Studying Virtual Math Teams centers on detailed empirical studies of how students in small online groups make sense of math issues and how they solve problems by making meaning together. These studies are woven together with materials that describe the online environment and pedagogical orientation, as well as reflections on the theoretical implications of the findings in the studies. The nature of group cognition and shared meaning making in collaborative learning is a foundational research issue in CSCL. More generally, the theme of sense making is a central topic in information science. While many authors allude to these topics, few have provided this kind of detailed analysis of the mechanisms of intersubjective meaning making.

This book presents a coherent research agenda that has been pursued by the author and his research group. The book opens with descriptions of the project and its methodology, as well as situating this research in the past and present context of the CSCL research field. The core research team then presents five concrete analyses of group interactions in different phases of the Virtual Math Teams research project. These chapters are followed by several studies by international collaborators, discussing the group discourse, the software affordances and alternative representations of the interaction, all using data from the VMT project. The concluding chapters address implications for the theory of group cognition and for the methodology of the learning sciences. In addition to substantial introductory and concluding chapters, this important new book includes analyses based upon the author's previous research, thereby providing smooth continuity and an engaging flow that follows the progression of the research.

The VMT project has dual goals: (a) to provide a source of experience and data for practical and theoretical explorations of group knowledge building and (b) to develop an effective online environment and educational service for collaborative learning of mathematics. Studying Virtual Math Teams reflects these twin orientations, reviewing the intertwined aims and development of a rigorous science of small-group cognition and a Web 2.0 educational math service. It documents the kinds of interactional methods that small groups use to explore math issues and provides a glimpse into the potential of online interaction to promote productive math discourse.

This book presents a wide-ranging and critical exploration of a topic that lies at the heart of contemporary education. The use of digital technology is now a key feature of schools and schooling around the world. Yet despite its prominence, technology use continues to be an area of education that rarely receives sustained critical attention and thought, especially from those people who are most involved and affected by it. Technology tends to be something that many teachers, learners, parents, policy-makers and even academics approach as a routine rather than reflective matter. Tackling the wider picture, addressing the social, cultural, economic, political and commercial aspects of schools and schooling in the digital age, this book offers to make sense of what happens, and what does not happen, when the digital and the educational come together in the guise of schools technology. In particular, the book examines contemporary schooling in terms of social justice, equality and participatory democracy. Seeking to re-politicise an increasingly depoliticised area of educational debate and analysis, setting out to challenge the many contradictions that characterise the field of education technology today, the author concludes by suggesting what forms schools and schooling in the digital age could, and should, take. This is the perfect volume for anyone interested in the application and use of technology in education, as well as the education policy and politics that surround it; many will also find its innovative proposals for technology use an inspiration for their own teaching and learning.

The Decentring of the Traditional University provides a unique perspective on the implications of media change for learning and literacy that allows us to peer into the future of (self) education. Each chapter draws on socio-cultural and activity theory to investigate how resourceful students are breaking away from traditional modes of instruction and educating themselves through engagement with a globally interconnected web-based participatory culture.

The argument is developed with reference to the findings of an ethnographic study that focused on university students? informal uses of social and participatory media. Each chapter draws attention to the shifting locus of agency for regulating and managing learning and describes an emergent genre of learning activity. For example, Francis explores how students are cultivating and nurturing globally distributed funds of living knowledge that transcend institutional boundaries and describes students learning through serious play in virtually figured worlds that support radically personalised lifelong learning agendas. These stories also highlight the challenges and choices learners confront as they struggle to negotiate the faultlines of media convergence and master the new media literacies required to exploit the full potential of Web 2.0 as a learning resource.

Overall, this compelling argument proposes that we are witnessing a period of historic systemic change in the culture of university learning as an emergent web-based participatory culture starts to disrupt and displace a top-down culture industry model of education that has evolved around the medium of the book. As a result, Francis argues that we need to re-conceive higher education as an identity-project in which students work on their projective identities (or imagined future selves) through engagement with both formal and informal learning activities.

Stanford mathematician and NPR Math Guy Keith Devlin explains why, fun aside, video games are the ideal medium to teach middle-school math. Devlin spent five years as the lead mathematical advisor on a project to develop an MMO game that would teach mathematics to children aged 9 to 12 and be sufficiently compelling that they would actually want to play it. He worked with some very distinguished mathematics educators and videogame designers, and during that time the team learned how to design videogames that do more than try to entice children to practice their basic math skills. Aimed primarily at teachers and education researchers, and game developers who want to produce videogames for mathematics education, Mathematics Education and Video Games describes exactly what is involved in designing and producing successful math educational videogames that foster the innovative mathematical thinking skills necessary for success in a global economy.

Rethinking Learning for a Digital Age addresses the complex and diverse experiences of learners in a world embedded with digital technologies. The text combines first-hand accounts from learners with extensive research and analysis, including a developmental model for effective e-learning, and a wide range of strategies that digitally-connected learners are using to fit learning into their lives. A companion to Rethinking Pedagogy for a Digital Age (2007), this book focuses on how learners experiences of learning are changing and raises important challenges to the educational status quo.

Rethinking Learning for a Digital Age

• moves beyond stereotypes of the "net generation" to explore the diversity of e-learning experiences today
• analyses learners' experiences holistically, across the many technologies and learning opportunities they encounter
• reveals digital-age learners as creative actors and networkers in their own right, who make strategic choices about their use of digital applications and learning approaches.

Today 's learners are active participants in their learning experiences and are shaping their own educational environments. Professors, learning practitioners, researchers, and policy-makers will find Rethinking Learning for a Digital Age invaluable for understanding the learning experience, and shaping their own responses.

Whereas traditional classroom instruction requires pilots to be pulled 'off the line', a training facility to be maintained and instructors to be compensated, e-learning is extremely cost-effective and therefore an attractive alternative. However, e-learning only saves money if the training is effective. Eager to reap financial benefits, e-learning courses have a history of varying dramatically in quality. The poorest courses are those that directly convert classroom-based presentations to an online format, not recognizing that computer-based instruction is an entirely different medium. Addressing this issue directly, e-Learning in Aviation explores the characteristics of computer-based course design and multimedia that are associated with improved learning. It then provides guidance regarding how to use research-based instructional design principles to plan, design, develop, and implement an e-Learning course within an aviation organization and continually evaluate whether or not the course is accomplishing instructional goals. A blended learning strategy, which incorporates both face-to-face and computer-based instruction, is suggested as the most appropriate choice for the majority of aviation companies. The goal of this approach is to utilize e-Learning as a tool to reduce time at the training centre and thereby increase pilot productivity and potentially improve the quality of training. Although the examples within this book focus on pilot training, the suggestions and guidelines are applicable to all employee groups within the industry.

Written for educators seeking to engage students in collaboration and communication about authentic scenarios, The power of role-based e-learning offers helpful, accessible advice on the practice and research needed to design online role play. Drawing on the experiences of world-leading practitioners and citing an array of worldwide examples, it is a readable, non-technical, and comprehensive guide to the design, implementation, and evaluation of this exciting teaching approach. Issues discussed include: * designing effective online role plays * defining games, simulations and role plays * moderating engaging and authentic role-based e-learning activities * assessment and evaluation. The power of role-based e-learning offers a careful analysis of the strengths and learning opportunities of online role play, and is realistic about possible difficulties. Providing guidance for both newcomers and experienced professionals who are developing their online teaching repertoire, it is an invaluable resource for teachers, trainers, academics, and educational support staff involved in e-learning.

In an age of online education and educational philosophies like "flipping the classroom," does the lecture have any role in today's university? Drawing from the humanities and social sciences and from a range of different types of schools, The College Lecture Today makes the affirmative case for the lecture in the humanities and social and political sciences. These essays explore how to lecture without sacrificing theoretical knowledge.

In this book, we review many examples of multimedia item types for testing. We also outline how games can be used to test physics concepts -- discuss designing chemistry item types with interactive graphics; study how culture-specific linguistics can help inner-city kids and new immigrants learn better; suggest approaches for automatically adjusting difficulty level in interactive graphics-based questions; and propose strategies for giving partial marks for incorrect answers. We also study how to test different cognitive skills, such as music, using multimedia interfaces and also evaluate the effectiveness of our model. Methods for estimating difficulty levels of mathematical item types using Item Response Theory (IRT) will be discussed. Examples of item shells for human computer interaction and cell phones will be shown.

This book presents a wide-ranging and critical exploration of a topic that lies at the heart of contemporary education. The use of digital technology is now a key feature of schools and schooling around the world. Yet despite its prominence, technology use continues to be an area of education that rarely receives sustained critical attention and thought, especially from those people who are most involved and affected by it. Technology tends to be something that many teachers, learners, parents, policy-makers and even academics approach as a routine rather than reflective matter. Tackling the wider picture, addressing the social, cultural, economic, political and commercial aspects of schools and schooling in the digital age, this book offers to make sense of what happens, and what does not happen, when the digital and the educational come together in the guise of schools technology. In particular, the book examines contemporary schooling in terms of social justice, equality and participatory democracy. Seeking to re-politicise an increasingly depoliticised area of educational debate and analysis, setting out to challenge the many contradictions that characterise the field of education technology today, the author concludes by suggesting what forms schools and schooling in the digital age could, and should, take. This is the perfect volume for anyone interested in the application and use of technology in education, as well as the education policy and politics that surround it; many will also find its innovative proposals for technology use an inspiration for their own teaching and learning.

This volume focuses on the power of technology to improve education and to create global educational environments. The contributors present exciting new programs for training administrators and teachers, and makes clear the possibilities that technology brings to the lives of researchers and policymakers.

This textbook considers and addresses the design of online learning objects, electronic textbooks, short courses, long courses, MOOC courses, and other types of contents for open sharing. It also considers the design of online mediated communities to enhance such learning. The "openness" may be open-access, and/or it may even be open-source. The learning may range from self-directed and automated to AI robot-led to instructor-led. The main concept of this work is that design learning for open sharing, requires different considerations than when designing for closed and proprietary contexts. Open sharing of learning contents requires a different sense of laws (intellectual property, learner privacy, pedagogical strategies, technologies, media, and others). It requires different considerations of learner diversity and inclusion. It requires geographical, cultural, and linguistic considerations that are not as present in more localized designs. The open sharing aspect also has effects on learner performance tracking (assessments) and learner feedback. This textbook targets students, both undergraduate and graduate in computer science, education and other related fields. Also, professionals in this field managing online systems would find this book helpful.

Design Literacies: Learning and Innovation in the Digital Age explores new ways of meaning making by examining the practices, stories, and products of new and digital media producers with the goal of understanding the logic of marketplace production.

Based on interviews with thirty new media and digital technology producers, including designers of video games, community activists and marketers of digital technologies, Design Literacies looks at the shared patterns and common themes and offers a window into contemporary out-of-school practices, a language to describe these practices and a pedagogy that better meets students needs in this new media and digital age.

With a foreword by Gunther Kress and an afterword by James Gee, Design Literacies: Learning and Innovation in the Digital Age will be of interest to postgraduate and graduate students of applied linguistics and education.

APPLIED LINGUISTICS/ EDUCATION

Serious criticisms of research on IT in education have been published recently in both the UK and the USA. Researching IT in Education aims to provoke thought and discussion among practising researchers by considering a range of approaches to undertaking quality research. Establishing priorities and directions for future research in the sub-discipline of IT in education, the book is structured around five foci:

• theory
• history
• research directions
• methodology
• research topics.

This book argues for the enormous power of IT to enable fundamental research that both refines and develops theory and practice in education. High quality research that advances knowledge and educational practice in this area will generally require longer timelines and more complex data collection and analysis methods. The authors draw attention to the value of theoretical frameworks used in mainstream educational research and highlight the early theoretical work on the subject of IT in education.

Researching IT in Education is the only book in its area to focus on methodological and research design issues. The individual chapters are contributed by expert researchers and leaders in the field from ten countries, thus providing an unusually broad but coherent international set of perspectives for the issues examined in the book.

This book will benefit anyone interested in or undertaking research on IT in education, including academics, research students, teachers and policy-makers.

How is information and communication technology (ICT) changing teaching and learning practices in secondary schools worldwide in the 21st century? This is the central question addressed by researchers involved in the series of surveys comprising the Second Information Technology in EducationStudy (SITES ). The question is a multifaceted one, with each facet raising additionalq uestions relating to both theory and practice. These include the following: * What traditional and new pedagogiesare evident in the 21st century? * What is the role of ICT in the teaching and learning process? * What ICT infrastructure is available in schools? * How can teachers and their administrators be prepared for effective practice? * How have these conditions and considerations changed since the first SITES survey in 1998? * What are the trends within and between national education systems? * What do the differences and similarities between these systems suggest? * How shouldchange be promoted in education in order to support teachers in their work? * Is there evidence that key strategic factors commonly found in ICT related educational policies do influence teachers' pedagogical use of ICT? Because these questions are interconnected, the SITES 2006 researchers recognized that if we are to make sense of changes in pedagogical practicesas a result of IC T use, then we need to view those practices in terms of the interacting layers in the 22 education systems surveyed.

Written for Higher Education teaching and learning professionals, Learning with Digital Games provides an accessible, straightforward introduction to the field of computer game-based learning. Up to date with current trends and the changing learning needs of today's students, this text offers friendly guidance, and is unique in its focus on post-school education and its pragmatic view of the use of computer games with adults.

Learning with Digital Games enables readers to quickly grasp practical and technological concepts, using examples that can easily be applied to their own teaching. The book assumes no prior technical knowledge but guides the reader step-by-step through the theoretical, practical and technical considerations of using digital games for learning. Activities throughout guide the reader through the process of designing a game for their own practice, and the book also offers:

A toolkit of guidelines, templates and checklists.

Concrete examples of different types of game-based learning using six case studies.

Examples of games that show active and experiential learning

Practical examples of educational game design and development.

This professional guide upholds the sound reputation of the Open and Flexible Learning series, is grounded in theory and closely links examples from practice. Higher Education academics, e-learning practitioners, developers and training professionals at all technical skill levels and experience will find this text is the perfect resource for explaining "how to" integrate computer games into their teaching practice.

A companion website is available and provides up-to-date technological information, additional resources and further examples.

Technology plays a significant role in doctoral leadership studies providing a channel for teaching, learning, research, and administrative processes. Advancing Doctoral Leadership Education Through Technology addresses the growing need for universities to explore, revise, and develop the content and delivery of doctoral leadership education. A growing number of programs and the more recent inclusion of leadership courses within varied postgraduate disciplines illustrates the rising interest in doctoral leadership education. Advances in technology provide a vehicle to deliver content and information to a wide array of learners, therefore it is time to ask questions about the benefits, challenges and needed solutions to prepare for the future design and delivery of leadership education. This book offers valuable information for faculty and administrators responsible for developing and delivering doctoral studies through technology in order to provide access, convenience, enriched learning, and to create new pathways to achieve a doctorate. Professors working in a classroom-based, or primarily in virtual environments, or in a hybrid of both could also benefit from reading this book. Doctoral students engaged in completing their dissertations and research projects will also find a wealth of information related to higher education teaching, learning, and technology. Contributors include: S. Allen, E.E. Bennett, S.J. Blackmon, S. Brierton, C.J. Brown, J. Bruce, W. Cain, L. Dinauer, K. Einola, M. Gorman, D. Henriksen, L. Hyatt, E. Jean-Francois, S. Kahai, J. Martin, J. Moss Breen, S. Robinson, D. Volkert, B.E. Winston, P. Zettinig

How have schools been affected by the introduction of computer technology, and has it changed the school life and experience of students? This book uses research from both large and small secondary schools, including those specializing in technology and those with higher numbers of pupils with special needs, to look at the results of all the political initiatives and investment in ICT. The authors found that the ambitious expectations fell short of reality. Their research into the reasons for this shortfall can help teachers understand and develop ways to make the best use of computers in their schools. It is equally informative for educational researchers and policy-makers.

The amount and range of information available to today's students-and indeed to all learners-is unprecedented. If the characteristics of "the information age" demand new conceptions of commerce, national security, and publishing-among other things-it is logical to assume that they carry implications for education as well. Little has been written, however, about how the specific affordances of these technologies-and the kinds of information they allow students to access and create-relate to the central purpose of education: learning. What does "learning" mean in an information-rich environment? What are its characteristics? What kinds of tasks should it involve? What concepts, strategies, attitudes, and skills do educators and students need to master if they are to learn effectively and efficiently in such an environment? How can researchers, theorists, and practitioners foster the well-founded and widespread development of such key elements of the learning process? This second edition continues these discussions and suggests some tentative answers. Drawing primarily from research and theory in three distinct but related fields-learning theory, instructional systems design, and information studies-it presents a way to think about learning that responds directly to the actualities of a world brimming with information. The second edition also includes insights from digital and critical literacies and provides a combination of an updated research-and-theory base and a collection of instructional scenarios for helping teachers and librarians implement each step of the I-LEARN model. The book could be used in courses in teacher preparation, academic-librarian preparation, and school-librarian preparation.

This book provides a critical commentary on key issues around learning in the digital age in both formal and informal educational settings. The book presents research and thinking about new dynamic literacies, porous expertise, digital making/coding/remixing, curation, storying in digital media, open learning, the networked educator and a number of related topics; it further addresses and develops the notion of a 'third space literacies' in contexts for learning. The book takes as its starting point the idea that an emphasis on technology and media, as part of material culture and lived experience, is much needed in the discussion of education, along with a criticality which is too often absent in the discourse around technology and learning. It constructs a narrative thread and a critical synthesis from a sociocultural account of the memes and stereotypical positions around learning, media and technology in the digital age, and will be of great interest to academics interested in the mechanics of learning and the effects of technology on the education experience. It closes with a conversation as a reflexive 'afterword' featuring discussion of the key issues with, amongst others, Neil Selwyn and Cathy Burnett.

The book presents a cross-disciplinary overview of critical issues at the intersections of biology, information, and society. Based on theories of bioinformationalism, viral modernity, the postdigital condition, and others, this book explores two inter-related questions: Which new knowledge ecologies are emerging? Which philosophies and research approaches do they require? The book argues that the 20th century focus on machinery needs to be replaced, at least partially, by a focus on a better understanding of living systems and their interactions with technology at all scales - from viruses, through to human beings, to the Earth's ecosystem. This change of direction cannot be made by a simple relocation of focus and/or funding from one discipline to another. In our age of the Anthropocene, (human and planetary) biology cannot be thought of without (digital) technology and society. Today's curious bioinformational mix of blurred and messy relationships between physics and biology, old and new media, humanism and posthumanism, knowledge capitalism and bio-informational capitalism defines the postdigital condition and creates new knowledge ecologies. The book presents scholarly research defining new knowledge ecologies built upon emerging forms of scientific communication, big data deluge, and opacity of algorithmic operations. Many of these developments can be approached using the concept of viral modernity, which applies to viral technologies, codes and ecosystems in information, publishing, education, and emerging knowledge (journal) systems. It is within these overlapping theories and contexts, that this book explores new bioinformational philosophies and postdigital knowledge ecologies.

This book directs critical attention to one of the most ubiquitous and yet under-analyzed games, Minecraft. Drawing on three years of ethnographic fieldwork into mobile games in Australian homes, the authors seek to take Minecraft seriously as a cultural practice. The book examines how Minecraft players engage in a form of gameplay that is uniquely intergenerational, creative, and playful, and which moves ambivalently throughout everyday life. At the intersection of digital media, quotidian literacy, and ethnography, the book situates interdisciplinary debates around mundane play through the lens of Minecraft. Ultimately, Exploring Minecraft seeks to coalesce the discussion between formal and informal learning, fostering new forms of digital media creativity and ethnographic innovation around the analysis of games in everyday life.

Our society faces international challenges from cyber attacks and dissemination of fake news with a goal to destabilize our society. Fake news can be used as a weapon with destructive effects as powerful as any military attack. Fake news can spread as fast as a wildfire carried on the winds of social media. Students and all citizens need to be prepared and informed of ways to quickly understand and distinguish real and fake news. Preventing the potential destructive effects of fake news is the purpose of this book. The focus is upon providing a resource for educators to develop "news literacy" skills of students in objectively evaluating the news.

What kind of university is possible when digital tools are not taken for granted, but hacked for a more experimental future? The global pandemic has underscored contemporary reliance on digital environments. This is particularly true among schools and universities, which, in response, shifted much of their instruction online. Because the rise of e-learning logics, ed-tech industries, and enterprise learning-management systems all threaten to further commodify and instrumentalize higher education, these technologies and platforms have to be creatively and critically struggled over. Studious Drift intervenes in this struggle by reviving the relationship between studying and the generative space of the studio in service of advancing educational experimentation for a world where digital tools have become a permanent part of education. Drawing on Alfred Jarry's pataphysics, the "science of imaginary solutions," this book reveals how the studio is a space-time machine capable of traveling beyond the limits of conventional online learning to redefine education as interdisciplinary, experimental, public study.