Although online education is becoming an important long-term strategy for higher learning instructors, blended learning through a balanced mix of traditional face-to-face instructional activities with appropriately designed online learning experiences is expected to become an even more significant growth area in the future. ""Cases on Online and Blended Learning Technologies in Higher Education: Concepts and Practices"" provides real-life examples and experiences of those involved in developing and implementing the merge of traditional education curriculum and online instruction. A significant resource for academicians, this advanced publication provides a wide range of the most current designs, methodologies, tools, and applications in blended course teaching.

This book is jointly compiled by Chinese Academy of Sciences, Cyberspace Administration of China, Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, National Natural Science Foundation of China and Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences. Over the past several years, Chinese scholars have contributed numerous research works on the development of Chinese scientific information and technology, and produced a range of outstanding achievements. Focusing on the main topic of e-Science, this book explores the forefront of science and technology around the globe, the major demands in China and the main fields in China's economic development. Furthermore, it reviews the major achievements and the typical cases in China's e-Science research. It provides a valuable reference source for future technological innovations and will introduce researchers and students in the area of e-Science to the latest results in China.

As emerging technologies increase the potential for constructivist learning processes and responses, it is critical that educational researchers, instructional designers, cognitive scientists, and information scientists become more aware of advances in these correlating fields. ""Cases on Collaboration in Virtual Learning Environments: Processes and Interactions"" provides a systematic response to this highly innovative and rapidly evolving field for enhanced education and training. Containing unique research cases on experiences, implementations, and applications of virtual learning environments, this publication offers a critical collection of leading explorations useful to educational practitioners, researchers, and those involved in related fields of study.

Educational technologies (e-learning environments or learning management systems for individual and collaborative learning, Internet resources for teaching and learning, academic materials in electronic format, specific subject-related software, groupware and social network software, etc.) are changing the way in which higher education is delivered. Teaching Mathematics Online: Emergent Technologies and Methodologies shares theoretical and applied pedagogical models and systems used in math e-learning including the use of computer supported collaborative learning, which is common to most e-learning practices. The book also forecasts emerging technologies and tendencies regarding mathematical software, learning management systems, and mathematics education online and presents up-to-date research work on how mathematics education is changing in a global and Web-based world.

"What we all hope for our children's education is undiminished curiosity and creativeness, and solid practical preparation for adult work. Today, there's no doubt that easy access to computers is vital for students. Bob Johnstone has brilliantly and passionately told the story of the worldwide struggle to make today's equivalent of the pencil accessible to all students."
--Victor K. McElheny, author of "Watson and DNA"

If every kid had a laptop computer, what would difference would it make to their learning? And to their prospects? Today, these are questions that all parents, teachers, school administrators, and politicians must ask themselves.

Bob Johnstone provides a definitive answer to the conundrum of computers in the classroom. His conclusion: we owe it to our kids to educate them in the medium of their time.

In this book he tells the extraordinary story of the world's first laptop school. How daring educators at an independent girls' school in Melbourne, Australia, empowered their students by making laptops mandatory. And how they solved all the obstacles to laptop learning, including teacher training.

Their example spread to thousands of other schools worldwide. Especially in America, where it inspired the largest educational technology initiative in US history--the State of Maine issuing laptops to every seventh-grader in its public school system.

This lively, intriguing, anecdote-rich account is based on hundreds of interviews. In it, you'll meet the visionary leaders, inspirational principals, heroic teachers, and their endlessly-surprising students who showed what computers in the classroom are really for.

Although there is broad agreement that preparing global citizens for the digital age is a core responsibility of educators and schools, there is debate and uncertainty about how best to prepare students for this future. Technologies for Enhancing Pedagogy, Engagement and Empowerment in Education: Creating Learning-Friendly Environments explores how technology-based learning can enhance student engagement, performance, and empowerment. This book provides researchers, educators, and practitioners with insights from educational programs, classroom teaching, and theory-into-practice research; places educational technologies appropriately in their social and cultural contexts; and reflects upon challenges and problems in evaluating and implementing changes in the field. It shows how computer-enhanced education can improve teaching and learning without confusing the increase of computer facilities with the quality of education.

The World Wide Web is changing the way we use technology, bringing e-learning and teaching to a whole new dimension of collaboration and communication. Looking Toward the Future of Technology-Enhanced Education: Ubiquitous Learning and the Digital Native bridges the gap between technology and education by presenting innovative research on the future of education. An essential reference on e-learning, this scholarly publication examines current research in technology enhanced learning, provides new didactic models for education, and discusses the newest technologies and their impact on education.

Knowledge management innovations provide essential pathways through which teachers, researchers, students, and knowledge management professionals who are interested in understanding and applying knowledge management theory and practice can transfer their insights and experiences into both organizational and educational settings. Knowledge Management Innovations for Interdisciplinary Education: Organizational Applications is a detailed resource on knowledge management and innovations that has been written and edited to provide flexibility and in-depth knowledge management innovations, strategies, and practices. The combination of a primary emphasis on theory and practice with applications to interdisciplinary education, as well as organizational environments, makes this book unique among the burgeoning literature on knowledge management.

A volume in Research Methods in Educational TechnologySeries Editor Walter F. Heinecke, University of VirginiaDespite technology's presence in virtually every public school, its documented familiarity and use byyouth outside of school, and the wealth of resources it provides for teaching social studies, there has beenrelatively little empirical research on its effectiveness for the teaching and learning of social studies. In aneffort to begin to fill this gap in research literature, this book focuses on research on technology in socialstudies education. The objectives of this volume are threefold: to describe research frameworks, provideexamples of empirical research, and chart a course for future research endeavors. Accordingly, the volumeis divided into three overarching sections: research constructs and contexts, research reports, and researchreviews.The need for research is particularly acute within the field of social studies and technology. As the primarypurpose of social studies is to prepare the young people of today to be the citizens of tomorrow, it isnecessary to examine how technology tools impact, improve, and otherwise affect teaching and learning insocial studies. Given these circumstances, we have prepared this collection of research conceptualizations, reports, and reviews to achieve three goals.1. Put forward reports on how research is being conducted in the field2. Present findings from well-designed research studies that provide evidence of how specific applications of technology are affectingteaching and learning in social studies.3. Showcase reviews of research in social studiesIt is with this framework that we edited this volume, Research on Technology and Social Studies Education, as an effort to address emerging concernsrelated to theorizing about the field and reporting research in social studies and technology. The book is divided into four sections. The first section ofthe book includes three descriptions of research constructs and contexts in social studies and technology. The second section is focused on researchreports from studies of student learning in social studies with technology. The third section containsresearch reports on teachers' pedagogical considerations for using technology in social studies. In thefourth and final section, we present work that broadly reviews and critiques research in focused areas ofsocial studies and technology. This volume contains twelve chapters, each of which focuses on socialstudies content and pedagogy and how the field is affected and enhanced with technology. The volumeincludes research and theoretical works on various topics, including digital history, digital video, geography, technology use in the K-12 social studies classroom, and artificial intelligence.

This title focuses on electronic learning communities created through the development and use of the Internet for instruction and training. Chapters focus on philosophies, background, reviews, technologies, systems, tools, services, strategies, development, implementation and research.

Advances in technology are increasingly impacting the way in which curriculum is delivered and assessed. The emergence of the Internet has offered learners a new instructional delivery system that connects them with educational resources. ""Advances in Web-Based Education: Personalized Learning Environments"" covers a wide range of factors that influence the design, use and adoption of personalized learning environments, and it shows how user and pedagogical considerations can be integrated into the design, development and implementation of adaptive hypermedia systems to create effective personalized learning environments.

Mobile phones have become an integral part of society, as their convenience has helped democratize and revolutionize communication and the marketplace of ideas. Because of their ubiquity in higher education, undergraduate classrooms have begun to utilize smartphones and tablets as tools for learning. The Handbook of Research on Mobile Devices and Applications in Higher Education Settings explores and fosters new perspectives on the use of mobile applications in a classroom context. This timely publication will demonstrate the challenges that universities face when introducing new technologies to students and instructors, as well as the rewards of doing so in a thoughtful manner. This book is meant to present the latest research and become a source of inspiration for educators, administrators, researchers, app developers, and students of education and technology.

There is a growing recognition in the learning sciences that video games can no longer be seen as impediments to education, but rather, they can be developed to enhance learning. Educational and developmental psychologists, education researchers, media psychologists, and cognitive psychologists are now joining game designers and developers in seeking out new ways to use video game play in the classroom. In Learning by Playing, a diverse group of contributors provide perspectives on the most current thinking concerning the ramifications of leisure video game play for academic classroom learning. The first section of the text provides foundational understanding of the cognitive skills and content knowledge that children and adolescents acquire and refine during video game play. The second section explores game features that captivate and promote skills development among game players. The subsequent sections discuss children and adolescents' learning in the context of different types of games and the factors that contribute to transfer of learning from video game play to the classroom. These chapters then form the basis for the concluding section of the text: a specification of the most appropriate research agenda to investigate the academic potential of video game play, particularly using those games that child and adolescent players find most compelling. Contributors include researchers in education, learning sciences, and cognitive and developmental psychology, as well as instructional design researchers.

The Internet serves as an essential tool in promoting health awareness through the circulation of important research among the medical professional community. While digital tools and technologies have greatly improved healthcare, challenges are still prevalent among diverse populations worldwide. Emerging Technologies and Work-Integrated Learning Experiences in Allied Health Education is a critical scholarly resource that examines constructivist teaching methods and active learning strategies in allied health education to enhance student knowledge and prepare them for the digital age. Featuring coverage on a broad range of topics, such as e-learning, microscopic morphology, and virtual reality, this book is geared towards researchers, academicians, medical professionals, and upper level students interested in the advancement and dissemination of medical knowledge.

Managing Learning in Virtual Settings: The Role of Context discusses the basis for the development and management of learning contexts, with contributions from many diverse domains. It stresses the dimension of context in a world dominated by a focus on the dimension of content while explaining the development of balanced, organic and successful learning environments and strategies. ""Managing Learning in Virtual Settings: The Role of Context"" emphasizes the role of context in the development and management of virtual learning environments and opens up new threads in clarifying the influence of contextual issues on learning.

Within the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, we are living in a technologically advanced society, and students and teacher educators need to be adequately prepared to succeed within this progressive society. Teaching and Learning in the 21st Century: Embracing the Fourth Industrial Revolution is an edited volume that situates teaching and learning for the 21st century within diverse contexts globally so that teacher educators could make sense of their professional knowledge, curriculum, classroom contexts and diverse students. This book intends to frame and explore the different responsive and innovative pedagogies that are used for embracing the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Additionally, it aims to clarify some key concepts (for example blended learning, coding, digital, E-Learning, Internet, M-Learning, simulation and tools) in addition to other issues that surround teaching and learning for the 21st century. The book also exemplifies authentic case studies located within global contexts focusing on: the 21st-century curriculum, the 21st-century classroom environment, teachers in the 21st century and students in the 21st century. Contributors from around the world (Australia, Indonesia, Mauritius, South Africa, Tanzania and the United States of America) share their innovations in education by interrogating research experiences and examples of good practice.

Moving beyond the 'Web 2.0' and 'digital native' rhetoric, this book addresses the complex experiences of learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) in a world embedded with interactive and participatory technologies. Adopting a sociocultural perspective, it investigates EFL learners' behaviours concerning digital technology, and guides exploration into their contextually mediated choices and learning practices in the '2.0' era. The argument is developed on the basis of the findings of a mixed sequential study that focused on 1485 Chinese undergraduates' use and non-use of online tools and applications outside the English classroom. Particular attention is paid to the role of context and agency when understanding their learning choices and behaviours in the context of digital technology. In particular, the book acknowledges the explanatory power of agency in the minority instances of 'good practices' among these EFL learners. At the same time it demonstrates that for most learners, use of the current web is limited and mostly non-interactive. The barriers to '2.0' transfer are largely contextual and the so-called 'communicative opportunities' and 'participatory culture' in particular did not fit into the learners' sociocultural context of (language) learning. Overall, the compelling argument proposes that the technology-facilitated changes in EFL practices are a 'bottom up' process that is taking place in day-to-day situations and constrained by the learning context within which the learner is situated. Based on these arguments, the book provides a framework that challenges the existing beliefs about (language) learning with online technology, and that contributes to our understanding of how context mediates EFL learners' behaviours surrounding digital technologies. It is a valuable resource for teachers, researchers and policy makers, providing them with insights into using digital technology to stimulate 'good learning practices' outside the classroom.

Despite the large lecture courses commonly found in colleges, the essence of learning is essentially a one-to-one dialogue between a tutor and learner. As such, the Internet has now made individual learning practical and cost effective to a degree never before possible. ""Cases on Online Tutoring, Mentoring, and Educational Services: Practices and Applications"" examines the rapidly developing sector of online educational services for individuals involved with e-tutoring and e-mentoring. Providing real-world examples through a critical mass of the most sought after research, this publication offers an in-depth analysis of how learning and knowledge acquisition occurs.