Digital Education

Michael Thomas is Associate Professor in Digital Education and Learning at the University of Central Lancashire, UK.

"This volume is at once a wake-up call to 21st-century educators and an intriguing glimpse at possible futures for teaching and learning with digital technologies." -Kenneth Reeder, Professor, Department of Language and Literacy Education, the University of British Columbia "Digital Education introduces a healthy corrective to exaggerated techno-optimism or techno-pessimism. The thought-provoking edited collection represents one of the first serious attempts to examine how Web 2.0 may not only improve but also help transform education. Contributors to the book bring a wide range of social theory to the task ... And they apply this theory to examining incipient efforts to deploy Web 2.0 tools in a broad range of formal educational settings, especially at the tertiary and adult level. Chapters from and about Australia, Canada, Germany, Indonesia, South Africa, Spain, the UK, the US, and Venezuela result in a diverse international discussion that is not common in educational research, and this breadth helps us to better understand the relationship of theory to practice... The contributions in this book represent an especially broad and thoughtful overview of where we have come on these issues and where we stand today." -Professor Mark Warschauer, University of California, Irvine

• Foreword; M.Warschauer Digital Education: Opportunities, Challenges and Responsibilities; M.Thomas PART I: THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES Modified, Multiplied and (Re-)mixed: Social Media and Digital Literacies; M.Pegrum Research on Web 2.0 Digital Technologies in Education; C.Chaka The Role of Adult Educators in the Age of Social Media; R.Kop & P.Bouchard Educational Networking in the Digital Age; Cristina Costa Integrating Digital Technologies in Education: A Model for Negotiating Change and Resistance to Change; T.Berger & M.Thomas PART II: APPLYING DIGITAL EDUCATION Virtual Learning Environments: Personalizing Learning or Managing Learners?; P.Banyard , J.Underwood , L.Kerlin & J.Stiller Teaching Spanish in Second Life; D.Gonzalez , C.Palomeque & P.Sweeney 'The Wisdom of Practice': Web 2.0 as a Cognitive and Community-Building Tool in Indonesia; M.Burns & P.W.Bodrogini Teaching Research Methods with Social Media; K.S.Burns Deconstructing Formal and Informal Learning Spaces with Social Networking Sites; J.Portman Daley Digital Education: Beyond the 'Wow' Factor; S.Bax