The role of technology in gifted students' motivation

Although technology by itself may not be motivating, a relationship seems to exist between the opportunities that technology presents and motivation for gifted students. When technology use aligns with authentic or “real‐world” applications, motivation can be enhanced. This article explores the overlap between factors that have historically been shown to increase motivation and the unique affordances of technology tools to meet the needs of gifted and talented students. Some examples of this overlap include skills related to control and autonomy (e.g., time management, project management, and decision making about choices provided), challenge (e.g., perseverance and patience through hard work, proposing a project and following it through to completion), collaboration and cooperation (e.g., teamwork, people skills, social skills, anger management, and communication with students at other schools), curiosity (e.g., finding resources online, finding the work interesting, and learning new things), and recognition (e.g., the opportunity to communicate beyond the school walls, a “real” product). © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.