This book relates contemporary information and communication technologies (ICT) to their specific teaching and learning functions, including how ICT is appropriated for and by educational or learning communities. The technological "hot spots" of interest in this book include: groupware or multi-user technologies such as group archives or synchronous co-construction environments, embedded interactive technologies in the spirit of ubiquitous computing, and modeling tools based on rich representations.

Important features of these new technologies include: the move from individually oriented software tools to multi-user tools providing group awareness as well as facilities for the co-construction of knowledge; a definition of software use beyond a single piece of software towards multiple applications which are technically interoperable and task and role compliant in a social situation; high interactivity and creative potential with high productive activity and initiative on the part of the user (as opposed to receptive usage schemes of many educational multimedia applications); new kinds of peripherals in the spirit "of ubiquitous computing and augmented reality", which redefine the borderline between physical and virtual action.

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