As video games have become an important economic and cultural force, scholars are increasingly trying to better understand the ways that engagement with games may drive learning, literacy, and social participation in the twenty-first century. In this book, the authors consider games and just as importantly, the social interactions around games,…

Students invest a great deal of time, effort, and capital to obtain the MBA credential that they believe will provide them with the skills necessary to succeed in business. They expect such skills to position them for better job opportunities, salary increases, and a faster track to promotion up the corporate ladder. It is an investment that…

This paper reviewed literature from 1999 to 2014 inclusively on how Speech-to-Text Recognition (STR) technology has been applied to enhance learning. The first aim of this review is to understand how STR technology has been used to support learning over the past fifteen years, and the second is to analyze all research evidence to understand how…

In this article, I deconstruct the macro-micro dichotomy by arguing that the very same mass-media messages that appear culturally homogenizing (like catchy tunes and phrases) also invite creative recontextualizations (Bauman and Briggs 1990). Moreover, "the more widely circulated and mass-produced a message is, the more highly diverse the…

Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) in teacher education have a short history which is little longer than that of this journal. Twenty years ago they were the province of early adopters only and limited to email and, more unusually, asynchronous conferencing. Today, VLEs are widespread and mainstream, sophisticated and officially sanctioned…

Sebastian Thrun gave up tenure at Stanford University after 160,000 students signed up for his free online version of the course "Introduction to Artificial Intelligence." The experience completely changed his perspective on education, he said, so he ditched teaching at Stanford and launched the private Web site Udacity, which offers…

Following a brief introduction, our paper is in four main sections. First, we lay out the points on which we agree with James Mazoue's views expressed in "The Deconstructed Campus." Second, we offer a critique of his views. Third, we consider evidence-based research opportunities for building universities that may incorporate ideas along the lines…

At any time, public schools labor under great economic, political, and social pressures that make it difficult to create large-scale, "whole school" change. But current top-down mandates require that schools close achievement gaps while teaching more problem solving, inquiry, and research skills--with fewer resources. Failure to meet test-based…

Powerful and transformative learning experiences display characteristics in common with each other. Emerging communication technologies may increase opportunities for powerful and transformative learning experiences. To explore this question, there are four sections to this article. First, it is observed that there are many interesting synergies…

Based on research investigating English first-year university students, this paper examined the case made for a new generation of young learners often described as the Net Generation or Digital Natives in terms of agency and choice. Generational arguments set out a case that links young people's attitudes and orientations to their lifelong…

K-12 education research has become increasingly concerned with technology's impact on students' attention in the classroom, particularly with regard to laptop computers and other mobile devices (Gay & Hembrooke, 2004; Jackson, 2008; Mann, 2008; Kraushaar & Novak, 2010). While this classroom technology has created many positive implications…

Educating students to traditional literacy standards is no longer enough. If students are to thrive in their academic and 21st century careers, then independent and creative thinking hold the highest currency. The authors explain in detail how to add these new components of literacy: (1) Solution Fluency; (2) Information Fluency; (3) Creativity…

This is a practical, bold, no-holds barred look at challenges facing educational leaders and the university programs that prepare them through mid-century. It examines key continuities and discontinuities of current times for school, education, and society. Both practice and preparation occur in contested social space, the implications of which…

Contextual learning starts from the premise that learning cannot take place in a vacuum, but should somehow be connected with real world attributes to make sense to learners. Today, digital media tend to bring about new dimensions of context: internet connections and mobile devices enable learners to overcome restrictions of time and location, and…

While professional development (PD) has always been central to the teaching profession, increasingly traditional models of PD are out of step with contemporary ways of learning. Commiserate with the literature, we see the field moving along a continuum which reflects changes in what, how and when teachers learn. Following a brief sketch of the…