There is no doubt of the still rapidly growing importance of teaching about, and the use of information technology in education at all levels from pre-school to university. Although beginning over two decades ago this area of research continues to attract a great deal of interest. Due to this, as well as the growing demand for research publications in this area, from this year on Education and Information Technologies (EAIT) will appear in six issues rather than in its previous four. As in previous issues of EAIT, the articles presented in this issue cover a wide range of IT and Education issues from different levels of education, from authors in many different countries around the world. To begin the new-year the first article, contributed by Ali Al Musawi, Abdullah Al Hashmi, Ali Mahdi Kazem and Fatima Al Busaidi from Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, Sultanate of Oman and Salim Al Khaifi from the Ministry of Education, Muscat, Sultanate of Oman is: Perceptions of Arabic language teachers toward their use of technology at the Omani basic education schools. Their article reports on part of a 3-year strategic research project to measure the effectiveness of the design and use of new software for learning Arabic. Its particular objective was to evaluate the use of technology in Omani basic education schools as it is perceived by Arabic language teachers. The research did this by using descriptive methods with a questionnaire as the main instrument. The study found that teachers mostly use computer software and presentation devices to introduce and explain their lessons, but that significant differences were found among teachers in terms of teaching experience in favour of the 1– 3 years category. There were however, no significant differences attributed to technological expertise. The next article: Professionalizing inservice teachers’ focus on technological pedagogical and content knowledge is by Seyum Tekeher Getenet, Kim Beswick and Rosemary Callingham from the University of Tasmania, Australia. The article notes that in Ethiopia, primary school teachers of science and mathematics are encouraged to integrate Information and Communication Technology into their teaching as a means of Educ Inf Technol (2016) 21:1–4 DOI 10.1007/s10639-015-9454-9