This book includes selected papers from the Hong Kong Association for Educational Communications and Technology (HKAECT) 2023 International Conference. It provides readers with a collection of insightful chapters which delves into the realms of data visualization, artificial intelligence (AI), virtual reality (VR), and augmented reality (AR). It also reflects on the dynamic shifts in online learning, blended learning, and self-directed learning. Part one of the volume includes case studies and examples of the integration of advanced technologies, such as data visualization, generative AI, and mixed reality in education. Part two shares experiences and observations from educators who embrace online learning, blended learning, and independent learning. Part three investigates the influences digital education has on learning, teaching, and society as a whole. The book paves a path for thought-provoking discussions on the future of education in a digitally connected world. It is a vital resource for educators, administrators, policymakers, and learners seeking to navigate and thrive in the rapidly evolving world of digital education.

This edited book collects papers with perspectives from scholars and practitioners in Asia, Australia, and Europe to reveal the pros and cons, chances and challenges, constraints, and potential risks that educators and learners are facing as the new paradigm for communication and learning takes place, with a view to shedding light on the global education climate in the midst of the pandemic. Since the onset of the global pandemic, education has been revolutionized in almost every aspect. The emergency precautionary measures which were once supposed to be temporary school arrangements only have now become the new normal, reshaping our understanding of learning environments, redefining the pedagogic standards in terms of teaching practices, learning designs, teacher–student interaction, feedback, and assessment. Online teaching, distanced learning, flipped classrooms, and self-paced e-learning have all played an increasingly vital role in shaping a new education culture in various education settings, affecting school management, teachers, students, and parents alike. While ICT in education, alongside new media, has provided ample benefits and convenience for educators and students, communication and virtual lessons conducted in the socially distanced classroom appear to have brought issues such as the digital divide, e-mental health, insufficient technical support, inefficient classroom management, reduced interaction between teachers and students, not to mention the growing concerns over privacy and security.

This special edition of the Educational Communications and Technology Yearbook Series bears a title of “Learning Environment and Design: Current and Future Impact”. It provides a timely forum to share theoretical and practical insights in both the local and international contexts in response to the fact that new media and technologies have infiltrated and shaped the learning environments from mere physical spaces into multifaceted possibilities, impacting the ways individuals teach and learn. Designs of learning environments to harness technologies appropriately to engage learners better, as well as the roles of learners and educators play in this changing learning environment, are examples of important global issues in the discourse of the contemporary educational developments. Having gathered a diverse collection of research papers written by scholars and practitioners in the fields of education, communication and humanities across Asia, Australasia, Europe and the United States, this book gives readers a cross-cultural background on the developments of technological designs and educational practices, investigating areas in redefining of quality education; online learning and blended learning; new media in education; gamification, AI, and innovative learning technologies. Aimed to catalyze knowledge exchanges and provide fresh views on interdisciplinary research, the book sheds light on how emerging technologies can be adapted in the fields of education and communication, so as to facilitate the current and future designs of learning environments to improve learners’ performances.

Three decades into the ‘digital age’, the promises of emancipation of the digital ‘revolution’ in education are still unfulfilled. Furthermore, digitalization seems to generate new and unexpected challenges – for example, the unwarranted influence of digital monopolies, the radicalization of political communication, and the facilitation of mass surveillance, to name a few. This volume is a study of the downsides of digitalization and the re-organization of the social world that seems to be associated with it. In a critical perspective, technological development is not a natural but a social process: not autonomous from but very much dependent upon the interplay of forces and institutions in society. While influential forces seek to establish the idea that the practices of formal education should conform to technological change, here we support the view that education can challenge the capitalist appropriation of digital technology and, therefore, the nature and direction of change associated with it. This volume offers its readers intellectual prerequisites for critical engagement. It addresses themes such as Facebook’s response to its democratic discontents, the pedagogical implications of algorithmic knowledge and quantified self, as well as the impact of digitalization on academic profession. Finally, the book offers some elements to develop a vision of the role of education: what should be done in education to address the concerns that new communication technologies seem to pose more risks than opportunities for freedom and democracy.

This book offers critical readings of issues in education and technology and demonstrates how researchers can use critical perspectives from sociology, digital media, cultural studies, and other fields to broaden the "ed-tech" research imagination, open up new topics, ask new questions, develop theory, and articulate an agenda for informed action.

This book examines the presence and effects of new technologies in the lives of young people. The rapid pace of change in the development and use of digital technologies, and the likely impact this has on youth, means that the topic has wide implications for educational institutions, theory and practice. There is a demand for a concentration on the ways in which new devices such as smart phones and tablets, as well as new platforms and recent notions such as the ‘flipped classroom’, are affecting the way education is being provided. However, there is also still a small minority who do not have full access to the internet, and the disadvantages suffered by this group must also be addressed. The internet offers a vast range of opportunities for young people, and yet for various reasons it is not always available. This can partly be attributed to the controls that schools impose on the use of digital technology, for reasons of safety and security, and can in part be explained by the fact that policy makers have contradictory attitudes to technology. While they may argue for the need to have a well-educated and well-trained workforce, they fear the threats to privacy and safety posed by the internet. This book asserts that society needs to have more open debate about the threats and opportunities of digital technology as it is a dynamic and ever-changing topic for us all. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Oxford Review of Education.

This book demonstrates that policy, professionalism, and pedagogy are integral to the development of the best teachers that our students deserve. The empirical quantitative and qualitative studies and narratives presented in this volume demonstrate that strong analyses are needed to drive decisions on policy and practice.