Abstract
This chapter presents an overview of the design and development of a research project aimed at setting the foundation of an international teacher education network to enhance teacher education from a transversal and interdisciplinary perspective. The network partnership explores the impact of applied educational technology, including digital and transmedia storytelling or augmented reality, to upgrade teacher education. This approach provides tailored training to equip lecturers, teacher trainers, pre- and in-service K-12 teachers, and students with specific competencies, skills, and strategies in instruction and assessment. This training also intends to raise their awareness of educational, social, sustainability, and environmental challenges. Within this framework, educational technology, language, and narrative genres become the articulatory axis of teaching and learning within bilingual and intercultural education contexts. This chapter also serves to define the scope and rationale for the edited volume.
TopBackground
A network is generally defined as a group of people or institutions with a connection with each other or the same interests to work together as a system (adapted from Cambridge and Collins dictionaries). Educational networking refers to the use of social networks for educational purposes or in educational environments. Mainly, networks help overcome the isolation of teachers, schools, and educators by providing organized, professional exchange, development, and enrichment opportunities. Teachers and schools may perceive networks as support structures for strategic development (cf. Otcu-Grillman & Miller, this volume). They fulfill different purposes, such as sharing and disseminating innovative and good practices, the professional development of teachers and principals, and organizational advancement through critical feedback. In this sense, Hopkins (2003:154) suggests the following definition:
Key Terms in this Chapter
Digital Storytelling: The art of telling stories with a variety of emergent new forms of digital narratives such as web-based stories, interactive stories, hypertexts, narrative computer games, audio and video podcasts, pictures, etc.
Augmented Reality (AR): A technology that superimposes a computer-generated image on a user's view of the real world, thus providing a composite view. It is the integration of digital information with the user's environment in real time. Unlike virtual reality, which creates a totally artificial environment, augmented reality uses the existing environment and overlays new information on top of it.
Virtual Exchange: A form of digital education whereby students from geographically remote classes work together online on collaborative learning activities guided by their teachers or educational facilitators.
Content and Language-Integrated Learning (CLIL): A dual-focused educational approach in which an additional, foreign or second language is used for the learning and teaching of both content and language.
Education for Sustainable Development (ESD): An interdisciplinary approach to learning that covers the integrated social, economic, and environmental dimensions of the formal and informal curriculum. ESD involves a vision of education that seeks to empower people to assume responsibility for creating a sustainable future. It becomes a learning process or approach to teaching based on the ideals and principles that underlie sustainability and is concerned with all levels and types of learning to provide quality education and foster sustainable human development. The concept of culture is crucial in understanding ESD.
Alternative Reality Games (ARGS): An interactive narrative that uses the real world as a platform, often involving multiple media and game elements, to tell a story that may be affected by participants' ideas or actions. They are designed to make reality more engaging, and typically, for collective of players that share information and solutions almost instantly.
Transmedia Storytelling: Process of transferring and developing stories which can be spread through various platforms.
Ubiquitous Learning: A learning paradigm supported by mobile and embedded computers and wireless networks that provide learners with content and interaction anytime and anywhere. The learning process incudes the real-life experience augmented with virtual information and is adapted to the learners and their environment.