In this article we present an overview of educational technology initiatives in Germany on the school and university level. After a general introduction to the German education system exemplary projects are outlined to show how Germany seeks to integrate computers and the Internet into its educational system. In 1995, more computers than cars have been sold in Germany for the first time in hist...

The adoption of new ideas and practices is affected by at least five factors: 1) the type of decision involved in adoption; 2) perceived attributes of the innovation; 3) communication channels used; 4) nature of the client system; and 5) the extent of the practitioner’s effort (Lamble. 1984). A major function of extension practitioners is to facilitate the adoption of new ideas and practices or...

Using a hand-collected dataset on top management teams in venture capital-backed private firms, I analyze the effect of top management changes on subsequent corporate innovation in these firms. I find that top management changes are associated with significantly more and higher quality corporate innovation, as measured by patent counts and patent citations, respectively. I show that top managem...

This paper explores the determinants of innovation in small businesses from a survey of more than 700 self-employed workers in Andalusia (Spain). Self-employed people running businesses with and without employees were included in the study and two types of innovation – product and process innovation – were differentiated. The theoretical framework adopted distinguishes between three levels of f...

In this paper four main perspectives are sketched as a framework to consider accomplishments in the educational technology research field and, in particular, in the school education sector: (a) the computational perspective which is focused on what technology makes possible; (b) the cognitive perspective which is focused on what the individual can learn under certain conditions; (c) the pedagog...

Professional Development is ill served by traditional ways of learning. It can profit from a Learning Networks approach, which emphasizes logistic, content and didactic flexibility. Learning Networks are online, social networks that have been designed and tooled to foster informal learning. Three European projects are discussed – idSpace, LTfLL, Handover which have developed tools befitting net...