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Introduction

UNESCO (2006) indicated that Faculties of Education and teacher training institutions, in particular, need to reorient their study programs to address the quest for Sustainable Development. The latter is an evolving and dynamic concept in terms of its conceptual definition. According to the World Commission on Environment and Development (1987, p. 43) “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” In a recent panel review of 37 experts (Makrakis 2011, p. 411) sustainable development was consensually defined as “to making informed, contextual and conscious decisions driven by the principles of solidarity, justice, accountability, equity and transparency for the good of present and future generations, locally and globally and to act upon those decisions for advancing social, economic and environmental wellbeing.” The link between Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and sustainable development is being addressed by extensive debates and research which recognize the challenge new technologies bring to the reorientation of education towards learning to live sustainably (Makrakis 2006, 2008, 2011; Paas 2008). Sustainable development is generally perceived as an overlapping of four pillars, dimensions or components, namely environment, society, culture, and economy. According to UNESCO (2005), environmental dimension encompasses key areas such as natural resources, climate change, rural transformation, sustainable urbanization, and disaster prevention and mitigation, while societal dimension embraces human rights, peace and human security, gender equality, indigenous knowledge, cultural diversity and intercultural understanding, health, HIV/AIDS, and governance. Economic dimension, by contrast, includes poverty reduction, corporate responsibility and accountability, fair trade, and market economy. Finally, cultural dimension is referred to as both “an underlying dimension of and ‘inter-linkages’ or ‘inter-connections’ between the other three pillars of sustainable development” (UNESCO 2008). In fact, cultural elements are indeed present in each of the environmental, economic, and social pillars of sustainable development.

The United Nations passed a resolution in December 2002 to adopt the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD) as endorsed by the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD). The DESD (2005–2014) was adopted as a Resolution 57/254 at the UN General Assembly 57th Session in 2002. According to the Resolution, education is considered as a primary capacity to transform their visions for society into reality. It has been also stated that education not only provides scientific and technical skills, it also provides the motivation, justification, and social support for pursuing and applying education for sustainability (UNESCO 2005, 2006; Lawale and Bory-Adams 2010). Education for sustainability has been defined “as the learning needed to maintain and improve our quality of life and the quality of life of generations to come. It is about equipping individuals, communities, groups, businesses and government to live and act sustainably, as well as giving them an understanding of the environmental, social and economic issues involved” (Makrakis 2011, p. 411). This vision of education emphasizes a holistic, interdisciplinary, and cross-disciplinary approach to developing the knowledge and skills needed for a sustainable future as well as changes in values, behavior, and lifestyles.

Hence, in order to achieve sustainability through education, we need teachers who are well-prepared and committed to the principles of sustainability (UNESCO 2006; Makrakis 2010b). In this context, the use of ICTs, can offer exciting new possibilities to promote the changes in teaching methodologies called for education for sustainable development (ESD) (Makrakis 2008; Paas 2008). However, when looking specifically for research on the use of ICTs in ESD, including educational policies, pedagogical approaches and classroom uses of ICTs for ESD, there is not much available to date (Tella and Adu 2009). Integration of ESD in higher education, especially as it concerns pedagogical practice, has been slow (Everett 2008; Rode and Michelsen 2008); except initiatives for campus greening and research where there is more progress (Sterling and Scott 2008; Wals 2009).

In recent years, the concept of WikiQuESD has been developed by the author to combine a Wiki platform and its technologies, the idea of WebQuest (Dodge 1998) and an ESD approach. The template developed is divided into three parts (Fig. 1). The left hand side displays five main nodes: (1) activation, (2) learning tasks, (3) learning processes, (4) reflective feedback/assessment, and (5) extensions, each of which can be used for planning and constructing WikiQuESD lesson interventions. There are also secondary nodes, which provide information about the sources (learning objects) used and creators. The main right pane is the screen that holds the HTML content associated with each node. In the upper bar space, the creators place the title of the instructional project and in the right part, the UNESCO Chair’s logo as well as additional nodes related to online tools that can be used such as Cmap; Blog etc. These mindtools repurpose ICTs to engage learners in critical and reflective thinking (Jonassen 1996; Jonassen and Reeves 1996) and ESD (Vanhear and Pace 2008). WikiQuESD is envisioned to contribute into bridging this gap.

Fig. 1
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WikiQuESD template

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WikiQuESD is based on theoretical insights from critical or emancipatory constructivist research and transformative/reflective learning with particular reference to education for sustainability (Sterling 2001; Wals and Blaze Corcoran 2006; Huckle 2010). Emancipatory constructivism implies that meaning is shaped and knowledge is constructed through discussion with peers and teachers, and through reflection that leads to learning-based change (Kostoulas-Makrakis and Makrakis 2008).

The principal idea behind WikiQuESD is that teaching and learning should focus on the study of real-life problems and the learning process should be learner-­centered. To support these features, WikiQuESD includes strategies such as: activation though various means such as conceptual mapping, Webloging, brainstorming etc. It continues through problem identification, identification of learning needs and tasks, processing and refinement of needs and tasks, construction and reconstruction of new knowledge, and continuous reflective feedback. These descriptors clearly call for pedagogical processes that are participatory, reflective, and emancipatory. It also assumes that an attempt to reorienting teacher education to address sustainability needs to be based on three interrelated pedagogical concepts: (1) contextual learning, (2) authentic learning, and (3) transformative learning (Makrakis 2006). All of these are critical to transforming unsustainable values and actions into sustainable ones. The main technological and pedagogical characteristics built into WikiQuESD can be summarized as follows (Makrakis 2010a):

  • Multiple types and levels of scaffolding: Support comes from online instructional material (http://www.wikitipsgr.wikidot.com) that is monitored by a mentor or facilitator to assist our preservice teachers’ engagement in producing WikiQuESD learning activities. Some of the examples include templates, descriptive assessment rubrics, and guidelines that help them develop and design their WikiQuESD instructional projects.

  • Authentic content, curriculum, and learning tasks: To ensure that content is authentic and learning is meaningful, preservice teachers are encouraged to select and/or negotiate an ESD local/global topic and engage in learning tasks which are real-world and situated within realistic contexts. Content is thus learner-generated, interdisciplinary, and hypermedia-based largely built through multimodal open education resources available in the Web.

  • Multimodal texts and literacies: Using the affordances available in the source social software of the WikiQuESD learning and authoring environment, preservice and in-service teachers are guided to develop web-based instructional interventions merging various modes of representation such as spoken and written language, still or moving images, sounds, designs, animation, and videos.

  • Reflective feedback/assessment: Through a set of guiding questions, pre/in-service teachers are empowered to monitor and take ownership of their learning guided by prompt questions.

  • Active constructive and meaning making reflective process: Pre/in-service teachers are guided to actively engage in knowledge and meaning construction through reflection.

  • Meaningful cooperation, collaboration, and communication: This process engages pre/in-service teachers to learn to negotiate, compromise, compare, share, revise, and scaffold each others’ learning.

  • Transferability and replicability: Pre/in-service teachers working within the WikiQuESD learning and authoring environment produce multimodal content that can be up-scaled, adopted and adapted to various settings and to suit social, cultural and language learner’s needs and making learning more customized.

Learning and behavioral change are essential for achieving sustainable thinking and living (learning to live sustainably), which is inextricably connected to transformative perceptions of learning (Aubusson et al. 2007; Goodfellow and Sumsion 2000; Pilling-Cormick 1997). Transformative learning, in that sense, focuses on learning-based change that involves “learning to be,” “learning to live together,” “learning to know” and “learning to do” (Delors 1996). It is a shift of consciousness that alters: our way of being in the world (learning to be), our way for discovering others by discovering ourselves (learning to live together), our way of learning how to learn as well as acquiring, constructing, disseminating and managing knowledge (learning to know), and our way of putting knowledge into action (learning to do). It is above all learning that “transforms problematic frames of references – sets of fixed assumptions and expectations – to make them more inclusive, discriminating, open reflective and emotionally able to change” (Mezirow 2003, pp. 57–58). To put all these together, all these educational goals or pillars for the twenty-first century need to be integrated with another pillar that is “learning to transform oneself and society.”

Context of the Study and Method

This study examined preservice teachers’ use of WikiQuESD Web 2.0 environment in an undergraduate education course entitled “Design and Develop Web-based Instructional Material” at the Department of Primary Education, University of Crete during the fall of 2009 semester. The course took place over a 13-week period and consisted of a weekly 3-h lecture supplemented by five 2-h tutorials. The teaching process was supported through online instructional material (http://www.wikitipsgr.wikidot.com) that was monitored by a mentor or facilitator. Participants in the course were 30 preservice teachers: 90% were females and 100% had access to Internet either at the University and/or at home and all of them had previous experience using ICTs. Only, a 4% had previous experience with Wikis. The course activities were designed to promote ESD across the primary school curriculum through the support of ICTs integrated into the WikiQuESD authoring environment. It was also designed to promote critical reflection and collaborative learning through the affordances (e.g., weblogs, Cmap, Hotpotatoes) integrated into the WikiQuESD platform (Makrakis 2010a).

A naturalistic inquiry was used to guide the research process for this study. This approach implied that meaning was socially constructed by individuals through interaction with the setting environment and their personal beliefs, theories, practices, and perceptions (Creswell 2003). The research methods used were: participant observation, focus group discussions, reflective journals prepared by course participants, and project-based assignments (Ellis and Weekes 2008; Everett 2008; Clarke 2004). Priest and Sturgess (2005, p. 2) claim that reflection in a group setting provides a richer experience by enabling “the individual to subject their personal beliefs to critical analysis in a safe environment.” Sockman and Sharma (2008) show that through peer feedback and reflective journal writing, teachers could uncover the obstacles and discover how their personal learning theories and teaching beliefs need to change in order to implement transformative teaching strategies. Brandt (2008) also indicates that when feedback and reflection are integrated in the form of reflective conversations between teachers and students, both teachers and students could benefit from the reflective practice. Therefore, reflective practice not only makes change possible, but also provides necessary information to develop guidelines for setting new needs, goals, and plans (Liou 2001; Yang 2009). Content analysis was used to analyze the presence, meanings and relationships of key words, and concepts related to constructs or categories and then make inferences about the messages (Krippendorff 2004). A category was defined as a group of words with similar meaning or connotations, which must be mutually exclusive and exhaustive. Three types of texts were used: (1) texts derived from the participants’ answers to a set of open-ended questions elicited through focus group discussion and reflective journals, (2) the instructor’s notes taken through participant observation, and (3) the texts of the 16 submitted WikiQuESD projects. Some of the questions asked during the focus group discussions were: What did you expect from the course? What has changed in terms of pedagogy and personal theory after finishing the course? If something changed, why did it not happen before? The content was examined using two methods: conceptual analysis and relational analysis (Carley 1993). The former was used to look into the existence of concepts associated with critical constructivism in the texts. The latter was used to examine whether the instructional strategies and the activities adopted, especially in the WikiQuESD projects were related to critical constructivist principles.

To make valid inferences from the content of the projects examined, double checking has been carried out and no ambiguity of word meanings and category definitions had been revealed. To cross-validate the findings, two techniques were employed: first, the results were communicated to a sample of respondents to get a sense of the extent to which they are truly reflected in the project works and second, the project works and the open-ended questions upon which analysis was made were cross-referenced (Miles and Huberman 1994). Both revealed a high consistency with the constructs developed and the interpretations and inferences made.

Results of the Study

The themes or main categories that emerged from the analysis could be assigned to the following concepts: motivation, multimodality, authenticity, interdisciplinarity, use of distributed resources, transferability, empowerment, and meaningfulness. Motivation was enabled through using stories, videos, pictures, or cartoons. It was assumed that such anchors could stimulate the learners’ curiosity about the topic, challenge their perceptions, and motivate them to explore further the sustainability issue. In some cases, the use of video-clips was used together with the use of blogs or forums. Previous research shows that the use of such networking media contributes positively to empowerment and learning (Williams 2004). These results can be substantiated by previous research which shows that it can be difficult to motivate learners when it comes to reading texts (Dewitt 1996; Davis 1997) and that Internet access and use could motivate students (Stiler and Philleo 2003; Liaw et al. 2007).

To ensure that content is authentic and learning is meaningful, preservice teachers participated in the study were encouraged to select and/or negotiate an ESD local/global topic and engage in learning tasks which were real-world and situated within realistic contexts. Themes developed in the project works dealt with types of energy, desertification, renewal resources, overconsumption, bioclimatic schools, and climate change. The content of the WikiQuESD projects submitted was interdisciplinary and largely built on multimodal open education resources available in the Web. A sample of representative projects developed can be accessed from the following URL addresses:

The WikiQuESD projects submitted show that the learning activities integrated into projects were associated with an extensive use of ICT affordances and extensive use of Web-based open education resources. The amount of open education resources integrated into the WikiQuESD projects ranged about 40–50% of the total content. All of the participants used both home and university campus networked facilities, mostly for asynchronous collaborative learning, although synchronous collaborative networking facilities were available through the WikiQuESD platform. This is largely due to the fact that most participants were not accustomed to this type of communication; added to that such activity was not demanded by the course.

Based on the analysis of focus group discussions, course participants’ instructional design models elicited at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end of the course changed significantly. When participants were asked to indicate their instructional design model at the start of the course, the most common instructional design models exhibited were largely divided into four stages: stating goals and objectives, turning objectives into learning tasks, use of ready-made content, and learning assessment at the end to be delivered mostly through structured tests. This reflects a traditional objectivist instructional design model that has the following characteristics: the process is sequential and linear, predefined learning objectives guide lesson planning and development, didactic material is prescribed, and implementation is largely teacher-centered and summative learning assessment is dominant. The shift to an alternative instructional design model was evidenced in the middle of the course when participants were asked to present the progression of their projects tasks. By the end, almost all WikiQuESD projects developed can be characterized by the following design characteristics: recursive and nonlinear, learning objectives are negotiated (emerge through activation and learning processes), didactic material is constructed and reconstructed based on OERs, and instruction focuses on contextual and meaningful learning.

This shift in instructional design paradigm also reflects a “change agency” principle that can be interpreted in a threefold way. First, all the participants in this study expressed a positive image about themselves and confidence in their engagement with WikiQuESD technologies. Indicative expressions supporting this assumption elicited through focus group discussions and the personal reflective journals are the following: “Feel more confident,” “can do things without support,” “I will use wiki in class” etc. Second, it was also revealed that merging ICT-based reflective pedagogies, such as webloging was perceived as a tool that can empower them to change their personal theories and practices.

The following replies elicited through focus group discussions and reflective journals seem to be indicative in supporting this assumption: “using themes that reflect real-life problems, teachers take investigative roles that help them discover and construct new understandings and knowledge,” “real-life problems made me think over of my personal beliefs and actions.” It is also worth pointing out that almost all participants indicated that through this course they learned how to construct knowledge rather than acquiring knowledge. It was also revealed by more than half of them that the knowledge and skills acquired through the WikiQuESD projects could be transferred to other situations. The core assumption of constructivism is that learners actively create their own knowledge, vs. acquiring it, and that this active engagement is thought to promote a deeper understanding that may be transferred to new and different situations (Tobias 2010; Evans 2006). Looking into the WikiQuESD projects, it is also evidenced that participants used a mixture of assessment tools such as concept mapping, weblogs, and interactive exercises. Previous research shows that concept mapping has been used extensively in teaching and learning (Raymond 1997; Novak 1990; Novak and Cañas 2008) as well as a tool to monitor and promote meaningful learning, thinking, and acting in courses related to sustainable development for teacher education (Åhlberg 2004).

Evidence through focus group discussions shows that the paradigm shifts have been empowered by discussions on the three dominant paradigms of learning (transmissive, transactual and transformative) in the context of three corresponding models of curriculum: (1) product, (2) process, and (3) praxis (Grundy 2003). However, the reflective journals submitted by participants varied: a few revealed deep and critical reflection but most focused on describing events, with relatively narrow analysis. However, almost all the participants stated that they plan to integrate WikiQuESD in their future work. In terms of problems encountered, the great majority of participants indicated that the most demanding in working with WikiQuESD is the learning of codes. This may be explained by the fact that most of the participants had little previous experience with wiki environments.

Conclusion

Three of the major forces shaping and driving the twenty-first century education are (Makrakis 2008): (1) the development and diffusion of ICTs, (2) the increasing demand for new educational approaches and pedagogies that foster transformative and lifelong learning, and (3) the reorientation of educational curricula to address sustainable development (SD). Education systems, at all levels, and especially Higher Education and Teacher Education bear their own responsibility for building a more sustainable future. If higher education fails to educate students for sustainability, future teachers and leaders cannot be qualified agents for sustainable development. In the field of education, ICTs are increasingly deployed as tools to extend the learner’s capacity to learn and teacher’s capacity to deliver quality teaching and develop professional skills. One emerging area concerns merging ICTs with the United Nations (UN) call for the DESD to create a more sustainable development future. While increasing the quality of education through ESD, the use of ICTs pose many challenges for innovative and creative ways in reorienting teacher education to address sustainability. From this study, although limited to a case study, it is quite clear that building constructivist learning environments enabled by ICTs had an important influence on the preservice teachers’ learning both in terms of what and how to teach. Analyzing the content of the WikiQuESD projects submitted at the end of the course, it is evident that ICTs when merged with sound pedagogical principles may contribute to educational innovative and education for sustainability. Besides the learning outcomes gained by preservice teachers while developing these projects, they can also be seen as good examples of curriculum innovation and evidence of the changing their instructional design roles. These projects can also provide a useful teaching resource for other preservice and in-service teachers to be used for modeling similar developments. Rethinking and revising education to address the knowledge, skills, perspectives, and values related to sustainability is of paramount importance to current and future societies. This implies a review of existing curricula in terms of their objectives and content with the aim to develop interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary understanding and knowledge of social, cultural, economic, and environmental sustainability. These include skills for problem-based learning (PBL), creative, reflective and critical thinking, using appropriate ICTs, and reforming teacher training practices so that transformative lifelong learning is fostered. PBL is preferred as the methodology because of its compatibility with ESD and the strengths and advantages it offers for supporting teachers’ professional development and learning. First, PBL builds on the use of learners’ reflective practice in teaching and learning based on real-life and authentic problems and issues (Stewart et al. 2007; Neo and Neo 2001). Through this, teachers are encouraged to take more ownership of their professional development in a highly creative and stimulating way supported by hypermedia-based cognitive tools (Jonassen et al. 2003; Brush and Saye 2002).

Through a PBL process, teachers have an opportunity to develop skills in problem definition and problem solving, to reflect on their own learning, knowledge and practices, and develop a deep understanding of the content domain learning. In a PBL approach, the problem is often stated in the form of key questions, such as the following:

  • How can I use computerized graphic organizers to teach vocabulary relevant to environmental sustainability issues?

  • How can I use datahandling tools (e.g., Excel) to construct knowledge and promote learning-based action on ESD local/global issues?

  • How can I use ICT to develop my ecological footprint towards sustainable water use?

In light of these questions, there is need to merge new technology with new pedagogy that addresses sustainability. Teaching local/global sustainable issues also requires teachers to be creative, critical, resourceful, and informed on these issues. The interactive nature of hypermedia technology provides unique capabilities for the implementation of problem-based environments. This suggests a high degree of learner control. Hypermedia tools, such as video-based scenarios, ecological footprints, visual graphic organizers, electronic notebooks, and communication tools help learners explore and address problems in a real-life situation as well as being used as critical reflective scaffolds on the problem-solving process. Media, interaction tasks, navigation etc. should follow sound interface design principles.

Our experiences in carrying out teaching interventions dealing with ESD themes and PBL methods supported by ICTs indicate that such an interface should take into consideration: (1) using PBL scenarios linked to local sustainability issues in audiovisual/hypermedia format, (2) employing critical thinking scaffold as knowledge elicitation systems that could also assist teachers as action researchers, (3) exploring the advantage of technology to provide opportunity for support and reflection on both the content learned and the learning process, and (4) connecting ICTs with learning techniques that foster higher-order thinking skills, support decision making and involve participatory learning. Our teaching and research experiences through this study imply that there is need for teacher education curriculum revision which will aim at:

  • Empowering future teachers to develop their instructional skills actively and experientially, in a variety of learning environments, both individually and collaboratively.

  • Providing an authentic learning environment so that future teachers engage in concrete tasks within realistic and problem-solving learning scenarios.

  • Emphasizing ways that technology can facilitate and enhance future teachers’ professional roles.