This article discusses video games as "attractors" to "affinity spaces." It argues that affinity spaces are key sites today where people teach and learn 21st Century skills. While affinity spaces are proliferating on the Internet as interest-and-passion-driven sites devoted to a common set of endeavors, they are not new, just…

Many resources now punctuate the maker movement landscape. However, some schools and communities still struggle to understand this burgeoning movement. How do we define these spaces and differentiate them from previous labs and shops? Through a multidimensional framework, stakeholders should consider how the structure, access, staffing, and tools…

The maker movement, with its focus on-hands on learning through creating with familiar materials, has seen growth in both formal and informal learning spaces. This article examines three informal learning spaces that have redesigned their space (or a portion of it) to accommodate several tenets of the maker movement and in various ways have become…

This study examined the journal "Interactive Learning Environments" to discover trends from 2004-2013. The authors looked at trends in article topics, research methods, authorship, citations, keyword frequencies, phrase counts of article abstracts, and article citations according to Google Scholar. Evidence is provided of the journal's…

This design case (Boling, 2010) includes the challenges, considerations, and decisions associated with the design and development of a learning space/place (Dourish, 2006; Harrison & Dourish, 1996) focused on innovative, creative, and imaginative ways to transform teaching and learning with technology. The T.E.C.H. Playground in the College of…

Imagination is a powerful engine that can drive people to bring their ideas, dreams, and desires to reality. The imagination constructs stories that lead people to create. Combining imagination with engineering knowledge creates inventions which initially might seem fantastic. The authors provide in this article a brief overview of a successful…

Well over one million high school students drop out of U.S. high schools each year. The human and financial tolls are startling and cannot be sustained in an era when the country is looking for means to remain globally competitive. What would it take to dramatically reduce the problem? USC's Rossier School of Education helped found an independent…

As with any innovation, the adoption and diffusion of digital technologies in higher education have also brought unintended consequences. This article discusses the unintended misuse of these technologies in the higher education setting. Depending upon severity, these consequences discussed--distraction, addiction, academic dishonesty, and…

Virtual classrooms and virtual activities have waxed and waned, with most focusing on fostering learning in the cognitive domain and, realistically, most becoming rapidly discontinued. But social virtual realities (SVR) are uniquely "social," so what about interpersonal skills? This article describes the authors' experiences exploring SVR as a…

This article considers some of the unique affordances that Multi-User Virtual Environments--in particular, Second Life--present to the design of learning environments. Drawing upon some preliminary experiences of acquainting teachers in several schools in Singapore with Second Life, specific attention is paid to the inherent spatiality of the…

Technology has been shown to positively influence student learning when students explore technology-rich tasks that simultaneously require them to use higher-order thinking skills (HOTS), such as analyzing or evaluating information or creating new representations of knowledge. Educational technology researchers have posited that in order for…

A number of indicators, including new professional organizations, the proliferation of software tools, and the launch of a new international journal, are signaling a critical mass of interest in ePortfolios in educational settings. This article describes the current ePortfolio landscape by examining the key promises offered by such tools in…

Powerful and transformative learning experiences display characteristics in common with each other. Emerging communication technologies may increase opportunities for powerful and transformative learning experiences. To explore this question, there are four sections to this article. First, it is observed that there are many interesting synergies…

The use of augmented reality (AR) tools, where virtual objects such as tables and graphs can be displayed and be interacted with in real scenes created from imaging devices, in mainstream school curriculum is uncommon, as they are potentially costly and sometimes bulky. Thus, such learning tools are mainly applied in tertiary institutions, such as…

The authors propose using the Enter-the-Story teaching method for language learning in Multi-User Virtual Environments (MUVEs). A MUVE's immersive story-world imbued with rich cultural artifacts provides an appealing environment for young learners to learn a language by taking on roles in a story and describing their imaginative experience in the…