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Teach for Australia was announced by the Australian Government in 2008, at a corporate dinner sponsored by Swiss multinational investment bank UBS, hosting New York Schools Chancellor Joel Klein. Conceptualising Teach for Australia as a polycentric policy network anchored in venture philanthropy, this paper examines how networks mobilise major government reform, drawing upon both market and state. As an organisation founded, staffed and registered by a major global consultancy firm (Boston Consultancy Group), the paper critiques and questions representation, divisibility and immutability. By drawing upon network ethnography, following people and policy, the paper traces the beginnings of Teach for Australia through inaugural founders, focusing upon co-affiliations. Mapping a heterarchical and polycentric network of non-state and state actors, it highlights indivisible flows of people, money and policy. Thus, this paper seeks to indicate how policy networks embedded in venture philanthropy mobilise policy, whilst being reliant upon formal bureaucracies. This is governance with government. Teach for Australia highlights the nexus between private and public, and fuses together critical connections between market and state, bolstering a major venture philanthropic network that chiefly impacts public schools.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explain the emergent nature of leadership in a university-based learning network of mature-aged practitioner-scholars. Design/methodology/approach: The paper draws on previously published work, interviews, and current research. Findings: The paper finds that once initial structures have been established, the leadership role falls to different members depending on the needs of the group. Intellectual leadership becomes important in this setting. Research limitations/implications: The study is drawn from a single case although supported by research done in a similar group in the UK. Research indicates that cohorts and support networks increase success rates in PhD completions. This paper outlines one example of the structures and processes of a successful one. Practical implications: There is significant leverage for universities in developing the network structures and process, beyond the simple supervisor/student relationship that support doctoral students. It focuses on the contribution a learning network can make to mature-aged part-time students. Originality/value: This paper develops the current literature on supervision of doctoral students. (Contains 4 figures.)

This paper presents the start-up methodology for a project that leverages the opportunities that social media affords to give teachers voice and agency. In response to negative press about teachers in mainstream media, coupled with research that shows that teachers are working hard to meet student academic and wellbeing needs, the researchers employed the assertive technologies of social media and started a campaign to promote the work of pre-service and in-service teachers. The paper presents the theorising behind the start-up methodology for the social media campaign and outlines a response to an identified opportunity. It argues that social media provides new opportunities for professional connectedness, story sharing and collegial support.

The paper studies the emergence of venture philanthropy in public schools in Australia, focusing on policy networks and policy mobility. It seeks to analyse how policy is mobilised and leveraged via networks, focusing on the initiative of a national education charity with deductible gift recipient status, and a national research education institute. By drawing on network ethnography, and following people, things, and money, the paper studies the restructuring of traditional government and its relationship "to," and "with," policy networks. Policy networks, as shown in this paper, are highly diverse in shape and form, consisting of powerful human actors, but also influential non-human actors that take on lateral scope including government reports, policy documents, and parliamentary legislation. The restructuring of the state apparatus is not a hollowing out of the state, but rather the state performs a central node within a policy network, challenging the notion that non-state actors supersede the role of the state. Policy networks represent highly valuable commodities and tend to be characterised by their reproductive values. These networks are tangibly reshaping the way money and commodities are circulated, offering a transactional currency and commodity within a marketplace, and reaching into public schools.

Employability development has become a central concern of higher education, with many students attending university to enhance their employability and career development. Universities offer a range of curricular, co-curricular and extracurricular employability-building activities, including work-integrated learning, mentoring and career counselling. However, participation in these activities, barriers to engagement and their impact on employability are unclear. This paper examines student engagement in diverse employability-building activities, barriers impeding participation and their perspectives on how activities develop aspects of employability. The methodological approach encompassed an online survey of recent bachelor graduates (n = 324) from two Australian universities and focus groups to further explore participants' experiences (n = 11). Findings showed relatively low participation rates in most activities, with the greatest engagement in external paid employment and work-related activities (e.g., internship). These activities were also perceived as the most useful for developing a sense of professional self, networks and securing work. Barriers to participation included work/study commitments, financial/health pressures and lack of confidence and awareness, somewhat varying by graduates' background characteristics. Benefits from activities varied by their type, along with students' personal characteristics. Findings highlight the importance of embedding employability-building activities in the curriculum and signal potential ways to increase engagement in diverse cohorts.

Educational contexts around the world are increasingly characterized by diversity, including a rise in students from refugee backgrounds. Much research has focused on the educational needs of these students and the particular struggles they experience in educational contexts. The increasing number of refugee and asylum-seeking children in Australia calls for rethinking approaches to enhance the acculturation process in ways that build on individuals' prior knowledge and understanding of self. This paper draws on data from a larger case study that focused on Sudanese young people in regional Australia and investigated their out-of-school activities, networks, and practices and how these contributed to their success across a range of contexts. Drawing on perspectives of identity and theories of social capital, we discuss the role of social networks in generating social capital and what this means in terms of the (re)formation of students' identities in regional locations, and we consider how this can contribute to educational success. We suggest that the resources in regional areas present both a challenge and an opportunity for young former-refugee people in terms of repositioning themselves in new social, cultural, and educational contexts. The paper examines how the young people developed their own momentum, rationality, and legitimacy in their identity (re)formation, and suggests that educational settings need to connect with and understand young people's out-of-school resources to avoid deficit narratives that lead to poor educational outcomes.

In order to disseminate the findings and recommendations from their studies, researchers publish papers in scientific journals in their subject area. Research communities thus emerge as a result of the communication between authors who cite other relevant papers. This study focuses on the relationships between Spanish and English research communities in the specific field of Educational Technology. We explore as hypotheses whether there are signs of scientific journal communication between authors in these two communities, and if the English authors reciprocate citations by Spanish authors. In order to verify them, a social network analysis was conducted by considering outgoing and incoming citations in eight open access journals (four in English and four in Spanish) published over ten years (2007-2016). The sample includes 3,407 articles, which were analysed using UCINET and Gephi software. The results show partial confirmation of the hypotheses, since two separate research communities were recognized, with almost no communication between them. However, the Spanish community was presented as more connected than the English one. We interpret these results by considering not only language factors, but also the journal roots and the particular subject field under consideration. Finally, we highlight some general recommendations to enhance future communication between these two education research communities.

This paper investigates the learning experience of Chinese students' learning experience in the business Faculty of an Australian university. Chinese students are often characterized as "rote learners" or stereotyped as "reduced Other". Areas of concern are limited to addressing the differences in learning styles, language, and sociocultural barriers. However, learning occurs in many forms. There is an absence of discussion about what practices Chinese students use in order to learn. Based on practice-based theory, a longitudinal ethnographic study of the journeys of five students was traced and investigates what practices Chinese students use in the learning and how these students "put things together" in the journey. This paper reports on two of the five students from the larger study. In particular, this article brings attention to the students' everyday life and insights into their doings, sayings, and relatings between people, other beings and material artefacts. Chinese students' learning involves foreground entanglements, co-construction, and relationality of practices from both educational and sociocultural perspectives. This paper provides new insights about Chinese students' learning and encourages academics and institutions to be aware of the impact of their practices and to deepen their understanding of the complexities of Chinese students' learning.

The paper provides an overview of the global research on graduate education. The study applied a combination of a bibliometric and social network analysis methods to bibliographic data from Thompson Reuters' Web of Science. More specifically, a keyword search approach was used to retrieve 2,454 articles on graduate education from 1996 until 2020. The set was processed with the VantagePoint software. The paper reports the findings in the form of lists of top scholars, research centres, and countries contributing to research on graduate education. The findings include similar lists of the key funding agencies, contributing disciplines and publication venues, as well as maps representing collaborative activity in the field between institutions, and countries. Finally, the frequency of utilisation of groups of author-supplied keywords is analysed to determine the basic thematic structure of the research on the topic. The originality of the paper consists in the fact that it represents the first attempt to map the landscape of research on graduate education using bibliographic data. It can be used to supplement the results of literature reviews on the topic, which apply a more in-depth content analysis-based approaches to a limited number of papers to determine the thematic structure of the field.

Abstract: Open Dialogue is a resource‐oriented approach to mental health care that originated in Finland. As Open Dialogue has been adopted across diverse international healthcare settings, it has been adapted according to contextual factors. One important development in Open Dialogue has been the incorporation of paid, formal peer work. Peer work draws on the knowledge and wisdom gained through lived experience of distress and hardship to establish mutual, reciprocal, and supportive relationships with service users. As Open Dialogue is now being implemented across mental health services in Australia, stakeholders are beginning to consider the role that peer workers might have in this model of care. Open Dialogue was not, initially, conceived to include a specific role for peers, and there is little available literature, and even less empirical research, in this area. This discussion paper aims to surface some of the current debates and ideas about peer work in Open Dialogue. Examples and models of peer work in Open Dialogue are examined, and the potential benefits and challenges of adopting this approach in health services are discussed. Peer work in Open Dialogue could potentially foster democracy and disrupt clinical hierarchies, but could also move peer work from reciprocal to a less symmetrical relationship of ‘giver’ and ‘receiver’ of care. Other models of care, such as lived experience practitioners in Open Dialogue, can be conceived. However, it remains uncertain whether the hierarchical structures in healthcare and current models of funding would support any such models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Responding to increasing external pressure, universities are developing new strategies to illustrate the impact of their degrees on graduate employability. This paper investigates how alumni regard the development of their professional networks during their tertiary education in relation to employability and the associated pedagogical implications. Design/methodology/approach: A qualitative approach using semi-structured interviews with 18 business and arts alumni from a regional university. Findings: The findings reveal the importance of developing a professional network by cultivating social capital while at university. Alumni identify all forms of work-integrated learning (WIL), connectedness through social media, the role of university staff and volunteering as concrete ways to develop a professional network and enhance employability. Research limitations/implications: This paper has pedagogical implications to develop graduate employability and WIL. Universities should draw from alumni networks to help develop students' bridging capital through industry-facing WIL projects. Educators should design assessment tasks in which students develop contacts and networking capabilities with alumni and other professionals using various platforms (e.g. social media). In addition, educators should promote the benefits of voluntary work and invite alumni and other industry stakeholders to co-design and co-teach areas of curriculum. Originality/value: Drawing from the experiences of alumni re-routes the channel of communication from institutions expressing the importance of professional networks in relation to employability, to credible industry alumni confirming this importance. Few previous studies have taken this "outside-in approach" to emphasise and validate the importance of developing professional networks in relation to employability, particularly at regional universities.

This paper critically examines the ways ageing migrants perceive and experience a sense of belonging in a mediascape during the pandemic. It underscores how 15 elderly people from Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) backgrounds in Victoria, Australia stayed connected among their networks in and beyond Australia by accessing and consuming COVID-19 information via traditional and digital channels. By analysing the data based on conducting remote interviews in 2020 and 2021, the findings highlight the paradoxical nature of mediated belonging. On the one hand, ageing migrants forged connections at a distance with their familial and social networks by circulating and consuming COVID-19 information. This practice provided ageing migrants an assurance of their safety and their networks. On the other hand, differentiation and racialisation stirred frustrating, polarising and exclusionary-mediated environments. In this case, they deployed connective strategies to negotiate connections and belonging. In sum, this paper reveals the possibilities and politics of mediated belonging fuelled by intersecting structural and technological divides. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the findings of a qualitative study examining the influence of professional development (PD) on tutors' teaching philosophies. It found that tutors construe their role in three ways: as transmitter, facilitator, or reflexive practitioner. The findings suggest most tutors, prior to a PD program, hold a teacher-focused conception of teaching and learning (that is, as transmitter) but shift toward a student-oriented conception following the completion of the PD program (facilitators or reflexive practitioners). Epistemic shifts among tutors were attributed to three specific features of the PD program: workshops, peer mentoring, and peer networking. This study provides insights into PD features that cultivate student-oriented teaching philosophies reflecting contemporary pedagogical strategies that promote experiential and constructivist teaching approaches.

Academic libraries, apart from their main function, which is to provide information services to academic communities, may also perform a number of social roles in the broad meaning of the term. Accordingly, they now tend to serve as the third place offering inclusion and animation activities to academic as well as local communities (including potential students) and to groups in risk of social exclusion (immigrants, persons with disabilities, senior citizens, etc.) or in need of various kinds of care and support. However, for libraries to be able to fulfil those tasks, they need properly trained staff who not only have the required competencies but also the right social attitudes. The paper presents an analysis of the social attitudes of academic librarians from twenty countries across the world as compared to the personnel of other types of libraries. The level of individual social capital, activity in social networks, aspirations in life and social and civic engagement were investigated. It was noted that the respondents tend to undervalue the importance of the work done by libraries for local communities. At the same time, the research showed that academic librarians have a somewhat lower level of individual social capital and trust than public librarians and less extensive social networks. Nonetheless, they are open to relationships with others, which enables them to engage in various social projects.

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted every aspect of life, forcing educational institutions to pivot rapidly to emergency remote learning. Within higher education, learning designers stepped forward and shouldered much of the responsibility of supporting institutional change on an unprecedented scale to ensure continuity of student learning. Although there is a large corpus of literature about the experiences of teachers and students during the pandemic, little is known about the experience of learning designers during this time and how their professional learning was supported. This mixed-methods study provides insights into how Twitter was used by learning designers as part of their professional learning network (PLN) during the pandemic. Using social network analysis and thematic analysis, Twitter provided a level playing field for learning designers within the @TELedvisors community who were highly engaged in global professional and social conversations, with access to continuous learning and social support. We argue that Twitter has undertilised potential for amplifying the voices of underrepresented third space workers within higher education contexts and is an important component to a learning designer's PLN in the post-pandemic era. This paper will be of interest to learning designers, the @TELedvisors community, professional organisations that support learning designers and other third space professionals.

This paper summarizes initial field-test results from data analytics used in the work of the Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills (ATC21S) project, on the "ICT Literacy--Learning in digital networks" learning progression. This project, sponsored by Cisco, Intel and Microsoft, aims to help educators around the world enable students with the skills to succeed in future career and college goals. The paper begins with describing some expansions to a common definition of learning analytics, then includes a review of the literature on ICT literacy, including the specific development that led to the ATC21S effort. This is followed by a description of the development of a "learning progression" for this project, as well as the logic behind the instrument construction and data analytics, along with examples of each. Data were collected in a demonstration digital environment in four countries: Australia, Finland, Singapore and the U.S. The results indicate that the new constructs developed by the project, and the novel item forms and analytics that were employed, are indeed capable of being employed in a large-scale digital environment. The paper concludes with a discussion of the next steps for this effort.

This paper discusses how international students negotiated their chances for making contact with other students in higher education and how such effort affected their educational experiences in Australia. In the past few decades, international students have formed part of the increasingly diverse multicultural student population in Australian higher education. Still, there are concerns about impacts of cultural diversity on pedagogical interactions. The data presented here were drawn from a larger interview study on first year EAL international students' educational experiences in an Australian university. The interviews were interpreted through Pierre Bourdieu's sociological concepts of field and capital. The analyses showed that EAL international students were strategic about selecting seats and group members in the classroom to enable meaningful interactions with peers. The paper concludes with pedagogical implications for optimizing students' chances for experiences of diversity, including making contact with linguistic and cultural others.

There has been significant interest in developing academics through Teaching Scholar Development Programs across the USA, Canada, the UK, and more recently in Australia. At their core, such programs develop academics across teaching scholarship, leadership, promotion, and award opportunities, where universities reap the benefits of developing such a cadre of leaders. This paper pays witness to one such a program in an Australian university to highlight enactments of caring passionately. We use qualitative survey evaluation data, metaphor analysis and reflective practice to nuance the pleasures, passions and challenges of the lived experiences using phenomenological and metaphor lenses to describe our experiences. Metaphors provide powerful insights into the dimensions of experience as they open up how programs are perceived and experienced. Our paper disrupts traditional linear writing through rhizomatic, multivocal and multitextual encounters to challenge dominant authorial voicing. The academic identity work and emotional work required in the program is unfolded through evolving, experiencing and reflecting on the program to inform design and highlight what we have come to (re)value in our academic work when we come together to learn, share, and lead. We forge ways to be and become with and against neoliberal agendas that have choked the soul of 'the university' to evolve rich spaces and practices of/for reciprocity and kindness where not only learning can thrive, but where "love acts" -- a much needed "revolutionary praxis" for our time.

This paper reports on experiences of Indigenous students and staff involved in Bond Indigenous Tutoring (BIT). It aimed to gain insight regarding topics including challenges faced by Indigenous students, why some students discontinued their studies, and concepts of success at university. Findings revealed the main challenges included the transition from secondary to tertiary education and not being prepared academically. BIT staff identified family responsibilities and being dislocated from kinship networks as challenges, while students stated these were factors explaining why Indigenous students discontinued their studies. A whole of university approach was found to be required to effectively support Indigenous students. Success was defined as more than Grade Point Average, as it entailed being able to enjoy future endeavours. This paper contributes to the evidence that tuition programmes and Indigenous centres at university are key contributors to success, and it is argued that such success must become the norm as opposed to the exception.

The article on which this paper reflects ["Exploring a Cross-Institutional Research Collaboration and Innovation: Deploying Social Software and Web 2.0 Technologies to Investigate Online Learning Designs and Interactions in Two Australian Universities"] presented elements of a research project investigating learning interactions in online courses at two Australian universities. This paper revisits that earlier account of researching "classrooms without walls" by distilling and updating the authors' propositions and by examining these propositions' potential wider applicability. The twin foci of this examination relate to effective online learning designs and innovative cross-institutional research collaborations. [For "Exploring a Cross-Institutional Research Collaboration and Innovation: Deploying Social Software and Web 2.0 Technologies to Investigate Online Learning Designs and Interactions in Two Australian Universities," see EJ1001776.]

This paper describes opportunities to improve the current support provided to beginning teachers in Australia. It holds that there is a need for approaches that go beyond school-based induction and support. The paper presents data from a survey of beginning teachers in Queensland, with aims to determine current access to support and perceptions about gaps in support. It uses these findings alongside existing evidence to make arguments that some beginning teachers are effectively unsupported and that universities have the potential to play a greater role in beginning teacher support. Further results are used to suggest guidelines for developing a national online community of pre-service and beginning teachers. A case study of a successful online professional support community is used as a model for how this may be implemented.

In the ten years since Australia's first large-scale scoping study of Work-Integrated Learning (WIL) there has been a rapid increase in WIL research and undergraduate WIL opportunities. Though well-established in undergraduate degrees, WIL in postgraduate research degrees is relatively unexplored. Less than half of PhD graduates in Australia are employed by the higher education sector, therefore transferable skills and industry experience are increasingly important. The last few years have seen several Australian peak bodies call for further investment in the employability of PhD graduates. The Australian Government recently provided funding aimed at encouraging doctoral students to undertake internships and placements. Drawing on seven qualitative interviews with past and present PhD students at Griffith University, this exploratory paper explores how PhD students view the potential role of WIL in higher degree research programs in Australia and the challenges they see as facing the broader implementation of WIL across PhD programs. This has broader implications for how WIL may be utilized to equip doctoral graduates with the industry experience and training to improve their employability outside the higher education sector.

To gain employment and a fulfilling career, students need to understand the skills and knowledge that are important and how to articulate and evidence their employability. This paper reports on research investigating science students' priorities related to immediate employment versus long-term employability and the factors that students perceive as important to these. Interviews with 138 science students from four Australian universities revealed that they were most focused on immediate employment. Students were keen to participate in opportunities to 'value add' to their degree, especially those that might help them to gain relevant work experience and professional networks. However, students' understanding of the relative importance of experiences and skills that would enhance their employability was variable, as was their understanding of the career pathways that they might pursue. The data analysis highlights the importance of explicitly designing curriculum to help students understand the career opportunities available; the skills and abilities needed for diverse careers; and the experiences through which they might develop and evidence these. Furthermore, to engage students, we need to help them to address their greatest and most immediate concerns about gaining employment at graduation, while also setting them up for successful and fulfilling careers.

In preparing pre-service teachers for their professional practice in the information age, we need to impress upon them that the children in their classrooms will be Digital Natives, with skills for digital fluency rather than skills in the orthodoxy 3Rs developed with talk, chalk and board; paper, pencil and pen. Since most of our pre-service teachers belong to the pre-digital generation without the skills for 21st century digital fluency, there is a great need for us as higher education practitioners, to prepare them well for the new classrooms they will work in so as to prevent a mismatch between them and their students where they could be seen as illiterate teachers trying to teach literate children. Embedding digital pedagogy in the skilling of these teachers is urgently needed to help them appreciate the role of technology in the teaching of pedagogy and content knowledge (TPACK). Fortunately enough, a wide range of apps are available for use on iPads, Androids, eTablets, Smart Phones and other platforms, which our pre-service teachers could apply in their teaching. One example of how this was achieved in higher education with two cohorts of 2nd year B.Ed pre-service teachers is discussed in this paper. The paper demonstrates that social media digital tools can be embedded in pre-service higher education to help train pre-service teachers so they appreciate the TPACK model. The paper concludes that it is incumbent upon higher education providers, to ensure that graduates are well prepared to be effective teachers for the digital generation.

This paper deploys notions of emergence, connections, and designs for learning to conceptualize high school students' interactions when using online social media as a learning environment. It makes links to chaos and complexity theories and to fractal patterns as it reports on a part of the first author's action research study, conducted while she was a teacher working in an Australian public high school and completing her PhD. The study investigates the use of a Ning online social network as a learning environment shared by seven classes, and it examines students' reactions and online activity while using a range of social media and Web 2.0 tools. The authors use Graham Nuthall's (2007) "lens on learning" to explore the social processes and culture of this shared online classroom. The paper uses his extensive body of research and analyses of classroom learning processes to conceptualize and analyze data throughout the action research cycle. It discusses the pedagogical implications that arise from the use of social media and, in so doing, challenges traditional models of teaching and learning. (Contains 10 figures.)

Graduates need to be prepared for working in global organisations that increasingly rely on virtual, culturally diverse teams. This paper reports on a qualitative research study concerned with the perceptions of university business students who collaborated on a virtual and international project to learn about intercultural communication. The findings indicated that participants capitalised on the opportunity the project presented to find friends and to negotiate and deepen relationships. In addition, the analysis revealed that social interaction also characterised and influenced the learning experience itself and had implications for engagement. The paper concludes that the subjectivities of social interaction are powerfully embedded in the learning process and may play a part in engagement. Second, the project was perceived as a valuable way of preparing students for workplaces where developing intercultural communication skills and online, culturally diverse team relationships are required.

Universities have increasingly adopted "first-generation status" as a new category for addressing equity in higher education, especially in the UK and Australia. This category targets students whose parents do not have a university degree and therefore are "newcomers" to higher education. While the category is well-intentioned, given the persistence of inequitable enrolment patterns and the need to widen participation, it has resulted in a fairly narrow and limiting view of first-generation students. Typically, students have been set in binary opposition to their peers with university-educated parents and consequently positioned within deficit discourses -- as sharing a similar set of "problems" that need to be remedied by policy and practice. This paper problematises such a totalising depiction of first-generation entrants by examining diversity "within the category" rather than simply demarcating "differences" from their continuing-generation peers. Drawing on focus group data from 198 prospective first-generation students enrolled in government schools in New South Wales, Australia, we utilise the Bourdieusian lens of social capital to explore the multiple social networks within which young people are situated. We propose a new continuum that better captures how students are differentially positioned in social space, and identify three clusters based on their capacity to mobilise capital -- "inheritors", "opportunists", and "outsiders". In so doing, we unsettle the symbolic boundary around what it means to "be first", and argue that this more nuanced reconceptualisation of first-generation entry is critical if the category is to be a meaningful vehicle for redressing historical exclusions and widening participation in higher education.

Design and Technology has become an important part of the school curriculum. In Queensland, Australia, Technology (which encompasses Design) is one of the Key Learning Areas (KLAs) for students in the first ten years of schooling. This KLA adopts a student-centred, hands-on constructivist approach to teaching and learning. The ability to conceptualise and implement appropriate learning experiences, however, has been a challenge for some early career teachers. This paper describes how Design and Technology is being taught to pre-service primary teachers at an Australian University through their involvement in a range of authentic problem-solving activities supported by social learning tools such as wikis and blogs. An interview with a sample from this group (N=5) provides an insight into how these social software tools enhanced their knowledge and learning. This paper will describe how these social learning tools impact on the agency of learning. (Contains 4 figures.)

Purpose: This paper presents economic and pedagogical motivations for adopting information and communications technology (ICT)- mediated learning networks in agricultural education and extension. It proposes a framework for networked learning in agricultural extension and contributes a theoretical and case-based rationale for adopting the networked learning paradigm. Design/methodology/approach: A review of the literature highlights the economic and pedagogical need for adopting a networked learning approach. Two examples are described to instantiate the language for learning networks: a small community of farmers in India and large Twitter community of Australian farmers. Findings: This paper reviews evidence that successful networked learning interventions are already occurring within agricultural extension. It provides a framework for describing these interventions and for helping future designers of learning networks in agricultural extension. Practical implication: Facilitation of learning networks can serve to achieve efficient agricultural extension that connects farmers across distances for constructivist learning. To realize these benefits, designers of learning networks need to consider set design, social design and epistemic design. Theoretical implication: This paper contributes a theoretical framework for designing, implementing and analysing learning networks in agriculture. It does this by integrating existing ideas from networked learning and applying them to the agricultural context through examples. Originality/value: This paper contributes an understanding of the value of networked learning for extension in terms of economic and pedagogical benefits. It provides a language for talking about learning networks that is useful for future researchers and for practitioners.

This paper explores how young people of diverse genders and sexualities share information about sex, sexualities and genders. Formal approaches to education often fail to consider young people's communication and information exchange practices, including the circulation of peer knowledge through social media. In the wake of recent Australian backlash against the Safe Schools Coalition, we can observe how homophobia and queerphobia in the broader community can impact upon young peoples' ability to learn about themselves and their bodies through formal education. Yet young people of diverse genders and sexualities can be observed to support each other in peer spaces, utilising their knowledge networks. This paper explores young people's informal learning practices, the capacity of peer networks to support and educate young people, and the challenges of recognising such networks in a culture in which health and education discourses present them as "risk subjects" rather than "health agents." These issues are discussed in relation to our own experiences in research and health promotion, including one author's role as a youth peer educator. Drawing on our workplace experiences, we provide a number of anecdotal examples which highlight the complexities of informal knowledge practice and information circulation, and the ways these can challenge and reform professional health, education, and research approaches.

This article investigates northern Australia's Spanish-speaking community, in order to probe the formation of migrant identity and the perception of Australian society. The community communicated extensively with other members of the global Hispanic Diaspora throughout Europe and the Americas, and used this correspondence to reflect on their experiences in Australia. One individual in particular, Salvador Torrents, wrote a large number of articles and short stories, demonstrating the complex interplay between local and international issues. Migrants used this interaction of local and global events, and the framework provided by transnational radical Hispanic debate, to critique Australian society and migrants' place within it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores teachers' and teacher assistants' self-efficacy of delivering PrepSTART, a classroom based, oral language and early literacy program for five-year-old students. In the current study, speech pathologists developed, provided training and monitored program implementation. Teachers and teacher assistants (n = 17) shared their experiences of delivering PrepSTART through a series of focus groups. A content analysis was conducted to determine key themes in participant responses. These themes were then analysed in relation to the four self-efficacy components (mastery, experience, vicarious experience, verbal persuasion and emotional arousal). Differences in levels of understanding about oral language development, communication between professionals, and the importance of building networks emerged as key themes. An improved understanding of the self-efficacy of professionals regarding the implementation of oral language programs will further facilitate the interdisciplinary approach that is needed to promote early academic success for students.

Second chance education programs are now a well-established presence in institutions seeking to provide access and equity pathways for socio-economically disadvantaged groups. This paper focusses on the strategies used to support positive engagement in second chance equity programs, drawing upon evaluation research data from four TAFE sponsored programs. Interviews were held with service providers involved in the programs' development and delivery, and focus groups were held to gather information from program participants. The findings highlight the complex and often multiple barriers facing participants and the importance of delivering programs with sustained and tailored approaches. While tangible educational and/or employment outcomes were delivered, it was the associated social and personal development that made these programs especially successful. Hence, there is a need for equity programs to be holistic, scaffolded, and tailored to practical and vocational pathways.

Parental choice of school is an under-researched area in the Australian educational literature. Moreover, research in this area tends to focus on school choice with respect to government policy and market influences. This paper presents the findings from doctoral research which explored the ways in which parents living in rural and remote areas selected a secondary boarding school for their child. In particular, the paper shows the complex psychical constructions undertaken by non-Indigenous parents in their defining of "good" schools, which subsequently underpin their selection of school. The confluences of geography, school culture and race on the parental choice of school process are explored.

This paper explores the professional development needs of leaders in response to emergent demands for leadership and competing pressures within the changing landscape of Australian international education. Framed within Bourdieu's concepts of field and habitus, this study addresses five dimensions of professional development needs reported by leaders in international education: understanding of and skills to work across cultural differences, knowledge of and expertise to respond to policy changes and emergent trends, leadership and management skills targeted for internationalisation, networking and relationship management skills to work with increasingly diverse and 'non-traditional' stakeholders and research skills. However, the social field in which these leaders are functioning is causing tensions for their continuing professional development, including existing institutional governance and structures, financial constraints and the institutional culture that has not put internationalisation on the top of institutional development agenda. The study indicates a critical need for tackling obstacles and supporting sustainable situated professional learning for these leaders so as to enhance their capacities and impact as key players in international education. This study provides empirical and theoretical insights for institutions involved in international education to build effective policies and practices for enhancing professional development for the sustainable international education leadership.

Australian pre-service teachers (PST) frequently report feeling isolated and vulnerable during the high stakes Assistant Teacher Program (ATP) final practicum. Mentoring and online learning communities have been shown to offer effective support during periods in which pre-service and beginning teachers feel challenged. As social media progressively infiltrates all aspects of contemporary life, individuals and organisations are opting to use technology in highly adaptive ways; as a result, they have to navigate both the positive aspects and pitfalls of the medium. In this paper we examine whether university Facebook© support groups, coupled with professional standards training and moderator involvement by university staff, enhanced ATP outcomes for preservice teachers in art and science.

Pathways to higher education can appear opaque and unattainable to rural adults, despite the affordances provided by modern broadband and increasing provision of university online learning options. This paper describes an innovative partnership model that connects rural adults to university and technical and further education pathways through 'warm connections' developed between staff in rural libraries and 'neighbourhood houses', and people working in university outreach and preparation programmes. Through the Warm Connections project, local staff were provided with training and on campus experiences that equipped them to have conversations with rural people about what university is 'like' and what it takes to get a place in a university course. Rural community staff reported being confident in providing customised front-line information and advice to rural residents and were able to direct enquiries to appropriate people in tertiary institutions. Some staff themselves enrolled in and successfully completed university short courses, providing role models for their communities. The project reduced the socio-economic distance between rural adults and tertiary education. It successfully built social capital networks of 'warm connections' between tertiary institutions and rural communities, although the longevity of those networks will depend on continuing effort by tertiary institutions to maintain and refresh connections.

Measuring impact from university research is increasingly seen as important, not least because of its use in resource allocation processes by governments. These measurement approaches, however, often take 'wide and shallow' economic effect-based views that are ex-post, linear and uni-directional. Consequently, research collaborations between universities and external stakeholders are often ignored, particularly when stakeholders are local or community-based and the research focus is on social rather than purely economic ends, because impacts of these projects are less easily measured, and are more likely to have narrower (though deeper) effects spatially. Using an illustrative case study, this paper shows that there are mechanisms able to measure broader concepts of impact, specifically ones where impacts also occur through the PROCESS of undertaking the research itself (as opposed to just as a RESULT of it), highlighting ways in which this type of analysis could be utilised for future evaluation of research collaborations.

For international students undertaking higher education in English-speaking countries, often social and academic competencies are at odds with the expectations of the classroom discourse communities and the normative behaviours and practices of these communities. This conceptual paper argues that despite some scholarly studies seeing such international experience as a process of adjustment in a one-way transmissive exchange, international students often activate their agency to recognise the nature of normative behaviours and classroom practices, align themselves to these, and when necessary resist or use affordances to empower themselves and become legitimate members of their classroom communities. International education, thus, shapes international students' identities through not just their conformity to institutional expectations, but crucially to their responses to the practices, challenges, and opportunities for empowerment, and continuous self-realisation of their current view of their selves and the desired outcome of their selves.

Sport players' likelihood to fulfil their career expectations is influenced by both technical and non-technical aspects, including self-drive, self-confidence and access to high-quality coaching and to positive learning environments. Among other factors, belonging in the "right" social networks may help players to gain access to critical resources that can ultimately have a significant impact on their career prospects. This includes social capital. Drawing on an empirical qualitative study of women's soccer in South Australia, this paper seeks to provide a broader conceptual and methodological framework to further investigate the "inverse relationship" between sport and social capital, that is, social capital as a component of sport and athlete development. In particular, this paper makes the case for a qualitative approach to explore the influence of social networks and social capital on the career of athletes. The paper draws on primary data from interviews and surveys with players, coaches, administrators and parents and argues that social capital is an important matter to consider when looking at athlete development. Importantly, the paper recognises that social capital may also have negative consequences for the advancement of athletes' careers.

In an era of knowledge abundance, scholars have the capacity to distribute and share ideas and artifacts via digital networks, yet networked scholarship often remains unrecognized within institutional spheres of influence. Using ethnographic methods including participant observation, interviews, and document analysis, this study investigates networks as sites of scholarship. Its purpose is to situate networked practices within Boyer's (1990) four components of scholarship--discovery, integration, application, and teaching--and to explore them as a techno-cultural system of scholarship suited to an era of knowledge abundance. Not only does the paper find that networked engagement both aligns with and exceeds Boyer's model for scholarship, it suggests that networked scholarship may enact Boyer's initial aim of broadening scholarship itself through fostering extensive cross-disciplinary, public ties and rewarding connection, collaboration, and curation between individuals rather than roles or institutions.

Distributed Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are based on the premise that online learning occurs through a network of interconnected learners. The teachers' role in distributed courses extends to forming such a network by facilitating communication that connects learners and their separate personal learning environments scattered around the Internet. The study reported in this paper examined who fulfilled such an influential role in a particular distributed MOOC--a connectivist course (cMOOC) offered in 2011. Social network analysis was conducted over a socio-technical network of the Twitter-based course interactions, comprising both human course participants and hashtags; where the latter represented technological affordances for scaling course communication. The results of the week-by-week analysis of the network of interactions suggest that the teaching function becomes distributed among influential actors in the network. As the course progressed, both human and technological actors comprising the network subsumed the teaching functions, and exerted influence over the network formation. Regardless, the official course facilitators preserved a high level of influence over the flow of information in the investigated cMOOC.

The advent of the Web as a social technology has created opportunities for the creation of informal learning environments, which have potential for innovative methodologies in learning, teaching and assessment. However, as Wolfe (2001) admonishes, "contrary to the rhetoric of cheerleaders, the Web places greater demands on students than traditional modes of instruction" (pp. 2-3). The pedagogical potential of these high tech, e-skilling, multimedia digital technologies to revolutionize teaching, learning and assessment will only be realized if the underlying theoretical foundations are well articulated and supporting evidence is provided through well-designed empirical research studies. This paper contributes to these two prospects in two ways. First, it articulates the theoretical framework drawn from the work of luminaries in pedagogy that posits cooperative, social learning strategies, as potential methodologies for effective pedagogy. Second, it describes the results of a convenience sampling case study, which investigated the use of cutting-edge social media technologies, namely Google + Discussion Circles, (GDCs), to shed some light on how the use of these social media technologies supported teaching, learning and assessment activities for 2nd year Bachelor of Education students at a university in Australia. The research found, inter alia, that when students were given the opportunity to learn using GDCs, the majority took advantage of the academic, social and structural dynamics created by these technologies in many ways that supported their learning, assessment activities and overall academic outcomes. The research-based evidence shows that the benefits included high participation rates, great levels of interpersonal interactions among participants, pedagogically rich posts in the GDC streams, metacognitive processing, peer mentoring, ambiguity tolerance, anxiety and motivation. There was also considerable student engagement, exploration of issues, elaboration of what was being discussed in the GDCs, evaluation and explanation, consistent with Bybee et al. (2006) 5E Instructional model for supporting and maximizing students' learning. The evidence leads to the recommendation that pedagogues at universities and other institutions of higher education should explore opportunities for utilizing selected social media technologies in their pedagogical practices, because, if properly planned and implemented, these technologies appear to have potential so support effective learning, teaching and assessment in the 21st century. Further research on this topic could also be very beneficial.

Understanding the ways that international students seek information and help in the host country is essential for improving academic, social, cultural, and welfare support for this student cohort. However, there is a dearth of literature that documents how international students in the vocational education and training (VET) sector do so. This paper aims to fill this gap. Based on in-depth interviews with 30 Chinese international students undertaking diploma and associate degree programs in Australia, this research shows that the ways in which Chinese international students seek help prior to their departure and after their arrival at the host country, largely depends on the nature of the issues they confront. The data also reveals that students' use of education agents is not limited to the pre-departure stage, as is indicated in the existing literature, but throughout their journey in the host country. Notably, the role of agents has become increasingly important in Chinese international students' decision-making processes during their transition from diploma to associate degree and higher education programs.

Efficacy of a teaching strategy technically refers to the ability of that strategy to produce a desired or intended learning outcomes. To date, there is little information on the efficacy of social media technologies in academia and it is likely to be some time before their effectiveness is proven. It is therefore legitimate to ask the question, is their use in education a pedagogical bliss or merely a digital fad? To answer this question, this paper reports the current results of a study being conducted at a University in Australia to investigate the efficacy of using Google Circles Learning Communities (GCLC) social media technologies to facilitate teaching, learning, assessing and curriculum development for 2nd year, Bachelor of Education students in a pre-service teacher training award. The digital structures for the study were set up in the 1st trimester of 2015 with a small cohort of only 35 students. Those structures were then used in the 2nd trimester to conduct a formal research study involving a much larger cohort of 106 students. As the research is still ongoing, finalized results are yet to be obtained. The results reported here are drawn from the findings in the data gathered over the first five weeks of trimester 2 relating to the use of cutting-edge social media technologies to help students engage with and develop the Super 4Cs skills of the 21st century, namely Critical thinking, Collaboration, Creativity and Communication. The results indicate that while there is some anxiety among students about using social media technologies for academic work, there is a willingness to have a go. The data also provide evidence that students are keen to engage with the Super 4Cs of the 21st century, and that the use of social media technologies gives them an opportunity to do so. In particular the data provide evidence that the use of these technologies has potential to bridge gaps between internal and external students.

Using collaborative performance ethnography in community- and school-based settings, sex education has the potential to challenge at-risk narratives for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ) youth. This paper problematises the youth-led drama project "Epic Queer" to test the "queer" potential of youth-driven initiatives at the school and community level, and to reject the singularity of victimised and "at-risk" narratives so pervasive in sex education internationally about queer youth. By drawing on the "It Gets Better Project" as an example of widespread but narrowing social media texts encouraging normativity, deferred pleasure and a happiness narrative, this paper argues for the potential of performance-based arts engagement for re-expanding queer youth subjectivities.

The use of Online Social Networking (OSN) educational activities has become commonplace in today's higher education. OSN enables lecturers and students to generate and share content, interact, and collaborate in the knowledge construction process. The pedagogical benefits of social technologies have been widely discussed. However, less is known about the processes that lecturers follow when integrating social technologies into their teaching activities. With the aim of developing a practical guiding framework, this paper examines the processes that lecturers have followed when appropriating social technologies for learning purposes. Based on interviews with fourteen Australian lecturers and sixteen Malaysian lecturers who have used social technologies, different processes of appropriation are explored. Drawing on the empirical findings, this paper proposes a framework that can be used to guide lecturers in appropriating social technologies systematically. The framework will be beneficial for lecturers seeking guidance to support the appropriation of social technologies for structured and formal use in higher education.

This paper offers a conceptual basis for refashioning the formulation of critical teacher education. It argues that current critical teacher education is uncritically constructed upon key theoretical departures from critical theories. Drawing on Boltanski's critique of critical theories, the paper examines the ways these theoretical departures limit the structure of critique and therefore impede critical teacher education in its effort to empower educational actors, including students. Specifically, it analyses how critical theories' justification of the goal of emancipation for educational actors hinges on intellectual inequality, the ignorance-knowledge continuum, and the hierarchical perception of social relations. This paper introduces "networked-hutong siwei" to reconceptualise critical teacher education that centres on developing teachers' predispositions and skills to better mobilise and engage the critical capabilities of educational actors.

With the spread of the Internet, students now have greater opportunities to use Japanese outside of the classroom. For example, they can interact with other Japanese speakers through instant messaging or social networking, or utilize online dictionaries and translation tools to decipher websites in ways that would be impossible with traditional printed materials. One of the best ways to equip students to take advantage of such opportunities is to use similar technologies in teaching. However, the normalization of computer-mediated communication remains a challenge for educators. This paper describes the use of the social networking site Bebo in a beginners' class at an Australian university. Drawing on student surveys and interviews, this paper discusses some of the issues raised by the use of authentic technology in a foreign language education context.

This paper reports on an observation of 70 university students' use of their personal social network site (SNS), Facebook, over a 22-week university study period. The study sought to determine the extent that university students use their personal SNSs to support learning by exploring frequencies of academic-related content and topics being discussed. The findings reported in the paper reveal that students used their personal SNSs to discuss academic-related topics, particularly to share experiences about doing work or procrastinating, course content and grades. Mapping academic-related activity frequencies over the 22 weeks illustrated that around certain points in the academic calendar, particularly times when students' assignments or exams were nearing, academic activity increased, suggesting that SNSs may play an important role in a students' academic experience. The findings suggest that many students today may be leaving traces of their academic journey online and that academics should be aware that these interactions may also exist in their own students' online social spaces. This study offers opportunities for future research, particularly research which seeks to determine differences between individuals' academic activity, the extent that intensive SNSs use supports or distracts students from learning, as well as the extent to which universities should or can harness SNSs to improve the student experience.