Sources for a Better Education

"Renaissance man and philosopher Piet Kommers presents us with an interesting question: What makes education exciting? His book covers a range of lessons learnt through research and practice, covering philosophies and paradoxes, ranging from learning to learn to machine learning for learning. He takes us on an exciting, comprehensive journey of just about every conceivable aspect of technology and education. This is a must-have for every 21st Century bookshelf!" By: Johannes Cronjé, professor of Digital Teaching and Learning at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, South Africa.

"New technologies change teaching, and we need to understand how application of such technologies can improve the learning. This book provides such knowledge and I wish I had it when I started teaching at university many years ago." By: Jan Frick, Professor at University of Stavanger, Norway.

"Piet Kommers delivers a very thorough book with a holistic perspective on Learning Technologies. This book is a result of many years of experience that the author has in Higher Education. It comprises lessons learned from the author s professional career, including inputs from European Union research projects, as well as diversified interactions with a wide range of Peoples and Cultures .. " By: Pedro Isaias, associate professor at the University of New South Wales (UNSW - Sydney), Australia.

"Distinguished Professor and Thinker Dr. Piet Kommers presents the academic community with a new horizon on education that reflects the current and future technology trends in the e-Learning and Fast Internet ubiquity. The Book discusses the current and most recent advances in research and application of most effective learning methods in conjunction with the future directions in machine learning in support of learning .. " By: Eduard Babulak, Professor, Computational Sciences, Liberty University, Lynchburg, USA.

"Well-known scientist, (e-)learning expert and philosopher Piet Kommers presents us lessons learnt through research and practice, covering philosophies and paradoxes, ranging from learning to learn to machine learning. In 35 chapters he takes us on an exciting, comprehensive journey of just about every conceivable aspect of technology and education .. " By: Eugenia Smyrnova-Trybulska, Dr. hab., associate professor, University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland.

"The book presents a mosaic of assets reflecting the vast international experience in research and realization of learning technologies of the author, honourable professor of the UNESCO Chair in New information technologies in education for all, Piet Kommers. Describing various aspects of learning strategies, approaches, techniques and technologies in a concise way, he engages the readers into the mental construction of a "big picture" and makes them reconsider routine processes of teaching and learning .. " By: professor Volodymyr Gritsenko, Director of the International Research and Training Centre for Information Technologies and Systems, National Academy of Sciences and Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, Head of the UNESCO Chair.

Auteur

Dr. Piet Kommers is an early pioneer in media for cognitive- and social support. His doctoral research explored methods for hypertext and concept mapping in learning. Since 1982 he developed educational technology for teacher training. His main thesis is that technology is catalytic for human ambition and awareness. His main function is associate professor in the University in Twente, The Netherlands and adjunct/visiting professor in various countries. He taught more than fifteen bachelor-, master- and PhD courses and supervised more than 30 PhD students.

He instigated and coordinated the NATO Advanced Research Workshop on Cognitive Technologies in 1990 and a large series of Joint European Research Projects in: authoring multimedia, web-based learning, teacher education, virtual 3d worlds, constructivist learning, social media, web-based communities and international student exchange.

UNESCO awarded his work in ICT for Education in Eastern Europe with the title of Honorary Professor. The Capital Normal University in Beijing awarded his work with the title of Honorary Doctor. He is member of advisory boards in ministries of education and academia of sciences in Singapore, Finland and Russia.

Piet Kommers is the initiator of the international journal for web-based communities and overall chair of the IADIS conferences on societal applications of ICT. Since the late nineties he gave more than 40 invited and keynote lectures at main conferences in the fields of education, media and communication. His books and journal articles address the social and intellectual transformations at each transition from "traditional" into the "new" media. Instead of regarding media as extrapolating, supplanting, vicarious or even disruptive, Piet's view is that new media elicit and seduce both individuals and organizations to reconsider human nature and challenge existential awareness at that very moment. His main publications and citation score can be found here.

His workshop templates and experiences have been implemented into the UNESCO IITE reports, policy briefings and Master Course. The books and journal articles of Piet Kommers reach the level of 9500 citations and the h-index of 36.

Texte du rabat

This textbook evolves from the intersection between 'Research', 'Educational Information Technologies' and recent 'Best Practices'. It offers diplomacy and erudite rhetoric in order to harvest from innovation projects and see how new professional needs for teachers are emerging day by day. The volume launches the compact background for the 21st century education that every teacher faces after being in charge for 3 or 6 years after pre-service training. 'Sources for a better education' refers to the deep understanding and to the incentives for encouraging teachers to leave the comfort zone and experiment the next steps into a further sophisticated professionalism, without the threat of feeling in a 'Dilemma'. The first candidate for extending one's teaching effectiveness is to tailor one's teaching to the test to be expected. 'Teaching to the Test' is an understandable tactic, however it endangers the students' full understanding of underlying concepts and analogies. The second candidate for professionalism is the deeper layer of knowledge on how curricular domains are related. In simpler terms: better teachers know how to 'bridge' topics and subjects so that students develop a deeper understanding on the patterns and structure in knowledge. The 21st century education prioritizes higher degrees of flexible-, divergent and abstract thinking, so that creative problem solving comes into reach. ICT tools for making prior knowledge explicit is a major example on how learners harvest upon prior knowledge, thinking and intuition. The third source for a better education is the courage to envisage one's meta knowledge in order to see patterns in learning and understanding. The more conscious prior knowledge gets decompiled into genetic metaphors; the better future learning can be anticipated. The fourth asset for meta-cognitive skills is the wide spectrum of tools that the web offers for building knowledge infra-structures so that knowledge becomes transformed into problem solving skills; the availability of knowledge is no longer sufficient for finding creative and authentic solutions in future situations. This is the case for both students and teachers. By tradition, the bottom-up strategy from reproductive factual learning up to the levels of problem solving and creative thinking has been favoured. The 'one-click away' access to information on the web asks a more strategic attitude from learners and practitioners to cope with the periphery between known and unknown, so that a more effective meta-cognition develops. The fifth stimulus for …