A power shift is occurring in higher education, driven by two trends: (a) the increased freedom of learners to access, create, and re-create content; and (b) the opportunity for learners to interact with each other outside of a mediating agent. Information access and dialogue, previously under control of the educator, can now be readily fulfilled by learners. When the essential mandate of universities is buffeted by global, social/political, technological, and educational change pressures, questions about the future of universities become prominent. The integrated university faces numerous challenges, including a decoupling of research and teaching functions. Do we still need physical classrooms? Are courses effective when information is fluid across disciplines and subject to continual changes? What value does a university provide society when educational resources and processes are open and transparent?

While the ubiquity of Web 2.0 technologies disrupts conventional notions of schooling and literacy, its impact on learning is idiosyncratic at best. Taking the form of a dialogue based on the fifteen-week collaboration of two colleagues implementing an innovative first-year university writing course, this paper documents some of the successes and challenges they faced as they sought to create a space for those technologies in their classrooms.

New digital and web-based technologies are spurring rapid and radical changes across all media industries. These newer models take advantage of the infinite reproducibility of digital media at zero marginal cost. There is an argument to be made that the sort of changes we have seen in other industries will be forced upon higher education, either as the result of external economic factors (the need to be more efficient, responsive, etc.) or by a need to stay relevant to the so-called ‘net generation’ of students (Prensky, 2001; Oblinger & Oblinger, 2005; Tapscott & Williams, 2010).

This article discusses the impact of digital technologies on each of Boyer’s dimensions of scholarship: discovery, integration, application and teaching. In each case the use of new technologies brings with it the possibility of new, more open ways of working, although this is not inevitable. The implications of the adoption of new technologies on scholarship are then discussed.

In this paper, I discuss the implementation of a small-scale Adventure Learning project in a higher education classroom. Data used to evaluate the Adventure Learning project indicates that the learner experience was engaging, meaningful, fun, and challenging. Suggestions for future practice and research include a call to rethink education in terms of pedagogy, social technologies, creative curricula, authentic learning, and narrative. Higher education learning experiences should foster participation and interaction and envision integrative approaches to learning that not only solve problems but also reconsider the kinds of experiences that we offer to learners.
 

Cyber-bullying increasingly is becoming a problem for students, educators and policy makers.  In this paper, we consider cyber-bullying as a form of relational aggression; that is, behaviour designed to damage, harm or disrupt friendship or inter-personal relationships through covert means.  We draw on the findings from a study of students in grades 6 through 9, conducted in five schools, in a large ethnically diverse metropolitan region of British Columbia, Canada, to demonstrate the inter-connection between cyber-bullying and relational aggression. Consistent with the relational aggression framework, girls were found more likely than boys to participate in these behaviours. We conclude that intervention strategies should consider gender differences and also aim at changing the trajectory of relational aggression to providing relational support and care.