Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology: The Digital Revolution and Schooling in America (Technology, Education--Connections (The TEC Series))

The digital revolution has hit education, with more and more classrooms plugged into the whole wired world. But are schools making the most of new technologies? Are they tapping into the learning potential of today’s Firefox/Facebook/cell phone generation? Have schools fallen through the crack of the digital divide? In Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology, Allan Collins and Richard Halverson argue that the knowledge revolution has transformed our jobs, our homes, our lives, and therefore must also transform our schools. Much like after the school-reform movement of the industrial revolution, our society is again poised at the edge of radical change. To keep pace with a globalized technological culture, we must rethink how we educate the next generation or America will be “left behind.” This groundbreaking book offers a vision for the future of American education that goes well beyond the walls of the classroom to include online social networks, distance learning with “anytime, anywhere” access, digital home schooling models, video-game learning environments, and more.

Allan Collins is professor emeritus of education and social policy at Northwestern University and former co-director of the U.S. Department of Education’s Center for Technology in Education. Richard Halverson is an associate professor of educational leadership and policy analysis at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he is co-founder of the Games, Learning and Society group.