Hot Topics: Education and Screens: Social Aspects

"The heart of the book connects research insights to practical applications. Baron draws on work from international researchers, along with results from her collaborative studies of student reading practices ranging from middle school through college. The result is an impartial view of the evidence, including where the jury is still out. The book closes with two challenges. The first is that students increasingly complain print is boring. And second, for all the educational buzz about teaching critical thinking, digital reading is inherently ill-suited for cultivating these habits of mind. Since screens and audio are now entrenched - and valuable - platforms for reading, we need to rethink how to help learners use them wisely"

"While information and communication technology has a vast influence on our lives, little is understood about its effects on the way we learn. In the Age of Information, students - consciously or not - are learning in diverse formal and informal environments from a broad variety of sources, with scientific knowledge competing against unfounded assertions, and misinformation and biased data spreading through social and mass media. The Positive Learning in the Age of Information (PLATO) program illustrated by the contributions in this book unites outstanding and highly innovative expertise on the fundamentals of information processing and human learning to investigate a new paradigm of positive learning as a vital, morally and ethically oriented approach, which is of existential importance to maintaining the civilization standards of a modern society in the digital age."

"Description: Where are we? Fourteen years later : trends and ruts in technology integration -- K-12 and higher education selected uses of IT today -- Schooling : what is the business of education? -- How bad is the failure of American schools? -- Are failing schools the only cause of low student achievement? -- How did we get here? Why schools fail to integrate technology effectively -- Professional vs bureaucratic approaches to change -- How degradation of the field of education impedes reform -- Creating a new profession of edcuation. K-12 : a new beginning will require commitment and consensus -- Using IT to personalize learning -- Foundation for a learning society and a new profession -- Moving beyond bureaucracy -- What about the early years of learning? -- Epilogue: While the world changes."

"A call for the extension of hybrid learning urges that it become not just a quick fix or a boon for the bottom line, but an educational mode that reenvisions quality teaching and learning for the 21st century. Hybrid learning could be the new century's educational game changer. Combining online with face-to-face instruction, hybrid learning promises a best-of-both-worlds solution to higher education's acute problems of student retention, success, and engagement. Yet, in the absence of adequate faculty care and institutional support, hybrid learning can aggravate the very problems it is meant to address. This work is an in-depth exploration of a new learning mode that could radically change higher education, incorporating emerging trends in technology and multimedia use, including online gaming, social networking, and other Web 2.0 applications, to create engaging and dynamic learning environments. Laying out fundamental challenges facing higher education today, this book shows how hybrid instruction can be designed and implemented to deliver excellent educational value in flexible modes and at moderate costs well-suited to the circumstances of many students and institutions. The book lays out the characteristic profiles of students who are most likely to benefit from and perform well in a hybrid learning environment, as well as the features and practices of hybrid courses most likely to produce positive learning outcomes. It also specifies the obligations of faculty in designing and delivering best-practice hybrid courses and the support and policy obligations of institutions. Challenging prima-facie assumptions about hybrid learning, the author promotes it as nothing less than an opportunity to re-envision education for the 21st century."

" Edtech for the K-12 Classroom is designed to empower future teachers to use technology effectively in their classrooms and schools. Meant to supplement or replace edtech textbooks, this book is a compilation of articles and multimedia offering concrete lesson plans, inspiring reflections and advice from edtech experts on how to empower learners using technology."