The disjuncture between the design intent of the developers of ICTs and the needs of the users has often led to surprising use of new technologies, as users have refused to become mere agents of the designers. Individual users have adopted their own uses of ICTs based on the complex webs of relations and meanings in which they function as social actors. Instead of adjusting these webs to new ICTs, they have fit the ICTs into their pre-existing social webs, often resulting in imaginative and creative uses of new technologies, not envisaged by the original designers. The contributions in this volume provide studies of such integrations of ICTs into the lives of human users, and demonstrate that such uses should not be regarded as 'faulty' or 'mistaken', merely because they 'fail' to meet the expectations of the original designers of the ICTs. Instead, human users should be given precedence over ICTs, and the creative uses of 'universal' technologies by individual users should be emphasised and studied, so as to move towards a better understanding and appreciation of the integration of ICTs into human lives. This book was originally published as special issue of The Information Society.

The ebook edition of this title is Open Access, thanks to Knowledge Unlatched funding, and freely available to read online. This book explains the diversity of older adults' approaches towards technology and provides recommendations for practitioners and designers seeking to connect with an aging market.

This popular text for primary trainees in teaching primary ICT has been updated in line with the new computing curriculum. What do you need to know to teach ICT and computing in primary schools? How do you teach it? This book provides practical guidance on how to teach ICT and the computing curriculum in primary schools alongside the necessary subject knowledge. It explores teaching and learning with applications and technologies, addressing the role of the professional teacher with regards to important issues such as e-safety. This Sixth Edition is updated in line with the new curriculum for computing. It includes new material on how to integrate programming and computational thinking and explores how to harness new tools such as blogging and social media to enrich learning and teaching. Written in an accessible way, it will help trainees to develop confidence in their own approach to teaching. ICT and computing is both a subject and a powerful teaching and learning tool throughout the school curriculum and beyond, into many areas of children’s learning lives. This text highlights the importance of supporting children to become discerning and creative users of technology as opposed to passive consumers.

Everyday Innovators explores the active role of people, collectively and individually, in shaping the use of information and communication technologies. It examines issues around acquiring and using that knowledge of users, how we should conceptualise the role of users and understand the forms and limitations of their participation. To what extent should we think of users as being innovative and creative? To what extent is this routine or exceptional, confined to particular group of users or part of many people’s experience of technologies? Where does the nature of the ICT or the particularities of its design impose constraints on the active role that users can play in their interaction with devices and services? Where do the horizons and orientations of the users influence or limit what they want and expect of their ICTs and how they use them? This book enables a cross-fertilisation of perspectives from different disciplines and aims to provide new insights into the role of users, drawing out both applied and theoretical implications

Virtual worlds are places where humans interact, and as such they can be environments for research and learning. However, they are complex and mutable in ways that more controlled and traditional environments are not. Although computer-mediated, virtual worlds are multifaceted social systems like the offline world, and choosing to study virtual world phenomena demands as much consideration for the participants, the environment and the researcher as offline. By exploring virtual worlds as places of research and learning, the international practitioners in this book demonstrate the power of these worlds to replicate and extend our arenas of research and learning. They focus on process and outcomes and consider questions that arise from engaging in teaching and research in these spaces, including new approaches to research ethics, internationalization, localization, and collaboration in virtual worlds. This book was originally published as a special issue of Learning, Media & Technology.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 46th Annual Conference of the Southern African Computer Lecturers' Association on ICT Education, SACLA 2017, held in Magaliesburg, South Africa, in July 2017. The 22 revised full papers presented together with an extended abstract of a keynote paper were carefully reviewed and selected from 63 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on ICT students of a new generation; technology and gaming in nowadays education; educational cooperation with the ICT industry; computer programming education; ICT courses and curricula.

An accessible, engaging, and timely overview of the key debates surrounding the role of mobile media in today’s society. Edited by Thilo von Pape and Veronika Karnowski, this volume includes contributions from a variety of geographical and disciplinary backgrounds, reflecting the diverse standpoints within the field of mobile media and communication. The collection explores perspectives from the micro-level of individual or small group appropriation of mobile media, to the uses and effects among larger communities, public spaces, and societies at large. The chapters address individual uses and effects of mobile media, such as problematic smartphone use, news consumption through mobile media, and mobile media as an empowerment tool for entrepreneurs. They also discuss the role of mobile media in private and professional social constellations (phubbing, personal mobile device use at work) and in struggles over personal empowerment, counter-power, and global development. Looking beyond the smartphone, the book also explores underlying infrastructures and emerging technologies such as augmented and virtual reality. This book is a key resource for students and scholars of media and communication, as well as policy-makers and practitioners working in related areas such as media education.