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While some may perceive technology as disruptive in higher education, this chapter makes a case that video technology can be used to increase collaboration and engagement in learning and teaching. It is argued that digital storytelling can be integrated as part of the assessment in graduate-level courses without compromising expectations related to academic rigor. Rather, digital storytelling advances multimedia literacy for the individual and supports the generation of bounded learning communities, specifically in online and blended programmes. Covering social presence, teaching presence and cognitive presence, the chapter draws on two examples of digital storytelling used in the MA in Conflict Analysis and Management and the MA in Global Leadership at Royal Roads University, Canada. Overall, the chapter makes a contribution to the conversation of how assessment formats can be updated to match the shift from traditional, lecture formats and brick-and-mortar institutions to applied, collaborative programmes that are often delivered in blended and online formats. Thus, as the field of higher education continues to evolve and adapt alongside technological innovations, the chapter suggests that digital storytelling can be one way to complement and update assessment formats to match the evolution of the twenty-first century.

This article informs school leaders and staffs about existing research findings on the use of data-driven decision-making in creating class rosters. Given that teachers are the most important school-based educational resource, decisions regarding the assignment of students to particular classes and teachers are highly impactful for student learning. Classroom compositions of peers can also influence student learning.

A literature review was conducted on the use of data-driven decision-making in the rostering process. The review addressed the merits of using various quantitative metrics in the rostering process.

Findings revealed that, despite often being purposeful about rostering, school leaders and staffs have generally not engaged in data-driven decision-making in creating class rosters. Using data-driven rostering may have benefits, such as limiting the questionable practice of assigning the least effective teachers in the school to the youngest or lowest performing students. School leaders and staffs may also work to minimize negative peer effects due to concentrating low-achieving, low-income, or disruptive students in any one class. Any data-driven system used in rostering, however, would need to be adequately complex to account for multiple influences on student learning. Based on the research reviewed, quantitative data alone may not be sufficient for effective rostering decisions.

Given the rich data available to school leaders and staffs, data-driven decision-making could inform rostering and contribute to more efficacious and equitable classroom assignments.

This article is the first to summarize relevant research across multiple bodies of literature on the opportunities for and challenges of using data-driven decision-making in creating class rosters.

The purpose of this paper is to share possible opportunities for librarians, faculty and students with access to Google Classroom, and it includes a discussion of its application and functionality in information literacy sessions.

This paper describes the functionality of Google Classroom with a review of its capabilities for providing information literacy instruction based on hands-on use in several classes and observation.

Google Classroom streamlined delivery of materials with students in one-time and multi-meeting classes. Students appreciated its seamless integration with their university email accounts.

Librarians teaching classes often need to share introductory information, exercises and supplemental materials with students. Google Classroom offers a simple platform for this purpose.

Nowadays, when mobile devices are actively evolving and penetrating the various spheres of human activity they have a potential to modernize and facilitate the sphere of IT education as well. This paper aims to test the hypothesis stating that introduction of mobile technology to the college-level database course for future IT specialists has a positive academic impact on students.

The main theoretical premises for the present study were the general findings of the surveys by Hinze et al. (2017) and Bowen and Pistilli (2012) indicating that: using mobile tools to work on classroom projects improves student’s academic success students, especially those from computing specialties, actively turn to mobile tools in their academic activity students favor the Android and iPhone platforms and prefer native mobile apps to Web-based mobile apps The key idea of the present study was to validate these general premises in the specific case of the college-level database class. Namely, the authors formulated a hypothesis that Android-based mobile devices have a positive impact on the IT students’ academic performance and interest in the subject at the college-level introductory database lessons. Throughout the study, the authors examined both quantitative (students’ scores and attendance rate) and qualitative aspects (students’ and teachers’ opinions) of the hypothesis.

Based on the experiment’s positive outcome resulting in students’ increased academic performance and interest in the subject, the authors conclude that in the context of the college-level database course mobile devices can successfully substitute traditional desktop computers and positively affect students’ academic activity.

Based on the experiment’s positive outcome resulting in students’ increased academic performance and interest in the subject, the authors conclude that in the context of the college-level database course mobile devices can successfully substitute traditional desktop computers and positively affect students’ academic activity.

The purpose of this paper is to draw from the authors’ experiences, as women teaching Communication in a College of Engineering and mechanical engineering students’ evaluations, to highlight student resistance to both practices and bodies deemed “feminine.”

The authors examine how the masculine discipline of engineering might construct a learning environment that is incompatible with feminist ideals. This is illuminated when engineering students are required to learn communication skills from female instructors.

The authors’ analysis suggests that students’ resistance to communication instruction is gendered. Students often constructed hierarchical relationships where communication was considered “soft” in relation to the “hard” science of engineering instead of integral to the discipline and profession. Students resisted by expressing a lack of utility of information, devaluing feedback and instruction, degrading communication teachers, and questioning their bodies.

The paper discusses implications of a gendered educational context and suggests ways interdisciplinary instruction can be utilized to enhance gender diversity.

This paper seeks to offer a rationale and practical suggestions for the integration of visual literacy instruction and information literacy instruction practice and theory.

The paper aligns visual literacy and information literacy competency standards, revealing connections and opportunities for practical integration during library instruction and traditional classroom instruction.

On analysis of 11 visual literacy competencies, three exhibit a strong relationship with the ACRL's Information Literacy Competency Standards.

The paper provides guidelines for teaching and learning scenarios that may be used in a library instruction session or as part of a course curriculum.

The paper advocates the alignment of visual literacy and information literacy competencies as a method for connecting multiple literacies in information literacy instruction.

Much of the scholarship relating to educator learning in the context of school change centers on promising organizational structures that support educator knowledge-building and sharing. However, recent studies have found that educators' social networks also enhance learning of new practices. This study aims to explore how informal interactions support organizational learning in schools.

Applying structuration theory to concepts of organizational learning mechanisms, this paper proposes a framework for examining informal interactions and organizational learning. Employing an exploratory sequential mixed-methods design, this paper utilizes social network analysis of survey data and thematic analysis of interview data of a purposive sample of participants in a rural school district.

Within this rural district, organizational and social conditions supported recursive interactions where educators developed and shared knowledge of new instructional practices. Organizational resources and routines, and individuals' habits of mind mediated these recursive interactions, resulting in somewhat dependable knowledge-sharing spaces. Through these recursive interactions between individual agents acting within the opportunities and constraints of the normalized organizational expectations of each school, informal knowledge structures emerged.

This article applies structuration theory to examine organizational learning mechanisms in schools. This novel approach provides researchers with a new perspective on the organizational learning process—one that facilitates the exploration of the role of informal knowledge-building in this process.

The purpose of this paper is to show how to enact a Batesonian system to teaching an ecology of mind course.

The approach develops a practical framework for teaching with examples of teaching approaches and student work.

The overarching approach involves a depth-abstraction-abduction model. This model was used to engage students in examining a variety of transdisciplinary phenomena with emphasis on contexts, meaning, multiple perspectives, stories, relationships and systems, patterns, and epistemology. Epistemological shocks and shifts were a common occurrence.

This work is unique in that it focuses on a course based upon the film: “An ecology of mind: a daughter's portrait of Gregory Bateson”.

This paper aims to examine the development and use of a scaffolded‐social learning network (S²LN) called Remix World. The local aim is to increase understanding of how Remix World is integrated into programmatic and curricular structures as a way to support learning. The broader aim is to contribute to conversations about learning opportunities that S²LNs afford for participants.

Remix World was integrated into the Digital Youth Network (DYN) in‐school and after‐school digital arts curriculum. DYN used Remix World to display and comment on media, artifacts and designs, and to post original work. Two of the authors were given accounts on Remix World, where they logged in to respond to comments and note site activities and conversations.

The data suggest that students across the grade levels regularly used Remix World to post commentary, post media, and critique peers. Students used Remix World across ecologies (home, after school, and school day). Mentors' efforts to integrate the site into their classes increased the number of users and activities on Remix World.

Integrating a media‐based curriculum that encourages critique and production requires some formal feedback and guidelines. It is essential to explore how mentors and teachers pedagogically leverage the students' posts to reach curricular and programmatic learning goals.

This study explores how features and affordances of social networking sites can be redesigned to intentionally support in‐school pedagogical use that promotes transformative communication and the development of critical, new media literacies.

The purposes of this study were (1) to examine the characteristics of teacher involvement in the decision making process in schools; (2) to examine the degree of loyalty to principals in schools; (3) to test the relationship between teacher decisional status and loyalty to the principal; and (4) to explore the dynamics of teacher decision‐making so that a better understanding of the underlying structure of decision‐making in schools can be developed. Data were collected at regularly scheduled faculty meetings in ten elementary and five secondary schools in New Jersey. In general, analysis of variance was utilized as the basis of statistical analysis. Further, a factor analysis was performed in an attempt to understand the underlying structure of the data. Four major conclusions were drawn from the study: (1) Teacher satisfaction with their decisional status was related to loyalty to the principal; (2) no significant differences were found between elementary and secondary schools with regard to satisfaction with their decisional status; (3) elementary school teachers exhibited a greater degree of loyalty to their principals than did teachers in secondary schools; and (4) teachers' desires to participate in decision‐making are strongest in those areas that are closely related to the teaching‐learning process.