It is surprising that there is so little research on textbooks, given their centrality to teaching and learning in elementary and secondary schools. Textbooks have become a focus of political and cultural controversy, advocating a multicultural curriculum that has sparked some vigorous protests. Research is absent in this debate; therefore, questions of legitimate knowledge, the role of textbooks, textbook design, policy selection issues, and economic issues concerning the marketplace are not part of the current debate. Without insights of research on considerate text, mentioning, illustrations and so forth, the current controversy will result in publishers responding to demands for more content not less; thus, textbooks will become compendia of information that on the surface satisfy everyone.
This volume demonstrates how research on important issues relative to textbook design can advance our knowledge about what makes textbooks effective learning tools, and thus inform policymakers, publishers, and those involved in textbook selection. Representing pure and applied approaches, researchers present papers on the quality of writing, the role of questions, the role of pictures and illustrations, and the role of auxiliary materials in the design of effective textbooks. The chapters provide insight into research and its application to textbook design and improvement -- stimulating others to follow this lead.

There is an increasing trend for educators and trainers to produce instructional materials themselves. With the aid of desktop publishing and computer software, even those with minimal talent can produce visually stunning graphics and diagrams. This text gives guidelines for the design of instructional diagrams and aims to provide readers with confidence to develop material which is clear and unconfusing. The author takes a systematic approach to the process of diagram development. By demonstrating how principles of good design can be applied to realistic development problems, the reader is taught how to use the principles in a practical context. The text uses a problem-solving approach to tackle the task. It provides activities that lead the reader through various aspects of diagram design, from the earliest conceptual stages to the eventual finished product.

Artificial Intelligence is at the top of the agenda for education leaders, scientists, technologists and policy makers in educating the next generation across the globe. Beyond applying AI in daily life applications and educational tools, understanding how to learn and teach AI is increasingly important. Despite these emerging technology breakthroughs, AI learning is still new to educators especially to K-16 teachers. There is a lack of evidence-based studies that inform them about AI learning, including design principles for building a set of curriculum content, and pedagogical approaches as well as technological tools. Teaching AI concepts and techniques from programming languages and developmentally appropriate learning tools (e.g., robotics, serious games, software, intelligent agents) across different education levels emerged in recent years. The primary purpose of this book is to respond to the need to conceptualize the emerging term "AI literacy" and investigate how to teach and learn AI in K-16 education settings. This book examines different aspects of learning artefacts, pedagogies, content knowledge and assessment methods of AI literacy education, from theoretical discussions to practical recommendations for curriculum and instructional design. An exhaustive summary of current evidence with examples is illustrated in this book, as well as cutting-edge research that serves as an AI literacy model for different countries' contexts. Part I, "Conceptualizing AI literacy", provides a detailed discussion on the development of the concepts and frameworks on AI literacy education, discusses the differences and similarities between AI in education (AIED) and AI literacy education, and illustrates the reasons why K-16 students need to learn AI. These concepts are brought together in Part II, "K-16 AI literacy education" to further summarize the pedagogies, learning content, learning tools and assessment methods to inform K-16 educators how to design their AI instruction at each education level. After that, part III "AI literacy for instructional designers" explores how instructional designers (i.e., AI developers and teachers) prepare themselves to become ready to design developmentally appropriate tools, platforms, services and curricula to empower students with AI literacy skills.

A student's learning experience can be enhanced through a multitude of pedagogical strategies. This can be accomplished by visually engaging students in classroom activities. Visual Imagery, Metadata, and Multimodal Literacies Across the Curriculum is a pivotal reference source that examines the role of visual-based stimuli to create meaningful learning in contemporary classroom settings. Highlighting a range of relevant topics such as writing composition, data visualization, and literature studies, this book is ideally designed for educators, researchers, professionals, and academics interested in the application of visual imagery in learning environments.

This volume centers on the words and experiences of teachers and students who used QUILL -- a software package developed by the authors to aid in writing instruction. It looks in detail at the stories of these early users and considers questions relevant for other teachers, students, researchers, and developers of educational innovations. Questions posed include:
* What does it mean to develop an environment for literacy in an actual classroom?
* How can a teacher create an environment in which students work together toward meaningful goals?
* How can a teacher promote the rich communication so necessary for developing language?
* What is the role of technology in the practice and development of literacy?
The examination of the QUILL experiences provides a fuller and more revealing account of what it meant to use QUILL than would have been possible through standard evaluation techniques. At the same time, the focus on the particulars also finds analogues in analyses of similar pieces of open-ended software or educational innovations in general.

Cooperative Computer-Aided Authoring and Learning: A Systems Approach describes in detail a practical system for computer assisted authoring and learning. Drawing from the experiences gained during the Nestor project, jointly run between the Universities of Karlsruhe, Kaiserslautern and Freiburg and the Digital Equipment Corp. Center for Research and Advanced Development, the book presents a concrete example of new concepts in the domain of computer-aided authoring and learning. The conceptual foundation is laid by a reference architecture for an integrated environment for authoring and learning. This overall architecture represents the nucleus, shell and common denominator for the R&D activities carried out. From its conception, the reference architecture was centered around three major issues: Cooperation among and between authors and learners in an open, multimedia and distributed system as the most important attribute; Authoring/learning as the central topic; Laboratory as the term which evoked the most suitable association with the envisioned authoring/learning environment. Within this framework, the book covers four major topics which denote the most important technical domains, namely: The system kernel, based on object orientation and hypermedia; Distributed multimedia support; Cooperation support, and Reusable instructional design support. Cooperative Computer-Aided Authoring and Learning: A Systems Approach is a major contribution to the emerging field of collaborative computing and is essential reading for researchers and practitioners alike. Its pedagogic flavor also makes it suitable for use as a text for a course on the subject.

There is much evidence to show that digital technologies greatly impact children's lives through the use of computers, laptops and mobile devices. Children's uses of digital technologies are, therefore, currently of huge concern to academics, teachers and parents. Disabled Children and Digital Technologies investigates disabled children's learning with digital technologies within the context of inclusive education. Sue Cranmer explores the potential benefits of using digital technologies to support disabled children's learning whilst recognising that these technologies also have the potential to act as a barrier to inclusion. Cranmer provides a critical overview of how digital technologies are being used in contemporary classrooms for learning. The book includes detailed analysis of a recent study carried out with disabled children with visual impairments aged between 13 - 17 years old in mainstream secondary schools. The chapters consider the use of digital technologies in relation to access, engagement, attitudes, and skills, including safety and risk. These perspectives are complemented by interviews with teachers to explore how digital technologies can support disabled children's learning and inclusion in mainstream settings more effectively.

Written specifically for all FE and post-16 teachers, this book will help you to develop your digital capabilities and give you the skills to convert traditional learning and teaching resources into engaging and interactive online material. The impact of the pandemic means that it is abundantly clear to all that digital capability is vital for learners, no matter what subject they study. You should therefore develop your digital capabilities as a basic competence in order to embrace current digital tools, apps and techniques to the pedagogy of teaching FE. The book provides you with the knowledge and skills required to source information learning technology (ILT) and content to convert traditional learning and teaching resources into engaging and interactive online material. It is designed around each aspect of the teaching and training cycle - identifying needs, planning and designing, delivering and facilitating, assessing and evaluating - and includes: when to use ILT / eLearning barriers to implementing digital learning the importance of digital capabilities ways of keeping up to date and continuing professional development.

The use of mobile technology for learning in organizations and the workplace is spreading widely with the development of infrastructure and devices that allow ubiquitous learning and training. Since learning, teaching, and training in a mobile-saturated environment is a developing field, implications for a combined overview of these topics may be beneficial both for research and practice in the broader view of a user's lifespan. Mobile Technologies for Organizational Learning is a collection of innovative research on the methods and applications of mobile technologies in learning and training and explores best practices of mobile learning in organizations and the workplace. While highlighting topics including ethics, informal education, and virtual reality, this book is ideally designed for teachers, administrators, principals, higher education professionals, instructional designers, curriculum developers, managers, researchers, and students.

This book re-examines the field of New Literacy Studies and promotes a shift away from binary constructions of literacies as 'old' or 'new' and to encourage critical reflection on the part of readers as to the uses of these constructs. First, the book examines the entanglement of pasts, presents and futures in contemporary literacy practices. Second, it considers representations of literacies as actors, having their own power and consequences. Third, it critically examines the place of 'new' and 'old' literacies in a marketplace in which social, economic and political power advantage is contested. The book demonstrates the use of assemblage theory drawing on semiotics, geo-semiotics and Actor Network Theory for analyzing literacies as assemblages. It provides readers with tools of analysis with which to interrogate claims made for the value of literacy, innovations and traditions alike. It also discusses implications for literacy policy, curriculum, teacher education and research.

Educational Communities of Inquiry: Theoretical Framework, Research, and Practice is an extensive reference that offers theoretical foundations and developments associated with the COl theoretical framework. This collection is a valuable source of ideas, research opportunities, and challenges for scholars and practitioners in the field of education technology.

The designers of educational or training programs that employ electronic technology might have many questions about a project while it is still in the early stages of development. For instance: Is the program's presentation too simple, or too complex for its target audience? Does the pacing of the program help or hinder comprehension? Which aspects of the program are the most appealing, and why? Formative evaluation can answer these, or similar questions. It can help guide designers of television programs, microcomputer software, interactive videodiscs, or virtually any other educational item, in making modifications that can lead to the development of a final product that fully achieves its stated goals.
Until very recently, however, the person interested in avoiding potential problems through the use of formative evaluation would have been faced with difficulties of a different kind. Comprehensive treatment of formative evaluation has been scarce, and published discussion on formative evaluation of computer-based materials has been virtually nonexistent. Until now, that is.
Barbara Flagg's "Formative Evaluation" for Educational Technologies provides comprehensive treatment of formative evaluation. The book offers:
* extensive coverage of all the methods evaluators might use to assess the user friendliness, the appeal, and the outcome effectiveness of an educational program.
* extensive focus on new technologies
* coverage of all phases of program development, from initial idea to final product
* discussion of formative evaluation as part of the broader field of curriculum evaluation
* numerous case studies.
This volume will appeal to a widevariety of people engaged in formative evaluation. It is an excellent guide for newcomers to the field; it is a state-of-the art document for established practitioners of instructional design and curriculum evaluation.

This book presents the systematic evolution of digitized education: trends, advances, challenges encountered and their solutions toward the use of advanced technologies. The book mainly covers variety of areas such as blended learning in modern education, flipped classroom, ICT-based education, digital transformation of education. Explosion of information and communication technologies has transformed the way we live, learn, work and socialize. This heavy intervention of technologies in the modern world has triggered us to think how we engage and interact with each other and how we make use of these digital tools and communications channels. And consequent upon which societies are transforming into digitized education where datafication, platformization and algorithmic governance are a common vocabulary.

This handbook is essential for all those who are concerned with mounting eductional exhibitions, whether they be administrators, designers, educationalists, planners or in specific subject areas.

This book provides a theoretical and philosophical examination of games, play and playfulness and their relationships to learning and wellbeing in adulthood. It draws on an interdisciplinary literature base (including game-based learning, game studies, education, psychology, and game design) to present a critical manifesto for playful learning in post-compulsory education and lifelong learning. While there is an established body of work in games and learning in adulthood, and a wide literature on the value of play in childhood, the wider potential of play in adulthood and playfulness is under-explored and still emergent. This book offers a comprehensive overview of play in adulthood, exploring the benefits and drawbacks, examining why play in adulthood is different from play in childhood, the role of play in culture, and making an argument for why it is important in our society that we embrace the principles of playfulness.

Discussing the future value of computers as tools for cognitive development, the volume reviews past literature and presents new data from a Piagetian perspective. Constructivism in the Computer Age includes such topics as: teaching LOGO to children; the computers effects on social development; computer graphics as a new language; and computers as a means of enhancing reflective thinking.

Textbooks have been standard schoolroom fixtures for as long as most living citizens of this country can remember. Many turn-of-the-century students were introduced to reading through the moralistic McGuffey Readers and struggled through the rather drab and colorless pages of volumes on history, geography and civics. In contrast, today's textbooks contain not only narrative content accompanied by colorful photographs and graphics, but also section and chapter exercises that are extended through the use of worksheets and other materials. Moreover, the textbook and its related student materials are packaged together with teacher's editions and tests in grade-level sets that amount to content area programs rather than mere texts.

The development of technologies, education, and economy play an important role in modern society. Digital literacy is important for personal development and for the economic growth of society. Technological learning provides students with specific knowledge and capabilities for using new technologies in their everyday lives and in their careers. Examining the Roles of Teachers and Students in Mastering New Technologies is a critical scholarly resource that examines computer literacy knowledge levels in students and the perception of computer use in the classroom from various teacher perspectives. Featuring a wide range of topics such as higher education, special education, and blended learning, this book is ideal for teachers, instructional designers, curriculum developers, academicians, policymakers, administrators, researchers, and students.

This book contributes to both mathematical problem solving and the communication of mathematics by students, and the role of personal and home technologies in learning beyond school. It does this by reporting on major results and implications of the Problem@Web project that investigated youngsters' mathematical problem solving and, in particular, their use of digital technologies in tackling, and communicating the results of their problem solving, in environments beyond school. The book has two focuses: Mathematical problem solving skills and strategies, forms of representing and expressing mathematical thinking, technological-based solutions; and students and teachers perspectives on mathematics learning, especially school compared to beyond-school mathematics.

This books deals with computer-mediated cooperation and communication scenarios in teaching and learning situations, leisure activities (e.g. laypersons looking for expert information on the internet), and net-based communication at work. Such scenarios will become increasingly important. But the successful use of such computer-mediated settings is not trivial. Cooperative learning and work itself requires special skills and strategies. And the technical settings with sometimes restricted, sometimes new possibilities for communication add problems on top of the cooperation itself. What are the barriers in computer-mediated communication for cooperative learning and work? Which are the most relevant biases in computer-mediated information processing? Based on empirical research, the contributors from psychology, education and computer sciences offer different perspectives on the nature and causes of such barriers. The chapters also give an answer to the question as to how it might be possible to overcome these barriers and biases to fully gain advantage from the new technical opportunities. researchers in all fields related to the use and evaluation of computer software in communication settings.

Education and Technology for a Better World was the main theme for WCCE 2009. The conference highlights and explores different perspectives of this theme, covering all levels of formal education as well as informal learning and societal aspects of education. The conference was open to everyone involved in education and training. Additionally players from technological, societal, business and political fields outside education were invited to make relevant contributions within the theme: Education and Technology for a Better World. For several years the WCCE (World Conference on Computers in Education) has brought benefits to the fields of computer science and computers and education as well as to their communities. The contributions at WCCE include research projects and good practice presented in different formats from full papers to posters, demonstrations, panels, workshops and symposiums. The focus is not only on presentations of accepted contributions but also on discussions and input from all participants. The main goal of these conferences is to provide a forum for the discussion of ideas in all areas of computer science and human learning. They create a unique environment in which researchers and practitioners in the fields of computer science and human learning can interact, exchanging theories, experiments, techniques, applications and evaluations of initiatives supporting new developments that are potentially relevant for the development of these fields. They intend to serve as reference guidelines for the research community.

The integration of information and communication technologies in education is unavoidable, as an increasing percentage of educators embrace modern technology, others are faced with the decision to reevaluate their own pedagogical practices or become obsolete. To meet the needs of students, one must first define what stipulates a successful K-12 student, the best practices of online classrooms, the warning signs for low-performing students, and how to engage web-based students. Optimizing K-12 Education through Online and Blended Learning addresses the models, support, cases, and delivery of K-12 online education. Seeking to further the conversation about the most effective ways to integrate ICT into the classroom, this publication presents theoretical frameworks to support educators and administrators. This book is an essential collection of research for teachers, administrators, students of education, IT professionals, developers, and policy makers.

How can you use the latest digital technology to create an environment in which people can learn European languages while performing a meaningful real-world task and experiencing the cultural aspect of learning to cook European dishes? This book explains how to do this from A to Z, covering how a real-world digital environment for language learning was designed, built and researched. The project makes language learning motivational and fun by tapping into people's interest in both cooking and technology - you can learn a language while cooking and interacting with a speaking digital kitchen. The kitchens provide spoken instructions in the foreign language on how to prepare European cuisine. Digital sensors are inserted in or attached to all the kitchen equipment and ingredients, so the digital kitchen detects what learners are doing and gives them feedback. Learners are also able to communicate with the kitchens and can ask for help via photos and videos if they don't understand any foreign language words. Based on two research grants, the book provides five research studies showing the learning experiences of users in five European countries. The book explains the principles and procedures involved in the project, enabling others to design and implement a real-world digital learning environment in the same way. It includes numerous photographs of the system in use and evidence of how and what 250 users actually learnt.

In online education, there is a challenge to not only meet the pedagogical aspects of digital education but also to understand the user experience within learning platforms and student interaction. Through online functions and advanced technology, a student's learning style can be enhanced. Learner Experience and Usability in Online Education provides emerging research on the design, implementation, and evaluation of user experience in online learning systems. While highlighting topics such as computer-based assessments, educational digital technologies, and immersive learning environments, this publication explores the human-computer interaction in the educational realm. This book is an important resource for educators, school administrators, academicians, researchers, and students seeking current research on the role of positive user experience in educational learning systems.