British Journal of Educational Technology

Guest editors
Norbert Pachler (Institute of Education, University of London), Maria Ranieri (Department of Education, University of Florence), John Cook (London Metropolitan University) and Stefania Manca (Institute for Educational Technology, National Research Council of Italy).

In the era of the ‘connected and mobile society' (Rheingold, 2003), learners and teachers, as well as workers, especially in developed countries, are more and more involved in complex webs of relationships and networks with others exchanging information and sharing knowledge. This networking has taken place through web-based applications fostering online collaboration for some time now. Open and closed social networks and networking sites (boyd & Ellison, 2008; Merchant, 2011) are becoming the places where learners and workers have been intertwining the formal and informal dimension of learning and collaboration, mainly in the perspective of smoothing over the boundaries between them. In these environments, the interplay between online and offline interaction is reflected by our "liquid" identity as progressively shaped by the digital habitats (Wenger, White and Smith, 1999) we live in and by the different patterns of relationships we are involved with.

In actual scenarios, the role played by high-end mobile devices as means through which to access and connect to social networking sites is increasing. Today much of social networking is taking place with and on smartphones. Despite a growing interest in a socio-cultural perspective on mobile learning (see e.g. Pachler, Bachmair and Cook, 2010), a great deal of work is still characterized by techno-centric discourse largely underpinned by a deterministic understanding of the relationship between society and technology. This has arguably led to an underestimation of the potential for, and importance of, agency and cultural practices of the user as well as the content and context generation to support community-building processes through the integration with other socio-technical mechanisms such as social networks. At the same time, the analysis of socio-technical mechanisms which support the content and context generation process requires a better understanding of the affordances and potential of social and mobile technologies.

The aim of this Special Issue is to explore educational and socio-cultural perspectives on the use of the increasing convergence of mobile devices and digital media for social networking in formal and informal contexts of learning.

We invite papers that address the following issues:
·         Theoretical analysis of and perspectives on user agency and practices in mobile networked environments;
·         Exploring individual practices and community spaces in mobile networked learning;
·         New approaches to the design of and research into experiences that incorporate mobile media as personal and social learning tools;
·         Methodological models and tools to assess learning in formal and informal contexts through mobile networked environments;
·         Learning through a mobile networked environment at the interface of formal and informal contexts in K-12 education;
·         Learner practices and perceptions of mobile social networks as contexts for learning in higher education;
·         Effects of mobile networked communities on learning by adults in informal contexts and for professional development.

Papers with an empirical orientation are particularly welcome but conceptually and theoretically orientated submissions will also be considered.

Important dates
9^th January 2012 : Submission of manuscripts
12^th February 2012: Notification to authors
12^th March 2012 : Final versions due
April 2012 : Manuscripts go to publisher for copy editing and typesetting
July 2012 : Special issue published