The Future of Education for Sustainable Development – Between the Power of Technology and the Need for Responsible Citizenship

Dear Colleagues,

Over the course of the 4^th industrial revolution of digitalization, we have experienced or encountered new trends in society and technology that strongly affect the way we learn, teach, and understand knowledge and education. New technology applications, such as blockchain, machine learning, MOOCs or virtual learning environments, are being increasingly used for teaching and learning. There is, not only a high degree of expectation, but also criticism of the societal impacts these new technological applications might have. This is further echoed within the global debate of the effects of emerging technologies on education, in general, and education for sustainable development (ESD), in particular.

Beyond the power of technological applications, recent socio-economic and ecological challenges show that we do not lack sufficient knowledge for change, but we lack people who are willing and able to engage and make change. Especially in the area of climate change research, our recent problems are not derived from a lack of scientific data and technological opportunities for dissemination, but from a lack of adequate methods of teaching and knowledge exchange, which can initiate and foster active engagement and responsible citizenship.

ESD aims at new ways of learning that enable citizens to actively shape sustainable socio-ecological transformations. This Special Issues calls for cases, reviews, and research articles to discuss technological applications in the transdisciplinary light of responsible citizenship and engagement for sustainable development.

This Special Issue is open to submissions of original articles, subject to a rigorous peer review, covering the recent debate on technological applications in education and learning environments, with special attention on learnings from the application of MOOCs, blockchain, artificial intelligence, and virtual learning environments. We look forward to transdisciplinary contributions from sustainability and technology sciences, education studies and the wide range of research in ESD.

Dr. Christian Rammel
Dr. Clemens Mader
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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