The COVID-19 pandemic has surfaced educational inequities that pose unprecedented challenges for teaching and learning. Scott Sikkema, Jenny Lee, and Joseph Spilberg of Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education (CAPE) and Maggie Dahn, Nickolina Yankova, and Kylie Peppler of the University of California, Irvine, explain how the arts, which are often…

The move to virtual schooling and other measures to reduce the spread of SARS-CoV-2 infection dramatically changed the educational experience for grades K-12 populations during the years 2020 and 2021. STEM teaching and learning, and community partnerships focused on STEM education, were not exempt from the changes. Universities and other…

In multicultural classroom practices, technology is a power-amplifier tool that teachers can use to "provide multiple approaches to learning for each student" to increase the power of digital artifacts in the learning of science and literacy (Council of Chief State School Officers, 2013, p. 4). Increasingly, both preservice and inservice…

Background and Context: in this paper, we argue that integrating Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) into K-12 computing education can present learners with opportunities to develop human-centered design skills as well as higher-order thinking skills. Objective: to address the issues related to the development of HCI forms of expertise, we introduce…

This article describes lessons learned from an applied literacy course in which preservice teachers partnered with a local middle school to teach literacy actively through podcast and digital graphic novel creation. Future teachers need equity-focused, production-centered, interest-driven connected learning (Ito et al., 2013) and connected…

Technology is now being utilized in schools in an effort to address the lack of engagement most students have experienced in mathematics when learning foundational skills at the elementary school level. While there are a number of studies that have described teacher perceptions of engagement through the use of technology during the school day,…

The present study explores how engaging in modeling practice, along with argumentation, leverages students' epistemic and conceptual understanding in an afterschool science/math class of 16 tenth graders. The study also explores how students used mobile Internet phones (smart phones) productively to support modeling practices. As the modeling…

The lives of middle school students are dynamic, and their needs and desires are always evolving. They experience more complicated lives as influences of the broader society including popular media and technology, immigration and cultural diversity, amplified political divisiveness, and bullying effect their daily lives both in and out of school.…

We explore whether the use of assistive technology allows teachers and children to negotiate shared understandings for learning science and language. We understand our afterschool sessions as critical encounters. Artifacts used in the encounters enabled transcending of the tensions and became drivers for learning. In the studied 13 encounters,…

Early field experiences, or those that come early in a teacher's preparation before more formalized opportunities like practicum and student teaching, can provide a venue for pre service teachers to practice technology-specific instructional decision-making and reflective practice. Although research exists on the potential roles of field…

This paper argues that the emphasis on orchestration as a metaphor for teaching in technology-enhanced learning (TEL) environments, featured in recent academic discussions, is an opportunity to broaden the scope of the inquiry into educational technology. Drawing on sociological literature and research that investigated the systemic factors that…

This study investigated the effectiveness of the Assessment and LEarning in Knowledge Spaces (ALEKS) system as a method of strategic intervention in after-school settings to improve the mathematical skills of struggling 6th grade students. Students were randomly assigned to after-school classrooms in which they either worked with ALEKS to improve…

As part of a learner's learning ecology, the informal, out-of-school settings offer virtually boundless opportunities to advance one's learning. This paper reports on "Move, Idioms!", a design for Mobile-Assisted Language Learning experience that accentuates learners' habit of mind and skills in making meaning with their daily…

The need to play is primeval in human beings, at least as strong as the urge to fight. While the larger gaming community has traditionally focused on the fairly lucrative potential of exploiting the urge to fight in the form of violent and destructive war games, the "Serious Games" segment has become aware of the power of applying this…

This study draws on ethnographic data from a year-long multimodal media production (MMP) course and the experience of an African American female adolescent who used the production of multimodal Hip Hop texts to express her creativity and growing socially conscious view of the world. The study demonstrates how students made meaning multimodally and…