This is a book about an attempt to change the way math was taught in a particular classroom. Its title plays on our everyday usage of the terms theory and practice. In education, these terms are conventionally treated oppositionally—we have theories about what we should do and we have what teachers actually do do. In this way, theory stands prior, logically and chronologically, to practice; practice inevitably becoming theory’s imperfect realization. We ...

The Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) conference has become an internationally-recognized forum for the exchange of research findings related to learning in the context of collaborative activity and the exploration of how such learning might be augmented through technology. This text is the proceedings from CSCL 2005 held in Taipei, Taiwan. This conference marked the 10th anniversary of the first CSCL Conference held at Indiana University in 1995. Subsequent meetings have be...

This special issue focuses on the difficult problem of how observers and researchers can make sense of how collaborating participants develop a shared understanding both of their task and their own participation in it. Or stated in another way, how can we derive meaning from their emergent and situated meaning making? Meaning making has been studied under a variety of names, and can be conceptualized on different levels of abstraction and from a variety of perspectives. The goal is to atte...

CSCL 2: Carrying Forward the Conversation is a thorough and up-to-date survey of recent developments in Computer Supported Collaborative Learning, one of the fastest growing areas of research in the learning sciences. A follow-up to CSCL: Theory and Practice of an Emerging Paradigm (1996), this volume both documents how the field has grown and fosters a meaningful discussion of how the research program might be advanced in substantive ways.Recognizing the long-sta...

This book, about a newly emerging area of research in instructional technology, has as its title the acronym "CSCL." Initially, CSCL was chosen as an acronym for Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning. However, some would argue that "collaborative" is often not a descriptive term for what learners do in instructional settings; further, as the field develops, the technology used to support collaboration may not always involve computers, at least not in the direct ways they have been used...

The Handbook of Design in Educational Technology provides up-to-date, comprehensive summaries and syntheses of recent research pertinent to the design of information and communication technologies to support learning. Readers can turn to this handbook for expert advice about each stage in the process of designing systems for use in educational settings; from theoretical foundations to the challenges of implementation, the process of evaluating the impact of the design and the mann...

This volume gives language teachers, software designers, and researchers who wish to use technology in second or foreign language education the information they need to absorb what has been achieved so far and to make sense of it. It is designed to enable the kind of critical reading of a substantial literature that leads to a balanced and detailed knowledge of the field.Chapter by chapter, the book builds, through description, analysis, examples, and discussion, a detailed picture of mode...

The 4th edition of the Handbook of Research on Educational Communications and Technology expands upon the previous 3 versions, providing a comprehensive update on research pertaining to new and emerging educational technologies. Chapters that are no longer pertinent have been eliminated in this edition, with most chapters being completely rewritten, expanded, and updated Additionally, new chapters pertaining to research methodologies in educational technology have been added due to express...

Teaching is changing. It is no longer simply about passing on knowledge to the next generation. Teachers in the twenty-first century, in all educational sectors, have to cope with an ever-changing cultural and technological environment. Teaching is now a design science. Like other design professionals – architects, engineers, programmers – teachers have to work out creative and evidence-based ways of improving what they do. Yet teaching is not treated as a design profession.Every d...

Starting with the basics and fully grounded in the context of actually doing research, this practical book is the perfect companion as students tackle a business research project head on for the first time.Guiding readers through the research process in author David E. Gray’s approachable style, the book helps them build their understanding and develop the skills they need to establish good practice when planning and doing research in the business world. This second edition offers:...

Written for anyone beginning a research project, this introductory book takes you through the process of analysing your data from start to finish.The author sets out an easy-to-use model for coding data in order to break it down into parts, and then to reassemble it to create a meaningful picture of the phenomenon under study. Full of useful advice, the book guides the reader through the last difficult integrating phase of qualitative analysis including diagramming, memoing, thinki...

A systematic presentation of activity theory, its application to interaction design, and an argument for the development of activity theory as a basis for understanding how people interact with technology.Activity theory holds that the human mind is the product of our interaction with people and artifacts in the context of everyday activity. Acting with Technology makes the case for activity theory as a basis for understanding our relationship with technol...