Atee Spring Conference 2020 2021

This book collects some of the works presented at ATEE Florence Spring Conference 2020-2021. The Conference, originally planned for May 2020, was forcefully postponed due to the dramatic insurgence of the pandemic. Despite the difficulties in this period, the Organising Committee decided anyway to keep it, although online and more than one year later, not to disperse the huge work of authors, mainly teachers, who had to face one of the hardest challenges in the last decades, in a historic period where the promotion of social justice and equal opportunities – through digital technologies and beyond – is a key factor for democratic citizenship in our societies. The Organising Committee, the University of Florence, and ATEE wish to warmly thank all the authors for their commitment and understanding, which ensured the success of the Conference. We hope this book could be, not only a witness of these pandemic times, but a hopeful sign for an equal and inclusive education in all countries.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the Third International Workshop on Higher Education Learning Methodologies and Technologies Online, HELMeTO 2021, held in Pisa, Italy, in September 2021. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic the conference was held online. The 26 revised full papers and 3 short papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from a total of 65 submissions. The papers present recent research on challenges of implementing emerging technology solution for online, online learning pedagogical frameworks, facing COVID19 emergency in higher education teaching and learning, online learning technologies in practice, online learning strategies and resources, etc.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 27th ATEE Spring Conference on Social Justice, Media and Technology, ATEE 2021, held in Florence, Italy, during October 28–30, 2021. The 19 full papers included in this book were carefully reviewed and selected from 49 submissions. They were organized in topical sections as follows: teaching critical media/digital literacy in multicultural societies; decommodifying teacher (digital) education; and digital technology and equity for inclusive teaching.

COVID wrought havoc on the world’s economic systems. Higher education did not escape the ravages brought on by the pandemic as institutions of higher education around the world faced major upheavals in their educational delivery systems. Some institutions were prepared for the required transition to online learning. Most were not. Whether prepared or not, educators rose to the challenge. The innovativeness of educators met the challenges as digital learning replaced the face-to-face environment. In fact, some of the distance models proved so engaging that many students no longer desire a return to the face-to-face model. As with all transitions, some things were lost while others were gained. This book examines practice in the field as institutions struggled to face the worst global pandemic in the last century. The book is organized into four sections on 'Embracing Quality Assurance”, 'Educational Standards and Quality Assurance”, 'Evaluating Educational Access” and 'Why Assessment?”. It presents various perspectives from educators around the world to illustrate the struggles and triumphs of those facing new challenges and implementing new ideas to empower the educational process. These discussions shed light on the impact of the pandemic and the future of higher education post-COVID. Higher education has been forever changed, and higher education as it once was may never return. While many questions arise, the achievements in meeting and overcoming the pandemic illustrate the creativity and innovativeness of educators around the world who inspired future generations of learners to reach new heights of accomplishment even in the face of the pandemic.

This open access book expands the scholarly and policy debates surrounding digital transformation in higher education. The authors adopt a pluralistic conceptual framework which uncovers three analytical elements – contexts, mediations, and type of effects – for unpacking empirical manifestations. The publicly funded higher education systems in Nordic countries provide solid empirical insights into how digital transformations have gained ground before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, and chapter contributions demonstrate how international digitalisation trends (such as in the global EdTech industry) impact on the core activities of higher education institutions (HEIs). The findings underscore the importance of assessments that consider multiple sub-systems within HEIs, as well as the complex relationships between them. By unpacking Nordic dynamics in the light of global processes and developments, the approach adopted and the results generated are of relevance to a much broader, global audience of students and researchers in higher education.

This book provides an overview of Educational Robotics and includes information that reflects the current status of the field, research activity, experiences, and new tools. It compiles the contributions presented at the 14th International Conference on Robotics in Education (RiE2023). Beyond insights into theoretical aspects, practical projects and syllabus activities exemplify the concepts and provide implementation ideas, which span the whole educational system from kindergarten to the university level. The relevance to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education is highlighted by teaching the topics in a unified framework. The book constitutes a valuable resource for educators, researchers, scientists, and engineers interested in robotics. It covers topics including school teaching curricula, educational methodologies and pedagogy, projects, competitions, hardware, simulations, programming, machine learning, and artificial intelligence in education.

The reflection on university management is based on the question about the shape of universities of the future. Civic, responsible, sustainable, virtual, digital, and many other universities can be mentioned among the concepts present in the literature. All these names describe an important distinctive feature of a university, which will gain more and more importance in the future. However, given the fundamental importance of the radical change taking place, it seems that the most appropriate name, reflecting the essence of the emerging new formation, is "digital university." This is because of the importance of digital transformation, which has been developing for several decades, bringing deep and multidirectional changes in the areas of technology, economy, society, and culture. It is a disruptive civilizational transition and, although stretched over many decades, it is revolutionary in nature, significantly changing our lives in the Anthropocene. The book has three cognitive and pragmatic objectives: to provide a new perspective on the changing academic organization and management; to reflect on higher education management concepts and methods; and to present an overview of university management, governance, and leadership, useful from the perspective of academic managers, and other stakeholders. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis. com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

Characteristics and Conditions for Innovative Teachers: International Perspectives is a must-read for all those with an interest in teacher education and in enabling teacher innovation. It provides a blend of education theory, practice and research and will appeal to a wide audience including teachers, teacher educators, student teachers, school leaders, policy makers and other stakeholders. Drawing on a wealth of international perspectives, this key text provides a unique insight into how innovative teachers are understood and supported in their respective contexts. It provides recommendations and insights into the characteristics of innovative teachers and considers how best to support professional development to ensure innovation is both encouraged and meaningful. Considering the impact of conditions, context and agency on innovative teachers, the book explores the concept of innovation. It provides rationales for the focus on innovative teachers, identifies characteristics of innovative teachers and offers conceptual models underpinned by research, along with an analysis of current international policy on innovation in education. It explores the rich data obtained from research undertaken in 16 different countries and concludes by focusing on how to nurture innovative teachers through professional development.