In an earlier editorial I pointed out that the mission of the Journal of Education and Information Technologies (EAIT) notes, in part, that:

...we aim to provide perspectives at all levels, from the micro of specific applications or instances of use in classrooms to macro concerns of national policies and major projects; from classes of five year olds to adults in tertiary institutions; from teachers and administrators, to researchers and designers; from institutions to open, distance and lifelong learning.

While we receive a wide range of articles for EAIT, there have been few of late that have moved beyond the classroom to discuss topics such as ‘national policies and major projects’ or ‘lifelong learning’ in the form of use of computers by retired people, or by people with various disabilities. Perhaps less people are interested in such issues, but I doubt this. Again I make a call for articles for the journal on all aspects of the use of Information Technologies in Education from the micro to the macro and from theory to practice. While many of the articles received by the journal come from Education Faculty academics from around the world, it is good to see articles also coming in from School Teachers and from academics from Computer Science and Information Systems. It would be even better to see more articles coming in from an even wider range of contributors.

The first article in this issue is by Jing Lei from Syracuse University and Blaine Morrow from Palomar College in the US, and looks at Teachers’ Adoption of Technology Innovation into Pedagogical Practices. The paper summarised findings from an empirical study of the effectiveness of a technology incentive project to facilitate the adoption of a web technology among college instructors. The study’s results indicate that teachers’ adoption of technology can be facilitated by providing incentives such as involving them in the decision-making process, helping them to develop a plan, building a collegial community so they can learn from peers, providing strong leadership and providing timely support.

The next article: Butterfly Under a Pin: Exploring the Voices and Stories Told of Faculty Who Adopt ICTs for Teaching and Learning Practices by Terry Kidd from Texas A&M University in the US, explores the lived experiences of faculty who adopt ICT in a higher education setting for teaching and learning purposes. The study identified organisational support, adequate and quality resources, faculty development and administration, leadership and change as emerging themes affecting the ability of faculty to adopt ICT for teaching and learning.

Sandy Li, Jacky Pow, Emily Wong and Alex Fung from Hong Kong Baptist University, Vine Education Consultancy and The Hong Kong Institute of Education in China then discuss: Empowering Student Learning through Tablet PCs: A Case Study. The article describes how empowering students to learn through ICT can be seen as a way to address the growing awareness and demand to prepare students to participate in the global knowledge economy. In the article they report on the use of Tablet PCs to support teaching and learning in a primary school in Hong Kong, and provide insights into how schools can harness and capitalise on the opportunities offered by such emerging technologies.

Opinions on computers, and efficacy of a computer-based learning: a pilot study by Maria Pietronilla Penna and Vera Stara from the Università degli Studi di Cagliari in Italy tackles the common belief that positive opinions held by students and teachers on the possibilities entailed by computer use will increase the efficacy of computer-based educational processes. This paper reports an investigation undertaken in a primary school to test this belief, but the findings, contrarily to what was expected, do not appear to support the hypothesis that a positive opinion of computers can lead per se to higher learning efficacy in a computer-based educational environment as compared with a traditional educational setting.

Next, an article by Michael Hammond, from the University of Warwick in the UK, looks at the topic: What is an affordance and can it help us understand the use of ICT in education? in an attempt to explore the contribution of affordance to an understanding of the use of ICT for teaching and learning. The article looks at Gibson’s original idea of affordance and at some of the difficulties associated with the use of the word, before going on to describe its translation into the field of design through the work of Norman and others. The paper locates key points of divergence within the usage of ‘affordance’, as involving direct perception, invariant properties and complementarity and concludes by arguing that affordance offers a distinctive perspective on the use of ICT in education because of its focus on possibilities for action.

The final article in this issue: Four Requirements for Digital Case Study Libraries by Hao Jiang, Craig Ganoe and John Carroll from Pennsylvania State University in the US, notes the importance of case studies in education as a means of engaging students with realistic materials and practical problems. The article proposes four requirements for interactive case study libraries, focusing on authentic learning, social interaction, resource accumulation and communities of practice. It makes use of a usability engineering case study library as an example to discuss design concerns derived from these requirements as well as use in practice.

This issue has articles from the USA, UK and Italy, but it would be good to see articles also from the developing parts of the world. In future issues I would like to see an even greater diversity of topics relevant to Education and Information Technologies. As many of the articles we receive are related to the practice of ICT use, more theoretical article on any aspect of ICT and education would be most welcome.