With this collection, the editors successfully combine theory and case studies to create an understanding of future learning environment directions in accordance with future technology and pedagogy development. Current learning environment limitations have created a need for innovation in pedagogy and emerging frontier technologies, ultimately leading to the evolution of smart learning environments.

Each chapter presents a unique view of technology’s impact on education theory and practice, along with a look to the future. Through the authors’ views on this development process, many factors influencing education and its future are recognized and clearly described. Such an approach makes this edition a very useful tool for understanding the education and technology convergence. A perhaps strange but nonetheless interesting statement in chapter 13 identifies the book’s core idea: “The old way of teaching will not survive in the digital and always-on era.”

The editors choose the idea that, in the coming decades, education will be aimed at individualization and creating a unique approach for each student’s personality. Learning environments will provide various sources and forms of teaching materials due to frontier technologies heavily related to artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing, and big data analytics. Such a scenario reshapes the learning process and education policy in a way that integrates technology into every learning task, making way for the future school of 2030. Only ten years away, projects related to technology integration and the learning process are already visible. They are presented through 13 chapters, each focused on a specific area of the technology and education convergence of the future.

The chapters also emphasize the importance of teacher knowledge and skills needed for the schools of the future. The existing “focus on the current state of teacher knowledge, while paying little attention to teachers’ ability to grow” and develop skills for utilizing new teaching technologies, is changing significantly. In the 21st century, as curricula, educational technologies, and expectations rapidly change, “traditional frameworks rarely consider the effect of teacher collaboration with peers, which is especially important in [an age of new digital technologies].” Thus, the new 4D theoretical framework for examining knowledge for teaching is also explained as a tool that helps with the examination of success in the acquisition of knowledge by teachers, as well as the teachers’ ability to learn through collaboration and technology used to promote student learning. Several key technologies are explained, covering the specific proliferation of each technology. Hence, with such an approach, readers can learn more about the impact of frontier technologies on specific aspects of learning and teaching. These technologies are embedded into an intelligent learning environment based on data or on knowledge engineering. It also includes virtual and cyber-physical learning environments where each author applies her/his own vision of technologies to be used. Such scenarios include observations on wearables and embedded systems, which are very useful for labs and teaching activities under science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) learning platforms.

Game-based learning and the gamification of teaching strategies and system thinking are also covered, giving students real-world experience with their game. It is yet another instrument for developing new skills, for example, critical thinking, communication and collaboration, and creativity. Readers will find basic views on how to implement game-based learning and how to teach with it, as well as how to integrate it with current teaching and learning methods. Communication and collaboration as an important category of students’ skills in the future opens the space for using wikis in class to support online collaborative teaching activities. This process includes online collaboration as a useful tool in information technology (IT)-based teaching and leaning. Wikis as a digital medium and online collaborative platform provide many opportunities to implement frontier technologies in teaching and learning, so some observations on how wikis support and enhance teacher/student technology skills are also presented, with an additional focus on knowledge acquisition by frontier technologies. Such an approach shows how technology-enhanced teacher education and professional development, as well as technology-enabled learning and pedagogy, move toward a multidisciplinary scenario, including various disciplines such as educational learning theory, computer science, information science, psychology, communications, and AI.

The book presents many interesting and challenging thoughts and ideas about the schools of the future. Everyone working in education, from teachers to policymakers to librarians, should consider this edition as they prepare for the future.