Judging the Constructive Impacts of Communication Technologies: A Business Education Study

Through an IBM partnership, Acadia University has the benefit of an infrastructure that places a laptop computer in the hands of some 4000 faculty and students on campus. Coupled with anytime–anyplace campus access to the computer network, the setting offers unique opportunities to study the pedagogical impacts of the use of computers in classroom instruction.University business administration courses have routinely employed case study approaches in the delivery of some course content. The research described follows the use of an elaborate case study communications networking system being used in a business course on competitive intelligence. Though the technology collage allows for certain opportunities to promote quality instruction, not all aspects of technology use were found to be productive. This paper provides an analysis of the appropriateness of technology usage in the context of a single business education course.     

Splicing the Divide: A Review of Research on the Evolving Digital Divide Among K–12 Students

The digital divide has narrowed with regard to one definition of access to technology—the binary view of the “haves” and “have-nots.” However, use of technology at home and in school is not equitable for all students. According to recent literature, a broader and more nuanced definition of the technological divide is necessary in order to express the ways technology is used or not used. The purpose of this research review is to examine the defining characteristics of technology use by K–12 students, highlighting the complexities of the evolving digital divide. This review integrates findings from empirical studies, theoretical articles, research reviews, and government surveys in the United States in order to present a renewed look at an evolving digital divide, explore the underlying causes of the unequal student use of technology, suggest directions for future research, and provide current implications for practice.     

Indian club swinging in the early Victorian period

Although relatively unknown to the modern fitness enthusiast, Indian club swinging, the practice of swinging bottle shaped clubs for gymnastic exercise, was once a highly popular form of recreation and rehabilitation in Victorian England. Inspired by the centuries-old Indian practice of jori swinging, club swinging first emerged in England in the 1820s, thanks to its adoption by the British army. Although first viewed as a military training practice, club swinging was soon appropriated by England’s upper-classes with an eye to gender identities. For Victorian men, Indian clubs were seen as a means of bolstering their masculine credentials through the cultivation of physical strength. Similarly for women, club swinging was presented as an innocuous method of preserving or increasing their beauty. By tracing the importation of Indian club swinging into English society, this article examines the ways in which the practice was used to both bolster and re-interpret the gender identities ascribed to Indian clubs by both physicians and lay authors.     

Master of “Complex and Ambiguous Phenomena”: The ERL’s Role in a Library Service Platform Migration

ABSTRACT

Library Services Platforms (LSPs) offer academic libraries the ability to integrate the management of print and electronic resources in one centralized platform. This article will examine the role of electronic resources librarians (ERLs) in a large-scale, consortial LSP implementation relative to NASIG’s Core Competencies for Electronic Resources Librarians. The speakers, Conor Cote and Kirsten Ostergaard, hail from Montana, where the Treasure State Academic Information and Library Services Consortium, comprised of seventeen academic libraries, is implementing Ex Libris’s Alma LSP in conjunction with the Primo discovery layer. The aim of this presentation and article is to examine how the skills and competencies of an ERL can be leveraged for an effective and minimally disruptive LSP implementation.     

Grappling with the literature of education research and practice

The absence of a central database and use of specialized language hinder nonexperts in becoming familiar with the science teaching and learning literature and using it to inform their work. The challenge of locating articles related to a specific question or problem, coupled with the difficulty of comprehending findings based on a variety of different perspectives and practices, can be prohibitively difficult. As I have transitioned from bench to classroom-based research, I have become familiar with how to locate, decipher, and evaluate the education research literature. In this essay, I point out analogies to the literature of science research and practice, and I reference some of the literature that I have found useful in becoming an education researcher. I also introduce a new regular feature, "Current Insights: Recent Research in Science Teaching and Learning," which is designed to point CBE--Life Sciences Education (CBE-LSE) readers to current articles of interest in life sciences education, as well as more general and noteworthy publications in education research.