The Future of Innovation and Technology in Education

Policies and Practices for Teaching and Learning Excellence

Anna Visvizi, Miltiadis D. Lytras, Linda Daniela, Anna Visvizi, Miltiadis D. Lytras, Linda Daniela

• Editore: Emerald Publishing Limited
• Anno: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781787565579
• Argomento: Education
• Categoria: Education Technology

This book focuses on approaches to teaching and learning that integrate emerging technologies to enhance the quality of education. It brings together conceptual and empirical insights to elaborate on the design of effective programs, educational policies and educational administration requirements. The chapters cover topics such as social media's use in learning, virtual learning, innovative pedagogy, data mining, massive open online courses (MOOCs) and sustainable education. Special emphasis is placed on virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR), and the use of electronic devices such as tablets and smartphones in the classroom. The authors explore how advances in information and communication technology (ICT) can improve opportunities through education for all. It presents an international perspective, with authors from Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and North and South America.

Part I

Learning Innovation for Digital Economy and Sustainable Development

Chapter 1

How to Predict the Unpredictable: Technology-enhanced Learning and Learning Innovations in Higher Education

Linda Daniela, Anna Visvizi and Miltiadis D. Lytras

Abstract

The digitisation of various parts of society is developing at an increasingly rapid rate, which effects the way people receive services and how familiar they are with new innovations and technological challenges in educational environments. The future members of society must be prepared to participate in the creation of new innovative solutions as well as to support the process of knowledge creation. Despite the fact that rapid development of technologies requires society to immediately respond, even under these circumstances society must be able to make meaningful decisions. These processes put on the forefront of competence have the ability to predict the unpredictable, which means that the educational environment must to a certain extent be able to predict what has not yet existed and cannot be verified. However, it must at the same time involve specialists from different fields who must deal with technologies and technological solutions that have not been tested or proven consistent in the long run, measure their impact and predict what services are up to date and what technologies and skills are required. This section examines the conditions for technology-enhanced learning (TEL) in a higher education (HE) context to understand what technologies and digital solutions have traditionally been used as well as the role of educators in driving TEL. The aim of the research is to conduct a pilot study to identify the most recent trends in the use of technologies in HE, identify the future research directions, predict the future directions of development and collect and analyse the obtained data.

Keywords: Technology-enhanced learning; learning innovations; higher education; shift in academic identity; active learning; digital competence

Introduction

The ever-expanding digitisation of various parts of society and the ever-expanding potential of various technologies, digital solutions and virtual and augmented reality are gradually taking over the educational environment. However, there are still many blind spots in this area: On the one hand, there is a fairly wide range of technologies and digital solutions, on the other hand, these sources are not always fully used in the study process. One of the reasons for this is undoubtedly the conservatism of educational environment, where various innovative solutions are first studied and analysed for their outcomes while rapid technological progress points to the need for even more swift changes and transformation in both societal and educational systems. These problems are multidimensional, because on the one hand, students want to use innovative solutions in their study process that would allow access to knowledge at any time and from any place; on the other hand, the students are not prepared to make meaningful use of all the opportunities offered.

The process of change is also restrained by the organisational conditions of the educational system that prevent immediate changes before they are tested, coordinated and included in study course descriptions, curricula and so on. Processes are also influenced by academic personnel whose attitude towards technologies and technological solutions is among the most important factors for whether certain technology and technological solutions should be used or not.

The chapter is structured as follows. Literature on the research problem is analysed, and the methodology of the research is described. This is followed by an analysis of the obtained results, discussion about the results and conclusions.

Literature Analysis

Together with technology-driven learning transformations that require a two-dimensional pedagogical process (i.e. student/teacher, learning content/teaching aids, the teacher teaches/the student is studying, etc.), relationships become multi-dimensional, where the instructor supports learning by promoting active learning processes and offering various teaching aids (including digital teaching materials, technological solutions, cloud-based information, data analysis principles, etc.). Yet students using technological advancement opportunities and self-directed learning are learning and constructing their knowledge. Digitisation of educational environment offers such opportunities when knowledge can be accessed at any time and at any place where technological equipment and online network connections are available. There have been a relatively large number of studies on the interconnections between active learning and digital technologies (Bergen, French, & Hawkins, 2012; Bishop, 2014; Cleveland & Block, 2017; Fraillon, Ainley, Schulz, Friedman, & Gebhardt, 2014; Lumpkin, Achen, & Dodd, 2015; OECD, 2016; Snodin, 2013) and analyses on how active learning is organised within study process in higher education (HE) (Bean, 2011; Freeman et al., 2014; Misseyanni, Daniela, Lytras, Papadopoulou, & Marouli, 2017; Prince, 2004). Many studies have clarified the role of use of technology in developing self-efficacy (Dondlinger, McLeod, & Vasinda, 2016; Kauppinen, Kiili, & Coiro, 2018). Some research has sought to respond to what pedagogical principles may be used in technology-enhanced learning (TEL) environments (Daniela & Lytras, 2018; Lewin & Lundie, 2016; Visvizi, Lytras, & Daniela, 2018).

A large number of studies have pointed to the role of educators in making the learning process active by using different technologies, and most of these studies came to the conclusion that the attitude of educators towards technologies is a major influence on whether or not to use specific technologies in the teaching process (Kreijns, Vermeulen, Van Acker, & van Buuren, 2014; Lochner, Conrad, & Graham, 2015; Raghunath, Anker, & Nortcliffe, 2018) and educators’ perspectives on technologies were also shown to impact teachers’ self-efficacy (Han, Shin, & Ko, 2017). Evidence has also been found that indicates that the use of technologies requires additional time and effort because in order to use the technology it is necessary to learn how it is applied. However, if educators do not have any previous experience with the technology then time is needed for skill acquisition, which causes cognitive overload and burnout risks for teachers themselves. These aspects must also be analysed in the context of the unpredictability of technology-driven transformational processes. To date, one of the most important components of the identity of the researcher has been analytical thinking and decision-making that is influenced by the data summarised during the research, an in-depth study of every aspect of the research and the long-term construction of the researcher’s knowledge based on the work that is carried out. At present, technologies have also brought about the need for new competencies – the ability to predict and decide on what is not studied longitudinally, to use technology in the learning process so that teachers are familiar with these sources, thus changing the competency of the baseline and encouraging educators to accept changes in academic personnel.

On the one hand, students are ready and willing to use different technologies in an active learning process to independently construct their knowledge (Kirkwood & Price, 2014; Lorenzo Galés & Gallon, 2018). It is not uncommon for students to indicate that they would like to use more technologies (Harvey, Greer, Basham, & Hu, 2014; Hwang & Tsai, 2011; Newman & Beetham, 2017); on the other hand, data showed that students are not ready to use technologies broadly because their self-perceptions of digital competence are higher than in reality (Černochová, Voňková, Štípek, & Černá, 2018; Katz & Macklin, 2007; Turney, Robinson, Lee, & Soutar, 2009). Additionally, they expect that educators will prepare them for the meaningful use of technologies. The fact that neither teachers nor students can predict what will be up to date and what knowledge will be needed that will in essence set researchers in a seismic-like zone, assuming that knowledge is constructed on a shaky foundation, and the aim of learning is unknown.

Summarising the results of literature analyses about the challenges of providing TEL processes in HE, the authors put forward the following research questions: What technologies and technological solutions are currently used in HE, and what are the topical trends in technology use that could indicate changes in HE in regards to TEL processes? How can academic personnel work incorporate technologies into their work that to some extent may cause constant seismic fluctuations in education that prompts immediate decisions?

Methodology

A quantitative field research design (Martinsone, Pipere, & Kamerāde, 2016) for the study was selected, and a structured survey method was used to investigate the situation. The survey questionnaire was created using Google sheets to ensure that it was possible to get answers from different countries at the same time. Respondents were contacted through the researchers’ personal contacts and asked for the questionnaires to be filled in by various faculty members, administrators and students, thus gaining an opinion from all stakeholders involved in HE. The survey questionnaire consisted of 20 questions (in this chapter only part of them are analysed); in the first part, respondents were asked to provide demographic information about themselves, such as their current status in HE, country of origin, gender and the field of science they represent...

Indice dei contenuti

• Cover
• Title
• Introduction: The Future of Innovation and Technology in Education: A Case for Restoring the Role of the Teacher as a Mentor
• Part I: Learning Innovation for Digital Economy and Sustainable Development
• Part II: The Use of ICT for Teaching, Learning and Assessment
• Part III: Case Studies
• Index