Michael W. Allen, the Chairman and CEO of Allen Interactions, is an architect of interactive multimedia learning and is recognized for his many insights, inventions, and presentations. With over 50 years of experience in e-learning, both in academic and corporate settings, he is known for his role in creating Authorware and overseeing the work of…

Stavros Demetriadis is currently an Assistant Professor with the Department of Informatics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTh) in Greece. He also earned his Bachelor's degree in Physics and a Master Diploma in Electronic Physics from AUTh. He became interested in information and communications technologies when he was a high school…

Brian Lewis, International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) chief executive officer, is an education advocate and leader specializing in management and governance, policy, corporate communications, branding, and marketing. He provides leadership to ISTE's Washington, DC, and Eugene, Oregon, offices and directs organizational…

For some time, this author had been planning to write a column about Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs). He hesitated, however, mainly because there had of late been so much written and published on this topic that is was difficult to see what could usefully be added. He does have strong feelings about the topic, which he would like to share…

Many recent models of learning and instruction center learning on real-world tasks and problems to support knowledge application and transfer. Among these models are problem-based learning and task-centered learning, two different approaches to learning that are often mistaken for one another. However, there are important distinctions between…

Most classrooms in the U.S. are composed of students with different learning styles and experiences as well as different achievement levels (Ferguson, 2001). Personalized learning is a unique way of students' learning determined by their own learning style, pace, and needs. Focusing on individual differences, personalized instruction aims to…

In this study, the authors examined the journal "International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning" to discover research trends in the articles published during the past decade (2002-2011). They researched and analyzed articles to determine trends in the research methods and types of articles published, as well as the key…

STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) disciplines are considered key to the scientific and economic improvement in the United States. As noted by the Carnegie Corporation of New York (2011), we need a nation in which "all" teachers and thus, all students, are "STEM-capable" (p. 2), that is, equipped with a broad…

Information and communications technology (ICT) is affecting every part of our society. Education is no exception, but here the impact of ICT is fragmented at best. The purpose of this article is to conceptualize and develop the idea of the smart classroom that integrates emerging information technologies with advanced pedagogies. System…

As designers utilize design thinking while moving through a design space between problem and solution, they must rely on design intelligence, precedents, and intuition in order to arrive at meaningful and inventive outcomes. Thus, instructional designers must constantly re-conceptualize their own identities and what it means to be a designer.…

Massive Open Online Courses (or MOOCs) are the subject of numerous recent articles in "The Chronicle of Higher Education," "The New York Times," and other publications related to their increasing use by a variety of universities to reach large numbers of online students. This article describes the current state of these online…

The authors analyzed all research articles published between 2002 and 2011 in the international journal "Instructional Science," with a goal to provide an understanding of the type of research being published in this journal, major contributing authors, and the most-cited publications of this time period. They examined research…

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…

Despite the fact that the practice of instructional design (ID) began in the U. S. military (Branson et al., 1975; Jeffrey & Bratton-Jeffrey, 2004; Reiser, 2102), there is little known regarding which design and development heuristics military instructional designers deem important to the ID process. The study reported in this article was…

This article describes one school district department's efforts to train and support teachers in providing effective curriculum, instruction, and assessment methods to their students. This large, K-12 district embraces the spectrum of low to high SES schools, a large number of gifted students from diverse populations, and a variety of gifted…