The publication of Anya Kamenetz's "DIY U: Edupunks, Edupreneurs, and the Coming Transformation of Higher Education" (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2010) caused quite a splash in the higher ed community. If, as she advocates, highly motivated students can access quality online coursework for free--if they can create their own learning paths based on…

Approximately 15 states are changing their policies to give school districts more flexibility in acquiring content. They have changed laws or policies or have bills pending in state legislatures to redefine "textbooks". Most of those changes are similar to the approach Indiana took in its new law: a "textbook" is not only a…

Harry Keller is president and a founder of Paracomp, Inc., creator and marketer of Smart Science Education. In this interview, Keller talks about himself and what led him to develop Smart Science labs as an online learning technology. He discusses how schools integrate Smart Science labs into their K-12 science curriculum, the major weaknesses in…

Mazoue's ("J Comput High Educ," 2012) article, "The Deconstructed Campus," is examined from the perspective of instructional design practice. Concerns center on: the knowledge base of precision instruction; the differential effectiveness of teaching procedural as opposed to declarative knowledge; the reliance on assessment of online learning; and…

Given that information age technologies are as natural to the Net generation as breathing, it is time to provide learning experiences that maximize their use in schools. The authors argue that integrating technology into learning is central to creating the meaningful learning opportunities needed to engage and motivate youth today. To achieve this…

In recent years, literacy educators have increasingly recognised the importance of addressing a broader range of texts in the classroom. This article raises some critical concerns about a particular approach to this issue that has been widely promoted in recent years-- the concept of "multimodality". Multimodality theory offers a broadly…

The seminal tenets of progressive education bear a striking resemblance to the newly fashionable principles associated with with a new movement known as "21st Century Education". This article traces the development of progressive education principles, starting with the founding of the Progressive Education Association, and shows their…

The reality of students' cyber lives has thrust upon educators a new approach: creating character education programs tuned to digital youth that are both proactive and aggressive. Taking this approach will help integrate students' digital activities within the context of the communities in which they live, both local and digital. The digital age…

In this article, the author addresses a problem that plagues virtually all academics, as well as most people in business, K-12 education, and many other walks of life. At one time or another most members of post-millennial western society have suffered through that most hideous of well-intentioned experiences, the botched PowerPoint presentation.…

Contributions to this special section represent advances in understanding help seeking as a self-regulated learning strategy that occurs in classrooms, during computer-mediated communications, and when using intelligent systems that provide help to improve learners' help-seeking skills and knowledge acquisition. Collectively, the research and…

Educational visionaries and reformers have long predicted a significant transformation of teaching and learning that would be facilitated by technology, essentially providing every learner with the equivalent of a personal tutor. Technology implementations in education, however, have consistently fallen short of achieving these lofty aims. The…

"Embracing the chaos" is an ongoing challenge for librarians. Embracing the chaos means librarians must have a plan for responding to the flood of new products, widgets, web tools, and gizmos that students use daily. In this article, the author argues that library instruction and access services have been grappling with that chaos with…

To view giftedness research in a global context is an important and desirable attempt. Roland S. Persson (2012a), in the target article entitled Cultural Variation and Dominance in a Globalised Knowledge-Economy: Towards a Cultural-Sensitive Research Paradigm in the Science of Giftedness, delivers thought-provoking views in the cultural influences…

This article presents an interview with Hal Markowitz, a veteran distance educator whose experience in the field is both deep and broad. Building on bachelor's and master's degrees at the University of Florida and his doctorate at Columbia University, Markowitz served in leadership roles in several professional organizations and directed distance…

The change brought about in the networked information environment is deep and structural, in a way that has the potential to empower cultures left out of the Industrial Revolution. Thus, the author stresses that it is fundamental for individuals to understand, from a developing nation's perspective, how the Internet changes the capacity of…