Call for Special Issue: "Link & Learn. Onlife models, practices and relations"

2023-09-24

Guest Editors

Filomena Faiella, University of Salerno

Ilaria Bortolotti, Sapienza University of Rome

We thought we were living in the 'post-digital era' in which technology is no longer the distinguishing element of novelty, but in which, in the midst of its normalization, the consequences of the use of increasingly advanced technologies in the creation of an increasingly hybrid reality are evident (Maeda, 2002; Cascone, 2000; Rivoltella, 2019; Negroponte, 1998). The pedagogical, psychological, and technological challenges we have had to face in order to ensure productive, working, communicative, teaching-learning, and interaction processes during the pandemic have, on the other hand, amply demonstrated that there are still considerable differences in terms of access to technology and adequate preparation for its use (Batini et al., 2020; Capperucci, 2020; Cecchinato & González-Martínez, 2021; Dubey & Pandey, 2020; Sari & Nayır, 2020; Voogt & Knezek, 2021). The 'new normal' that we are experiencing sees us struggling. On the one hand, partly due to certain narratives operated by the mass media, there is the rejection of the tools and methodologies tried and tested to invoke the restoration of the situation prior to the pandemic. On the other hand, there is the hope that the lessons learned may be a harbinger of new scenarios and opportunities for all human activities and, in particular, for educational, training, academic, and scholastic contexts where the pedagogically meaningful use of digital technologies could give rise to interesting ways of fostering understanding and improving knowledge construction processes (Bereiter & Sansone, 2022; Pacheco, 2021; Rapanta et al., 2021; Fullan, 2020).

This Special Issue of Qwerty, born in the wake of the IX CKBG Congress held at the University of Salerno with the title "Link & Learn. Models, practices and onlife relations", aims to bring together research and experiments that offer food for thought on the emerging opportunities, methodologies, and technologies capable of capitalizing on the high-density technological experience of the pandemic period, facing the problems encountered, in order to draw unprecedented and innovative connections between learning and digital. Contributions are expected on the relationship between educational innovation and new technologies, focusing in particular on the following themes

Innovation in educational and professional contexts

  • Digital technologies for learning and teaching
  • Innovation in teaching practices
  • Innovation in assessment processes
  • Innovation in schools and universities
  • Innovation in training in professional contexts
  • Innovation in educational research
  • Applications of artificial intelligence and robotics in educational settings
  • Virtual worlds
  • Social and metaverse environments
  • Blended and Hybrid Education
  • Digital identities
  • Artificial Intelligence Educational and evolutionary robotics

Transformations of knowledge processes

  • Machine learning
  • Educational data mining
  • Global learning communities
  • Virtual learning
  • Experiential learning
  • Social learning
  • Game-based learning and gamification
  • Creativity and new technologies
  • Learning analytics

Critical aspects of new technologies in education

  • Socio-cultural effects of new technologies
  • Psychological effects and addiction
  • Ethical and legal implications
  • Information literacy
  • Digital divide
  • Promoting digital skills
  • Space and time management
  • Crisis representation
  • Big data

Instructions for submitting contributions and the template to follow are published on the following page: http://www.ckbg.org/qwerty/index.php/qwerty/about/submissions 

Deadlines volume 2 - release December 2024

Submissions: 28th February 2024

Reviewers' final comments: 15th May 2024

Revised article: 31st July 2024

First drafts: 15th October 2024