University Students report a range of demands such as academic responsibilities, financial pressures or developing new social networks to be major sources of stress. The literature demonstrates that university students report higher levels of psychological distress compared to the general population. Therefore, the cultivation of resilience and self-control among university students could result in many benefits. Resilience is the ability to adapt successfully to stress and adversity, while self-control is the ability to resist short-term desires in order to meet long-term goals. This experimental study examined the efficacy of using brief willpower strengthening exercises to enhance resilience, self-control, and reduce psychological distress in university students. Forty-six university students were randomised into one of two groups: Willpower Strengthening Group or the Control Group. A two-way repeated MANOVA revealed that university students in the Willpower Strengthening Group reported significantly higher levels of resilience and self-control, and significantly lower levels of psychological distress. The positive feedback and high rate of compliance reported by students to the exercises as per instructions (i.e. every hour, for six hours per day, over seven days) supports the feasibility of using willpower strengthening exercises in programs aimed at increasing resilience. Future research into the feasibility and effectiveness of willpower strengthening exercises has the potential to improve the psychological wellbeing of university students.

Older adults are now the fastest growing population of online users the world over (Olson et al. Ageing International, 36(1), 123-145, 2011). Encouraging data continues to emerge regarding the rate of Internet adoption among those over fifty in particular (Hernandez-Encuentra et al. Educational Gerontology, 35 (3), [226][227][228][229][230][231][232][233][234][235][236][237][238][239][240][241][242][243][244][245] 2009). Yet questions as to the effectiveness of such use and of training designed to advance the skills of our senior surfers continue to go unanswered. While a great deal has been written on seniors and technology in general, very few studies Bregarding age and its influence on search behaviour^can be found (Singer et al. 2012). This paper uses Literature Review as a method to scope and define this gap. The need for future research that specifically addresses online searching behaviours and effective training in this area for those over fifty is discussed.

Learning with technology is increasingly understood to be a social process involving unique and telling discourses. An emerging research agenda has resulted, investigating the links between ‘talk’ and student technological practices but is yet to include home-education. Preliminary evidence exists of a relationship between particular types of ‘talk’ and success with particular online activities, namely online search. This may prove especially pertinent to home-educators who report that their most prolific online activities are those reliant upon search engines like Google. This paper presents select findings from a study into online search and the associated discursive practices among early primary students and their parent-educators in Australia. Data from observations, tests and interviews with five home-educating families were analysed recursively using a system guided by Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis.  Specifically, this paper seeks to investigate: which discursive practices are privileged in these sites during online search; the extent to which these practices contribute to relations of power and the extent to which these practices are found alongside effective online search.  Findings revealed a prevalence of inequitable discursive practices, those that either inhibited the equal conversational power of speakers or which naturalised inequitable power relations more generally. These discursive practices were found alongside ineffective online searches. Notwithstanding, participants continued to speak positively about search engines and their educational power. This rhetoric-reality gap is theorized in the paper as the work of dominant ideologies surrounding technology in education.  Findings can assist the growing number of home-educators and their students to use online search more effectively. Insights regarding links between discursive practice and search practice may also help ensure that discourse helps to maximise the educational benefits associated with online search.

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