Guest Editorial: Current advances in digital learning technologies

During the past years, the increased interest for applying dig-ital technologies aiming to improve learning and teaching hasled to the evolution of the research discipline of Technology-enhanced Learning (TeL). Typically, Technology-enhancedLearning refers to a transformative movement in learningand teaching that exploits technological advances for offeringlearning experiences, which are not possible to be organized inexisting formal educational settings. Several initiativies worldwide are aiming at investigating which digital technologiesand how can be used for meeting the 21st century lifelonglearning societal needs taking into consideration global as wellas local challenges. On the other hand, Learning Technologiesare now part of the ACM Computing Classification Systemand they are included as distinctive subject courses in under-graduate and postgraduate programs of Computer and Infor-mation Sciences. To this end, this Special Issue aims to capturethe current advances in digital technologies for learning andeducation by a number of selected invited papers in keyresearch areas.Professor J. Michael Spector, Professor and Chair in Learn-ing Technologies at the University of North Texas, USA in hiscontribution entitled ‘‘Emerging Educational Technologies:Tensions and Synergy’’, discusses three emerging educationaltechnologies, namely, (a) massive open online courses (MOO-Cs), (b) personalized learning, and (c) game-based learning.Based on a critical discussion of policy documents publishedby the US National Science Foundation, the US Departmentof Education, the New Media Consortium, and two EuropeanNetworks of Excellence, he concludes that digital games canpromote interest and motivation; personalized learning stilllacks the required supporting technologies (e.g., learning ana-lytics) to be effectively deployed at a large scale; whereas,MOOCs can be used effectively to support existing teachingmodels, but at their current implementation, they lack learningguidance, formative feedback, and overall assessment. His fi-nal recommendation is that educational technology researchneeds to focus to evidence-based research that can demonstratethe highly acclaimed advantages of learning technologies whenapplied at large scale implementations.Lanqin Zheng, Junfeng Yang, Wei Cheng and RonghuaiHuang, from the School of Educational Technology, BeijingNormal University, Beijing, China, in their contribution enti-tled ‘‘Emerging Approaches for Supporting Easy, Engaged andEffective Collaborative Learning’’, discusses issues in bothface-to-face and online collabortive learning, as well as, the dif-ferences of collaborative learning between West and Eastemphasising on the potential cultural differences. The authors,based on their analysis, they propose three new approaches forfuture Computer-Supported Collaboative Learning (CSCL)studies, namely, (a) orchestrating diverse activities with re-sources, (b) embedding assessment into learner experience,and (c) infusing smart environment with group activities.Jorge Torres, Ignacio Aedo and Juan Manuel Dodero, intheir contribution entitled ‘‘A Model-Driven Developmentapproach for Learning Design using the LPCEL editor’’ presentthe Learning Process Composition and Execution Language(LPCEL) Editor, a software tool that provides a broad levelof expressiveness and facilitates the authoring process of Com-plex learning scenarios, which are represented using Educa-tional Modelling Languages (EMLs). The authors offer auser evaluation to analyse their perspective regarding the levelof functionality of LPCEL and its services. User experiencewith the LPCEL tool, suggests that the features included arenecessary to perform an instructional design simpler and moreclosely to the requirements of end users with limited technicalskills, such as school teachers.Mohsen Laabidi, Mohamed Jemni, Leila Jemni Ben Ayed,Hejer Ben Brahim and Amal Ben Jemma, from the ResearchLaboratory of Technologies of Information and Communica-tion & Electrical Engineering LaTICE at the National HigherSchool of Engineering of Tunis, University of Tunis, in theircontribution entitled ‘‘Learning Technologies for People withDisabilities’’, discuss the basic concepts of e-accessibility, uni-versal design and assistive technologies and proposed a newapproach for the development of accessible e-Learning envi-ronments. Their proposal consists of three phases: design,implementation and validation. This approach has been