Literature Review on Emerging Educational Practices Mediated by Digital Technologies in Higher Education, Based on Academic Papers

Abstract

Compared to the abundant generic research on technologies and education, few studies focus on the scope of whether the technologies used meet the expectations set forth in international reports and to what extent technology contributes to transforming educational practice. Our objective was to identify and analyze the characteristics of educational practices that are being developed in higher education and to assess the value that technology brings to educational practice. We conducted a systematic review of academic papers published in scientific journals: a corpus of 1,207 articles from six journals included in indexed databases (JCR and SJR), selected using Google Scholar Metrics. According to the various records screened, the study we present is based on 49 articles, published between 2018 and 2019. We conclude that beyond their reproducible, enriching, or transformative nature, most of the articles analyzed address the improvement of students’ performance, engagement, or self-perception, in which they positively value the experience of learning mediated by digital technology, although they do not have an impact on the transformative value.

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) as a Panacea for Overcoming the Challenges of COVID-19 Pandemic: A Study of Academic Staff Performance in Tertiary Institutions in Enugu State, Nigeria

“…Academic staff from tertiary institutions, therefore, engaged in several training and development programs on how to avert the COVID-19 challenges; perform their jobs, and stay safe and healthy, using ICT devices during the COVID-19 pandemic (see Table 7, Adelowotan, 2021;Adewole, 2020). The incorporation of technology in education according to Lindı´n et al (2023) fosters transformative learning anchored on technopedagogical skills and designs aimed at producing vital changes in the system of education. Thus, the COVID-19 pandemic necessitated the urgent need to train academic staff toward the development and mastery of skills on how to carry out their jobs online while at home, how to protect themselves from contracting the virus, how to use ICT devices to host e-Learning, how to participate in conferences, workshops, and seminars using online applications like Zoom and Skype.…”