Literacy(ies) and skills in times of digital education: exploring communication and interaction in digitally mediated learning worlds

This article seeks to explore the notions of literacy(ies) and competences in times of digital education. The aim of the study was to understand, from perspectives of experts, what literacy(ies) and competences are in digital teaching-learning contexts, how they are operationalised, which strategies can be used for their development, and what are the opportunities and challenges for their application in digital education. Through a qualitative approach, four experts were interviewed as privileged informants in their areas of expertise. The individuals interviewed are academics with extensive research in the areas of literacy(ies), digital and infocommunication skills and digital education. The interviews were conducted during the first quarter of 2023, as part of a larger ongoing study - digital and infocommunicational competences in virtual learning environments: practices in e-learning curricular units in Portuguese Higher Education. According to these experts, digital is largely responsible for the recent changes in the world, but the most important thing is not learning or teaching digital: it is developing citizens' skills or competences, exploring communication and interaction in digitally mediated learning worlds. This demands the mobilization of competences to search and exchange information, and to interact with another people in digital environments. This can help citizens become more confident, critical, and open-minded users of today’s technologies.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Facilitation of trialogic spaces: reflections from Irish and Scottish online lesson studies

Digital innovations in teacher education have continued to evolve since the Coronavirus pandemic. As such, there has been recognition of the need to further examine the affordances and constraints of digitally mediated learning environments (Brown-Wilsher, 2021; White & Zimmerman, 2021). In response, this paper draws on the concept of trialogue (Hakkarainen, 2009), i.e. technology mediated dialogue, where digital tools are drawn on to make deliberate building and creation of knowledge accessible. Trialogue involves iterative communication and exchange of ideas in order to develop shared objects (Paavola & Hakkarainen, 2014), which can consist of artefacts, for example, lesson plans; and practices, such as pedagogical techniques. The paper focuses on two different Online Lesson Study projects facilitated by the authors, which took place in Scotland and Ireland. Insights gleaned from each project illustrating trialogue in action are shared, in order to illuminate the potential of trialogic space for enabling teachers’ collaborative learning

Any Time, Any Place, Flexible Pace: Technology-Enhanced Language Learning in a Teacher Education Programme

Ongoing developments in e-learning, improved internet accessibility and increased digital citizenry provide exciting opportunities to integrate effective classroom pedagogies with online educational technologies, creating mixed-mode courses to enhance student engagement and facilitate greater autonomous learning. This research examines pre-service teacher education students’ perceptions of the effectiveness of experiential and digitally-mediated tools which take them beyond the constraints of traditional lecture-type delivery. Quantitative and qualitative results from distance and face-to-face cohorts show the value the students ascribe to tools employed in a modified language course. These are discussed in relation to reported changes in students’ proficiency in the target language and culture, and their teaching confidence, using principles for effective instructed language learning as an interpretive lens. The data provide valuable insights into features that enhanced the students’ digitally-mediated learning experiences in this blended delivery course, including the impact of when, where and how they could engage with course material

Conceptual Model for the Use of Smart Glasses in Ubiquitous Teaching (u-teaching)

Smart glasses, a wearable headset technology, currently trending provides hands-free and augmented reality features. This paper looks at the research around mediated-reality tools to improve the delivery of education. Despite its potential, it has not seen widespread use in education. A suitable implementation framework and pedagogy have been proposed so that smart glasses can be used towards creating digitally-mediated learning (DML) environments. Aurasma is recommended as the implementation framework after a comparison with other frameworks based on factors such as cost, ease-of-use, and accessibility among others. For a suitable pedagogy, new assessment strategies, content personalization, and the use of 3-D learning spaces are recommended. It is argued, that the recommended framework and the pedagogy approach have the potential to improve learning environments for teachers and students. However, there are privacy concerns due to the pervasive nature of Augmented Reality (AR). In the current research, the overall learning environment is considered

Review of Digital language learning and teaching: Research, theory, and practice

This edited book, organized into a preface, an introduction, and 19 chapters, is grouped into two main parts: Part I, The research perspective (the first 10 chapters after the introduction) and Part II, The pedagogical perspective (the last nine chapters). Part I presents the findings of some of the doctoral research funded by Doctoral Dissertation Grants from The International Research Foundation, while Part II, written by more seasoned researchers with remarkable experience in the use of technology in language education, places a focus on key advancement in digital language learning, teaching, and assessment

“We are much closer here”: exploring the use of WhatsApp as a learning environment in a secondary school mathematics class

In this study, we examined a mathematics teacher’s communicative acts on an instant messaging tool, WhatsApp, and its role in creating a sustained learning environment between secondary-school students and a teacher in Turkey. The interactions of a mathematics teacher and his students (n = 38) over two years were explored. The WhatsApp group increased interaction in out-of-school hours. Analysis of the teacher’s communicative acts was the leading force that encouraged the group to continue to interact. The teacher portrayed an informal and sincere presentation of himself on social media. A constructive communication style between teacher and students was fostered by connecting through WhatsApp in out-of-school hours, when the teacher’s informal communicative acts have facilitated their learning. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V

The pedagogy of hyperlinkages: Knowledge curatorialism and the archive of kindness

This article uses a student assessment developed in the “emergency” conditions of the Covid-19 pandemic in South Africa as a tool for refracting and reflecting (Strassler 2011) the changing realities of higher education around the world. It examines the Archive of Kindness as an example of the possibilities enabled by digitally mediated learning, as well as the challenges of teaching and learning in environments where students enter university with varying degrees of digital literacy and skill. It poses questions pertaining to the futures of higher education in a world in which biopolitics are increasingly determined by and through screens, and suggests that uncritical engagements with digital platforms and the corporate entities behind them pose dangers to emerging forms of citizenship. The article details the processes of knowledge curatorialism which are increasingly likely to determine the shape of learning in tertiary education, particularly within the university sector. Here, it argues that the Humanities and Social Sciences will need to play a leading role in providing the language and tools for thinking through the pedagogy of hyperlinkages, where the boundaries between online and offline spaces are increasingly difficult to parse

Promoting sustainable human development in engineering: assessment of online courses within continuing professional development strategies

Higher Education Institutions play a critical role in societies transition towards sustainable development, educating future professionals and decision makers. In the last few decades, a number of technical universities have devoted major efforts to integrating sustainable development into engineering curricula. There is still, however, an increasing need to further transform learning and training environments and build capacity of educators and trainers on sustainable development issues.Against this background, this paper assesses the role of online training courses, within continuing professional development strategies, in promoting sustainable human development in engineering degrees. It was built upon the implementation of a European initiative, the Global Dimension in Engineering Education, promoted by a transdisciplinary consortium of technical universities and non-governmental organisations.In terms of method, this study analyses two sets of quantitative and qualitative indicators to assess i) the perceived quality/relevance of the training proposals, and ii) the learning acquisition of participants. Quantitative indicators were complemented by a descriptive analysis of findings from a semi-structured survey. The results provide evidence that online learning can be an effective approach for continuing professional development of academics. The findings also suggest that participants perceived online courses' contents and curricula, developed jointly by academics and practitioners of non-governmental organisations, as relevant and useful for integrating sustainability principles in teaching activities. To conclude, authors recommend the leaders of higher educational institutions to explore the integration of online courses addressed to faculty into university policy and strategies, as a way to promote professional development and the engagement of academics on sustainable development.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Promoting sustainable human development in engineering: Assessment of online courses within continuing professional development strategies

Higher Education Institutions play a critical role in societies transition towards sustainable development, educating future professionals and decision makers. In the last few decades, a number of technical universities have devoted major efforts to integrating sustainable development into engineering curricula. There is still, however, an increasing need to further transform learning and training environments and build capacity of educators and trainers on sustainable development issues. Against this background, this paper assesses the role of online training courses, within continuing professional development strategies, in promoting sustainable human development in engineering degrees. It was built upon the implementation of a European initiative, the Global Dimension in Engineering Education, promoted by a transdisciplinary consortium of technical universities and non-governmental organisations. In terms of method, this study analyses two sets of quantitative and qualitative indicators to assess i) the perceived quality/relevance of the training proposals, and ii) the learning acquisition of participants. Quantitative indicators were complemented by a descriptive analysis of findings from a semi-structured survey. The results provide evidence that online learning can be an effective approach for continuing professional development of academics. The findings also suggest that participants perceived online courses’ contents and curricula, developed jointly by academics and practitioners of non-governmental organisations, as relevant and useful for integrating sustainability principles in teaching activities. To conclude, authors recommend the leaders of higher educational institutions to explore the integration of online courses addressed to faculty into university policy and strategies, as a way to promote professional development and the engagement of academics on sustainable development

USING ACTIVITY THEORY FOR MODELLING TRANSFORMATIVE DIGITAL LEARNING

In support of ongoing educational transformation in post-Soviet nations, this article positions activity theory (in the tradition of Engeström) as a framework for modelling changes towards innovative forms of collabo-rative, fully online digital learning. A strength of activi-ty theory is that it adopts a holistic socio-technical per-spective in which teachers, learners, technologies, peda-gogical values, roles/identities and rules/cultures are considered together as interdependent elements of col-lective activity. An illustrative example is offered to model a current and envisioned (target) activity system. In addition, a few considerations to guide research are offered. These include an emphasis on measuring the general readiness of students and teachers, and the need to explore gender divides. The goal is to help envision program transformations towards online learning at two partner universities as part of Ukrainian and Lat-vian, government-funded projects