Technology Play and Brain Development brings together current research on play development, learning technology, and brain development. The authors first navigate the play technology and brain development interface, highlighting the interactive qualities that make up each component. Next, they survey the changes in play materials and the variations in time periods for play that have occurred over the past 15-20 years, and then explain how these changes have had the potential to affect this play/brain developmental interaction. The authors also cover various types of technology-augmented play materials used by children at age levels from infancy to adolescence, and describe the particular qualities that may enhance or change brain development. In so doing, they present information on previous and current studies of the play and technology interface, in addition to providing behavioral data collected from parents and children of varied ages related to their play with different types of play materials. Significantly, they discuss how such play may affect social, emotional, moral, and cognitive development, and review futurist predictions about the potential qualities of human behavior needed by generations to come. The authors conclude with advice to toy and game designers, parents, educators, and the wider community on ways to enhance the quality of technology-augmented play experiences so that play will continue to promote the development of human characteristics needed in the future.

The COVID-19 pandemic was a forceful reminder that education plays an important role in delivering not just academic learning, but also in supporting physical and emotional well-being. Balancing traditional “book learning” with broader social and personal development means new roles for schools and education more generally.

Beyond Technology offers a challenging new analysis of learning, young people and digital media. Disputing both utopian fantasies about the transformation of education and exaggerated fears about the corruption of childhood innocence, it offers a level-headed analysis of the impact of these new media on learning, drawing on a wide range of critical research. Buckingham argues that there is now a growing divide between the media-rich world of childrens lives outside school and their experiences of technology in the classroom. Bridging this divide, he suggests, will require more than superficial attempts to import technology into schools, or to combine education with digital entertainment. While debunking such fantasies of technological change, Buckingham also provides a constructive alternative, arguing that young people need to be equipped with a new form of digital literacy that is both critical and creative. Beyond Technology will be essential reading for all students of the media or education, as well as for teachers and other education professionals.

How might digital technology and notably smart technologies based on artificial intelligence (AI), learning analytics, robotics, and others transform education? This book explores such question. It focuses on how smart technologies currently change education in the classroom and the management of educational organisations and systems.

Educational systems worldwide are facing an enormous shift as a result of sociocultural, political, economic, and technological changes. The technologies and practices that have developed over the last decade have been heralded as opportunities to transform both online and traditional education systems. While proponents of these new ideas often postulate that they have the potential to address the educational problems facing both students and institutions and that they could provide an opportunity to rethink the ways that education is organized and enacted, there is little evidence of emerging technologies and practices in use in online education. Because researchers and practitioners interested in these possibilities often reside in various disciplines and academic departments the sharing and dissemination of their work across often rigid boundaries is a formidable task. Contributors to Emergence and Innovation in Digital Learning include individuals who are shaping the future of online learning with their innovative applications and investigations on the impact of issues such as openness, analytics, MOOCs, and social media. Building on work first published in Emerging Technologies in Distance Education, the contributors to this collection harness the dispersed knowledge in online education to provide a one-stop locale for work on emergent approaches in the field. Their conclusions will influence the adoption and success of these approaches to education and will enable researchers and practitioners to conceptualize, critique, and enhance their understanding of the foundations and applications of new technologies.

This engaging book sheds light on the ways in which adults in the twenty-first century interact with technology in different learning environments. Based on one of the first large-scale academic research projects in this area, the authors present their findings and offer practical recommendations for the use of new technology in a learning society. They invite debate on: why ICTs are believed to be capable of affecting positive change in adult learning the drawbacks and limits of ICT in adult education what makes a lifelong learner the wider social, economic, cultural and political realities of the information age and the learning society. Adult Learning addresses key questions and provides a sound empirical foundation to the existing debate, highlighting the complex realities of the learning society and e-learning rhetoric. It tells the story of those who are excluded from the learning society, and offers a set of strong recommendations for practitioners, policy-makers, and politicians, as well as researchers and students.

An examination of curriculum innovations that are shaped by new ideas about digital media and learning. Although ideas about digital media and learning have become an important area for educational research, little attention has been given to the practical and conceptual implications for the school curriculum. In this book, Ben Williamson examines a series of contemporary curriculum innovations in the United States, Great Britain, and Australia that reflect the social and technological changes of the digital age. Arguing that the curriculum is always both forward- and rearward-looking, Williamson considers how each of these innovations represents a certain way of understanding the past while also promoting a particular vision of the future. The curriculum initiatives are all examples of what Williamson calls “centrifugal schooling,” expressing a vision of education and learning that is decentered, distributed, and dispersed, emphasizing networks and connections. In centrifugal schooling, a curriculum is actively assembled and improvised from a heterogeneous mix of people, groups, coalitions, and institutional structures. Participants in curriculum design and planning include local governments, corporations, foundations, charities, and nongovernmental organizations. Among the curriculum innovations Williamson examines are High Tech High, a charter school network in San Diego that integrates technical and academic education; Opening Minds, a “competence-based” curriculum used in 200 British secondary schools; and Quest to Learn, a “school for digital kids” in New York City (with a sister school in Chicago). He also describes two major partnerships: the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, which advocates for “21st century readiness” for American students; and the Whole Education Alliance in Britain, a network of “third sector” educational organizations.

The digital revolution in education is well under way, with more and more learners plugged into the online world. How can schools make the most of both the technology and the learning potential of today’s “born digital” students? In this new edition of their groundbreaking book, Collins and Halverson argue that new technologies have transformed our workplaces, our lives, and our culture and it is time we take the next step to transform learning—in and out of schools. The authors show how, over time, public schooling was so successful that it became synonymous with education. But new technologies risk making schools obsolete and this book explains why and how today’s educators, policymakers, and communities must adapt to provide all learners with access to the new learning tools of the 21st century. “Allan Collins and Richard Halverson are not by any means arguing that teachers or schools should go away. Rather, they are saying that they should open their doors and windows, connect to other real and virtual places, be crucial tour guides, and send their children on flights of fancy through our modern memory palaces.” —From the Foreword by James Paul Gee, Arizona State University “The most convincing account I’ve read about how education will change in the decades ahead—the authors’ analyses are impressive, fair-minded, and useful.” —Howard Gardner, Harvard Graduate School of Education (from first edition)

Today’s educators are confronted on a daily basis with the challenges of navigating digital resources, tools and technologies with their students. They are often unprepared for the complexities of these challenges or might not be sure how to engage their students safely and responsibly. This book serves as a comprehensive guide for educators looking to make informed decisions and navigate digital spaces with their students. The author sets the stage for educators who may not be familiar with the digital world that their students live in, including the complexities of online identities, digital communities and the world of social media. With deep dives into how companies track us, how the Internet works, privacy and legal concerns tied to today’s digital technologies, strategies for analyzing images and other online sources, readers will gain knowledge about how their actions and choices can affect students’ privacy as well as their own. Each chapter is paired with detailed lessons for elementary, middle and high school students to help guide educators in implementing what they have learned into the classroom.