Issues of Information

Open Educational Resource - OER - Open Access
In this lively and approachable volume based on his popular blog series, Martin Weller demonstrates a rich history of innovation and effective implementation of ed tech across higher education. From Bulletin Board Systems to blockchain, Weller follows the trajectory of education by focusing each chapter on a technology, theory, or concept that has influenced each year since 1994. Calling for both caution and enthusiasm, Weller advocates for a critical and research-based approach to new technologies, particularly in light of disinformation, the impact of social media on politics, and data surveillance trends. A concise and necessary retrospective, this book will be valuable to educators, ed tech practitioners, and higher education administrators, as well as students.

What is the impact of chatGPT on your classroom? Should you be concerned? Should you use it or not? In the book, "80 Ways to Use ChatGPT in the Classroom: Using AI to Enhance Teaching and Learning," Dr. Stan Skrabut, an instructional technologist and designer explores these topics and much more. He presents different ways to incorporate chatGPT into the classroom, including preparation for classes, providing instructional assistance, creating assessments, developing study aids, and using chatGPT for computer programming. The book also covers how students can use chatGPT for writing assistance, research, and personalized learning. Stan provides practical examples and suggestions to help educators fully utilize chatGPT's capabilities while addressing potential concerns and criticisms. The book aims to show that AI can be used to enhance teaching and learning, and encourages educators to embrace this technology in the classroom. See what the uproar is about!

How will current trends transform American higher education over the course of the next twenty years? 2020 Most Significant Futures Work Award Winner, Association of Professional Futurists Silver Winner of the 2020 Foreword INDIES Award - Education by the FOREWORD Reviews The outlook for the future of colleges and universities is uncertain. Financial stresses, changing student populations, and rapidly developing technologies all pose significant challenges to the nation's colleges and universities. In Academia Next, futurist and higher education expert Bryan Alexander addresses these evolving trends to better understand higher education's next generation. Alexander first examines current economic, demographic, political, international, and policy developments as they relate to higher education. He also explores internal developments within postsecondary schooling, including those related to enrollment, access, academic labor, alternative certification, sexual assault, and the changing library, paying particularly close attention to technological changes. Alexander then looks beyond these trends to offer a series of distinct scenarios and practical responses for institutions to consider when combating shrinking enrollments, reduced public support, and the proliferation of technological options. Arguing that the forces he highlights are not speculative but are already in play, Alexander draws on a rich, extensive, and socially engaged body of research to best determine their likeliest outcomes. It is only by taking these trends seriously, he writes, that colleges and universities can improve their chances of survival. An unusually multifaceted approach to American higher education that views institutions as complex organisms, Academia Next offers a fresh perspective on the emerging colleges and universities of today and tomorrow.

The image of the university is tarnished: this book examines how recent philosophies of education, new readings of its economics, new technologies affecting research and access, and contemporary novelists' representations of university life all describe a global university that has given up on its promise of greater educational equality.

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Artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the world as we know it. Recent advances are enabling people, companies, and governments to envision and experiment with new methods of interacting with computers and modifying how virtual and physical processes are carried out. One of the fields in which this transformation is taking place is education. After years of witnessing the incorporation of technological innovations into learning/teaching processes, we can currently observe many new research works involving AI. Moreover, there has been increasing interest in this research area after the COVID-19 pandemic, driven toward fostering digital education. Among recent research in this field, AI applications have been applied to enhance educational experiences, studies have considered the interaction between AI and humans while learning, analyses of educational data have been conducted, including using machine learning techniques, and proposals have been presented for new paradigms mediated by intelligent agents. This book, entitled “AI in Education”, aims to highlight recent research in the field of AI and education. The included works discuss new advances in methods, applications, and procedures to enhance educational processes via artificial intelligence and its subfields (machine learning, neural networks, deep learning, cognitive computing, natural language processing, computer vision, etc.).

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AI (Artificial Intelligence) is predicted to radically change teaching and learning in both schools and industry causing radical disruption of work. AI can support well-being initiatives and lifelong learning but educational institutions and companies need to take the changing technology into account. Moving towards AI supported by digital tools requires a dramatic shift in the concept of learning, expertise and the businesses built off of it. Based on the latest research on AI and how it is changing learning and education, this book will focus on the enormous opportunities to expand educational settings with AI for learning in and beyond the traditional classroom. This open access book also introduces ethical challenges related to learning and education, while connecting human learning and machine learning. This book will be of use to a variety of readers, including researchers, AI users, companies and policy makers.
URI

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An investigation of the role of educational privatization and technology in the crises of truth and agency. Today, conspiracy theories run rampant, attacks on facts have become commonplace, and systemic inequities are on the rise as individual and collective agency unravels. The Alienation of Fact explains the educational, technological, and ideological preconditions for these contemporary crises of truth and agency and explores the contradictions and competing visions for the future of education that lie at the center of the problem. Schools are increasingly reimagined as businesses, and high-stakes standardized testing and curricula, for-profit charter schools, and the rise of educational AI put capital and technology at the center of education. Yet even as our society demands measure, data, and facts, politicians and news outlets regularly make unfounded assertions. How should we make sense of the contradictions between the demand for radical data-driven empiricism and the flight from evidence, argument, or theoretical justification? In this critical investigation of the new digital directions of educational privatization—AI education, adaptive learning technology, biometrics, the quantification of play and social emotional learning—and the politics of the body, Saltman shows how the false certainty of bodies and numbers replaces deliberative and thoughtful agency in a time of increasing precarity. A distinctive contribution to scholarship on public school privatization and educational technology, politics, policy, pedagogy, and theory, The Alienation of Fact is a spirited call for democratic education that values creating a society of “thinking people” over capitalistic gains.

Augmented Education in the Global Age: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Learning and Work is an edited collection that explores the social impact of Artificial Intelligence over the coming decades, specifically how this emerging technology will transform and disrupt our contemporary institutions. Chapters in this book discuss the history of technological revolutions and consider the anxieties and social challenges of lost occupations, as well as the evolution of new industries overlapping robotics, biotechnology, space exploration, and clean energy. Chapter authors unpack the nature of augmented education, from revamping curriculum and personalizing education, to redesigning workplace learning for an algorithmic era. Ultimately the book discusses policy and planning for an augmented future, arguing that work and learning are undergoing a metamorphosis around creativity and innovation amid a new global era and the race against automating technologies. Bringing together expert perspectives from around the world, this exciting, informative collection of research and analysis helps educators, policymakers and analysts navigate the future of work and learning amid rapid and accelerating technological change.

Best Practices in Designing Courses with Open Educational Resources is a practical guide that assists faculty and institutions looking to adopt and implement OER and to foster meaningful, effective learning experiences through the course design process. Chapters loaded with tips, case examples, and guidance from practitioners advise readers through each step necessary for sustainable OER initiatives, from preliminary planning and course redesign through teaching, learning, and faculty development. Written by two authors with direct experience in training higher education professionals to use OER, this is a comprehensive resource for faculty, instructional designers, course developers, librarians, information technologists, and administrators hoping to rethink and refresh their curricula by moving beyond traditional textbooks. An authors' website expands the book with resources, templates, and examples of implementation models, including faculty development workshop OER materials that can be adopted by readers.

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"Higher education appears to be enveloped in an existential crisis at the moment, brought on by the recent advent of Artificial Intelligence and tools such as ChatGPT and Google Bard.

Much of the conversation by faculty and administration in higher ed has been concerned with answering questions like, “How do we adopt an Academic Integrity Policy that will help to combat the inevitable cheating that will occur with these tools?” and “What tools exist or are being developed to help us catch students in the act of cheating?”

While these are certainly relevant questions, they are not the only ones we should be asking. We might also inquire about how we can use this tool to be better at our jobs as educators. We should investigate the application of AI in fields where we teach. Our students will likely be using this tool when they enter the career field and it is our job as educators to teach them how they might do that."

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An intimate look at how children network, identify, learn and grow in a connected world. Do today’s youth have more opportunities than their parents? As they build their own social and digital networks, does that offer new routes to learning and friendship? How do they navigate the meaning of education in a digitally connected but fiercely competitive, highly individualized world? Based upon fieldwork at an ordinary London school, The Class examines young people's experiences of growing up and learning in a digital world. In this original and engaging study, Livingstone and Sefton-Green explore youth values, teenagers’ perspectives on their futures, and their tactics for facing the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead. The authors follow the students as they move across their different social worlds—in school, at home, and with their friends, engaging in a range of activities from video games to drama clubs and music lessons. By portraying the texture of the students’ everyday lives, The Class seeks to understand how the structures of social class and cultural capital shape the development of personal interests, relationships and autonomy. Providing insights into how young people’s social, digital, and learning networks enable or disempower them, Livingstone and Sefton-Green reveal that the experience of disconnections and blocked pathways is often more common than that of connections and new opportunities.

As generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools become increasingly prevalent, it is crucial for educators to develop a nuanced understanding of the ethical implications associated with their use. Educators today face the critical task of navigating the pedagogical applications of AI and maximizing its potential to foster student learning. Creative AI Tools and Ethical Implications in Teaching and Learning is an insightful exploration of the ethical considerations surrounding the integration of AI in education. Educators may fear how it will rapidly transforming the educational landscape, but this book serves to support them and delves into the opportunities and challenges that arise when leveraging AI to enhance teaching and learning experiences. This book sheds light on the various dimensions of AI in education, including face-to-face, blended, and online learning environments. It also offers practical guidance on designing AI-based classroom activities and harnessing open AI technologies to create engaging learning experiences. This book also delves into the pressing issues of bias, misinformation, and access, urging educators to critically evaluate and address these concerns. It also provides ethical guidelines for the responsible integration of AI in education, ensuring that students' rights and well-being are safeguarded. Creative AI Tools and Ethical Implications in Teaching and Learning goes beyond theory to offer practical strategies for integrating AI creatively into the classroom. From learning analytics and educational data mining to AI game activities and generative AI tools like ChatGPT, this book equips educators with the knowledge and resources to adapt AI technologies to support teaching and learning effectively. Moreover, the book explores the vital connection between AI and student assessment, highlighting how AI can enhance the evaluation process while maintaining fairness and objectivity. It concludes with an insightful glimpse into the future of AI in education, envisioning the transformative possibilities that lie ahead. This comprehensive guide provides educators, researchers, and policymakers with the tools they need to navigate the complexities of AI in education.

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"This book provides a significant contribution to the increasing conversation concerning the place of big data in education. Offering a multidisciplinary approach with a diversity of perspectives from international scholars and industry experts, chapter authors engage in both research- and industry-informed discussions and analyses on the place of big data in education, particularly as it pertains to large-scale and ongoing assessment practices moving into the digital space. This volume offers an innovative, practical, and international view of the future of current opportunities and challenges in education and the place of assessment in this context"

Emotional design explicitly addresses the emotional relationship between the objects and the subjects of design--in this book, the objects are technologies, and the subjects are technology users. The first section delves into the philosophy and theory of emotional design to provide a foundation for the rest of the book, which goes on to discuss emotional design principles, the design and use of emoticons, and then intelligent agents in a variety of settings. A conclusion chapter covers future research and directions. Emotions, Technology, and Design provides a thorough look at how technology design affects emotions and how to use that understanding to in practical applications. Discusses the role of culture, trust, and identity in empathetic technology Presents a framework for using sound to elicit positive emotional responses Details the emotional use of color in design Explores the use of emoticons, earcons, and tactons Addresses the emotional design specific to agent-based environments

From a renowned education writer comes a paradigm-shifting examination of the rapidly changing world of college that every parent, student, educator, and investor needs to understand. Over the span of just nine months in 2011 and 2012, the world's most famous universities and high-powered technology entrepreneurs began a race to revolutionize higher education. College courses that had been kept for centuries from all but an elite few were released to millions of students throughout the world-for free.

Sir Anthony Seldon, the prominent political biographer and leading educationalist, addresses one of the high-stakes issues that will influence our future: the role of artificial intelligence and its impact on education. The use of AI promises an altogether new way of educating, offering learners from all backgrounds widespread access to personalised tuition and digital educational materials from across the world. Educational institutions across the world have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and many have migrated, at least temporarily, to online platforms. The debate about how to deliver knowledge has never been more relevant. Many countries have an excellent education system with their schools and universities - excellent, but tailored to the twentieth century. The mass teaching methods of the third revolution era have failed to conquer enduring problems of inequity and lack of individualised learning. AI is disrupting the way we live, work and interact with the environment, and we cannot stop it changing our schools and universities. But we have time - albeit not for long - to shape this revolution. It will not be a panacea, and if we are not quick, it will start to replace what makes us human - being creative, having beliefs, and loving others. This book, presented in considerably updated and extended second edition, is a call to educators everywhere to open their eyes to what is coming. If we do so, then the future will be shaped by us for the common interests of humanity - but if we don't, then it will be imposed, and we will all lose. 'This book has the potential to impel change in our education system which is so badly in need of reform. The new "reconsidered" version in the wake of the COVID pandemic serves to emphasize even more strongly the role AI can play in education and how its use is being accelerated.'Lord Clement-Jones CBE

The changing student body in American higher education demands a new approach to teaching, one that moves toward inclusive, hyperpersonalized learning environments that have much in common with games and social media. Kevin Bell's Game On! presents dynamic case studies of gamer educators and game-derived techniques to help instructors creatively formulate their own teaching strategies. Breaking gamefully designed classes into their component parts, Bell analyzes what these classes are actually doing and explains why they work. He offers faculty a rubric to assess their own courses for their propensity to engage students, particularly those from low socioeconomic and high-risk populations. Bell explores how game design, pedagogy, and intrinsic motivators can level the playing field to produce rigorous learning environments that are as addictive to all participants as the latest apps and social media systems. He also discusses best practices, lays out the broader context of computer-mediated teaching and learning, and considers the challenges and opportunities that gamification presents. Instructors would do well to consider the key tenets of successful games if they are to engage and graduate the coming generations of learners. Bell's careful analysis of the theories behind gamification, cognitive science, and instructional design will help them to do just that.

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Chan and Colloton’s book is one of the first to provide a comprehensive examination of the use and impact of ChatGPT and Generative AI (GenAI) in higher education. Since November 2022, every conversation in higher education has involved ChatGPT and its impact on all aspects of teaching and learning. The book explores the necessity of AI literacy tailored to professional contexts, assess the strengths and weaknesses of incorporating ChatGPT in curriculum design, and delve into the transformation of assessment methods in the GenAI era. The authors introduce the Six Assessment Redesign Pivotal Strategies (SARPS) and an AI Assessment Integration Framework, encouraging a learner-centric assessment model. The necessity for well-crafted AI educational policies is explored, as well as a blueprint for policy formulation in academic institutions. Technical enthusiasts are catered to with a deep dive into the mechanics behind GenAI, from the history of neural networks to the latest advances and applications of GenAI technologies. With an eye on the future of AI in education, this book will appeal to educators, students and scholars interested in the wider societal implications and the transformative role of GenAI in pedagogy and research.

Winner of the MLA's Mina P. Shaugnessy Prize for an outstanding work in the fields of language, culture, literacy, or literature with strong application to the teaching of English. Focusing largely on the controversial website Wikipedia, the author explores the challenges confronting teachers of college writing in the increasingly electronic and networked writing environments their students use every day. Rather than praising or condemning that site for its role as an encyclopedia, Cummings instead sees it as a site for online collaboration between writers and a way to garner audience for student writing. Applying an understanding of Commons-Based Peer Production theory, as developed by Yochai Benkler, this text is arranged around the following propositions: -- Commons-Based Peer Production is a novel economic phenomenon which informs our current teaching model and describes a method for making sense of future electronic developments. -- College writers are motivated to do their best work when they write for an authentic audience, external to the class. -- Writing for a networked knowledge community invites students to participate in making knowledge, rather than only consuming it. -- A plan for integrating networked writing for an external audience helps students understand the transition from high school to college writing. -- Allowing students to review and self-select points of entry into electronic discourse fosters "laziness," or a new work dynamic where writers seek to better understand their own creativity in terms of a project's demands. Lazy Virtues offers networked writing assignments to foster development of student writers by exposing them to the demands of professional audiences, asking them to identify and assess their own creative impulses in terms of a project's needs, and removing the writing teacher from the role of sole audience.

Giving higher education professionals the language and tools they need to seize new opportunities in digital learning. A quiet revolution is sweeping across US colleges and universities. As schools rethink how students learn - both inside and outside the classroom - technology is changing not only what should be taught but how best to teach it. From active learning and inclusive pedagogy to online and hybrid courses, traditional institutions are leveraging their fundamental strengths while challenging long-standing assumptions about how teaching and learning happen. At this intersection of learning, technology, design, and organizational change lies the foundation of a new academic discipline of digital learning. Coalescing around this new field of study is a common critical language, along with a set of theoretical frameworks, methodological practices, and shared challenges and goals. In Learning Innovation and the Future of Higher Education, Joshua Kim and Edward Maloney explore the context of this new discipline, show how it exists within a larger body of scholarship, and give examples of how this scholarship is being used on campuses. What Kim and Maloney demonstrate in this foundational text is an understanding that change is a complex dynamic between what happens in the classroom and the larger institutional structures and traditions at play. Ultimately, the authors make a compelling case not only for this turn to learning but also for creating new pathways for nonfaculty learning careers, understanding the limits of professional organizations and social media, and the need to establish this new interdisciplinary field of learning innovation.

Online learning is ubiquitous for millions of students worldwide, yet our understanding of student experiences in online learning settings is limited. The geographic distance that separates faculty from students in an online environment is its signature feature, but it is also one that risks widening the gulf between teachers and learners. In Learning Online, George Veletsianos argues that in order to critique, understand, and improve online learning, we must examine it through the lens of student experience. Approaching the topic with stories that elicit empathy, compassion, and care, Veletsianos relays the diverse day-to-day experiences of online learners. Each in-depth chapter follows a single learner's experience while focusing on an important or noteworthy aspect of online learning, tackling everything from demographics, attrition, motivation, and loneliness to cheating, openness, flexibility, social media, and digital divides. Veletsianos also draws on these case studies to offer recommendations for the future and lessons learned. The elusive nature of online learners' experiences, the book reveals, is a problem because it prevents us from doing better: from designing more effective online courses, from making evidence-informed decisions about online education, and from coming to our work with the full sense of empathy that our students deserve. Writing in an evocative, accessible, and concise manner, Veletsianos concretely demonstrates why it is so important to pay closer attention to the stories of students--who may have instructive and insightful ideas about the future of education.

Are MOOCs a catalyst for reimagining education, a sign of the increased corporatization of the education sector, or merely a well-publicized but passing trend? Massive Open Online Courses shares insights from multiple stakeholders on what MOOCs are now and could eventually become, providing those in higher education as well as K-12, military, government, and corporate training with an authoritative source on a wide range of key issues surrounding MOOCs. MOOCs, or Massive Open Online Courses, are a disruptive technology currently forcing a serious reconceptualization of accreditation, assessment, motivation and retention, technology-based instruction, and the overall student experience. In this timely volume, Paul Kim brings together experts from higher education, business, law, learning analytics and other relevant areas to provide an evenhanded, research-based positioning of MOOCs within the existing educational technology landscape and a base for understanding whether they could reshape the future of education.

"Literacy education has historically characterized mass media as manipulative towards young people who, as a result, are in need of close-reading "skills." By contrast, Pop Culture and Power treats literacy as a dynamic practice, shaped by its social and cultural context. It develops a framework to analyze power in its various manifestations, arguing that power works through popular culture, not as everyday media. Pop Culture and Power thus explores media engagement as an opportunity to promote social change. Deeming pop culture as an opportunity rather than a threat, Dawn H. Currie and Deirdre M. Kelly worked with K-12 educators to investigate how pop culture can support teaching for social justice. Currie and Kelly began the research for this project with a teacher education seminar in media analysis where participants designed classroom activities using board games, popular film, music videos, and advertisements. These activities were later piloted in participants' classrooms, enabling the authors to identify and address practical issues encountered by student learners. Case studies describe the design, implementation, and retrospective assessment of activities engaging learners in media analysis and production. Following the case studies, the authors consider how their approach can foster ethical practices when engaging in the digital environment. Pop Culture and Power offers theoretically-informed yet practical tools that can help educators prepare youth for engagement in our increasingly complex world of mediated meaning making.

The college application process--which entails multiple forms, essays, test scores, and deadlines--can be intimidating. For students without substantial school and family support, the complexity of this process can become a barrier to access. William G. Tierney, Tracy Fullerton, and their teams at the University of Southern California approach this challenge innovatively. Using the tools of online games and social media, they have developed ways to make applying for college much less intimidating. While the vast majority of college students use social media and gaming in their everyday lives, colleges and universities have been slow to recognize and harness the power of either. Postsecondary Play explores the significance of games and social media in higher education, and particularly how they can be used to attract, retain, educate, and socialize students. Tierney, a past president of the American Educational Research Association, has gathered some of the best research on the emerging role of games and social media in the classroom and how these tools can boost student confidence and increase college access. Scholars writing from a wide variety of disciplines--college access, social media, game studies, and learning sciences--provide concrete examples to illustrate the new and complex ways in which students learn in response to social media and games. Tierney and the contributors find that, although games can be powerful tools for encouraging underserved students, quality game design and mastering the concept of play--the ability to develop skills while engaging in the game--are essential in the effective use of serious games in teaching and learning. Summarizing a decade of research in game design and learning, Postsecondary Play will appeal to higher education scholars and students of learning, online gaming, education, and the media.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) serves as a catalyst for transformation in the field of digital teaching and learning by introducing novel solutions to revolutionize all dimensions of the educational process, leading to individualized learning experiences, teachers playing a greater role as mentors, and the automation of all administrative processes linked to education. AI and machine learning are already contributing to and are expected to improve the quality of the educational process by providing advantages such as personalized and interactive tutoring with the ability to adjust the content and the learning pace of each individual student while assessing their performance and providing feedback. These shifts in the educational paradigm have a profound impact on the quality and the way we live, interact with each other, and define our values. Thus, there is a need for an earnest inquiry into the cultural repercussions of this phenomenon that extends beyond superficial analyses of AI-based applications in education. Revolutionizing Education in the Age of AI and Machine Learning addresses the need for a scholarly exploration of the cultural and social impacts of the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence in the field of education including potential consequences these impacts could have on culture, social relations, and values. The content within this publication covers such topics as AI and tutoring, role of teachers, physical education and sports, interactive E-learning and virtual laboratories, adaptive curricula development, support critical thinking, and augmented intelligence and it is designed for educators, curriculum developers, instructional designers, educational software developers, education consultants, academicians, administrators, researchers, and professionals.

Since the days of Thomas Edison, technology has held the promise of lowering the cost of education. The fantasy of leveraging a fixed production cost to reach an unlimited number of consumers is an enticing economic proposition, one that has been repeatedly attempted with each new media format, from radio and television to MOOCs, where star academics make online video lectures available to millions of students at little cost. In Sage on the Screen, Bill Ferster explores the historical, theoretical, and practical perspectives of using broadcast media to teach by examining a century of efforts to use it at home and in the classroom. Along the way, he shares stories from teachers, administrators, entrepreneurs, and innovators who promoted the use of cutting-edge technology--while critically evaluating their motives for doing so. Taking a close look at the origins of various media forms, their interrelatedness, and their impact on education thus far, Ferster asks why broadcast media has been so much more successful at entertaining people than it has been at educating them. Accessibly written and full of explanatory art, Sage on the Screen offers fresh insight into the current and future uses of instructional technology, from K12 through non-institutionally-based learning.

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Virtual reality is a set of technologies that enables two-way communication, from computer to user and vice versa. In one direction, technologies are used to synthesize visual, auditory, tactile, and sometimes other sensory experiences in order to provide the illusion that practically non-existent things can be seen, heard, touched, or otherwise felt. In the other direction, technologies are used to adequately record human movements, sounds, or other potential input data that computers can process and use. This book contains six chapters that cover topics including definitions and principles of VR, devices, educational design principles for effective use of VR, technology education, and use of VR in technical and natural sciences. (open access)

Behind the lectern stands the professor, deploying course management systems, online quizzes, wireless clickers, PowerPoint slides, podcasts, and plagiarism-detection software. In the seats are the students, armed with smartphones, laptops, tablets, music players, and social networking. Although these two forces seem poised to do battle with each other, they are really both taking part in a war on learning itself. In this book, Elizabeth Losh examines current efforts to "reform" higher education by applying technological solutions to problems in teaching and learning. She finds that many of these initiatives fail because they treat education as a product rather than a process. Highly touted schemes -- video games for the classroom, for example, or the distribution of iPads -- let students down because they promote consumption rather than intellectual development. Losh analyzes recent trends in postsecondary education and the rhetoric around them, often drawing on first-person accounts. In an effort to identify educational technologies that might actually work, she looks at strategies including MOOCs (massive open online courses), the gamification of subject matter, remix pedagogy, video lectures (from Randy Pausch to "the Baked Professor"), and educational virtual worlds. Finally, Losh outlines six basic principles of digital learning and describes several successful university-based initiatives. Her book will be essential reading for campus decision makers -- and for anyone who cares about education and technology.

'The future of the world is in your hands' I know that might seem a bit steep considering you've got that Year Ten coursework to sort out and the lesson observation on that nervous looking NQT, but that's the way it is I'm afraid. You chose to be a teacher, you mould young minds on a daily basis and those minds have got to grow up and save the world.'- Extract from Chapter One Why do I need a teacher when I've got Google? is just one of the challenging, controversial and thought-provoking questions Ian Gilbert poses in his long-awaited follow up to the classic Essential Motivation in the Classroom. Questioning the unquestionable, this book will make you re-consider everything you thought you knew about teaching and learning, such as: Are you simply preparing the next generation of unemployed accountants? What do you do for the 'sweetcorn kids' who come out of the education system in pretty much the same state as when they went in? What's the real point of school? Exams - So whose bright idea was that? Why 'EQ' is fast becoming the new 'IQ'. What will your school policy be on brain-enhancing technologies? Which is the odd one out between a hamster and a caravan? With his customary combination of hard-hitting truths, practical classroom ideas and irreverent sense of humour, Ian Gilbert takes the reader on a breathless rollercoaster ride through burning issues of the twenty-first century, considering everything from the threats facing the world and the challenge of the BRIC economies to the link between eugenics and the 11+. As wide-ranging and exhaustively-researched as it is entertaining and accessible, this book is designed to challenge teachers and inform them - as well as encourage them - as they strive to design a twenty-first century learning experience that really does bring the best out of all young people. After all, the future of the world may just depend on it.

Since its launch in 2001, Wikipedia has been a lightning rod for debates about knowledge and traditional authority. It has come under particular scrutiny from publishers of print encyclopedias and college professors, who are skeptical about whether a crowd-sourced encyclopedia—in which most entries are subject to potentially endless reviewing and editing by anonymous collaborators whose credentials cannot be established—can ever truly be accurate or authoritative. In Wikipedia U, Thomas Leitch argues that the assumptions these critics make about accuracy and authority are themselves open to debate. After all, academics are expected both to consult the latest research and to return to the earliest sources in their field, each of which has its own authority. And when teachers encourage students to master information so that they can question it independently, their ultimate goal is to create a new generation of thinkers and makers whose authority will ultimately supplant their own. Wikipedia U offers vital new lessons about the nature of authority and the opportunities and challenges of Web 2.0. Leitch regards Wikipedia as an ideal instrument for probing the central assumptions behind liberal education, making it more than merely, as one of its severest critics has charged, "the encyclopedia game, played online."

Wikiworld explores a revolution in the world of education. The way we learn is changing: institutionalised learning is transforming into new forms of critical learning and open collaboration. This book offers a historical and political framework to think about the future of learning and educational media.The authors provide an overview of the use of new technologies and learning practices, and assess how the changing nature of education can lead to a more socially just future. At the same time, they place their analysis of education within a wider social and economic framework of contemporary capitalism.