et al., 2004). Augmenting this gap is the lack of a clear framework through which to understand the challenges that sex workers endure and how their challenges may differ from treatment-seeking non-sex workers. In order to address this gap, the current study explored the utility of a social justice framework, namely the Capability Approach, in predicting sex work involvement among a substance-abusing sample. We hypothesize that increased challenges to achieving capability will predict sex work involvement among a substance-abusing sample. Results suggest that the Capability Approach is a useful framework that can be used to differentiate between sex workers and their substance-abusing counterparts and that sex workers experience greater challenges to achieving capability. As such, the current findings support recent calls in the literature for the development of tailored services to meet the needs of this population.
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