Current literature relating to information and communication technologies (ICT) in K-12 teaching and learning offers positive and cautionary perspectives. Overall, there exists great optimism about the benefits of ICT-mediated learning for students. Below, we review literature on ICTs in K-12 education, with emphasis on technology-supported constructivist learning, the challenges and pedagogical implications of educational technologies, changing roles for teachers, and technology in the classroom. In Part II, we will review literature on K-12 learner issues that can affect successful learning using ICTs. We will report on learner satisfaction with online learning, current thinking on skills of successful online students, and existing theoretical discussions of technology and learning styles. We will review student diversity and ICT-mediated learning, student differences, which challenge online learning, and the opportunities offered by ICTs for particular subgroups of learners. Overall, we offer a snapshot of current literature on effectiveness of ICT-mediated learning from the perspective of the K-12 learner.

Current literature relating to information and communication technologies (ICT) in K-12 teaching and learning offers positive and cautionary perspectives. Overall, there exists great optimism about the benefits of ICT-mediated learning for students. Previously, we reviewed literature on ICTs in K-12 education, with emphasis on technology-supported constructivist learning, the challenges and pedagogical implications of educational technologies, changing roles for teachers, and technology in the classroom. Below, we review K-12 literature on learner issues that can affect successful learning using ICTs. We report on learner satisfaction with online learning, current thinking on skills of successful online students, and existing theoretical discussions of technology and learning styles. We review student diversity and ICT-mediated learning, student differences which challenge online learning, and the opportunities offered by ICTs for particular subgroups of learners. Overall, we offer a snapshot of current literature on effectiveness of ICT-mediated learning from the perspective of the K-12 learner.

While the benefits of international education are beyond question, established international education (IE) activities remain beyond the reach of most Canadian students. Can information and communication technologies (ICTs) expand access to international education in a meaningful way? This report describes highlights of case studies of six diverse and innovative Canadian adventures with online IE: At the University of British Columbia, the online course ‘Working in International Health’ contributes to internationalization of the curriculum and prepares students for work in the developing world. Mount Royal College in Calgary leads an international ‘Consortium on Design Education’ online design challenge to introduce students to international and intercultural elements of design. At Ryerson University, integration of a “Virtual Law Firms” experiential online activity gives students first-hand experience of the world of international business law. The new ‘University of the Arctic’ makes use of ICTs to connect students from over 40 institutions in eight Arctic states. ‘Introduction to Ethnomusicology’ at the Université de Montréal demonstrates Québec’s leadership of international ICT initiatives in the Francophone world, and challenges Canadian and African students to rethink their cultural perspectives on music. And the ‘e-Learning for Business Innovation and Growth’ project in Newfoundland and Labrador extends international learning to lifelong learners.

The benefits of international education are beyond question, but international education (IE) activities remain beyond the reach of most students. Can information and communication technologies (ICTs) expand access in a meaningful way? We report highlights of six diverse case studies of innovative Canadian adventures with online IE: how they advance internationalisation priorities, support intercultural learning, and increase access to IE. Importantly, these projects demonstrate how ICTs can move us beyond old paradigms in which developed nations send their students and their ëknowledgeí to the developing world, and instead create a new space for students and faculty to meet as equals.

In this paper we report findings of a multidisciplinary study of online participation by culturally diverse participants in a distance adult education course offered in Canada and examine in detail three of the study's findings. First, we explore both the historical and cultural origins of "cyberculture values" as manifested in our findings, using the notions of explicit and implicit enforcement of those values and challenging the assumption that cyberspace is a culture free zone. Second, we examine the notion of cultural gaps between participants in the course and the potential consequences for online communication successes and difficulties. Third, the analysis describes variations in participation frequency as a function of broad cultural groupings in our data. We identify the need for additional research, primarily in the form of larger scale comparisons across cultural groups of patterns of participation and interaction, but also in the form of case studies that can be submitted to microanalyses of the form as well as the content of communicator's participation and interaction online.

Motivated by the popularity of marketplace applications over social net works, we study optimal recommendation algorithms for online exchange markets. Examples of such markets include peerflix. corn and readitswapit.co.uk. We model these markets as a social network in which each user has two as sociated lists: The item list, i.e, the set of items the user is willing to give away, and the wish list, i.e., the set of items the user is interested in receiv ing. A transaction involves a user giving an item to another user. Users are motivated to engage in transactions in expectation of realizing their wishes. Wishes may be realized by a pair of users swapping items corresponding to each other’s wishes, but more generally by means of users exchanging items through a cycle, where each user gives an item to the next user in a cycle, in accordance with the receiving user’s wishes. In this thesis, we first consider the problem of how to efficiently gener ate recommendations for item exchange cycles in an online market social network. We consider deterministic and probabilistic models and show that under both models, the problem of determining an optimal set of recommen dations that maximizes the expected value of items exchanged is NP-hard and develop efficient approximation algorithms for both models. Next, we study exchange markets over time and try to optimize users’ waiting times, and fairness whereby fairness we mean: give higher priority to users who contribute more to the system in addition to maximizing expected value. We show that by introducing the concept of points, average waiting time can be improved by a large factor. By designing a credit system, we try to maxi mize fairness in the system. We show not only is the fairness optimization problem NP-hard, but also inapproximable within any multiplicative factor. We propose two heuristic algorithms, one of which is based on rounding the solution to a linear programming relaxation and the other is a greedy algorithm. For both the one-shot market and the overtime market studied in this thesis, we conduct a comprehensive set of experiments, and explore the performance and also scalability of the proposed algorithms. Our experiments suggest that the performance of our algorithms in practice could be much better than the worst-case performance guarantee factors.

Information load at various thresholds has been asserted to cause a decline in decision quality across several domains, including marketing (Eppler and Mengis 2004). The influence of each information load dimension may vary by study and context (Malhotra 1982; Lurie 2002; Lee and Lee 2004). Given the explosion of information available on the internet, attracting an estimated 144 million U.S. users (Burns 2006a), this experimental research examined how three dimensions of online product information load influenced consumers’ perceived cognitive effort. To the researcher’s knowledge, online product breadth, depth, and density have not been empirically tested together, in a multi-page within website context. A nationwide panel of 268 adult consumers participated in the web-based consumer electronics online search and selection task. Results suggest that a consumer’s perceived cognitive effort with the search and selection task negatively influences choice quality and decision satisfaction. Although product breadth directly influenced both choice quality and cognitive effort negatively, cognitive effort mediated product depth’s influence on choice quality and decision satisfaction. The perception of informational crowding also negatively influenced cognitive effort. Additionally, a choice involvement scale was adapted and developed based upon Schwartz’s (2004) Maximizer and Satisficer scale. Results suggest that the higher one’s choice involvement (tendency toward being a Maximizer), the lower one’s perceived cognitive effort with the search and selection task. Both product and choice involvement demonstrated a direct negative influence on cognitive effort, lending further empirical support for the information processing theory of consumer choice (Bettman 1979). A stimulus-organism-response framework, adapted from environmental psychology, was employed to model the relationships among the constructs tested. Results suggest that this framework may be helpful for guiding future online consumer research.

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<p>This Research sets out to understand the participation experiences of a selected group of adult learners at one of the partner institutionsof the online Intercontinental Masters in Adult Learning and Global Change. The study offers an understanding of adult learners' experiences of success and persistence in relation to online study within a higher education context, and also offers insights into what may costitute successful learning communities. In relation to literature, , the student perceptions obtained via the study largely affirm what 'successiful' can mean to a group of postgraduate adult learners in an online learning environment. This stidy also contributes to the ongoing conversation in terms of the unique experiences of students in one particular cohort of the programme.</p>

The main objective of this study was to determine the consequences of making changes to retail web-sites by examining how consumers respond to change within online retail environments. To achieve this aim, the study drew theoretical guidance from the general Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR) paradigm. In particular, building upon web-site typology theories, the study proposed that two types of change influenced consumers’ internal responses, prompting behavioural consequences. The two types of change were Task-Relevant and Non-Task-Relevant – representing the two broad components of the retail web-site. A conceptual model was developed outlining the expected effects of change on the emotional (Arousal, Pleasure and Dominance), psychological (Flow), and cognitive (Hedonic and Utilitarian Value) states predicted to precede re-acceptance of the changed retail web-site (Attitude toward Re-patronage and Re-patronage Intention). To empirically examine this model, an online experiment (using a 2 x 2 between-subjects factorial design) was conducted, in which subjects were exposed to a modified version of a commercial personal banking web-site. A total of 292 responses were collected from Internet users in New Zealand. Simple linear regression, two- and three-stage hierarchical regression, and path analysis were used to analyse the dependence relationships outlined in the conceptual model. The results of the study suggest that both types of change have individual impacts on consumer response moreover, the effects are very different. In particular, Non-Task-Relevant Change appears to carry positive consequences, such as positive emotion, while the effects of Task-Relevant Change appear to carry negative consequences such as negative emotions and reduced value. Furthermore, findings suggest that offsetting the negative influences of change on emotion (particularly pleasure) can aid managers in minimising the negative consequences of change. The complete findings, their implications for the current research, and the provision of directions for future research are discussed in detail.