Keynote Speakers
Prof. Tassos A. Mikropoulos
Department of Primary Education, School of Education, University of Ioannina, Greece
Director of “Educational Approaches to Virtual Reality Technologies Laboratory”
Keynote speech: Introducing virtual reality and other extended technologies in education: technological and pedagogical issues
Virtual reality, augmented reality, and other emerging extended reality technologies support the educational process resulting in positive learning outcomes in cognitive, affective, and psychomotor domains, at all levels of education. Are there unique features of the various extended reality technologies that contribute to learning benefits? Are there any certain instructional models and techniques, which combined with these unique features bring positive learning outcomes? In this presentation, we will discuss the affordances and learning affordances of virtual reality, augmented reality, and extended reality technologies in general that lead to learning activities in learning environments. We will also discuss the way digital technologies have to be incorporated into teaching and learning processes.
Dr. Tassos Anastasios Mikropoulos holds a B.Sc. in Physics from the University of Ioannina and a Ph.D. in optical signal processing from the University of Athens. He is the director of the “Educational Approaches to Virtual Reality Technologies laboratory – earthlab”. Tassos is the elected chair of the Hellenic Association of ICT in Education. His research interests are on learning technologies and especially on virtual and augmented reality in general and special education, and educational neuroscience. Tassos’ work has been published in numerous refereed journals, conferences, and volumes with more than 2900 citations. He is a member of the editorial board and reviewer for many international journals and foundations and chair on special tracks of international conferences. He has been project director, principal investigator, and consultant in many research and development and educational projects. He also serves as a consultant for the Greek Ministry of Education in topics such as digital school and in-service teachers’ further training.
Prof. Wu-Yuin Hwang
Distinguished Professor, Institute of Network Learning Technology, National Central University, Taiwan
Keynote speech: Big Education: Active Learning in Authentic Contexts- Big Scalability, Long Sustainability and High Cognition
Learning in Authentic contexts reflects the way that the knowledge will be used by learners in their real life. Therefore, authentic contexts are very meaningful and relevant to learners’ learning during their learning process. This speech will focus on learning in authentic contexts with advanced technology to facilitate students to develop high-level cognition like creativity with scalability and sustainability. Scalability is kind of ability to learning programs and design to be adapted in a wide variety of contexts and the term sustainability refers to an ability to learn programs to remain in use. Creativity is the use of knowledge, imagination, and judgment by learners to solve problems in an innovative, high quality, and appropriate manner. Therefore, how to consider the above three abilities in learning design becomes very critical to get a success in education. This is because learning in authentic context with help of advanced technologies can realize the above three abilities and complement traditional learning in class/at school.
This speech will address creative learning in authentic contexts with sustainability and scalability. We expect that using ubiquitous technology in authentic contexts can achieve high-level cognition like creativity. In addition, through a competitive/ collaborative learning activities supported and stimulated by maps, experimental students will perform significantly better in term of the quality and quantity of learning achievement and have more learning records and apply to more learning contexts (scalability). Furthermore, hopefully through exploring authentic contexts by regular exercise students feel satisfied, happy, and healthy which lead to sustain their learning motivation and interests(sustainability), therefore, it can cultivate learners to have active learning in authentic contexts with achieving high cognition, big scalability and long sustainability. For this above mentioned approach, I am happy to give one slogan “Big Education” which means Education will be fulfilled soon anywhere(school, home and society) and anytime (class time, after school and after graduation) with good effectiveness in cognition, scalability and sustainability.
In 2020, the SSCI journal CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning) counts its publications in the ten years (2008 and 2019). Dr. Hwang was ranked top 1 in terms of the number of publications, H-index papers and impact factors. (https://doi.org/10.1080/09588221.2020.1857409). In the 10 years (2007-2017), Dr. Hwang was ranked in top 7 scholars of the world in terms of publication performance of 65 high quality SSCI journals in the area of instructional design and technology. (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/bjet.12712). Dr. Hwang received the Ta-You Wu, Memorial Award (National Science Council, Taiwan) in 2005 and Outstanding Research Award (Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan) in 2021.
Dr. Hwang is also engaged in several academic services, the co-editor of special issue “Sensor/Recognition-based Learning in Contextual Surroundings” of Interacting With Computers(SCI/SSCI), the co-editor of special issue “The Disruptive Power of VR and Serious Games for Education” of Interactive Learning Environments(SSCI), the co-editor of the special issue “Innovations in designing mobile learning applications” and “Authentic edutainment with advanced technologies” of Educational Technology & Society (SSCI).
Plenary Speakers
Prof. Margus Pedaste
Centre for Educational Technology, Institute of Education, University of Tartu, Estonia
Head of the Pedagogicum of the University of Tartu
Keynote speech: Digital competence when technology meets ecology
The COVID-19 pandemic opened a new era in education by rapidly increasing the need for remote learning. Digital competence for learning is needed more than ever. There are many hopes for how technology, e.g. artificial intelligence, could help people to learn more efficiently and to improve the quality of their everyday life. However, it is not so clear what digital competence is or who is really digitally competent. For long, digital competence has been operationalized as a technical basic competence or sometimes it has been contextualized in one or other domain. However, to ensure sustainability and innovation, transformative competence needs to be highlighted more. It is a topic that should be considered by learners but also by teachers, designers and technology developers. Artificial intelligence and other technologies could be good but may also cause risks. Awareness of these is a key for designing sustainable digital learning process for the future. We will discuss how to define digital competence, how to assess it, and how to improve it in the context of different target groups in a way that technology meets ecology.
Dr. Pedaste studied biology and education and taught biology in middle and high school and teachers of different subjects at the university. In his research he has been focusing on improving learners’ digital competence, inquiry-skills and problem solving, as well as on educational technology in supporting teaching and learning. Currently he is interested in re-conceptualizing the concept of digital competence connecting technical basic competence with contextual and transformative competences that are especially important in the era of fast development of artificial intelligence and challenges in sustainability of our traditional environment. He has lead or participated as a principal investigator in several international research and development projects to support students’ learning and teachers’ professional development or teacher education reform in Estonia. He also acts as the Associated Editor of Educational Research Review.
Prof. Ting-Ting Wu
Graduate School of Technological and Vocational Education, National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, Taiwan
Director of “Educational Technologies Research Center of Humanities and Applied Science”
Secretary-General of “Association of Taiwan Engineering Education and Management”
Keynote speech: Applying a Business Simulation Game in a Flipped Classroom: Impact on Higher-Order Thinking Skills
Higher-order thinking skills (HOTS) are reliable predictors of success in school and the workplace. A typical technique for encouraging higher-order thinking is to use instructional design interventions that engage learners in simple cognitive activities. Business simulation games (BSG) are characterized as one of the types of interactive learning environments that can increase HOTS. Moreover, BSGs are linked to skills development, and the flipped classroom is acknowledged as a successful approach for encouraging student-centered learning through engagement. Therefore, this speech would talk the investigated the impact of BSGs in a flipped classroom on student engagement, learning achievement, and higher-order thinking skills (HOTS). In addition, student engagement and attitude toward technology use are considered strong influences on HOTS. The speech also explores the effect of using a BSG on HOTS and student engagement.
Prof. Ting Ting Wu is currently an Professor and Director in Graduate School of Technological and Vocational Education at National Yunlin University of Science and Technology. She received her Ph.D. degree from the Department of Engineering Science at National Cheng Kung University in 2011. She received the MS degree in Information and Learning Technology from National University of Tainan in 2008. The academic research was focused on learning portfolio analysis, mobile and ubiquitous learning, information technology assisted instruction, and implementation and development of intelligent learning system in five years. She has published many international journal papers and conference papers. One of the journal papers (ET&S) was selected as 2013 & 2014 ISI Highly-Cited paper, and a total of fourteen conference paper won the best paper award. For now, she served as Director for Educational Technologies Research Center of Humanities and Applied Science and Secretary-General in Association of Taiwan Engineering Education and Management. She has won the Ta-You Wu Memorial Award, Outstanding Youth Award and Academic Research Prestige Award. In addition, Prof. Wu has also been invited to speak at several international seminars and conferences. So far, Prof. Wu has international cooperative research with Norway, China, Indonesia, the United States, and Slovenija.