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Today’s digitally connected classrooms have the potential to be places for rich and engaged disciplinary learning. This chapter takes two topics that have been identified in the What’s Hot in Literacy 2019 study, digital literacies and disciplinary literacies, and illustrates their intersections and synergies. Both areas have remained hot and very hot as individual topics. In this chapter, the authors explore the powerful opportunities to harness the learning potential of the Internet to engage learners across disciplines. By forging connections between digital literacies for disciplinary learning, the authors examine practices and develop pedagogies that youth deserve.

Game-based learning or simulation-based learning – especially Serious Games – are notions of the contemporary discourse on digitalisation in the higher education sector in Germany. These methods offer a more vivid and motivating learning context and they help to improve important competencies for reaching work-related higher education goals. This explorative study focuses on experts’ experiences with digital and non-digital serious games and their contribution towards developing self, social and management competencies, in the Bundeswehr Command and Staff College in Hamburg (Germany). Whilst there are numerous opportunities for using serious games in higher education, their use creates barriers for addressing social, as well as leadership/management competencies. In the future, game-based learning – and more specifically, digital game-based learning – could challenge the relation between learning as hard work and learn for fun, and between explicit and goal-oriented learning and implicit, incidental and explorative learning.

The chapter discusses pedagogical models of digital learning in the United Kingdom with a focus on online and blended learning, rolled out as a case study in one university. The chapter appraises the effectiveness of the model that implemented and foregrounded the evidence in the wider literature on models of digital learning in higher education. The chapter provides thematic analysis and methodological opportunities for the improvement of practice and presents a set of implementation implications and pitfalls to avoid for higher education institutions in Africa. Furthermore, a number of trends regarding the blending of learning and communication synchrony in digital learning have also been identified.

This study aims to investigate how primary teachers, when taking part in digital didactic design (D³) workshops at the Digital Laboratory Centre at the university, develop their insights about how digital tools can be designed and further used in their teaching of science. The research question addresses how D³ can be used to develop primary teachers’ knowledge about teaching science with digital technologies.

During two semesters, 14 primary science teachers from three different schools participated in an in-service course at the university. Five D³ workshops lasting 4 h each were conducted with the aim to analyze, design and implement digital tools based on the needs of teachers and students. This includes discussions about the technological, pedagogical and content knowledge (TPACK) framework and further recommendations about how to choose, design, implement and evaluate digital tools for different teaching and learning situations. In between the workshops, the teachers were told to reflect on their experiences with colleagues and students and share their ideas and reflections to support collegial learning.

The results indicate that D³ has an opportunity to promote deep learning experiences with a framework that encourages teachers and researchers to study, explore and analyze the applied designs-in-practice, where teachers take part in the design process. This study further indicates that having teachers explicitly articulates their reasoning about designing digital applications to engage students’ learning that seems important for exploring the types of knowledge used in these design practices and reflecting on aspects of their teaching with digital technologies likely to influence their TPACK.

This research indicates that the increasing prevalence of information communication technology offers challenges and opportunities to the teaching and learning of science and to the scientific practice teachers might encounter. It offers solutions by investigating how primary teachers can design their own digital technology to meet students’ science learning needs. One limitation might be that the group of 14 teachers cannot be generalized to represent all teachers. However, this study gives implications for how to work with and for teachers to develop their knowledge of digital technologies in teaching.

As this project shows teachers can take an active part in the digital school development and as such become producer of knowledge and ideas and not only become consumers in the jungle of technical applications that are implemented on a school level. Therefore, it might well be argued that in science teaching, paying more careful attention to how teachers and researchers work together in collaborative settings, offers one way of better valuing science teachers’ professional knowledge of practice. As such, an implication is that digital applications are not made “for” teachers but instead “with” and “by” teachers.

The society puts high demands om teachers’ knowledge and competencies to integrate digital technologies into their daily practices. Building on teachers’ own needs and concerns, this project addresses the challenge for teachers as a community to be better prepared for and meet the societal challenge that digitalization means for schools.

Across the field of science education, knowledge about the relation between teachers’ use of digital technology and how it might (or might not) promote students’ learning offers access to ideas of how to design and implement teacher professional development programs. This offers enhanced communication opportunities between schools and universities regarding school facilities and expectations of technology to improve teachers’ experiences with integrating technology into their learning and teaching. This pragmatic approach to research creates theory and interventions that serve school practice but also produces challenges for design-based researchers.

This study proposes a mobile learning model that employs digital libraries to support investigative learning activities. A student‐centered mobile learning activity with self‐guided exploration for physical ecology observation has been conducted to demonstrate the benefits of using digital libraries to support investigation‐based ecology learning activities.

An investigation‐based mobile learning model is proposed and an experiment is designed to show the effectiveness of the learning model, in which the students are asked to answer a series of questions by observing the real‐world learning objects and searching for supplemental materials from a digital library.

The instructional experiment conducted in an elementary school with 64 sixth grade students shows that the innovative approach is able to improve the learning achievement, learning effectiveness, as well as the learning attitudes of the students.

The findings of this paper imply that the use of the investigative learning model will significantly promote the utilization rate of digital libraries.

An investigative model for using digital libraries to support mobile learning is proposed in this paper. It provides good guidance to teachers for designing learning activities with digital libraries, and a good way for students to learn, utilizing the materials in digital libraries.

The digital learning and learning & development (L&D) at workplaces in corporates is having a significant challenge, where only about 1% of the week is spent on L&D by the employees. There are an array of recent L&D reports–by Deloitte, 2019; Skillsoft's, 2019; LinkedIn Workplace Learning Report-2019; UK L&D Report-2019; FICCI-NASSCOM and EY “Future of Jobs” Report-2017–which have clearly been indicating that the digital learning is fast-emerging as one of the realistic option. The employees invest their time and energy for skilling/up-skilling/re-skilling for remaining relevant to the emerging business context under volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA) world and also coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is being researched.

The L&D interventions have primary objective of enhancing skills, competencies and career growth among employees, and the learning engagement styles/ systems are undergoing dramatic paradigm shifts. There is dire need to understand the impact of sweeping changes with Industry 4.0 and HR 4.0; however, there are only a few industry-centric studies that are available to assess the impact of technology on L&D with digital learning. Hence, there is a need to study the factors influencing various segments of workforce in large corporates, where the learning engagement with digital learning is fast-emerging among corporates.

Given the digital learning / L&D context in corporates, this research paper has attempted to review and analyse the opportunities, challenges and emerging trends with respect to leveraging technology and innovation to enhance L&D to deliver the business goals, under the 70:20:10 framework, with case analysis of ten different corporates (across different industry sectors) viz., Genpact, Nexval, Airbus, Siemens, AstraZeneca Pharma, HPCL, HGS (BPM), HP, Flipkart and IBM. The A-to-Z of Talent Management and Leadership Development (adopted version from India Leadership Academy, Publicis Sapient, 2019) best practices are analysed, summarized and presented to indicate emerging trends in Industry 4.0 era.

This study has been carried out for just ten major corporates/ multinational companies (MNCs) operating in various sectors. The sample size used is relatively less; therefore, the study can be carried out with a larger sample size and deeper data analysis and insights across countries/continents. At present, this can be considered as a base-research for undertaking deep-dive analysis. The sectoral analysis and cross-industry perspectives require consideration in next studies. To address the sector-specific issues, the research can be undertaken for either a particular sector such as manufacturing, automotive, IT/ITeS, telecom, aviation, agri-tech and pharmaceutical, knowledge-based industries, etc. or comparative analysis across few related sectors required.

This research has provided/shall provide a basis to understand the various factors that influence the L&D and digital learning ecosystem in large corporates. It is expected to provide a practical and also strategic perspective towards effective usage of digital learning systems (both in-house and open systems) for enhancing the effectiveness of L&D in the context of VUCA World and HR 4.0 around us. The proposed hypothesis of “The Digital Learning is the “Future of HR”, especially for the L&D in large Corporate Academies (in the context of Industry 4.0)” stands justified.

The clear shift from training culture to “Learning Culture” is possible and feasible with strategically planned digital learning/ L&D interventions, which benefits the corporates, employees, customers and the society at large.

To the best of our knowledge, probably this is one of the first paper in the analysing the industry best L&D/Digital learning practices from an practitioners and academic perspective, as we live in the era of bit-sized and byte sized micro-learning. This study contributes to the academics by providing insights on possible digital learning policies that can be practiced by large corporates, where the “ownership of learning and career growth” is transferred onto the employees. The result of this study complements the evolving digital learning trends, in line with science of self-driven and lifelong learning principle.

The study has identified the factors among students that can enable or inhibit students from using online learning platforms. Students enrolled at different levels, diversified streams and separate courses were surveyed for the investigation. The study also highlights the significant hitches faced in using or adopting e-learning.

Responses were collected from Indian students on a seven-point Likert-type scale using a structured questionnaire around the updated Technology Readiness Index's four dimensions. Adapted dimensions were evolved to identify the people's propensity to accept and reject the new technology.

The result of the survey highlights the students' positive attitude towards the e-learning approach. The diffusion of e-learning platforms occupies them with a feeling of optimism and innovativeness. However, discomfort in using the newly penetrated e-learning platforms was also found. Furthermore, no significant variances concerning the different demographics were detected.

The cross-sectional research approach was used for the investigation. However, it is evident that with the use and experience of technology, an increase in its acceptance follows. Thus, a longitudinal research approach should explore the differences between students' earlier and later involvement after experiencing the platform. A cross-country investigation is also needed to measure the technological biases among students.

With advancements in technology, the chances of diffusion of e-learning in traditional classrooms have risen. However, to encourage the student's engagement towards e-learning, the platform needs to be student and teacher-friendly. This study serves the purpose of exploring the determinants that will guide educational institutes and developers of online platforms in achieving excellence in enhancement and engagement among students.

The investigation adds to recognize the acceptance of e-learning among students by exploring its determinants using the Technology Readiness Index 2.0. The study has also explored the differences in readiness to use e-learning on differences in enrolment level, institute type and courses.

This paper seeks to assess the differences between learning performance and the satisfaction of learners who use digital resources in the Taiwan Libraries' History Digital Library (organized digital resources) and the Google search engine (unorganized digital resources) in problem‐solving learning for the same subject via the problem‐based learning (PBL) mode. The paper aims to explore the advantages and characteristics of using digital archives to support PBL and to offer suggestions that are helpful when using digital archives to support e‐learning.

The study adopted the quasi‐experimental design method to assign all participants into an experimental group and control group to evaluate differences in learning performance and the satisfaction of learners who use different digital resources during PBL processes. A statistical analysis scheme was employed to evaluate the learning performance of learners during PBL supported by different digital resources in terms of learning processes, PBL outcomes, and a questionnaire.

The study obtained the following conclusions: learning performance and the satisfaction of learners in the experimental group during PBL processes supported by digital archival resources were superior to those of control‐group learners who were supported by search engine resources; compared with search engine resources, the digital archival resources provide benefits in the learning phase, such as “action” (i.e. doing), in the proposed PBL mode, which has three learning phases; and compared with resources accessed through the Google search engine, PBL supported by digital archival resources should enhance searching performance and thereby increase learner willingness to use digital archives during e‐learning.

Using digital archives to support e‐learning is a new trend in the library sciences field; however, few studies have developed useful learning modes for effective e‐learning supported by digital archives. Evidential research related to e‐learning supported by digital archives is also lacking; most studies used digital archives as digital course materials, thus ignoring the principal property of digital archives – excellent resource organization.

The paper shows that by integrating the PBL mode with digital archives one can identify the advantages of digital archives in supporting e‐learning, resulting in innovative and valuable research.

This paper aims to present a model for the quality assurance of digital educational material that is appropriate for adult education. The proposed model adopts the software quality standard ISO/IEC 9126 and takes into account adult learning theories, Bloom’s taxonomy of learning objectives and two instructional design models: Kolb’s model (the learning cycle) and Gagne, Briggs and Wager’s model.

The structure of this paper is as follows: in the second section, the theory of “the learning cycle of Kolb” is discussed. The third section discusses the model of Gagne, Biggs & Wager. The fourth section discusses and categorizes the characteristics and sub-characteristics of the quality of digital educational material. The fifth section discusses and categorizes the quality attributes of digital educational material. Moreover, the correlation of the sub-characteristics of the material with the model of Gagne and that of Kolb are examined.

The authors developed a quality model that adopts the structure of ISO/IEC 9126 standard, using basic notions of theories of adult education to define its characteristics and sub-characteristics. The model has been successfully applied in the quality evaluation of educational material distributed to distance learning adult students.

The innovative combination of an established quality model with sound educational theories yields a comprehensive model that allows both a qualitative and quantitative evaluation of the appropriateness of digital educational material. The applicability of the model is demonstrated by applying it to specific digital materials specially developed for adult education.

An increasing amount of research and debate has emerged over the last few years, emphasising the need for developing digitally competent, literate, able, skilled, capable people within a constantly changing technological and online environment. Existing definitions and perspectives in this area go beyond the use of technological tools or media for the creation of a digital literacy mindset, which develops throughout one's life. However, Higher Education strategies have not yet caught up with this agenda.

A student survey with Library and Information Science students from three higher education institutions in Scotland, Ireland and Greece was conducted as a basis of empirical data to support the theoretical propositions of the study. The survey centred on the technical and higher-level digital competences of students and drawing from students' self-perceived digital competences for learning and for the everyday life digital context, addressing e-leisure, e-learning, e-democracy, e-government and e-health activities. The survey critically enabled students to assess digital competences from their perspectives as digital participants.

Students' self-assessment of digital competences were lacking in a number of areas, which involved the development of information literacy, digital creation, digital research and digital identity management. In addition, students' digital competences were found to be linked to previous experiences within the everyday life digital environment. The higher the self-perceived digital competence levels of students were on the basis of dealing with everyday life digital tasks, the more likely they were to also develop high self-perceived digital competence in other digital areas related to their education.

Higher education has not fully embraced digital competences as a core, fundamental literacy which addresses both technology mastery and a digital citizenship mindset. As emerging models begin to challenge traditional teaching and learning paradigms, with global connectivity and personalised approaches, existing digital divides may be further accelerated. This requires revisiting digital competences with emphasis on the diversity of the contexts where it develops and of the learners involved, in the overall continuum of learning for life.