Traditional education system on campus has been using as a legacy over decades to support educational learning. The major change over time has been made by the use of technology supporting students in the academic community. As the majority of students in higher education today belong to the digital-age-student generation, they frequently use online technology to interact with instructors, other learners, and to access online materials. In this study, the result is primarily presented from campus students’ perceptions, to gain a deeper understanding of how social media is being used to support educational and collaborative/cooperative learning. Although, almost all the respondents are frequent social media users, only a quarter of them use such media regularly for academic purposes. Through use of social media in academia, students have encountered with benefits─ as convenience, possibility of interaction anywhere/anytime, time-saving, low price and many others─ in addition to facing to limitations─ such as less effective or spontaneous contact, connection problems, lack of platform compatibility, less creative and innovative thinking, and other issues─ which have been discussed in this study. This thesis adopted a qualitative research and the characterization of knowledge that is used is exploratory research method with the use of interview as a tool for empirical data collection. Twenty interviews have been conducted with Uppsala University higher education students within random subject disciplines. Among many different social media, the most frequent ones used by majority of students are e-mail, a common asynchronous media to interact with instructors and other learners; and Instant Messaging (IM), a synchronous communication way to interact with co-workers, classmates, or group-mates. Furthermore, learners use social media to coordinate their collaborative/cooperative work, share documents and ask questions. Facebook, Wikipedia, YouTube and other popular social media are also sometimes used for educational purposes. The findings indicate that social media seems particularly beneficial for supporting educational learning; though there are some negative aspect and limitations. Learners look at using the technology and social media as a complement to support their studies and collaboration/cooperation. However, not many of them consider using such media as a substitute for face-to-face interactions and the traditional campus education. By drawing on this thesis and the previous studies, proposition on how use of social media supports educational learning in the future has been emerged.

Research Question: Can organizations truly create value for all its stakeholders simultaneously, without a significant trade-off from one group to another? And what role does current ICT infrastructure play? Purpose: This study is aimed at determining how organizations create value simultaneously for stakeholders without a trade-off, and also examine the role of ICT (Information and communication technologies) in balancing responsibility in trying to satisfying all stakeholders (customers, suppliers, society, environment, employees and shareholders) in complex ICT environments. Methodology: The study involves business organizations in Sweden. A research questionnaire was sent to one thousand five hundred top level management executives in Swedish based business organizations, to collect data.  Business organizations were carefully selected to cut across many industry sectors. Findings: Some of the findings includes: that many companies in Sweden still have a hard time satisfying all stakeholders simultaneously without trade-off, even with the huge ICT infrastructures. We discovered that although companies invest a lot on ICT, but the combination of strategy which will bring corporate partnership and create value for all without “robbing Peter to pay Paul” is still lacking. Research Limitations: First, the study was limited to Sweden because of lack of resources to conduct interviews in many countries. Thus, there is the need to exercise caution in generalising these findings. Second, the number of respondents was limited, because it was difficult to get very busy top management executives from different companies to respond to our questionnaire.   Originality: This research work provides insight to understand and interpret balanced stakeholder value creation in companies, identify attributes for simultaneous value creation, as well as the role information and communication technology play in achieving this objective. Keywords: Stakeholder, Value Creation, Information and communication technology, Sustainable Value, and Stakeholder Analysis

This thesis will investigate the Communication, Collaboration and Coordination among hu-manitarian organization with the application of Information and Communication Technol-ogy, and commercial paradigms. Aims to involve the relief actors and the commercial com-panies involved throughout of their Corporate Social Responsibility programs. The method-ology is chosen specifically to fit the qualitative nature of the research. The paper presents data collected for the sole purpose of this research and is later on analysed in order to draw theoretical conclusions. At the end, practical implications and suggestions for future research are included.

This case study examines the effectiveness of information and communication technology (ICT) in the Upriver Halq'eméylem language activities. The research indicates that ICT has been successful in supporting micro-level activities managed by individuals; however, while certain elements of ICT were identified by participants as having the potential to help increase fluency, fluency has not been achieved. Recommendations include the creation of a catalogue of all content developed and applications in use to be maintained by a central and agreed upon party; the use of applications in a Software as a Service (SaaS) or similar model; continuation of ongoing formal and informal meetings of the individuals who are working to revitalize the language; and, that the community attempt to determine why language is not being spoken while continuing to make the language visible. One additional finding is that the funding available may be driving the adoption of ICT within the language program; additional research is required to fully understand the effects of funding models. While these recommendations are specific to this community, they may support other decentralized language programs.

Despite the lack of substantial evidence for improvement in the quality of teaching and learning with information and communication technology (ICT), governmental organizations, including those of Canada and Australia, have made large investments into ICT. This investment has been largely predicated on the hypothesized relationship between ICT and science achievement, and the need for ICT as a means of providing broad-scale training to meet the demand for a skilled workforce. To better understand this possible relationship, this study used data from the 2006 administration of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA 2006) to determine the extent to which scientific literacy is predicted by student- and school-level variables related to ICT, after adjusting for student demographic characteristics and school characteristics. The findings suggest that, once student demographic characteristics and school characteristics have been accounted for, students with prior experience with ICT, who browse the Internet more frequently, and who are confident with basic ICT tasks earned higher scientific literacy scores. Gender differences existed with respect to types of productivity and entertainment software used; this difference may be attributed to personal choice and initiative to learn ICT. Finally, differences in ICT use between Canada and Australia, particularly with school use, may be due to initiatives in Australia (e.g., National Goals of Schooling for the Twenty-first Century) that promote the increased use of ICT in classrooms. / Thesis (Master, Education) -- Queen's University, 2009-08-31 11:14:15.59

The purpose of this mixed methods study was to document and examine the beliefs held by preservice elementary teachers prior to entering a teacher education program concerning the nature of mathematics and their perceptions about the effective use of information and communication technology (ICT) for mathematics instruction. Through an online questionnaire (N=132) followed by interviews of purposefully selected respondents (n=8), the following questions were addressed: (1) What beliefs do preservice elementary mathematics teachers hold upon entering teacher education programs regarding the nature of mathematics? (2) What beliefs do preservice elementary mathematics teachers hold upon entering teacher education programs about how ICT should be used in the classroom? and (3) How do preservice elementary mathematics teachers’ beliefs about the nature of mathematics relate to their views about the use of ICT in teaching mathematics? Video-elicitation was used in the interviews to determine how respondents perceived various uses of interactive whiteboards. Respondents were grouped based on their beliefs about the nature of mathematics and their reactions to the videos that they were shown. It was discovered that interview respondents who held contrasting views about the nature of mathematics also held differing beliefs about teaching and learning as well as the benefits of ICT. Respondents who saw mathematics as a set of fixed naturally occurring rules, an Absolutist view, favoured teacher directed use of ICT to support the transmission of knowledge. On the other hand, those who viewed mathematics as a human construct, a Fallibilist image, were more in favour of ICT use to support student mathematics investigation and talk. The existence of a potential hidden curriculum was also discovered. Although all interview participants were shown the same videos, respondents in the two groups perceived roles of the teacher and students in the videos that were aligned with their beliefs about the nature of mathematics and teaching and learning. / Thesis (Master, Education) -- Queen's University, 2012-06-29 13:00:17.205

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the information and communication technology (ICT) industries play a crucial role in the new economy. Most SMEs operate in a fiercely competitive environment; as such, it is important to optimize business practices. It is believed that performance measurement (PM) tools can help to identify weaknesses, clarify objectives and strategies, and improve management processes. While many theories on performance measurement and performance management have been developed mainly for large organizations over the past two decades, few have been tailored for SMEs. In addition, research highlights that these tools are difficult to adapt for SMEs. This research aims to identify and investigate the critical factors influencing the performance of SMEs in the ICT industries and, in doing so, develop a new PM framework that is able to effectively measure SME performance. To improve the accuracy of the judgments in this research, methodological triangulation strategy, which mixes both qualitative and quantitative approaches, was employed. At the same time, data-source triangulation was applied to reduce the impact of potential biases. In qualitative research, twenty interviews were conducted, sixteen cases were analysed through cross-case analysis. In quantitative research, sixty-six valid responses to questionnaire surveys were collected. This thesis has completed three major tasks: 1) Investigated critical success factors that affect the performance of SMEs. 2) Analysed existing SME performance measurement techniques in order to identify the best framework for SMEs in ICT industries. 3) Constructed a practical PM framework and implementation strategy for best-practice PM in ICT-related SMEs. Research results show that an effective PM system for ICT SMEs should help the companies to formulate right strategies that can especially manage the uncertainty of the external environment in their development. Importantly, a PM process should be constructed which aligns with the SMEs' daily processes such as ordinary planning, budgeting and reporting processes. Such a PM system should involve a flexible PM framework that can be adapted dynamically to suit the changes in the PM process. It is also required that the PM framework help SMEs identify customer needs, manage and measure customer satisfaction. A PM framework meets the above requirements can be built based on the structure of business excellence models and the theory of system management. At the same time, the KPIs should be incorporated in the PM system to help design the PM framework. The constructed PM framework involves measuring both performance determinants and performance results. The performance determinants, including both internal determinants and external determinants, are represented in following dimensions: capability building; resource developing and utilizing; environment adapting; strategies formulating; internal process managing and PM on innovation and learning. The performance results' dimension should include the financial results to satisfy the investors, the customer satisfaction indicators to meet customers' needs, the competitive indicators to reflect the competitive advantages, and the collaborative measures to measure the partnership.

Resumo: Atualmente, vivemos em uma sociedade onde o uso e a produção das Tecnologias de Informação e Comunicação - TIC's - se ampliam a cada instante. Logo, a Educação por se caracterizar como uma instituição formal responsável pela produção do conhecimento, fazendo parte desta sociedade moderna, deve ter o compromisso também de formar cidadãos mais humanos que possam fazer uso destes recursos a favor do bem comum. Em vista disso, a presente pesquisa científica, apresentou como principal finalidade investigar como formar educadores para utilizar as TIC's como ferramentas na potencialização de projetos, visando à vivência, reflexão e desenvolvimento de certos valores humanos no ambiente educacional, tais como: a cooperação, solidariedade, respeito, responsabilidade, diálogo, paz, entre outros. Para tanto, foram tomadas duas frentes: uma formação continuada e uma formação em serviço, a fim de adotar uma nova proposta metodológica. A pesquisa se desenvolveu em dois contextos: em uma escola municipal de Junqueirópolis (SP) e em uma escola estadual de Presidente Prudente (SP). Na escola de Junqueirópolis (SP), ocorreu a realização de um curso de formação continuada oferecido...(Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: Nowadays, we live in a society where the use and the production of Information and Communication Technologies - ICT - are amplified all the time. Since the education is characterized as a formal institution responsible by the knowledge production that makes part of this new society, it should also have the commitment to graduate more human citizens that can use these resources in behalf of common benefits. Because of it, this scientific research has presented as its main finality to investigate how to graduate educators to use the ICT as tools in the project potencialization, searching for experience, reflection and development of certain human values, such as: cooperation, solidarity, respect, responsibility, dialogue, peace, and others, in the educational environment. Two ways were used to make it: a continuous formation and a service one, so that a new methodological propose could be adopted. The research has developed into two contexts: in a town school of Junqueirópolis (SP) and in a state one of Presidente Prudente (SP). At school of Junqueirópolis (SP) there was the accomplishment of a continuous formation course and it was offered to forty educators from the initial degrees of the Basic Teaching and Infant Education to familiarize...(Complete abstract, click electronic access below) / Orientador: Elisa Tomoe Moriya Schlünzen / Coorientador: José Armando Valente / Banca: Maria Suzana de Stefano Menin / Banca: Ivani Catarina Arantes Fazenda / Mestre

M.Ed. / Infusing Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) into the teaching and learning of Mathematical Literacy Located in the qualitative research paradigm, this study was conducted in eight Gauteng Department of Education schools in the Ekurhuleni North District 6, in Gauteng South Africa and aimed to investigate the use of ICTs in the teaching and learning of Mathematical Literacy. This study focused on how Mathematical Literacy teachers use ICTs to enhance their teaching and learning. In addition, teachers’ attitude, ICT competency as well as the challenges that they face in using ICTs to enhance the teaching and learning of Mathematical Literacy was investigated. Not only is knowledge of ICTs important but the competence of ICT users, namely teachers and learners requirements need to be illuminated through extensive and intensive research. For this reason, this study could, despite its limitations, pave the way for far more elaborate studies to be conducted. This study will contribute towards an understanding of teachers’ experiences of the use of ICTs in South African classrooms. The need exists for teachers to be trained in computer literacy skills and technology skills as well as for school management and the Department of Education (DoE) to provide the necessary support that is deemed essential for the successful use of ICTs in the teaching and learning of Mathematical Literacy. The findings of this study suggests that unless school management and the DoE providethe necessary training and support for teachers, the likelihood of attaining the goal of all learners being ICT literate by 2013, may not be realised.

M.Com. (Business Management) / Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is pervasive in tertiary education, commerce and industry, yet many disadvantaged rural areas and townships lag behind in technological development. For example, in rural schools students have weak ICT background and consequently their progress at tertiary education level and career choices suffer, easpecially in the urban career context. This study sought to identify the urban-rural divide in ICT and determine the causes. Questionnaires were distributed to a purposive sample of 196 students at the University of Johannesburg, Doornfontein Campus. The results show that practical use of computers starts at high school ages between 11 and 15 years. The computer instructions are less pronounced. There have been some ICT development initiatives by government and some other organisations although not well coordinated. The resource needs for uninhibited expansion of ICT include computers, connectivity and skilled educators. Despite the current efforts, rural areas and townships lag behind for various reasons such as; technological under-development, low literacy levels and poverty. Thus students from these disadvantaged communities are constrained in career choices and also struggle to cope at university because of the demand for ICT ability. The pervasiveness of ICT in all walks of life has created a digital divide to the extent that township and rural folk remain marginalised although Internet cafes have played a part in making ICT somewhat accessible. The explosion in mobile telephony and its widespread use even in rural areas have immense potential for ICT growth. However, education and awareness campaigns on the utility of cell phones as a medium for ICT will be essential. A renewed focus on computer education in primary school learners will “catch them young” and revolutionalise the ICT in South Africa. The development in ICT will require further substantial investment in ICT infrastructure and hardware as well as improving the skills of educators. The digital divide need be closed so that marginalised rural areas and townships can also derive the socio-economic benefits that ICT bring. Education will raise the literacy thresholds, which will increase awareness of the potency of ICT. Use of local language and content on the Internet will enhance its cultural relevance and acceptability. ICT is a global phenomenon and South Africa cannot afford to take a back seat.