This book introduces the capability approach – in which wellbeing, agency and justice are the core values – as a powerful normative lens to examine technology and its role in development. This approach attaches central moral importance to individual human capabilities, understood as effective opportunities people have to lead the kind of lives they have reason to value. The book examines the strengths, limitations and versatility of the capability approach when applied to technology, and shows the need to supplement it with other approaches in order to deal with the challenges that technology raises. The first chapter places the capability approach within the context of broader debates about technology and human development – discussing amongst others the appropriate technology movement. The middle part then draws on philosophy and ethics of technology in order to deepen our understanding of the relation between technical artefacts and human capabilities, arguing that we must simultaneously ‘zoom in’ on the details of technological design and ‘zoom out’ to see the broader socio-technical embedding of a technology. The book examines whether technology is merely a neutral instrument that expands what people can do and be in life, or whether technology transfers may also impose certain views of what it means to lead a good life. The final chapter examines the capability approach in relation to contemporary debates about ‘ICT for Development’ (ICT4D), as the technology domain where the approach has been most extensively applied so far. This book is an invaluable read for students in Development Studies and STS, as well as policy makers, practitioners and engineers looking for an accessible overview of technology and development from the perspective of the capability approach.

In recent decades, digital technologies have permeated daily routines, whether at school, at work, or during personal engagements. Stakeholders in education are promoting innovative pedagogical practices, the business sector is utilizing updated processes. Even the public is improving their lifestyles by utilizing innovative technology. In a knowledge construction setting, technology becomes a tool to assist the user to access information, communicate information, and collaborate with others towards human development and knowledge management. In this context, ubiquitous computing has emerged to support humans in their daily life activities in a personal, unattended, and remote manner. Ubiquitous Technologies for Human Development and Knowledge Management serves as an authoritative reference source for the latest scholarly research on the widespread incorporation of technological innovations around the globe. It examines how the application of ubiquitous computing technologies affects various aspects of human lives, specifically in human development and knowledge management. The chapters demonstrate how these ubiquitous technologies, networks, and associated systems have proliferated and have woven themselves into the very framework of everyday life. It covers categorized investigations ranging from e-governance, knowledge management, ICTs, public services, innovation, and ethics. This book is essential for ICT specialists, technologists, teachers, instructional designers, practitioners, researchers, academicians, and students interested in the latest technologies and how they are impacting human development and knowledge management across different disciplines.

"This book aspires to describe the link between ICTs and human development (which includes economic, social and political development), to identify the potential applications of ICTs in several areas, and to provide insightful analysis about those factors (also contextual and institutional ones) that affect ICTs for development initiatives success or failure"--Provided by publisher.

Technology Play and Brain Development brings together current research on play development, learning technology, and brain development. The authors first navigate the play technology and brain development interface, highlighting the interactive qualities that make up each component. Next, they survey the changes in play materials and the variations in time periods for play that have occurred over the past 15-20 years, and then explain how these changes have had the potential to affect this play/brain developmental interaction. The authors also cover various types of technology-augmented play materials used by children at age levels from infancy to adolescence, and describe the particular qualities that may enhance or change brain development. In so doing, they present information on previous and current studies of the play and technology interface, in addition to providing behavioral data collected from parents and children of varied ages related to their play with different types of play materials. Significantly, they discuss how such play may affect social, emotional, moral, and cognitive development, and review futurist predictions about the potential qualities of human behavior needed by generations to come. The authors conclude with advice to toy and game designers, parents, educators, and the wider community on ways to enhance the quality of technology-augmented play experiences so that play will continue to promote the development of human characteristics needed in the future.

In this volume, Robert J. Sternberg and David D. Preiss bring together different perspectives on understanding the impact of various technologies on human abilities, competencies, and expertise. The inclusive range of historical, comparative, sociocultural, cognitive, educational, industrial/organizational, and human factors approaches will stimula

Offering a study of biological, biomedical and biocultural approaches, this book is suitable for researchers, professors and graduate students across the interdisciplinary area of human development. It is presented in the form of lectures to facilitate student programming.