Preface: Reflections on the waves of emerging learning technologies

Abstract

There have been many waves of emerging learning technologies over the past few decades. Some of these waves are extended, some waves are connected, and other waves are repeated. The authors discuss the special journal issue from the standpoint of their personal involvement in many such waves during their careers. They also detail the evolution of this special issue and the potential audiences and stakeholders for it. In the end, they pose several questions and points to ponder in looking toward the future.

Educational disruptions during the COVID-19 crisis in Small Island Developing States: Preparedness and efficacy of academics for online teaching

“…along with international learning institutions (Bates 2020;Weller 2020;Czerniewicz 2020;Kanwar and Daniel 2020;Bonk and Wiley 2020;Luthra and Mackenzie 2020) consistently posted advice for e-learning novices which were in line with Gilly Salmon's "e-tivities for enabling active and participative online learning by individuals and groups" (Salmon 2013, p. 5). 6 The posted advices concern online activities which deal with Salmon's five-phase model:…”

“…Alternative pedagogies such as authentic e-learning (Herrington et al 2010 ) 5 or project-based learning (Koh et al 2010 ) have not been endorsed despite decades of strong research providing evidence that such methods are effective. The “2020 pivot [to online teaching triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic] was not universally successful” (Bonk and Wiley 2020 ). Chrysi Rapanta et al note that Online teaching and learning imply a certain pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), mainly related to designing and organising for better learning experiences and creating distinctive learning environments, with the help of digital technologies (Rapanta et al 2020 , p. 923).…”

“…938–939) suggest the necessity of a combination of three types of presence: social – referring to the various social communication channels that tutors and lecturers must adopt for enhancing immediate student–student and student–teacher interactions; cognitive – how they would engage the learners to think about the learning content; and facilitatory – adopting tools that can replicate the face-to face direct instructions and mentoring. During the first wave of COVID-19, acclaimed e-learning and educational technology professors, technology-enhanced learning evangelists and book authors along with international learning institutions (Bates 2020 ; Weller 2020 ; Czerniewicz 2020 ; Kanwar and Daniel 2020 ; Bonk and Wiley 2020 ; Luthra and Mackenzie 2020 ) consistently posted advice for e-learning novices which were in line with Gilly Salmon’s “e-tivities for enabling active and participative online learning by individuals and groups” (Salmon 2013 , p. 5). 6 The posted advices concern online activities which deal with Salmon’s five-phase model: access and motivation; development of online socialisation; information exchange; knowledge construction; and development of understanding.…”

The research we have is not the research we need

“…A major contributor to the paucity of practical guidance in these and other types of systematic reviews is that they are primarily focused on the "things" of our field such as wearable technologies and mobile devices rather than on the "problems" faced by teachers and students such as the lack of engagement of students in online learning (Stott 2016) or the failure to develop higher order learning in STEM education (Sadler and Zeidler 2009). Bonk and Wiley (2020) also note this tendency to focus on things rather than problems in the Preface to this special issue. Improving educational opportunities is essential to addressing the major problems that the world confronts today such as poverty, climate change, racism, and the current global pandemic (Desai et al 2018).…”

Cognitive Instrumental Processes of Flipped Learners: Effects of Relevance for Learning, Quality of Learning Outcomes, and Result Demonstrability

“…Particularly in higher education, it takes time from the emergence of new instructional approaches to general adoption of the learning practice. To complicate things further, the waves of emerging learning technologies show no signs of abating anytime soon (Bonk, 2016;Bonk & Wiley, 2020). Thus, rigorous media comparison studies (Clark, 1994: Kozma, 1994Parker et al, 2008) as well as overall reviews of the research (Betihavas et al, 2016;Hew & Lo, 2018) have been conducted in assorted educational technology fields to examine the effectiveness of a particular type of learning technology (Martin et al, 2020) or instructional approach.…”