Tomorrow Today

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Strategies to reinforce the role of

ICT in teaching and

learning for sustainability

Professor Vassilios Makrakis, Department of Primary Education,

University of Crete, Greece

hree forces are shaping and driving 21st century educa-

tion: the development and diffusion of information and

communication technology (ICT), the increasing demand

for new educational approaches and pedagogies that foster

transformative and lifelong learning, and the reorientation

of educational curricula to address sustainable development

(SD). The link between ICT, transformative learning and SD

is being addressed by extensive debates and research which

recognize the challenge new technologies bring to the reorien-

tation of education towards learning to live sustainably. Some

higher education institutions, but not many, have begun to take

advantage of the potential offered by ICT to reorient their study

programmes to address sustainability and cope with the barri-

ers encountered. The results of the 2008 International Survey

prepared for UNESCO revealed some of the more prevalent barri-

ers to addressing education for sustainability to be too few (or

inadequately trained) professionals to provide inspired educa-

tion for sustainable development (ESD), limited staff awareness

and expertise, overcrowded curricula and lack of new teaching

methods and courses. There is also insufficient funding and

inadequate national, provincial and local policy to support ESD.

Disciplinary boundaries between subject areas persist, as well as

a lack of educational leadership to support transformative efforts

to address sustainability.

Responses to these challenges

As a response to these challenges and barriers, the UNESCO Chair

ICT in Education for Sustainable Development, established at the

University of Crete in 2008, has set up a number of projects:

Developing Web-based curricula addressing education for climate change

We have set up a working group consisting of experts in ICT,

Education for Climate Change and Instructional Design to develop

web-based inter/cross-disciplinary curricula addressing the inte-

gration of climate change in the Greek school curriculum. The

instructional material we are developing is expected to engage

primary school learners in social activism and an exploration of the

impacts of climate change on ecosystems and natural resources, on

local communities, and on individuals and global society. We are

open to international cooperation from Ministries of Education and

Foundations to transfer our know-how through customization to

their own educational systems.

A Euro-Mediterranean online ESD ‘community of prac-

tice’ for reforming higher education curricula to address

sustainable development

This participatory action research project aims

at developing a Euro-Mediterranean ‘commu-

nity of practice’ in higher education committed

to the principles of transformative learning and

sustainable development. In particular, it aims to

design, develop and assess an online community

that goes beyond awareness raising to a re-orien-

tation of higher education curricula and campus

practices to address sustainability. It is founded

on a sound basis of merging theory and practice

in higher education systems and constructivist,

Web-based, open and flexible learning manage-

ment systems. This project is integrated into the

TEMPUS project, ‘Reorient University Curricula

to Address Sustainability’, involving universities

from five European Union countries as well as from

Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon.

Development of an online problem-based learning environ-

ment for health education

This project deals with the development and

assessment of an online problem-based learning

‘community of practice’ enriched with inter-disci-

plinary hypermedia-based instructional lessons

on health education issues. Participatory action

research is the research method adopted, with two

parallel action research teams working together in

the prefectures of Rethymnon and Chania on the

island of Crete. Through this project we are expected

to provide sustained, reform-based professional

development to guide teams of teachers through

the process of creating and implementing interdis-

ciplinary and cross-disciplinary hypermedia-based

learning interventions, focusing on local environ-

mental health issues for primary and lower secondary

school students. This project invites international

cooperation from Ministries of Education and

Foundations, which may integrate our know-how in

their own educational systems.