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In this study, college students in a large public university in the U.S. were surveyed regarding what technologies they use most frequently for learning, what technologies they value for learning, and how they perceive technology effectiveness to support their learning. The results revealed that technology use and value were closely aligned with laptops and these were detailed as the most used and valued for learning, which underscores the importance of mobile and portable devices in supporting anytime anywhere learning. In terms of using software for learning, search engines, file-sharing tools, digital libraries, videos, and wikis obtained the best results, suggesting that students are adopting self-directed, approaches to their learning. Additionally, collaboration tools were perceived as the most important for learning which highlights the need to design better teaching strategies and learning interactions to support collaborative practices that use technology. Overall, the majority of participants perceived that technology was effective in fostering discussion, collaboration, and interaction. This enable experiential learning, supporting organization, planning, and resource management, and facilitating a personalized learning experience. The results also revealed statistically significant differences between the experiences of undergraduate and graduate students about the effectiveness of technology. Implications for integrating Web 2.0 technologies into teaching and learning practices are discussed.

In the higher education sector, a new era has begun with the advent of ubiquitous learning environments. Ubiquitous learning tools allow improving context-aware as well as learning experiences by offering seamless availability regardless of location all the time. They also help in establishing effortless interaction between authentic and digital learning resources and at the same time offering personalised learning opportunities as well. There are numerous available ubiquitous e-learning tools that can be employed in higher education. E-learning tools also offer training and higher education to many students that have different higher educational levels and come from diverse cultural backgrounds. However, if the capabilities of e-learning are underestimated, these may not be successful in higher education. Some of the people lack understanding about the limitations and weaknesses of e-learning, while some may have superfluous expectations. In this paper, various e-learning tools like Wikipedia, MOODLE, Web 2.0, Web 3.0 and Blackboard have been evaluated. We also comment on key aims regarding each tool and investigate the disadvantages and advantages. Based on this analysis, a global view regarding the current as well as future tendencies pertaining to ubiquitous e-learning tools is obtained and thus possible key comments are provided for employing e-learning tools like MOODLE, Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 in the classroom. Based on our teaching experience, MOODLE was found to be efficient in the development of e-learning. MOODLE was favoured by a majority of authors and practitioners rather than Blackboard. However, MOODLE cannot be considered a fully pure social software since it does not include social networks. In this review, the scope of employing ubiquitous learning environments has been presented in higher education contexts. However, it increases the requirement for transparent research that shows practical implications to generalise future development processes. Moreover, it was shown that e-learning 3.0 is one amongst the key trends employing Web 3.0 tools for social learning. Also, on the Internet, quick incorporation of new services into existing applications like integrating Wiki with Web 3.0 can be done easily. The primary risk here would be the fact that lecturers and students are not fully aware that these web services are not controlled by their universities. Since these servers have been installed in many different countries, the principles and privacy laws vary from country to country.

The objective of this paper is to examine Moroccan higher education students’ and teachers’ perceptions and attitudes towards using Web 2.0 technologies in language learning and teaching. The results of the study revealed that all the informants were immersed in using these Internet-based applications for personal and educational purposes. Nevertheless, while language learners reported to make beneficial uses of these online platforms as language learning tools, the great majority of the interviewed faculty members did not really benefit from these platforms. Although language teachers acknowledged that Web 2.0 technologies had a positive impact on language teaching and learning, most of them were still reluctant to incorporate these tools in educational practice. The findings demonstrated that most teachers’ use of these applications was limited to sending or transferring web links and learning materials produced by other Internet users. Rather than making effective use of Web 2.0 technologies and applications as teaching facilities, most teachers used them only as a means of communication.

The current technological revolution has reached all social classes and its educative use by teachers has not gone unnoticed. The introduction of 2.0 tools has become a reality in many classrooms. In order to evaluate the digital competence of teachers, different dimensions must be considered, including knowledge and educative use. The first objective of this research is to find out whether there are any differences between the knowledge and use of teaching staff of ICT, specifically regarding different 2.0 tools, as well as different modules on the Moodle virtual platform, using the t-Student test. The second objective is to analyse, through a multiple linear regression model, which factors have an effect on the level of digital competence: gender, age and educational stage. With this aim, a non-experimental, ex post facto type of research has been carried out with a study population of 81 teachers from the community of Madrid (Spain). The results have shown that there are statistically significant differences between the knowledge and use of 2.0 tools and Moodle Modules. In addition, the results have found that the variables age and gender have an effect on the prediction of the level of pedagogical digital competence of the teaching staff, while the educational stage in which they teach has no effect. The conclusions derived from this study can help to develop educational interventions focused on improving the unfavourable digital competence of teachers.

PurposeSocial commerce (SC) is a new genre in electronic commerce (e-commerce) that has great potential. This study proposes a new research framework to address deficiencies in existing social commerce research frameworks (e.g. the information model).Design/methodology/approachIn the era of Industrial Revolution 4.0 technologies and new social commerce (s-commerce) models, the authors believe that there is an immediate need for a new research framework. The authors analysed the progress of the s-commerce paradigm between 2003 and 2023 by applying longitudinal science mapping. The authors then developed a research framework based on the themes in the strategic diagrams and evolution map.FindingsFrom 2003 to 2010, studies on s-commerce mainly focused on social networking sites, virtual communities, social shopping and analytic approaches. From 2011 to 2015, it shifted to s-commerce, consumer behaviour, Web 2.0, artificial intelligence, social technologies, online shopping, user studies, data gathering methods, applications, service-based social commerce constructs, e-commerce and cognitive factors. Social commerce remained the primary research paradigm from 2017 to 2023.Practical implicationsThe SC framework may be analogous to popular research frameworks such as technology-organisation-environment (T-O-E) and stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R). Based on this SC framework, researchers may gain a better understanding by determining the factors of the social, commercial, technological and behavioural dimensions.Originality/valueThe authors redefined s-commerce and developed an SC framework. Practical guidelines for the SC framework and an exemplary research model are presented. Overall, this study offers a new research agenda for the extant understanding of s-commerce, with the SC framework as the next frontier of the theoretical advancements and applications of s-commerce.

Writing has generally been perceived as a solitary activity, completed by the writer working alone. Yet, over the years we have witnessed a growing interest among researchers and educators in Collaborative Writing, an activity that can be simply defined as the involvement of two or more writers in the production of a single text. This interest has been driven by two main factors. The first factor is the nature of workplace writing. Studies (e.g. Ede & Lunsford 1990; Mirel & Spilka 2002) have shown that in a number of workplaces, writing is often completed in teams rather than individually. The second factor is the advent of Web 2.0 applications such as blogs, wikis, and Google Docs, which have transformed literacy practices, making the creation and sharing of texts easier and more readily acceptable (Hyland 2016; Vandergriff 2016). In the field of second language (L2) learning, interest in collaborative writing was also spurred by early research conducted by Swain and her colleagues (e.g. Swain & Lapkin 1995; Swain 1998; see also timeline for additional references) showing the language learning opportunities of communicative tasks which involve joint written output (e.g. Dictogloss).

This review surveys and synthesizes the findings of 87 focal pieces, published primarily since 2009 and mid 2018, on the formal and informal use of social media—blogs, wikis, and social networking—for second and foreign language teaching and learning (L2TL), including studies on the use of educational sites like Livemocha and Busuu and vernacular sites like Facebook and Twitter. The article frames the review in the development of social media and the history of social computer-assisted language learning (CALL) research. Synthesis identifies common findings, including that social media can afford the development of intercultural, sociopragmatic, and audience awareness, language learner and user identities, and particular literacies. Presentation of the focal pieces and common findings is intertwined with discussion of problematic issues, and each section concludes with a summary and implications for future research and practice.

University students will be our future business leaders, and will have to address social problems caused by business by implementing solutions such as social entrepreneurship ventures. In order to facilitate the learning process that will foster social entrepreneurship, however, a more holistic pedagogy is needed. Based on learning theory, we propose that students' social entrepreneurship actions will depend on their learning about CSR and their absorptive capacity. We propose that instructors and higher education institutions can enhance this absorptive capacity by exploiting Web 2.0 technologies. We tested our proposition with a sample of 425 university students using structural equation modeling and found support for the proposed relationships.

Cross-cultural learning projects were carried out in learning environments created using Web 1.0 or Web 2.0 technologies in previous related studies. However, such environments have a limited ability to provide learners with immersive learning experiences of a foreign culture and fail to make them feel virtually present in a foreign cultural context. In this study, we aimed to create such an environment, one that enables not only communication among learners from different cultures but also gives them a sense of presence and provides an immersive experience in a foreign culture without their being physically there. To this end, based on the cultural convergence theory, we designed a cross-cultural learning activity in virtual reality (VR) using a 360-degree video technology. Two groups of university students, one from China (n = 10) and the other from Uzbekistan (n = 11), who exchanged culture-related information with each other, participated in the activity. We investigated whether cross-cultural understanding and the trait emotional intelligence of the participants was facilitated after their participation in the activity. In addition, we explored the participants sense of perceived presence in the VR environment and their acceptance of VR technology. A mixed methods research approach was adopted. We analyzed the reflective journals of the participants, administered three questionnaires, and interviewed the participants. We obtained the following four findings: First, the participants had no prior knowledge of their foreign partners’ cultures and traditions before the learning activity; however, they had knowledge that they could summarize, explain, compare, and contrast at the end of the activity. Second, the comparison of the results of the pre- and post-questionnaires showed that the two trait emotional intelligence constructs (i.e., self-control and emotionality) were significantly improved from the beginning of the activity to its end. Third, the participants perceived a high level of presence in the VR environment. Finally, the participants accepted VR technology in terms of its usefulness for cross-cultural learning and ease of use. The originality of this study lies in creating cross-cultural learning environments based on a 360-degree video technology that enables communication across cultures and gives learners a sense of presence and an immersive experience. The value of the study for the literature and its contribution to theoretical knowledge is that it creates virtual cross-cultural learning environments based on a 360-degree video technology and presents evidence suggesting that the cross-cultural learning environments created in this study can facilitate cross-cultural knowledge and perceived self-control, emotionality, and sense of presence.

Since Windschitl first outlined a research agenda for the World Wide Web and classroom research, significant shifts have occurred in the nature of the Web and the conceptualization of classrooms. Such shifts have affected constructs of learning and instruction, and paths for future research. This article discusses the characteristics of Web 2.0 that differentiate it from the Web of the 1990s, describes the contextual conditions in which students use the Web today, and examines how Web 2.0's unique capabilities and youth's proclivities in using it influence learning and teaching. Two important themes, learner participation and creativity and online identity formation, emerged from this analysis and support a new wave of research questions. A stronger research focus on students' everyday use of Web 2.0 technologies and their learning with Web 2.0 both in and outside of classrooms is needed. Finally, insights on how educational scholarship might be transformed with Web 2.0 in light of these themes are discussed.