As I approach my 70th year in physics, let me tell my younger colleagues about my adventures with computation. When I was 14, my father gave me a slide rule because I appeared to be headed toward a career in physics. Since then, I have had experience with many other calculating devices.

In this paper, we present a response to the Interest-Driven Creator (IDC) theory from a European perspective. Specifically, we raise six questions intended to start a dialog with respect to IDC theory's placement in existing learning theories, its adoption in educational systems, and how it can be influenced by emerging learning technologies and…

Clark Aldrich is the founder and Managing Partner of Clark Aldrich Designs, and is known as a global education visionary, industry analyst, and speaker. In this interview, he responds to questions about his ideas, his work, and his theories.

Sigmund Tobias came to the United States in 1948, after his family had fled to China from the Holocaust in Europe. His Memoir ("Strange Haven: A Jewish Childhood in Wartime Shanghai") describes that part of his life. He settled in New York, where he completed his B.A. and M.S. in School Psychology from the City College of New York, and a…

In July 2010, Michele Hancock, EdD, became the 14th superintendent of the Kenosha Unified School District (KUSD), the third largest Wisconsin school district, with 42 schools and a student population of almost 23,000 students. She arrived with a strong vision to improve student achievement by adjusting educational methods to harmonize with the new…

At the first meeting of a districtwide committee on integrating 21st century teaching and learning in their schools, the author asked the committee members if they thought educators could provide a 21st century education if all of the computers and devices suddenly broke. They agreed that teachers do not need computers to provide 21st century…

When it comes to implementing a large-scale 1-to-1 computing initiative, deciding which device students will use every day to support their learning requires a significant amount of thought and research. Laptop, netbook, Chromebook, tablet--each device has enough similarities to make the decision seem easy, but enough differences to make a big…

The biochemistry course at Stanford Medical School has been redesigned to incorporate online lectures. The Stanford instructors provide short online presentations then use class time for interactive discussions of clinical vignettes to highlight the biochemical basis of various diseases. Contemporary video capture equipment makes video lectures…

Social networking is more than catching up with family and long-lost friends; it's turned into a professional resource for educators to exchange ideas and expand their professional learning network (PLN). According to the report "School Principals and Social Networking in Education: Practices, Policies, and Realities in 2010," most responding…

This commentary reviews seven papers that study motivation with new media, contained in this special issue of "Educational Technology Research & Development" edited by Ruth Small. For each paper, this commentary summarizes exemplary contributions, offers an assessment of what is exciting, and suggests directions for future research. Some exciting…

The use of computer-based gaming in education is not a new phenomenon. Many educators nostalgically remember green Apple II monitors displaying the games Lemonade Stand and Oregon Trail in the early 1980s. Technology in schools has evolved considerably since then, and gaming has become pervasive within all demographic subgroups. Gaming within…

Technology is supposed to be a good thing. If this is such a grand argument, then why do some researchers argue technology hurts more than it helps? This is certainly getting the public confused. This article will look at their reasoning behind their statements of how technology is not working. Also included will be an analysis and…

Today, U.S. educators are teaching in the midst of a technological revolution. Technology promises to provide innovative solutions in the nation's classrooms, just as it has transformed the way people communicate, socialize, and conduct business. In this article, the author argues that now is the time to harness technology to revolutionize the way…

Teaching American Indian literature with online resources can help diverse urban Indian and multicultural students connect with American Indian cultures, histories, and Nations. This online-enriched pedagogy adopts Susan Lobo's sense of the city as an "urban hub," or activist community center, an urban area linked to reservations in which Native…

Teaching an endangered language today requires extreme measures, and there is no guarantee of success. But the situation is dire and demands adaptive, creative survivance. Anishinaabemowin is one of twenty-seven Algonquian languages, the ancestral birthright of more than two hundred communities in the United States and Canada. Now used as a single…