Engaging the Digitally Engaged Student: Comparing Technology-Mediated Communication Use and Effects on Student Learning

The role of communication technologies in the learning process is both a dynamic and complex issue. Yet, we know surprisingly little about how the use of specific communication technologies may influence classroom performance, key learning outcomes, and other measures of course satisfaction. The research reported here attempts to add to our knowledge about the role of communication in the technology enhanced classroom (TEC) education and in technology-enhanced online (TEO) education through a direct comparison of two courses. Our findings indicate additional support for “The No Significant Difference Phenomenon.” Furthermore, we found that prior experiences lead students to gravitate towards their preferred learning environments, and that basic website elements are required in any learning environment to enhance student outcomes. Finally, we found that when used appropriately, the benefits of communication technology use in education outweigh many of the drawbacks

Getting on the E List: E-Mail Use in a Community of Service Provider

This case examines how a community of organizations providing service to people experiencing homelessness made use of an electronic mail list. Current economic conditions have encouraged organizations in various sectors—including nonprofits—that might normally compete for scarce resources to collaborate with one another to increase their chances of survival. One set of tools likely to be of value in such relationships includes various online discussion technologies. An examination of this community’s email list use over a three-year period suggests a somewhat complex picture regarding technology use. More specifically, some issues both constrain and enable use. Additionally, seemingly basic and minimal uses of the list provided not only the greatest functionality for the users, but also led to several unanticipated consequences for those involved

Bugle Call: How A Mississippi Private Came To Be Buried In Rhode Island

Samuel Postlethwaite, a private in the 21st Mississippi Infantry, served the Confeder-ate States from the beginning of the CivilWar until his severe wounding at Malvern Hill in 1862. Following the War he resided in Mississippi and eventually moved north to live with the Greenes, his relatives in Rho...

Antietam Endnote: One Historian\u27s Interpretative Method Offers Research \u27Template\u27

The award-winning Taken at the Flood: Robert E. Lee & Confederate Strategy in the Maryland Campaign of 1862 did not exhaust Joseph L. Harsh\u27s thoughts concerning those fateful days in September. If doubts existed in, or about, Harsh\u27s analysis of the events, readers are provided extraordinary...

Small-Scale Marijuana Growing: Deviant Careers as Serious Leisure

Previous research on marijuana growers in the United States has primarily focused on those who have been incarcerated for the activity (Weisheit, 1990; 1998). These growers tend to produce large amounts of the product. It may be that large scale marijuana growers who have been arrested may differ in their reasons for growing, their style of growing and distributing and in how they view marijuana growing as an activity from different types of growers; namely small-scale, indoor hydroponic growers who grow primarily for personal use and enjoyment. Our study analyzes one social network of marijuana growers in central and northern Florida. Through intensive field observations and qualitative interviews with 8 people involved in this closed social network of marijuana growers, we discovered that the growers all followed a similar pattern of initial trial and error, learning new techniques from one another to improve their product, to finally maintaining techniques that enabled them to maximize taste, potency and yield. All of the growers in our sample were white middle class men (6) and women (2) with at least a college degree who had already or planned to enter white collar occupations (e.g., a teacher or business owner). Although profitable, the growers greatly downplayed the importance of making money as a reason for growing, describing the endeavor as a passionate activity they performed for enjoyment, to save their own money, and for the high regard they have of plants in general. Discontinuing the activity (thus exiting the deviant career) is often influenced by such contingencies as risk of detection, commitment to family, and conventional occupations. Future research is needed to compare and contrast different kinds of marijuana growers including those whose growing activities are legitimated by state law

Exotic Annual Plant Invasions and Their Relationships to Roads and Native Perennial Species in the Mojave Desert, Southwestern USA

For the last five years, roadside monitoring for exotic invasive species has been a common practice for documenting distributions in Clark County, Nevada (Abella et al., in press). Yet, studies have shown that weed relationships to road corridors differ depending upon the natural system (Hansen and Clevenger, 2005). In the Mojave Desert, it is unknown whether exotic species are limited to or even predominant along roadsides. Compounding this uncertainty, fertile islands under shrubs are known to enhance conditions for many annuals (Thompson et al., 2005). Thus, a site’s shrub composition could influence exotic invasive plant distributions

Opportunities for new collaborative projects

The Research Group is currently working in successful partnerships with Lake Mead National Recreation Area, BLM Las Vegas, Desert National Wildlife Refuge (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service), Joshua Tree National Park, and in collaboration with the Ecological Restoration Institute, the U.S. Forest Service (Region 3)

Revealing Challenges of Teaching Secrecy

All teaching has something to do with transmission of hidden knowledge, secrecy, and revelation. But the teaching of secrecy itself faces particular challenges. Drawing on the authors’ experiences teaching secrecy-themed seminars to first-year university students, this paper pinpoints four such challenges: how to determine the range of phenomena to cover in a short course, how to prevent excessive interpretation of secrets, how to encourage students to take a fun topic with seriousness, and how to engage students in their own practices of secrecy. In laying out these challenges, we aim to contribute to a secrecy literacy: a needed competency so people can better evaluate efforts to keep secrets and appreciate the need for certain types of secrets while also being able to critique problematic forms. This secrecy literacy can provide a foundation for the skills needed to better manage secrecy in our professional and everyday lives