Old Dominion University ODU Digital Commons Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications Teaching & Learning 2019 Rethinking Pedagogy: Exploring the Potential of Digital Technology in Achieving Quality Education Lorenzo Alemán de la Garza Alessandra Anichini Péter Antal Aurélie Beaune Helen Crompton Old Dominion University, [email protected] See next page for additional authors Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/teachinglearning_fac_pubs Part of the Educational Technology Commons Original Publication Citation Alemán de la Garza, L., Anichini, A., Antal, P. t., Beaune, A. l., Bruillard, E. r., Burke, D., . Tsinakos, A. (2019). Rethinking Pedagogy: Exploring the Potential of Digital Technology in Achieving Quality Education. New Delhi, India: Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development. This Report is brought to you for free and open access by the Teaching & Learning at ODU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of ODU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Authors Lorenzo Alemán de la Garza, Alessandra Anichini, Péter Antal, Aurélie Beaune, Helen Crompton, Avgoustos Tsinakos, and et al. This report is available at ODU Digital Commons: https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/teachinglearning_fac_pubs/114 Rethinking Pedagogy Exploring the Potential of Digital Technology in Achieving Quality Education 1 Rethinking Pedagogy Exploring the Potential of Digital Technology in Achieving Quality Education November 2019 ~ iiTIITT United Nations Mahatma Gandhi Institute Educational, Scientific and of Education for Peace Cultura l Organization and Sustainable Development Published in 2019 by the Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development, 35 Ferozshah Road, New Delhi 110001, India © UNESCO MGIEP 2019 ISBN 978-81-89218-72-0 This publication is available in Open Access under the Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 IGO (CC-BY- SA 3.0 IGO) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/igo/). By using the content of this publication, the users accept to be bound by the terms of use of the UNESCO Open Access Repository (http://www.unesco.org/open-access/terms-use-ccbysa-en). The designations employed and the presentation of material throughout this publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of UNESCO concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. The ideas and opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors; they are not necessarily those of UNESCO and do not commit the Organization. Designed and printed by aspiredesign, New Delhi Infographics on p.xviii and p.39 created by Magali Roumy Akue Printed in India ii Sustainable Development Goal Ensure inclusive and equitable education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all United Nations, Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, 2015 iii iv Director’s Message The Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development (MGIEP) is UNESCO’s Category 1 education Institute in the Asia-Pacific region devoted to education for peace and sustainable development, as enshrined in SDG Target 4.7. UNESCO MGIEP promotes the use of digital learning platforms where teachers and students can co-create and share a highly interactive learning experience. With the rise of the internet, there has been a proliferation of online content and digital resources intended to support teaching and learning, albeit widely varying in quality. Digital education media and resources, if carefully designed and implemented, have a significant potential to be mobilized on a massive scale to support transformative learning for building sustainable, flourishing societies. In considering its contribution to SDG Target 4.7, which focuses on education for peace, sustainable development and global citizenship, UNESCO MGIEP has called for exploring the possibilities of digital pedagogies as an approach to reach and connect the millions of learners across the world and scale up transformative learning. This report focuses on bringing to the fore what we do and do not know about digital education and the gaps in research and practice we need to address, drawing from a body of knowledge about the role of digital technology in education (academic and policy literature review), the mapping of existing digital textbooks and other digital education media and resources (review of existing digital resources), and examples of implementation of digital education initiatives from around the world. It is hoped that this global review of digital textbooks and other digital education media and resources will help highlight the potential of digital technology in contributing to quality, inclusive, and equitable education. There is a real potential to change patterns of relationships in learning with digital technology: learners as knowledge producers, collaborative peer learning, and learning analytics for student assessment, among other innovations; but we must do this right by drawing from the most relevant and credible literature on the subject. Digital technologies have a potential to facilitate a long-desired shift from learning as passive content acquisition to learning as active knowledge co-creation and communities of practice. Integrated digital education media are envisaged to provide personalized, immersive learning experiences that allow interaction and collaboration going beyond the constraints of the four walls of the classroom and the cells of the school timetable. They might also allow for easier and faster updates of content and the presentation of information in user-friendly formats, enabling the content to remain relevant and highly engaging for enhanced learning outcomes. How can we better understand and harness pedagogical possibilities opened up by new digital technologies to equip young people with competencies to engage creatively and responsibly with the rapidly changing world? How can we use technologies to make school education not only more inclusive and of higher quality but also a key enabler for sustainable development? Can digital technologies provide individualised learning catering to the strengths of each learner while understanding and addressing the areas for improvement? This report attempts to start a dialogue between digital education proponents and SDG 4 stakeholders around these important questions. Anantha Duraiappah Director, UNESCO MGIEP v vi Acknowledgements This report would not have been possible without the generous and varied contributions of many individuals and organizations from around the world. Editors Yoko Mochizuki, Head of Rethinking Policy Programme, UNESCO MGIEP, India Éric Bruillard, Professor of Computer Science, Paris Descartes University, France Authors Lorena Alemán de la Garza Laura Hosman Alessandra Anichini Mary Kalantzis Péter Antal Kojanitz László Aurélie Beaune Xavier Levoin Éric Bruillard Kristen Linzy Diane Burke Arnab Mandal Pedro Henrique Cacique Braga Yoko Mochizuki Ruma Chakravarti Ariam Mogos Sriya Chakravarti Tünde-Lengyel Molnár Deng Chen Matthew Montebello Lidiya Chikalova Sadaqat Mulla Helen Crompton Sandra Gudiño Paredes Ilana De Almeida Souza Concilio Christelle Pauty-Combemore William Cope Boyka Parfitt Lorenz Denks Réka Racsko Matthew Farber Irais Monserrat Santillán Rosas Giovanni Fonseca Khitam Shraim Pintér Gergely Ji Soo Song Marcela Georgina Gómez Zermeño Avgoustos Tsinakos Russell Hazard Reviewers The report benefited greatly from intellectual advice and guidance provided by an external peer review group of eminent experts. Peer Review Committee Georges-Louis Baron, Paris Descartes University, France James Paul Gee, Arizona State University, US Richard R. Halverson, University of Wisconsin-Madison, US Felicitas Macgilchrist, Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research, Germany Neil Selwyn, Monash University, Australia vii We would also like to thank Anantha Duraiappah, Matthew Kam (Google), Andy Smart (independent consultant, UK), Edward Anthony Vickers (Kyushu University, Japan), and Rickard Vinde (Teacher and Former Managing Director, Swedish Association of Educational Publishers) for reading the draft chapters and providing valuable feedback. The draft report was also discussed at a symposium organized during the 15th IARTEM (International Association for Research on Textbooks and Educational Media) Conference held in Odense, Denmark, in September 2019. The international expert group members commenced working on the global review of digital textbooks and digital education media and resources during the first drafting group meeting in July 2018, which was organized at Braunschweig, Germany, with the kind support of Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research and Engagement Global – Service für Entwicklungsinitiativen (Service for Development Initiatives). It was followed by the second drafting group meeting at UNESCO MGIEP’s annual conference TECH in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, India in November 2018. The third and final drafting group meeting was held at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, France, in May 2019. We would also like to acknowledge with much appreciation the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Training, Colleges, Universities and Secondary Education Teachers in Ontario, Canada, the Ministry of