The metaverse is rapidly reshaping our understanding of education, yet identifying the public's beliefs, emotions and sentiments towards its adoption in education remains largely uncharted empirically. Grounded in the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and Digital Diffusion Theory (DOI), this paper aims to fill this gap using a big-data approach…

Virtual schooling is expanding as an alternative to traditional public schooling in the early twenty-first century. This paper analyzes virtual schooling with regards to the democratic associational aims of public schooling as conceived by John Dewey. We examine the general landscape of virtual schooling by looking at recent history, governance,…

This paper explores how the use of digital practice spaces (DPSs) can inform teacher preparation through a reimagining of clinical practice in teacher preparation by addressing the question: what roles might DPSs play in the ecology of apprenticeship opportunities for future educators? We leveraged AACTE's "Essential Proclamations and Tenets…

In this controversy piece, we portray online learning as growing too fast for existing regulatory structures to oversee and generally as having failed to live up to its potential. Operators, particularly for-profit operators, have generally not produced successful schools. We urge reforms of cyber schooling funding mechanisms, data systems, and…

This article presents a summary of the findings of a systematic review and meta-analysis of the literature on computer-based interactive simulations for K-12 science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) learning topics. For achievement outcomes, simulations had a moderate to strong effect on student learning. Overall, simulations have…

Many universities report "study abroad" numbers in the 25 to 30 percent range and even as high as 70 and 80 percent. When the number of students studying abroad for credit, 270,604 as reported by the IIE 2009-2010 "Open Doors" report, was divided by the approximately 20 million students in U.S. universities, the result was…

This report reflects a multi-year collaborative effort between the New Media Consortium (NMC) and the eLearn Center of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya to help inform Iberoamerican educational leaders about significant developments in technologies supporting teaching, learning, and research in tertiary education. The report was produced to…

Recent years have seen an explosion in the use of information and communications technologies (ICTs), which have come to play an increasingly important role in multiple aspects of daily lives. There is an unprecedented expansion of the information available online and existing in an ever more interconnected world; however, this change has been so…

A literature review of 121 peer-reviewed articles, books, and conference proceedings was conducted to determine the signature pedagogies of social studies education and technology integration. The authors found that the signature social studies pedagogy is based on two primary instructional models: direct-instruction and inquiry-based,…

This article describes the research design of, and reports selected findings from, a scoping study aimed at examining current and planned applications of 3D immersive virtual worlds at higher education institutions across Australia and New Zealand. The scoping study is the first of its kind in the region, intended to parallel and complement a…

Higher education in the U.S. has traditionally prepared students for work and social success, but with families, work, and society itself undergoing revolutionary change, is this preparation sufficient to develop the 21st-century workforce? This book explores how evolving family structures, new ways of balancing work and personal lives, and rapid…

Background: Numerous surveys, articles, ephemera and online information sources indicate that "Second Life" has been the predominant virtual world, for educational purposes, in UK universities for the latter half of the 2000s. However, the infrastructure required to operate "Second Life" presents a number of technical concerns…

Many have elaborated on the potential of virtual reality (VR) in learning. This article attempts at organizing the literature in this issue in order to better identify indicators that can account for future valid trends, and seeks to bring to attention how authors who wrote about the future of VR in education confused futures' terms and produced…

Imaginary worlds have been devised by artists and commentators for centuries to focus satirical attention on society's problems. The increasing sophistication of three-dimensional graphics software is generating comparable "virtual worlds" for educational usage. Can such worlds play a satirical role suggesting developments in distance…

There is intense interest in computer games. A total of 65 percent of all American households play computer games, and sales of such games increased 22.9 percent last year. The average amount of game playing time was found to be 13.2 hours per week. The popularity and market success of games is evident from both the increased earnings from games,…