Digital Technologies for Sustainability Education

Dear Colleagues,

You are invited to submit manuscripts to this Special Issue of “Digital Technologies for Sustainability Education”. While countries across the world are working to implement the 2030 Global Agenda for Sustainable Development between 2015 and 2030, education is seen as crucial for achieving sustainable development goals and creating a more sustainable and fairer world. Sustainability education, often also referred to as Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), is about acquiring the “knowledge, skills, values and attitudes” that empower learners to become “sustainability change-makers” (UNESCO 2017, p. 7). Digital technologies and ‘technology-enhanced’ learning have been a main feature of education for decades, allowing more flexible, innovative, and student-driven teaching pedagogies and practices. There is, however, a gap in the use and integration of digital technologies for sustainability education—in particular, how knowledge of sustainability issues is constructed, disseminated, and shared through digital technologies, and how digital technologies can help to promote learning of skills, values, attitudes, and needs for sustainable societies.

For this Special Issue, we invite papers that analyze the innovative use of digital technologies in providing sustainability education. We welcome research and conceptual papers on the link between education and sustainability challenges and the innovative use of digital technologies in that field. In particular, we are interested in how digital technologies facilitate (i) sustainability knowledge that leads to transformative changes towards sustainable futures; (ii) transnational and interdisciplinary partnerships in sustainability education; and (iii) wider access and empowerment for disengaged and disadvantaged peoples and communities in different countries.

Scope

- The use of digital technologies, such as smart phones, augmented and virtual reality, social media and MOOCs, for sustainability education;

- Digital technologies for innovative teaching pedagogies and practices about sustainability education;

- Learning about sustainability and sustainable development goals across all disciplines of study through digital technologies;

- Digital technologies to advance access to and quality of sustainability education;

- Digital technologies as essential tools for training and acquiring sustainability knowledge;

- Sustainability education and digital technologies for critical thinking and change towards sustainable futures;

- Digital education technologies to enhance fundamental sustainability skills such as critical thinking, collaboration, problem solving, global awareness, and working in teams.

Suggest how the issue will usefully supplement (relate to) existing literature.

This issue will investigate the role of modern and emerging technologies in supporting sustainability education. As the references below indicate, there is emerging literature about the critical importance of education for achieving sustainable development and achieving the skills, values, and attitudes required to move towards sustainable futures (Bengsten et al. 2018; Thomas 2009; Tilbury 2011). Much literature (e.g., Sampson et al 2018; Bachmair and Pachler, 2015) concentrates on the use of digital technologies for sustainable innovations in teaching and learning, whereas this Special Issue will be about the use of digital technologies to creatively improve sustainability education.

Assoc. Prof. Edward Palmer
Dr. Thomas Wanner
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• sustainability education
• digital technologies
• technology-enhanced learning
• sustainable development
• knowledge for change