New Learning Times: The Transformation of Education in the Information Age> Series Editors: Gary Natriello (gjn6@columbia.edu) and Hui Soo Chae (chae@tc.edu) We are partnering with Routledge Publishers to release a series of books highlighting efforts to advance learning in the digital age. The editors welcome inquiries about the series. CALL FOR PROPOSALS Rationale The education sector has entered a period with the potential for radical transformation. The foundation of this transformation lies in the shift from the industrial era to the information era, an era characterized by rapid advances in computing and communications technologies and the corresponding advances in learning opportunities that are now possible. Such enhanced foundations, when joined by the rapidly growing global demand for citizens educated in all areas of knowledge, signal a rare occasion for true change in the way education is conducted or what historian Lawrence Cremin has identified as a reconfiguration of the educating institutions. New avenues of supply and dramatically enlarged demand confront us as far as the eye can see. While predictions of the future are always imperfect, the educational transformation already underway in its early stages suggests that we can anticipate: a) massive change as the current educational sector is displaced by new learning avenues; b) the introduction of both cost enhancing and cost reducing applications of new technologies; c) new roles for learners and teachers reshaped by the new constellation of learning environments and tools; d) a very substantial decline in the cost of learning on the order of the 90% reduction that accompanied production changes during the industrial revolution; e) a decline in the importance of traditional education policies and a corresponding growth in the importance of policies governing communications, information, culture, and technology; and f) the transition of educational research from a stand-alone activity conducted in isolation from the educational enterprise to an activity embedded in the very design of digital educational enterprises. This series of books will be designed to engage a new generation of educators, learners, and the concerned public to shape the future of learning opportunities. Series Goals and Objectives Goals: The major goal of this book series is to share the experiences of early pioneers leading the effort to transform the learning opportunities available to learners across the globe. The emphasis will be to document active efforts to shape the transformation through the development of new approaches/strategies, environments/institutions/networks, and tools/technologies/practices. Working toward this overall goal will require that the series:

• Address formal and informal learning opportunities with the potential to be transformed at all levels -- prek-12, post-secondary, adult
• Focus on well-conceived approaches
• Emphasize approaches, environments, and tools that promise to reduce the cost of learning
• Document specific concrete instances of new learning opportunities
• Make use of data generated as part of the design and development process
• Communicate an action orientation and change agenda
• Demonstrate new possibilities

Objectives: The purpose of this series is to create a set of guidebooks to an educational future characterized by plentiful, low-cost learning opportunities available to learners throughout the world. The audience for these guidebooks includes all those with an interest in shaping the future of education, whatever their role inside or outside of the current educational system. In particular, these volumes will be of interest to educators, educational technologists, educational researchers, and designers. The guidebooks will:

• Articulate a broad perspective to support the continuing transformation of the education sector
• Supply well-defined lines of action to support that transformation
• Describe proof-of-concept efforts to realize a new configuration of learning options
• Empower readers to become active designers of the new infrastructure for learning

Features Each book will deal with a single big idea. This could be a) an approach or strategy (e.g. lower cost education), b) an environment, institution, or network (e.g., an online academy), or c) a tool, technology, or practice (e.g., a digital archive). Each book will take an action orientation. That is, there will be an emphasis on what the reader can do as a result of reading the book. Each book will include well-developed concrete examples to show readers how key concepts can be put into practice. Please contact the editors for more information on preparing a proposal.