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This article examines ways in which graduates of an online teacher certification program integrate technology into social studies instruction. With dramatic growth in the number of online teacher certification programs, educators are faced with how to ensure their graduates incorporate effective teaching strategies, including technology, into classrooms. Research over the past decade indicates that teachers do not integrate technology within social studies instruction in meaningful ways, beyond traditional approaches to teaching (Ravitz & Wong, 1999; Van Fossen & Shively, 2003, 2009). Results from this study indicate that online teacher education graduates, who have access to technology within their schools, find meaningful ways to integrate such technology into social studies instruction. Teacher educators must conduct more research, and receive more funding, to follow online teacher education graduates. Today’s new generation of tech-savvy students deserve teachers who can competently integrate technology into all content areas.

Social studies teachers possess a daunting task in a 21^st century environment of economic-mindedness and technological infatuation. In a setting of individualism and instant gratification, enabling a future citizenry to realize the patterns of economic disparity and to accept their responsibilities towards other less fortunate citizens provides a formidable challenge. The authors interpret understandings of citizenship as being closely related to conceptualizations of economics and view methods by which classrooms employ instructional technology as paramount to exploring these associations. This paper conveys how technology represents an instructional resource that may foster exploration and examination of these relationships and describes a student-centered cooperative instructional model for its classroom implementation.

Similar to other parts of the United States, its southern region is still wrestling with the implications of the resegregation of America’s schools. Unlike other parts of the country, however, the Deep South demons are rooted in a vastly different historical context. This chapter offers an historical analysis of the educational problems in the Deep South, with strong emphasis on gifted programming. Further, in this chapter, we present and describe a framework that could guide educators as they strive to identify giftedness among children of color and implement programming in a culturally responsive manner.