Emerging Technologies For The Classroom

This book provides contemporary examples of the ways in which educators can use digital technologies to create effective learning environments that support improved learning and instruction. These examples are guided by multiple conceptual and methodological traditions evolving from the learning sciences and instructional technology communities as well as other communities doing important work on learning technologies. In particular, the book provides examples of technology innovations and the ways in which educators can use them to foster deep understanding, collaboration, creativity, invention, and reflection. Additional examples demonstrate the ways in which emerging mobile and networked technologies can help extend student learning beyond the confines of the classroom wall and support student-directed learning and new media literacies.

This book explores the technologies that can be used in curricula to make education “smarter” and more adaptive in order to better meet the needs of today’s learners. The main emphasis is based on the theory and best practices of incorporating emerging technologies into curricula so as to educate learners in the 21st century. The book provides valuable insights into the future of education and examines which pedagogies are most suitable for integrating emerging technologies. It will help educators and stakeholders design and implement curricula that effectively prepare learners for the challenges of tomorrow.

"This book examines a variety of pertinent topics that look at the present and future roles of technology in the classroom to assist educators, educational leaders, and instructional designers in establishing future-ready learning, today"--

This book discusses the development of the next generation learning spaces with emerging technologies. These spaces result from the combined needs of classroom stakeholders, such as instructors and learners, with classroom elements, such as tools and technologies, pedagogy and content. The book presents discussions and studies on issues, possibilities and implications of these changes for next generation education. Novel ideas, and studies on these all-encompassing, blended roles of technologies in next generation learning spaces are clearly presented. Suggestions on how the benefits they offer can be maximized are also discussed. Engaging learning technologies have remained central in education for assisting instructors to teach and learners to learn, more effectively. However, recent technological growth is creating a system in which previous divides between key classroom concepts and stakeholders are getting progressively blurred. This is giving rise to next generation learning spaces where elements and stakeholders are blended into one. The book addresses the future of learning environments based on these perspectives.

Highlighted are the pedagogical, organizational, cultural, social, and economic factors that influence the adoption and integration of emerging technologies in distance education. Advice is offered on how educators can launch effective and engaging distance education initiatives, in response to technological advancements, changing mindsets, and economic and organizational pressures.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shed light on how much humans rely, more than ever before in our history, on technology. While technology in its simplest definition is the use of a tool for a practical purpose, in the last three decades, educators can confidently say it has revolutionized how information is communicated and accessed. Most importantly, educators who had to recently shift their classes online understood the important role of technology to stay connected and instruct students remotely. There are many different facets of technology in today's classrooms and ideas on where educators are headed in preparing their students for a technology-rich world. With new technologies being constantly developed and new scenarios rising to the surface in the educational environment, the future of technology in the classroom is widespread, consistently growing, and always advancing with more technological reliance. Emerging Realities and the Future of Technology in the Classroom provides an understanding on how technology is integrated into today's classroom and how institutions can be further informed of the importance of technology in today's world. This book examines a variety of pertinent topics that look at the present and future potential roles of technology in the classroom. While highlighting topics such as STEM in online education, leadership and technology, new instructional models in online learning, and gaming in education, this book is essential for teachers across all disciplines and in higher education and K-12, school administrators, principals, instructional designers, librarians, media specialists, educational software developers, educational technologists, IT specialists, practitioners, researchers, academicians, and students interested in the current status of technology in the classroom and its potential role in education for the years ahead.

Internationally, there is a growing body of research about learners’ responses to, and uses of, emerging technologies. However, the adoption of these technologies in teachers’ professional development is still largely under-researched. Much of the existing literature still positions teachers as playing ‘catch-up’ in terms of using technology for teaching and learning in an ever expanding and changing world, and ignores the roles that these emerging technologies can play in teacher, and teacher educator, development and learning. This book aims to address the lack of research in the area, and it contributes to the new knowledge area of how emerging technologies can effectively address professional learning, drawing on case studies and perspectives from across the world. Contributors use a wide variety of approaches to analyse the potential for emerging (and established) technologies, including digital, Web2.0, social media, and IT tools, to develop ‘effective’ or ‘deep’ professional learning for pre- and in-service teachers and teacher educators. This book was originally published as a special issue of Professional Development in Education.