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COMPUTERS ARE changing our world: how we work, how we shop, how we entertain ourselves, how we communicate, how we engage in politics, how we care for our health. The list goes on and on. But will computers change the way we learn? The short answer is yes. Computers are already changing the way we learn -and if you want to understand how, just look at video games. Not because the games that are currently available are going to replace schools as we know them any time soon, but because they give a glimpse into how we might create new and more powerful ways to learn in schools, communities, and workplaces -new ways to learn for a new Information Age. Look at video games because, while they are wildly popular with adolescents and young adults, they are more than just toys. Look at video games because they create new social and cultural worlds -worlds that help us learn by integrating thinking, social interaction, and technology, all in service of doing things we care about.We want to be clear from the start that video games are no panacea. Like books and movies, they can be used in

The recent press for high-stakes accountability has challenged school leaders to use data to guide the practices of teaching and learning. This article considers how local school leaders build data-driven instructional systems to systematically improve student learning. Such systems are presented as a framework involving data acquisition, data reflection, program alignment and integration, program design, formative feedback, and test preparation. The article reviews data collected in a yearlong study of four schools to describe how leaders structure opportunities to engage in data-driven decision making.

This paper drew upon a recent book (Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology) to summarize a number of prospects and challenges arising from the appropriation of digital technology into learning and educational practice. Tensions between traditional models of schooling and the affordances of digital media were noted, while the promise of these technologies for shaping a new system of education was reviewed. It was argued that new technology brings radical opportunities but also significant challenges. The urgency of seeking a coherent model for the future of education in a technological age was stressed. Keywordscomputers and education, educational technology, future of education, history of education, life long learning, schools and technology.The world of education is currently undergoing a second revolution. Digital technologies such as computers, mobile devices, digital media creation and distribution tools, video games and social networking sites are transforming how we think about schooling and learning. All around us, people are learning with the aid of new technologies: people of all ages are playing complex video games; workers are interacting with simulations that put them in challenging situations; students are taking courses at online high schools and colleges; and adults are engaging in social networks and online learning environments to manage their professional lives. New technologies create learning opportunities that challenge the traditional practices of schools and colleges. These new learning niches enable people of all ages to pursue learning on their own terms. People around the world are taking their education out of school and into homes, libraries, Internet cafes and workplaces where they can decide what they want to learn, when they want to learn and how they want to learn.School systems organized around age-grading, traditional curricular sequencing, accepted professional accreditation and long-standing funding models have struggled in adapting to new, learner-directed technologies. We often think that our current educational institutions have always been here, and have always struggled to adapt to change. However, the genesis of our current schooling system occurred in response to a similar technological and economic tumult -the industrial revolution. Our current model of schooling grew out of the technologies and social practices of the industrial revolution.The rise of the public schools moved from an apprenticeship era to a world of nearly universal schooling that came to identify learning with schooling. The current technology revolution differs from the industrial revolution in one important way. While the industrial revolution gave rise to a universal schooling system where none had previously existed, the information technology revolution presses a very real, active system to reconsider its fundamental practices. Our paper highlights some of the challenges involved when a technology movement seeks to redefine learning in the face of a vibrant, pre-existing institutional str...