There is no research-based text that provides a model for teaching and learning in a virtual environment with literacy learners. Therefore, this book will focus on preparing challenging students to be successful independent learners for the twenty first century. This will involve one where students are constructing their own meaning not only within the traditional brick and mortar environment with the assistant of the classroom teacher, but also in an online environment scaffolded by a virtual tutor. Today, virtual environments are a common alternative space for students in K-12 to engage in meaningful online literacy learning with their tutors (Boxie, 2004; Hurst, 2007; Williams & Casale, 2015; Witte, 2007).

Collaborative Networks A Tool for Promoting Co-creation and Innovation The collaborative networks paradigm offers powerful socio-organizational mec- nisms, supported by advanced information and communication technologies for p- moting innovation. This, in turn, leads to new products and services, growth of better customer relationships, establishing better project and process management, and building higher-performing consortia. By putting diverse entities that bring different perspectives, competencies, practices, and cultures, to work together, collaborative networks develop the right environment for the emergence of new ideas and more efficient, yet practical, solutions. This aspect is particularly important for small and medium enterprises which typically lack critical mass and can greatly benefit from participation in co-innovation networks. However, larger organizations also benefit from the challenges and the diversity found in collaborative ecosystems. In terms of research, in addition to the trend identified in previous years toward a sounder consolidation of the theoretical foundation in this discipline, there is now a direction of developments more focused on modeling and reasoning about new c- laboration patterns and their contribution to value creation. "Soft issues," including social capital, cultural aspects, ethics and value systems, trust, emotions, behavior, etc. continue to deserve particular attention in terms of modeling and reasoning. Exploi- tion of new application domains such as health care, education, and active aging for retired professionals also help identify new research challenges, both in terms of m- eling and ICT support development.

Together, the words technology and assessment have different meaning for different people. Those who work with educational or instructional technology take these words to mean assessing the impacts of technology on teaching and learning. Test developers and psychometricians, however, consider ways in which computer-based technologies can be used to enhance current approaches to student assessment. This book examines technology and assessment from both perspectives by examining past, current and promising methodologies and applications in both fields. The influences instructional uses of technology and the increasing reliance on testing to gauge student and school performance have on one another are also explored. The book concludes by describing an organizational structure that could bring instructional applications of technology and assessment practices into closer alignment.

Instructional technology and distance learning have changed the meaning of attending college. Today's students can now learn through various forms of electronic communications media, including radio, television, the computer, and the Internet. But are the costs outweighing the benefits? This new addition to the Series on Higher Education, analyzes and assesses the costs of information technology for teaching and learning in higher education. Containing 15 essays that identify the positive and negative cost implications of information technology, this timely and detailed resource also explores how the increased use of information technology is transforming higher education, the different ways it can be used to teach different kinds of students, and the impact this increased spending has on college budgets.

This volume provides a contemporary glance at the drastically expanding field of delivering large-scale education to unprecedented numbers of learners. It compiles papers presented at the CELDA (Cognition and Exploratory Learning in the Digital Age) conference, which has a goal of continuing to address these challenges and promote the effective use of new tools and technologies to support teaching, learning and assessment. Given the emerging global trend to exploit the potential of existing digital technologies to improve the teaching, learning and assessment experiences for all learners in real-life contexts, this topic is a unifying theme for this volume. The book showcases how emerging educational technologies and innovative practices have been used to address core global educational challenges. It provides state-of-the-art insights and case studies of exploiting innovative learning technologies, including Massive Open Online Courses and educational data analytics, to address key global challenges spanning from online Teacher Education to large-scale coding competence development. This volume will be of interest to academics and professional practitioners working in the area of digital technology integration in teaching, learning and assessment, as well as those interested in specific conference themes (e.g., designing and assessing learning in online environments, assessing learning in complex domains) and presenters, invited speakers, and participants of the CELDA conference.

The flipped classroom methodology is one of the latest innovations in the field of education, challenging traditional notions of the classroom experience. Applying this methodology to language learning has the potential to further engage students and drive their understanding of key concepts. Flipped Instruction Methods and Digital Technologies in the Language Learning Classroom explores the latest educational technologies and web-based learning solutions for effective language learning curricula. Featuring emergent research on critical topics and innovations in the field of education, this publication is an essential resource for educators, administrators, instructional designers, pre-service teachers, and researchers in the field of education.

A guide to teaching and learning online. It presents a wide range of experience and research findings from leading practitioners and organizations around the world, including case studies from the Open University, the BBC, ICL and leading international academics.

The technical resources, budgets, curriculum, and profile of the student body are all factors that play in implementing course design. Learning management systems administrate these aspects for the development of new methods for course delivery and corresponding instructional design. Learning Management Systems and Instructional Design: Best Practices in Online Education provides an overview on the connection between learning management systems and the variety of instructional design models and methods of course delivery. This book is a useful source for administrators, faculty, instructional designers, course developers, and businesses interested in the technological solutions and methods of online education.

This This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license.This book offers a comprehensive guide, covering every important aspect of computational thinking education. It provides an in-depth discussion of computational thinking, including the notion of perceiving computational thinking practices as ways of mapping models from the abstraction of data and process structures to natural phenomena. Further, it explores how computational thinking education is implemented in different regions, and how computational thinking is being integrated into subject learning in K-12 education. In closing, it discusses computational thinking from the perspective of STEM education, the use of video games to teach computational thinking, and how computational thinking is helping to transform the quality of the workforce in the textile and apparel industry.

Designing for Learning in Networked Learning Environments is of interest to researchers and students, designers, educators, and industrial trainers across various disciplines including education, cognitive, social and educational psychology, didactics, computer science, linguistics and semiotics, speech communication, anthropology, sociology and design.

Computer Support for Collaborative Learning (CSCL) is a genuinely interdisciplinary field that strives to create a better understanding of collaborative learning that is mediated by a diverse set of computational technologies. The theme of CSCL 2003 "Designing for Change in Networked Learning Environments" reflects a commitment to influence educational practice in times of the Internet. The contributions in this volume include discussions on knowledge building, designing and analysing group interaction, design of collaborative multimedia and 3D environments, computational modelling and analysis, software agents, and much more.

This book focuses on how new pedagogical scenarios, task environments and communication tools within Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) environments can favour collaborative and productive confrontations of ideas, evidence, arguments and explanations, or arguing to learn. The first to assemble the work of internationally renowned scholars, this book will be of interest to researchers in education, psychology, computer science, communication and linguistic studies

Literary Education and Digital Learning: Methods and Technologies for Humanities Studies provides insight into the most relevant issues in literary education and digital learning. This unique reference fills a gap in literature teaching, covering literary aspects both from educational and research perspectives.

Education plays a vital role in the positive development of communities at both a local and global level. By becoming more informed, citizens can make better contributions to society. Open and Distance Learning Initiatives for Sustainable Development is a critical reference source for emerging academic perspectives on the role of higher education programs in contemporary society. Including a range of pertinent topics such as mobile learning, environmental education, and community building, this book is ideally designed for educators, researchers, students, and professionals interested in the intersection between sustainable development and education.

Over the past years, business schools have been experimenting with distance learning and online education. In many cases this new technology has not brought the anticipated results. Questions raised by online education can be linked to the fundamental problem of education and teaching, and more specifically to the models and philosophy of education and teaching.

Virtual Corporate Universities: A Matrix of Knowledge and Learning for the New Digital Dawn offers a source for new thoughts about those processes in view of the use of new technologies. Learning is considered as a key-strategic tool for new strategies, innovation, and significantly improving organizational effectiveness. The book blends the elements of knowledge management, as well as organizational and individual learning. The book is not just a treatment of technology, but a fusion of a novel dynamic learner (student)-driven learning concept, the management and creation of dynamic knowledge, and next-generation technologies to generic business, organizational and managerial processes, and the development of human capital. Obviously, the implications of online learning go far beyond the field of business as presented in this book.

The authors combine relevant and cutting-edge information on existing and future use of videoconferencing technology in the field of education.

Educational technologies are becoming commonplace entities in classrooms as they provide more options and support for teachers and students. However, many teachers are finding these technologies difficult to use due to a lack of training and instruction on how to effectively apply them to the classroom. TPACK: Breakthroughs in Research and Practice is an authoritative reference source for the latest research on the integration of technological knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and content knowledge in the contexts of K-12 education. Highlighting a range of pertinent topics such as pedagogical strategies, blended learning, and technology integration, this publication is an ideal resource for educators, instructional designers, administrators, academicians, and teacher education programs seeking current findings on the implementation of technology in instructional design.

This book addresses main issues concerned with the future learning, learning and academic analytics, virtual world and smart user interface, and mobile learning. This book gathers the newest research results of smart learning environments from the aspects of learning, pedagogies, and technologies in learning. It examines the advances in technology development and changes in the field of education that has been affecting and reshaping the learning environment. Then, it proposes that under the changed technological situations, smart learning systems, no matter what platforms (i.e., personal computers, smart phones, and tablets) they are running at, should be aware of the preferences and needs that their users (i.e., the learners and teachers) have, be capable of providing their users with the most appropriate services, helps to enhance the users' learning experiences, and to make the learning efficient.

This book is the first that presents an overview of the main topics involved in the study and implementation of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) from a learning viewpoint. It is also one of the few - or the only one - that does this from a research and practical instructional design perspective. Too many books begin with the medium and/or the environments used for CSCL, as if you would write a book on building a house by focusing almost primarily on hammers, saws and screwdrivers. The main topics are clustered in four sections that are derived from reverse ordering the CSCL acronym, because CSCL is all about learning through collaboration that is supported by computers. Although CSCL is increasingly advocated in higher education, specific CSCL implementations - i.e. something more than providing technology without a well developed educational rationale - are uncommon in higher education. The topics covered in this book, each including a review and several examples of current best practices in higher education, can stimulate 'informed' implementation of CSCL in higher education.

This book offers critical readings of issues in education and technology and demonstrates how researchers can use critical perspectives from sociology, digital media, cultural studies, and other fields to broaden the "ed-tech" research imagination, open up new topics, ask new questions, develop theory, and articulate an agenda for informed action.

This timely collection of theoretical and applied studies examines the pedagogical potential and realities of digital technologies in a wide range of disciplinary contexts across the educational spectrum. By mixing content-based chapters with a theoretical perspective with case studies detailing actual teaching approaches utilizing digital technologies in the classroom or on campus, this work provides a valuable resource for teacher trainers, academic researchers, administrators, and students interested in interdisciplinary studies of education and learning technologies from around the world.

This guide provides a comprehensive overview of High Performance Computing (HPC) to equip students with a full skill set including cluster setup, network selection, and a background of supercomputing competitions. It covers the system, architecture, evaluating approaches, and other practical supercomputing techniques. As the world's largest supercomputing hackathon, the ASC Student Supercomputer Challenge has attracted a growing number of new talent to supercomputing and has greatly promoted communications in the global HPC community. Enclosed in this book, readers will also find how to analyze and optimize supercomputing systems and applications in real science and engineering cases.

This book presents research on the effects and effectiveness of ICT applications in lifelong learning in relation to digital competences of educators. It sketches recent and future evolutions in higher education, explores whether universities have adjusted policies and business models in line with the rapid development of ICT technologies, and analyses whether the adjustments made are merely cosmetic or truly future-proof. The book specifically deals with such topics as digital competencies of teaching staff, the development and implementation of MOOCs and other E-learning tools, virtual classrooms, online tutoring, and collaborative learning. It presents case studies of innovative master's programmes, projects and methods, and processes of standardization and validation used in various countries as illustrations. The book explains the rapid transition of the knowledge society to the "society of global competence" and shows the necessity of an active implementation of innovative forms and effective methods of education, and above all, distance learning at all levels of education.

As innovation advances and grows, classrooms are able utilize more advanced technology to educate students. Through virtual learning environments, students can experience real-life tasks and situations more directly, promoting active engagement in education. Integrating Multi-User Virtual Environments in Modern Classrooms provides emerging research on the development of multi-user virtual learning environments and their potential role in education. Highlighting a range of pertinent topics, such as project-based learning, social learning theory, and interactive media, this book is a vital resource for educational researchers, school teachers, college professors, and instructional designers seeking current research on the benefits and integration of multi-user virtual environments in modern education.

In 1991, Denis Hlynka and John Belland released Paradigms Regained, a well received reader for graduate students in the field of educational technology. The Role of Criticism in Understanding Problem Solving updates some of those ideas initially proposed in Paradigms Regained, and extends the conversation into the contemporary discourse regarding problem based learning (PBL). Paradigms proposed the idea of criticism as a third method for the conduction of educational research, the first two being qualitative and qualitative. The concept of criticism as a tool for research is not well established in educational technology, although it is well established in other educational research traditions such as Curriculum Studies. Unfortunately, it is not always clear how criticism can be applied. This book views criticism as a way to step back and look at an educational intervention within educational technology through a particular critical lens. Criticism is viewed as a valuable approach to guiding meta analyses and theoretical studies, serving to prevent the proverbial "spinning of the wheels" that often happens in educational research. By indicating new potential research questions and directions, criticism approaches can invigorate educational research. This book revisits the ideals of criticism in order to establish their usefulness for studying educational technology interventions to support problem based learning. First, a few foundational chapters set the stage for the conversations on criticism. Then, the role criticism can play in enhancing analysis and interpretation of the PBL literature is explored. Finally, case studies addressing the central concepts of the text are presented and dissected. This book represents a complete overhaul and rethinking of the use of criticism as a method for understanding and furthering the research area of PBL within the field of Educational technology.

Games and simulations are not only a rapidly growing source of entertainment in today's world; they are also quite beneficial. They enable players to develop quick-reaction and motor skills, engage cognitive processes, and interact with peers around the globe, thereby enhancing social skills. However, as a result of the rise of games and simulations, educators are struggling to engage their students through more traditional ways of learning. Educational Gameplay and Simulation Environments: Case Studies and Lessons Learned presents a remarkable collection of cases demonstrating how to conceptualize, design, and implement games and simulations effectively for learning. This paramount publication will aid educators, researchers, and game developers in broadening their work to effectively create and implement engaging learning environments for present and future students.