Digital Technologies: Sustainable Innovations for Improving Teaching and Learning

The aim of this volume entitled Digital Technologies: Sustainable Innovations for improving Teaching and Learning is to contribute in the global discussion on digital technologies as the means to foster sustainable educational innovations for improving the teaching, learning and assessment from K-12 to Higher Education. It compiles papers presented at the CELDA (Cognition and Exploratory Learning in the Digital Age) conference, which has as its goal continuing to address these challenges and promote the effective use of new tools and technologies to support teaching, learning and assessment.  The book consists of four parts and showcases how emerging educational technologies and innovative practices have been used to address core global educational challenges; spanning from rethinking and transforming learning environments across educational contexts to effectively cultivating students’ competences for the digital smart society of the future. The book comprisesPart I: Transforming the Learning Environment; Part II: Enriching student learning experiences; Part III: Measuring and Assessing Teaching and Learning with Educational Data Analytics; Part IV: Cultivating student competences for the digital Smart society.  It targets researchers and research students, educational professional practitioners (including teachers, educators and education leaders) as well as education policy makers, who are interested in keeping up-to-date on the global development in this field.

Demetrios Sampson is a Professor of Digital Systems for Learning and Education at the Department of Digital Systems, University of Piraeus, Greece, where he serves as Academic Staff since 2001, and a Professor of Learning Technologies at the School of Education, Curtin University, Australia since 2015. He is the co-author of 365 articles in scientific books, journals and conferences, and the editor of 12 books, 32 special issues and 35 international conference proceedings. He has received 10 times Best Paper Award in International Conferences (with at least 4500 citations in Google Scholar, November 2017). He has been a Keynote/Invited Speaker/Lecturer in 75 International/National Conferences and/or Postgraduate Programs around the world. He has been project director, principle investigator and/or research consultant in 70 Research and Innovation projects with external funding at the range of 16 Million€.  He has supervised 155 honors and postgraduate students to successful completion. He has developed and delivers the first MOOC on the use of Educational Data Analytics by School Teachers (Analytics for the Classroom Teacher), offered by the edX platform which has attracted more than 7000 participants from 145 countries around the world since October 2016.  He served as Editor-in-Chief of one of the first open access journals in educational technology, the Educational Technology & Society Journal, 2003-2018. He has also served or serves as Member of the Steering Committee and/or Advisory and/or Editorial Board of 25 International/National Journals, in various leadership roles in 75 International Conferences and at the Program Committee of 500 International/National Conferences.  He is the recipient of the IEEE Computer Society Distinguished Service Award (July 2012) and named a Golden Core Member of IEEE Computer Society in recognition of his contribution to the field of Learning Technologies (January 2013).

Dirk Ifenthaler is Professor and Chair of Learning, Design and Technology at the University of Mannheim, Germany. His previous roles include Professor for Applied Learning and Teaching Research at the University of Potsdam, Germany, Professor and Director of Centre for Research in Digital Learning at Deakin University, Australia, Manager of Applied Research and Learning Analytics at Open Universities Australia, Affiliate Research Scholar at the University of Oklahoma, USA, and Interim Department Chair and Professor for Educational Science at the University of Mannheim, Germany. He was a 2012 Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence at the Jeannine Rainbolt College of Education, the University of Oklahoma, USA. His background is in cognitive psychology, educational technology, statistics, and teacher education. He developed automated and computer-based methodologies for the assessment, analysis, and feedback of graphical and natural language representations. His research outcomes include numerous co-authored books, book series, book chapters, journal articles, and international conference papers. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Technology, Knowledge and Learning and a member of the Editorial Board for Educational Technology Research and Development. He has been appointed as UNESCO Deputy Chair of Data Science in Higher Education Learning and Teaching at Curtin University (2017). He is the 2013-2014 President for the AECT (Association for Educational Communications and Technology) Division Design and Development, 2013-2014 Chair for the AERA (American Educational Research Association) Special Interest Group Technology, Instruction, Cognition and Learning and Co-Program Chair for the international conference on Cognition and Exploratory Learning in the Digital Age (CELDA). He received the 2015 Presidential Award, AECT (Association for Educational Communications and Technology), the 2012 Outstanding Journal Article Award by AECT, 2009 Outstanding Reviewer Award for Educational Technology Research and Development and the 2006 Outstanding Dissertation Award by the University of Freiburg, Germany. He has more than 250 journal articles, book chapters and books to his credit and has received over 3000 citations resulting in an h-index of 28 (Google Scholar, October 2017).

J. Michael Spector is Professor of Learning Technologies in the College of Information at the University of North Texas. His recent research is in the areas of intelligent support for instructional design, system dynamics based learning environments, assessing learning in complex domains, distance learning, and technology integration in education. He served on the International Board of Standards for Training, Performance and Instruction (IBSTPI) as Executive Vice President; he is on the Executive Committee of the IEEE Learning Technology Technical Committee and is Past-President of the Association for Educational and Communications Technology (AECT). He is the editor of the Development Section ofEducational Technology Research & Development, and he serves on numerous other editorial boards. He co-edited the third and fourth editions of the Handbook of Research on Educational Communications and Technology, and he is editor of the SAGE Encyclopedia of Educational Technology, Professor Spector has more than 160 journal articles, book chapters and books to his credit, and has received over 4161 citations resulting in an h-index of 36 (Google Scholar, July 2017).

Pedro Isaias is an Associate Professor at the Institute for Teaching and Learning Innovation (ITaLI) and an affiliated associate professor at the UQ Business School., The University of Queensland, Australia.  In ITaLI, Pedro is the academic lead for Learning Technologies, working with Flipped Classrooms, Adaptive Learning, Learning Analytics and also with MOOCs. He is also playing an important role in the UQ Student Strategy, in the Flexible and Active Learning working group, through various activities. He has served as Associate professor at Universidade Aberta (Portuguese Open University) in Lisbon, Portugal, responsible for several courses and director of the master degree program in Electronic Commerce and Internet since its start in 2003. He is co-founder and president of IADIS – International Association for Development of the Information Society, a scientific non-profit association. He holds a PhD in Information Management (in the specialty of information and decision systems) from the New University of Lisbon. Author of several books (both as author/co-author and editor/co-editor), journal and conference papers, and research reports, all in the information systems area, he has headed several conferences and workshops within the mentioned area. He has also been responsible for the scientific coordination of several EU funded research projects. He is also member of the editorial board of several journals and program committee member of several conferences and workshops. At the moment he conducts research activity related to Information Systems in general, E-Learning, E-Commerce and WWW related areas. He has more than 160 journal articles, book chapters and books to his credit and has received over 1079 citations resulting in an h-index of 15 (Google Scholar, November 2017).