<p>Various tools and services based on Web 2.0 (mainly blogs, wikis, social networking tools) are increasingly used in formal education to create personal learning environments, providing self-directed learners with more freedom, choice, and control over their learning. In such distributed and personalized learning environments, the traditional role of the teacher is being transformed into that of a facilitator. This change inevitably means a reduced level of control on the part of the teacher. This is evidenced, for example, in difficulties experienced in retaining the necessary levels of control when the learning process moves away from institutionally maintained systems to blog-based personal learning environments. In conducting a course in a formal education setting however, it is still essential for the teacher to retain control over certain learning activities, such as course enrolment, assignments, and the assessment process.</p><p>A course management plug-in for the WordPress blog platform called <em>LePress</em> was designed and developed as a possible solution to this problem. By using LePress, teachers are able to more easily manage and coordinate courses in a distributed blog-based environment. Teachers are able to regain control over some important aspects of online course management, while maintaining the learners’ freedom and choice for self-directed learning. This paper documents the results of a survey of a group of 37 teachers who used LePress for at least six months. The study demonstrates that by using LePress, teachers experienced an enhanced level of control over several aspects of the course and this reinforced their perception about the ease of use of the system.</p>

Abstract. This paper is based on a survey that addresses two main hypothesesthat there is a positive correlation between students' level of participation and their privacy awareness, and students with high levels of privacy awareness need to be assured that their open learning activities are protected from potential threats in order to achieve positive results. Results show that in fact there is a correlation between students' awareness of privacy and their predisposition to share and to participate in open leaning contexts. This is especially evident when students share their school assignments, grading results and teacher's feedback or even their comments with others.

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Abstract. Wearable computing offers new opportunities for technology to help us in many different contexts. Yet, it is important that designers of wearable devices take into account Universal Design principles to ensure that as many people as possible can benefit. We discuss the possible advantages of applying universal design principles to different themes that wearable technologies address. We use six themes that are driving wearable enhancements. These themes cut across industry and use cases; most wearable technologies will use at least one of these themes. We take each of the universal design principles and see how they apply to each theme and what advantages can be expected from such an application. The study shows that a balance needs to be achieved to the accessibility, usability, and general use of a wearable device.

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