Recent research indicates that Web 2.0 applications contribute to supporting a social constructivist approach for language learning. However, students encounter different types of barrier associated with technologies and learning tasks, which can cause disengagement during different phases of learning. Thus, based on flow theory and the strategic motivation framework, this study aims to investigate students’ motivation and their engagement patterns while participating in Web 2.0 digital storytelling activities. The participants are 24 elementary school students of a suburban school in northern Taiwan. Over 19 weeks of observations on students aged 9–10 years in a third-grade classroom, data were collected through three sources: surveys, students’ digital stories, and English tests. The analysis of the data showed that motivation was a dynamic process, initially low but increasing in later phases. A dynamic pattern was also identified in the students’ flow perceptions, which included two cycles of disengagement and reengagement. Students encountered different challenges that led to disengagement phases, which highlighted the need for specific types of learning support in elementary school contexts. In addition, the participants’ vocabulary and oral fluency were found to have been enhanced by the end of the study. The implications for educational practice are discussed and the direction for future studies addressed.

This paper reports a Spanish-American telecollaborative project through which students used Twitter, blogs and podcasts for intercultural exchange over the course of one semester. The paper outlines the methodology for the project including pedagogical objectives, task design, selection of web tools and implementation. Using qualitative and quantitative data collection, the study explored how the application of Web 2.0 facilitated cross-cultural communication. How the use of digital technology affected the way in which the students viewed intercultural learning and peer feedback was examined. The findings showed that students viewed the online exchange as a superb venue for intercultural communication with native speakers. Through social engagements, students not only gained cultural knowledge but also became more aware of their own beliefs and attitudes toward their own culture. In addition, discussions on topics of tangible and intangible cultures afforded the opportunity to raise students’ awareness of cultural norms and practices. Peer feedback helped learners increase lexical knowledge, prevent language fossilization, and acquire native-sounding discourse. The study suggests that allocating sufficient time to complete each task and making personal commitment to online contributions are essential to successful intercultural exchanges.

Background: Social networking sites can be beneficial for senior citizens to promote social participation and to enhance intergenerational communication. Particularly for older adults with impaired mobility, social networking sites can help them to connect with family members and other active social networking users. The aim of this systematic review is to give an overview of existing scientific literature on social networking in older users.

Methods: Computerized databases were searched and 105 articles were identified and screened using exclusion criteria. After exclusion of 87 articles, 18 articles were included, reviewed, classified, and the key findings were extracted. Common findings are identified and critically discussed and possible future research directions are outlined.

Results: The main benefit of using social networking sites for older adults is to enter in an intergenerational communication with younger family members (children and grandchildren) that is appreciated by both sides. Identified barriers are privacy concerns, technical difficulties and the fact that current Web design does not take the needs of older users into account.

Conclusions: Under the conditions that these problems are carefully addressed, social networking sites have the potential to support today's and tomorrow's communication between older and younger family members.

There is a widely held assumption that the Internet provides opportunities to rethink and reorganise the knowledge interaction and dissemination between industry, education and research. Web 2.0 technologies are emerging as teaching and learning tools, but there is still no striking evidence to support the above-mentioned assumption. Accordingly, the purposes of this article are to, first, discuss the challenges in tourism education and address in brief the declining role of universities as knowledge monopolies and their emerging role as open knowledge mediators. Second, to present open innovation paradigms and address issues of knowledge accumulation and dissemination in tourism and the new role of the university. Third, INNOTOUR, an experimental Web 2.0 innovation hub for tourism, is presented. Preliminary learning experiences using the INNOTOUR platform as an advanced tool for collaborative, open source education in tourism are outlined. Finally, we point out collaborative challenges for international tourism research and teaching. We argue that there is a compelling need to build grounded theory and consolidated practice that will advance the quality and efficiency of tourism education through the use of a wide span of interactive technologies and committed teaching methods, facilitating dynamic, interdisciplinary and international learning experiences.

In the knowledge-based digital economy the ability to harness digital technologies to capture and manage information is a critical skill for tourism professionals. This article examines the use of wikis as a teaching and learning tool to help students develop a range of knowledge management skills, including creative collaboration, consensus-building and technical literacy. The purpose of the study is to provide an exploratory analysis of student attitudes toward the use of wikis as a collaborative assessment task. The results indicate that wikis are perceived to be a flexible, convenient and fair pedagogical technique for collaborative learning. Many students readily understood and exploited the collaborative and reflective nature of wikis. However, some students did not spend enough time on the task and did not appear to gain as much from the learning experience. This impacted on the extent and quality of collaboration in some groups. It is suggested that a staged wiki assessment might overcome some of the perceived shortcomings reported by students.

In order to make optimal educational use of social spaces offered by thousands of international communities in the second generation web applications termed Web 2 or Social Web, ICT competences as well as social skills are needed for both teachers and learners. The paper outlines differences in competence structures of Net Natives (who came of age in the 21st century) and the Net Generation of the 1980s and 1990s who evolve in response to changes between Web 1 and Web 2 technologies.

Virtual educational environments in the age of the Social Web represent a perfect embodiment of the Constructionist paradigm: they offer shared discussion and work spaces instead of presentation tools, coaching utilities instead of help desks, and digital learning resource repositories instead of ready-made learning materials. LRE, the European Learning Resource Exchange, and several collaborative web based services and applications will be presented, to illustrate the interrelated change in educational software design and use.

New teaching and learning aids require and at the same time inspire new educational theories. The trialogical learning paradigm that invites all educational stakeholders to work on shared objects of inquiry and development and thus develop epistemic agency will be offered as a foundation for a ‘social CALL’.

In his paper given at the 38th BIALL Annual Study Conference, Derek Law considers the role of libraries and teaching, in particular academic libraries, in the new Web 2.0 world. He considers the needs of the new generation of “digital natives” in terms of the traditional library and questions whether it still has a role to fulfil. He concludes that academic librarians must become fully involved in the digital revolution and embrace new methods of developing their collections.