Do you ever have the feeling that with rapidly changing technology your students are driving the bus and you are holding on for dear life? According to the author, who is the principal of the Southwest Career and Technical Academy (SWCTA) located in Las Vegas, Nevada, they feel that way more often than not. However, she and her faculty understand…

Today's technologies come and go at an alarming rate, and the length of time any one technology, either software or hardware, exists before being supplanted by a newer technology is growing ever shorter. For anyone working within the field of instructional technology, this rapid replacement rate of technologies can hold immense implications for…

This paper proposes that the field of AIED is now mature enough to break away from being delivered mainly through computers and pads so that it can engage with students in new ways and help teachers to teach more effectively. Mostly, the intelligent systems that AIED has delivered so far have used computers and other devices that were essentially…

In his book "Drive," Daniel Pink writes that mastery is "the desire to get better and better at something that matters." If we consider this definition in the context of the classroom, students must have a desire to get better and must feel that what they're learning matters. Technology can help ensure these two criteria…

A connection between creativity and curiosity may seem self evident, and, indeed, psychologists and philosophers have long held that creativity and curiosity are related. It seems logical enough. One can imagine that the typical individual is satisfied by the usual solution to a problem or the usual way to conceptualize a situation, but the…

This chapter consists of a short history of the impact of computer technology on Christian evangelical mission research from the 1970's to the present. The trail winds through World Vision, MARC, the "World Christian Encyclopedia," "Operation World," SIL, OC International, DAWN, Global Mapping International, the AD2000 and…

Machines are eating humans' jobs talents. And it is not just about jobs that are repetitive and low skill. Automation, robotics, algorithms and artificial intelligence (AI) in recent times have shown they can do equal or sometimes even better work than humans who are dermatologists, insurance claims adjusters, lawyers, seismic testers in oil…

An NCSS Technology Position Statement and Guidelines, published in 2006 (an updated version is published in this issue of "Social Education"), affirms that social studies students should critically examine relations between technology and society. This article describes how teachers can use science fiction to introduce critical questions…

Scientific terms drawn from common language are often charged with suggestions that may even be inconsistent with their restricted scientific meaning, thus posing didactic problems. The (non-linear) historical journey of the word "pressure" is illustrated here through original quotations from Stevinus, Torricelli, Pascal, Boyle,…

The pendulum of technology control in higher education has swung away from central IT toward the users. It has become easier for individuals and departments to find their own computing solutions via mobile apps, the cloud, BYOD, web services, and other means. As a result, IT can often find itself out of the loop in certain technology decisions.…

The issue that this article introduces grew out of an event, the UNESCO Mobile Learning Week, but also out of a wider and growing movement of people and organisations exploiting mobile technologies, as they pursue varied educational missions. The UNESCO Mobile Learning Week represented by contributions here was a focus for contributions from…

The mission of school librarians in the digital age of information gathering and messaging has not undergone any real change of focus. Even though the tools and methods available for accessing information have significantly altered the way people now use library services, school libraries remain a constant place to make valuable discoveries. The…

The author describes how the interactive study of social media's effect on the Common Core debate was designed and executed. Important findings from the study were: 1) We live in an increasingly interconnected social world. 2) Media has evolved over the last half century from a passive system dominated by a few central opinion makers to the…

Digital technology has proven a beguiling, some even venture addictive, presence in the lives of our 21st century (millennial) students. And while screen technology may offer select cognitive benefits, there is mounting evidence in the cognitive neuroscience literature that digital technology is restructuring the way our students read and think,…

An explosion in access to electronic databases and digital information is changing the way we view source citation. While the original purpose of referencing--showing the reader exactly where the author got his or her input--is clearly more important than ever, citation is increasingly taking on other roles, ones that have little to do with good…