New Zealand's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade has funded the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) to implement a project to contribute to enhanced capacity and efficiency of Pacific education sectors through greater use of innovative delivery mechanisms and technology. This report provides an improved mentorship model for the capacity development…

This article gives an overview of how Estonia has designed and implemented initiatives to equip its young people with digital skills starting from the 1990s when the Tiger Leap program was initiated. The overview will feature the state of affairs for implementing technology into education as part of the National Lifelong Learning Digital Turn…

Digital knowledge and skills are needed to fully participate in the society and economy of the United States. The historic $65 billion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act represents a significant federal investment in advancing digital equity and inclusion, and an opportunity to make lasting change in communities across the country. This report…

New technologies and developments in media are transforming the way that individuals, groups and societies communicate, learn, work and govern. This new socio-technical reality requires participants to possess not only skills and abilities related to the use of technological tools, but also knowledge regarding the norms and practices of…

Most freshmen taking required, introductory information systems courses do not understand why they are required to take such courses and can't imagine that they will learn anything they don't already know. This paper presents an exercise that will excite and enthuse students about their computers and Information Systems in general. Every freshman…

To help satisfy the pressing need for technology-related professional development for in-service teachers, the Global Academic Essentials Teacher Institute (GAETI) was implemented to provide in-service foreign language and social studies teachers with content, pedagogy, and technology explorations centered on the teaching of the Common Core State…

Digital games have become popular for engaging students in a range of learning goals, both in the classroom and the after-school space. In this article, I discuss a specific genre of video game, the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMO), which has been identified as a dynamic environment for encountering 21st-century workplace…

In a previous Techtalk column, Peterson and Caverly (2005) introduced the Community of Inquiry (CoI) model (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2001) as a guide for online learning. The CoI model has maintained longevity and applicability to a variety of both synchronous and asynchronous technologies (Ice, Curtis, Phillips, & Wells, 2007). In this…

There have been many attempts to understand how the Internet affects our modern world. There have also been numerous attempts to understand specific areas of the Internet. This article applies Immanuel Wallerstein's World Systems Analysis to our informationalist society. Understanding this world as divided among individual core, semi-periphery,…

Can online communities contribute to a student's sense of belonging? Does the use of new Internet technologies enhance an individual's sense of self? Is one's racial identity relevant in cyberspace? For multiracial students, the answer to these questions is increasingly yes. Whether mixed-race students are more tech savvy than their monoracial…

This paper aims to discuss the role and impact that information technology (IT) has on the future and existing style of learning and teaching. It highlights the importance of acquiring computer skills and being literate in IT. The focus is put on certain areas related to IT and education which include pedagogy and training to build IT literacy…

Unlike more stable content and goals for other areas of school study, technology continues to change, bringing new goals for how learning should be served by and what students should know about technology. This article examines assessments of computer competence, factors influencing the definition of technology skills, state and district…

In this article, we discuss the literacy narratives of coauthors Melissa Pearson and Brittney Moraski, who came to computers almost a generation apart. Our goal is to demonstrate the importance of situating literacies of technology--and literacies more generally--within specific cultural, material, educational, and familial contexts that…

Standards are a reality in all academic disciplines, and they can be hard to measure using conventional methods. Technology skills in particular are hard to assess using multiple-choice, paper-based tests. A new generation of online assessments of student technology skills allows students to prove proficiency by completing tasks in their natural…

A model syllabus is presented for promoting literacy in information technology for elementary and secondary school teachers. In the syllabus, information technology is defined, and educational implications of new information technology are discussed in terms of the societal context, and teaching and learning. Educational uses of the new…