Cloud-based Education: Scenarios for the Future

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1 School on the Cloud D5.3

Cloud-based Education:

Scenarios for the Future

October 2016

SchoolontheCloud.eu

School on the Cloud: Connecting Education to the Cloud for Digital Citizenship

tal Citizenship

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Deliverable Title: Cloud-based Education: Scenarios for the Future, Working Group 4

Deliverable Nr: 5.3

Date: October 2016

Version: 3.0

Dissemination Level: Public

Author: Prof. K. Koutsopoulos (Leader WG4: i-Future)

Contributors: Maria Meletiou-Mavrotheris (European University, Cyprus), Irene Pizzo (CESIE, Italy)

Project Title: School on the Cloud (SoC)

Project Nr: 543221–LLP–1–2013–1–GR-KA3- KA3NW

Project Start Date: January 1, 2014

Duration: 36 months

European Commission: Lifelong Learning Program - ICT Key Action 3 European Project

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission, Lifelong Learning

Programme of the European Union. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the

Commission cannot be held responsible for any us which may be made of the information contained

therein.

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“School on Cloud: Connecting Education to the Cloud for Digital

Citizenship”

European Commission: Lifelong Learning Program

ICT Key Action 3 European Project

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Cloud-based Education: Scenarios for the Future

Working Group 4: Deliverable 5.3

Author: Prof. K. Koutsopoulos Leader WG4

Contributors: Maria Meletiou-Mavrotheris (Ch.7) Irene Pizzo (Ch.6)

Due date of deliverable : May 2016 (Version 2.0)

Final date of deliverable: October 2016 (Version 3.0)

Start date of project : January 1, 2014

Duration : 36 months

Dissemination Level : Public

Abstract: As technology has become an agent of immense change, it has forced upon the

education system Cloud Computing which in the future will have significant ripple effect. The

description and evaluation of these effects represent one of the principal goals of the School on

the Cloud Network and is expressed in this document whose main objective is to review Cloud

based futures and methodologies. That is, responding to the need for examining future

enhancements of this technology on education this document presents a review of state-of-the-

art research on the future of Cloud based education and elaborates on foresight methods and

their application within the working plan of the School on the Cloud Network.

With the support of the Lifelong Learning Programme of the European Union

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Summary

The purpose of education is to successfully prepare students for the future and therefore

education by its nature is a future-facing activity where all assumptions about and

aspirations for the future of education should underpin the concerns of the major

educational stakeholders such as the learners (what to study in the future?), the teachers

(what teaching methods that will best equip students?) and the administrators (what school

administrative actions are appropriate to face the future?). This goal is the objective of this

document whose aim is to develop scenarios built around carefully constructed "stories":

based on: trends, changes and challenges as well as experts concerns, towards a balanced

thinking about a number of possible alternative futures.

The document in addition to the introduction (chapter 1) and conclusion (chapter 10) has

three parts: The first one examines the European educational system, from a point in view as

to how its future is shaping and the major issues that need to be considered (chapter 2).

These issues will change future teaching and learning both in terms of trends and changes in

society, technology education innovations and all aspects of education (chapter 3).

The second elaborates on a foresight methodological framework in accomplishing the SoC

foresight efforts (chapter 4) and an elaborate description of the three methods chosen for

the network's foresight exercises, their application as well as their results, more specifically,

the Brainstorming approach (chapter 5); the Six Thinking Hats technique (chapter 6); and the

Delphi method (chapter 7).

The final, third part, presents the constructed scenarios which were aimed at discussing

different possible futures of education and taking the form of short stories of possible

futures, imagining how the education could look after 2025 (chapter 8). In addition, these

scenarios, based on trends and challenges reported in the literature and expressed by

experts' opinions, will determine our education system and thus their future expectations

should be taken into consideration for the new school on the cloud (chapter 9).

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Summary ................................................................................................................. 4

1. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................ 7

1.1. Background ......................................................................................................... 7

1.2. Justification .......................................................................................................... 9

2. THE EUROPEAN EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM ................................................. 10

2.1 The Network Centered Knowing Paradigm ......................................................... 13

2.2 Cloud Computing. ............................................................................................... 15

2.3 The School on the Cloud .................................................................................... 17

2.4 The Pedagogical System in Europe ................................................................... 18

3. TRENDS AND CHANGES ................................................................................. 19

3.1 Trends in Society ................................................................................................ 19

3.2 Trends in Technology ......................................................................................... 21

3.3 Trends in Innovations ......................................................................................... 23

3.4. Trends in Education. .......................................................................................... 28

3.5 Provisions of Cloud Computing .......................................................................... 29

3.6 Trends in Schools ............................................................................................... 32

3.7 Trends in Learning .............................................................................................. 33

3.8 Trends in Teaching ............................................................................................. 37

3.9 Trends and Changes in Education Stakeholders ................................................ 38

3.10 Changing of Other Educational Elements ......................................................... 40

4. METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK OF THE SoC FORSIGHT ................. 41

4.1 Foresight: Methods Chosen ................................................................................ 42

4.2 Definitions ........................................................................................................... 43

4.3 SoC's Future and Its Values System. ................................................................. 43

4.4 Methodological Approach ................................................................................... 45

5. APPLICATION OF THE BRAINSTORMING APPROACH........................... 46

5.1 Process ............................................................................................................... 47

5.2 The Brainstorming Persona ................................................................................ 47

5.3 Application .......................................................................................................... 49

6. APPLICATION OF THE SIX THINKING HATS APPROACH ...................... 49

6.1 The Six Hats Technique. .................................................................................... 49

6.2 Objectives ........................................................................................................... 51

6.3 The Process. ...................................................................................................... 51

6.4 Application of Six Thinking Hats. ........................................................................ 53

6.5. The Results. ...................................................................................................... 55

6.6 Possible Future Scenarios. ................................................................................. 59

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6.7 Concluding Remarks .......................................................................................... 61

7. APPLICATION OF THE DELPHI METHOD ................................................. 61

7.1 Delphi Definition and Historical Background ....................................................... 61

7.2 SoC Foresight Procedure. .................................................................................. 63

7.3 Questionnaires' Application ................................................................................ 65

7.4 Analytical Presentations of the Result ................................................................ 68

7.5 Concluding Remarks .......................................................................................... 86

8. FUTURE SCENARIOS FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING .......................... 87

8.1 Scenarios Design ............................................................................................... 87

8.2. Scenario 1: The story of Luc the Future School Learner ................................... 89

8.3 Scenario 2: The story of Chrisanthi the Future School Teacher ......................... 92

8.4 Scenario 3: The story of Jen the Future School Manager................................... 94

9. FUTURE EXPECTATIONS ............................................................................... 98

9.1 Future Expectations in Technology .................................................................... 99

9.2 Future Expectations for Policy Making.............................................................. 101

9.3 Future Expectations for Research .................................................................... 102

9.4 The future Expectations of Uncertainties .......................................................... 104

10 CONCLUSIONS: THE FUTURE SCHOOL ................................................... 104

10.1 Personalized ................................................................................................... 105

10.2 Holistic ............................................................................................................ 105

10.3 Integrated ....................................................................................................... 105

10.4 Technological ................................................................................................. 106

10.5 Knowledge - Centered .................................................................................... 106

10.6 United but not uniform .................................................................................... 106

10.7 Active .............................................................................................................. 107

10.8 Revised ........................................................................................................... 107

10.9 Facilitative ....................................................................................................... 107

10.10 Collaborative ................................................................................................. 107

10.11 STEM focused .............................................................................................. 108

10.12 Multimodal .................................................................................................... 108

11. REFERENCES ................................................................................................ 109

Appendix I ........................................................................................................... 116

Appendix II ......................................................................................................... 118

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1. INTRODUCTION

Cloud Computing, the focus of this report, is a major technological breakthrough with

a huge potential for education. Through Cloud Computing, high specification state-of-

the-art software technologies can be accessed at any time, any place (Cheng,

Huang, & Lin, 2012). Thus, Cloud Computing provides powerful software and

massive computing resources where and when needed, allowing learners to interact

productively with their teachers and with each other in both formal and informal

education situations, and to become creators and developers of knowledge. Given its

huge affordances, Cloud Computing has become a very popular and powerful

educational trend (Joshi, 2015). Cloud Computing has been increasingly and widely

used in the field of education (Shi et al., 2014). It is projected that this trend will

continue, with Cloud technologies playing an even more vital and powerful role in the

educational field in years to come.

1.1. Background

This report presents the findings of the foresight exercises conducted by the Working

Group 4 (WG 4) of the School on Cloud: connecting education to the Cloud for digital

citizenship network (SoC). The main goal of SoC is to connect education to Cloud

Computing and to explore how education should respond to new ICT developments,

in the form of Cloud Computing, that are rapidly transforming the world of education.

That is, to narrow the existing divide between education and Cloud Computing by

developing guidelines for the education sector, by encouraging collaboration and

knowledge exchange as well as examining future enhancements of this technology

on education. The last goal is the main objective of this document whose goal is to

formulate scenarios for the future of European education. Moreover the report's

findings are hoped to push the boundaries of traditional research on education and

help resolve the complex societal challenges Europe is facing on Cloud based

education, which enables pedagogic innovations and collaborative policy

approaches. For this purpose, it links very diverse educational stakeholders having

various practitioners' views and policy making concerns, through foresight exercises,

together with the knowledge existing in the literature.

It should be noted that today's Cloud capabilities are already a remarkable catalyst

for creativity, collaboration and innovation, providing opportunities that would have

been impossible to imagine a couple of decades ago. If one had predicted at that

time that today's students can freely access images from any place on the world,

interact with persons from everywhere on earth and search practically an infinite

volume of data with a simple click on their PCs, one would have been taken for fool

(European Commission, 2009).

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As a result, the need to thoroughly examine and evaluate the interface between

education and Cloud Computing, exploring how teaching and learning should

respond to new ICT developments, in the form of Cloud Computing, as well as

examine how education will be transformed in the immediate future was a major

concern for many ICT experts and educators. Some of them had an opportunity in a

meeting for ICT in education in Spain on April 2012, to discuss them. These

discussions resulted in an idea for a School on Cloud proposal which was submitted

and approved creating the School on Cloud: connecting education to the Cloud

for digital citizenship network (SoC).

The aim of this network is to overcome the existing divide between education and

Cloud Computing, but looking at this issue is not an easy task as you might have

been led to believe. Although the future of teaching and learning is expected to be in

the Cloud, there remain many issues to be resolved, but most importantly their future

has not be studied or documented together as they should. That is, although there is

a rich production of research projects and applications on the future of Education or

of Cloud Computing examined separately, the literature has yet to provide answers to

the combined issue on the future of education based on Cloud Computing. In other

words, presently there is a need for examining the future of Cloud based Education,

which has to address both areas as they are combined and interact.

In response to that need and within the SoC framework for a combined approach to

Cloud based Education, the Working Group 4 (WG 4) has been established and is

charged with examining “Future scenarios for Education on the Cloud”. The goal of

this group is to examine a series of issues related to the future of the interface

between education and Cloud Computing. More specifically, the objectives and

deliverables of WG 4 are to:

Review the state-of-the-art research on the Cloud and produce a research

report on the state of the art and methodologies of “futures” thinking (Deliverable:

D5.1). This deliverable has been produced and accepted by the internal and

external evaluators and its results are guiding the following tasks of the WG.

Prepare and run a workshop on futures at the second summit conference

(Deliverable: D5.2). The workshop has taken place at the meeting in Palermo Italy

and has provided the data required for the next deliverable.

Use the data from the partners' conference contribution to the SoC foresight

exercise, which was focused on the major issues affecting the future use of the

Cloud Computing in education, to create a report on scenarios for the future

(Deliverable: D5.3). The report at hand is the deliverable required and its aim is to

develop scenarios built around carefully constructed plots based on trends and

challenges as well as experts concerns, towards a balanced thinking about a

number of possible alternative futures.

At the final project meeting, a presentation should be given, titled «The Future

of Education on the Cloud» (D5.4), presenting the outcomes of the research

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(D5.1), the foresight exercise (D5.2) and the report of the future scenarios

developed (D5.3).

1.2. Justification

The purpose of education is to successfully prepare students for the future and

therefore education by its nature is a future-facing activity where all assumptions

about and aspirations for the future of education should underpin the major

educational stakeholders such as the learners (what to study in the future?), the

teachers (what teaching methods that will best equip students?) and the

administrators (what administrative actions, such as curriculums, are appropriate to

face the future?). Therefore we cannot continue educating our students in ways that

address education needs of the past (Fullan & Langworthy, 2013). As Wellman

(2015) has said "At this point we appear to have 19th century curriculum, 20th century

buildings and organizations and 21st century students facing an undefined future".

That is, the world has changed in ways that we are not always able to understand

and accept, but nevertheless we need to prepare students to face these changes. As

a result, it is not surprising that around the world, there are foundations, public and

private partnerships, government initiatives and commercial entities leading calls for

a redesign of the 21st century education.

Moreover it is not less surprising to the education community that a new, fresh,

authentic and unbounded educational approach is required to educate students for

the complex and challenging future (Gialamas et. al., 2013). This implies that there is

a need for the conception of changes in teaching and learning, which can be

expressed in two clear and unambiguous questions: what the education system

should be, and it is related to the European trends and challenges in education? And

how can we go about determining it, which is connected to the role of ICT in the form

of Cloud Computing?

It should be self-evident that in order to establish the right approach in answering

these questions, it is necessary to understand the issues that underline the reality of

the European pedagogical system and the role the ICT, in the form of Cloud

Computing, plays in it. That is, there is a need to first discern the existing education

system in order to detect the important issues requiring attention and then formulate,

using the appropriate methods, the scenarios that can provide answers as well as

suggest possible solutions.

This approach will be followed in this report. More specifically, the report provides:

A discussion of the principle issues that underpin the European pedagogical

system

A discussion of the elements that characterize Europe's trends as they relate to

the future of teaching and learning

A discussion of the elements that characterize Europe's challenges as they

relate to the future of teaching and learning

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The methodological framework for the SoC foresight exercises.

The initial foresight application of the Brainstorming method.

The application and results of the Six Thinking Hats foresight method.

The application and results of the Delphi foresight method.

A set of future scenarios for teaching and learning in the context of the SoC total

foresight effort, and a set of projections of educational developments over the next

fifteen years.

A discussion of the challenges that these scenarios and projections imply for

the design of future teaching and learning.

2. THE EUROPEAN EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM

In examining the European educational system, from a point in view as to how its

future is shaping, four issues can be discerned. The first issue is: which are the basic

concepts related to teaching and learning, in order to address the required changes

in the future. Even a cursory review of the innumerable reports and policy decisions,

including those by the European commission which has adopted a strategy for

«Unleashing the Potential of Cloud Computing in Europe», shows: on the one hand

there is a need to find a way in designing an environment of engagement with

creativity and innovation, which should be the educational norm for all educational

institutions, or provide the necessary educational unity so that all schools will have

equal treatment. That is, all academic institutions have to be provided with equal

educational opportunities and experiences in order for the education process to shift

in ways that alter the approaches we catalyze learning and innovation. In other

words, to design a system that has a norm of what should be available to all

education institutions or create a pedagogic unity in order for the European

educational environment to become efficient.

This position, however, is based on the notion that the way to the future and progress

in education is only towards an efficient educational system determined and

operating within a global neo-liberal economy (Friedman, 2005). And it is towards this

economic theory that the European Union exhorts education stakeholders, mobilizes

them, justifies investment in new technologies as well as rationalizes curriculum

decisions. There are two forms of discourses to that position: from those who accept

the neo- liberal economy and consider technology-enhanced learning as an essential

modernizing tool for education (Negroponte, 1996; Lego, quoted in Jenson, 2006;

Prensky, 2005; Heppell, 2009), but who themselves are subject to critique from the

area of sociology of the future (Bell, 1997; Adam & Groves, 2007), from critical

studies in education (Gough, 2000; Robertson et al,. 2007) and from economists

(Stiglitz, 2006). The other and more important criticism comes from those who are

concerned with resisting the uniformity imperialism leading to inevitable and universal

educational approaches in the present and in the future. The idea of a uniform,

singular and inevitable trajectory in the face of which education stakeholders in

association with local conditions have no role to play, has been the subject of critique

from various fields. By testifying to the need of diverse alternative trajectories (the

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end goal remains common, but the way to achieve changes) now and in the future,

many researchers who contribute to the educational technology field are arguing for

non-uniformity approaches to the future (for example, Gee et al., 1996; Apple, 1997).

As a result, on the other hand, there is a need in creating an educational system

which can inspire all school units to develop the means to transform their own identity

into a powerful tool in designing their teaching and learning practices or curriculum

structures. An identity which is expressed by each educational institution's needs and

expectations and is determined by the language, the culture, the particular

conceptual structures of education and other factors which can be found among the

diverse ethnic, cultural and regional groups that inhabit the European continent. In

other words, there is a need to find the ways to design the individuals' personal and

communal learning space based on their identity, in order to move away from

homogenization and a non-effective educational environment. An environment that

represents the driving force that presently shapes (actually it is intensified with

policies such as the bologna accord), the European education scheme.

Therefore, the idea of education as a singular, inevitable trajectory in the face of

which educational stakeholders and identity factors have no role, is not acceptable by

a growing number of scientists working on present and future education studies

(Beare & Slaughter, 2001; Inayatullah, 2008). Moreover, the notion of empowering

education stakeholders and communities to envisage and take action to build

alternative and identity desirable futures has started to have many supporters. A

characteristic example is the initiative of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Fablab that aims to create the means to build new educational futures in the hands of

communities, learners and educators. This position can become clear by

paraphrasing Abraham Lincoln that "the best way to predict the future is to invent it,

by taking into account identity factors".

The second issue is: what is the conceptual basis upon which these two fundamental

needs and their attendant changes can be attained. In response to that, it should be

pointed out that the Networked Information society, which needs to be interposed in

education in the form of the Network Centered Knowing paradigm (Koutsopoulos &

Kotsanis, 2014), is unleashing two powerful forces on teaching and learning. Both of

these can be available to practically every educational institution and are related to

their access to high-speed networks. The first force empowers education

stakeholders of any school, anywhere to have an easy access and use of ICT in the

form of Cloud Computing. As a result, all education stakeholders can discover,

consume and produce information resources and services and thus the educational

system can provide the needed unity in teaching and learning. The second force

provides ubiquitous access to open content and standards as well as techniques for

virtualization, making it possible to leverage education through identity related

programs in unprecedented ways. What appears to be emerging is the need for an

education system where its stakeholders have at their disposal teaching techniques,

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learning practices and many educational related services which allow them to design

their own programs, negating the need for educational uniformity.

The third issue is related to the means required to achieve, within the network

information society and the required educational paradigm, the concept of unity

without uniformity. It is suggested that Cloud Computing, which is the fundamental

instrument in a Cloud based educational environment, can fulfill all the earlier

mentioned educational requirements. Indeed, Cloud Computing represents a

fundamental change in the way computing power is generated and distributed. The

literature (Johnson, 2012; Bradshaw et al., 2012) indicates that this technology can

be a powerful way to apply a new educational approach. Moreover, as IBM (2012)

has declared “with cloud computing in education, you get powerful software and

massive computing resources where and when you need them (and we may add in

any way you desire), in order to apply new educational approaches ... Cloud services

can be used to combine on-demand computing and storage, familiar experience with

on-demand scalability and online services for anywhere, anytime access to powerful

web-based tools”. That is, it can support an educational system providing a Cloud

based education with all the attendant benefits to educational stakeholders.

Finally, the last issue raised is: what is the educational environment within which to

work or how to practically apply to the classroom the concepts presented previously.

The results of several Cloud based education projects (Donert & Bonanou, 2015;

Malmierca. et. al., 2015: Lazaro et. al., 2016) indicate that these objectives are

achievable in a new school, the School on the Cloud (SoC). The reason is that as

learning becomes increasingly digital, online access becomes the necessary vehicle

for the emerging Cloud-based developments (Donert, 2013) and thus offers an

educational system, which is not only an efficient (provides unity), but also an

effective (avoids uniformity) way to access and administer education. That is, the

new School on the Cloud provides an approach that aligns with the way we should

think, share, learn and collaborate as it is determined by the network information

approach that is limited nowadays, but will increase in the future and determines

many aspects of our activities, including education. In other words, the new School

on the Cloud can offer an opportunity to transform the role of education stakeholders,

as they help young people to access any learning at any place and any time from any

teacher with the right expertise, but within an identity determined framework.

From this examination it should be evident that in the European pedagogical system

there is a set of conditions that need to be achieved for a successful future. More

specifically, there is: a need to work within a susceptible to pedagogical conditions

educational paradigm; to utilize a new methodological approach which can provide

the instruments to be able to do so; and to apply a learning environment which

provides the framework to achieve the previous tasks. All of these paradigms have

as a common denominator the notion of integration that can be achieve through

Cloud Computing. These needs and their characteristics (shown schematically on

Fig.1) are examined in the next sections of this report.

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Figure 1: The Education System

2.1 The Network Centered Knowing Paradigm

At the onset, it should be declared that at the centre of the pedagogic approach

towards teaching and learning should be the concept of unity without uniformity. But

this leads to the position (Koutsopoulos, 2015b; Miguel & Lázaro, 2016) that not only

the traditional Teacher Centred instructing paradigm, representing an instructing

approach, as well as the much herald present approaches to education, defined as

the Student Centered learning paradigm focused on a constructivism based learning,

are now absolute and the immediate future belongs to the Network Centred knowing

paradigm where knowledge is achieved through integration and is based on Cloud

Computing. More specific, it is suggested that in the last few years teaching and

learning, through two parallel changes in the way education is perceived and is

practiced, have gone through two paradigm shifts (Fig. 2), as Kuhn (1962) considers

them, and are briefly examined next.

BASICCONCEPTSINEDUCATION

EDUCATIONALNORM

IDENTITYBASEDDESIGN

NETWORKINFORMATION

SOCIETY/PARADIGM

CLOUNDCOMPUTING

SCHOOLONTHECLOUND

OPERATINGFRAMEWORK/PARADIGM

EDUCATIONALENVIRONMENT

EASYACCESS

UBIQUTUSACCESS

CLOUNDBASEDEDUCATION

SAMEOPPORTUNITIES

TOALL

LOCATIONISNOTAFACTOR

UNTY

WITHOUTUNIFORMITY

APPLICATIONINSTRUMENT

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Figure 2: Paradigm shifts in education

For a long time the traditional Teacher Centred instructing paradigm was the

exclusive environment within which the education system operated. This paradigm

was characterized by a mono-disciplinary environment (education was the exclusive

realm of educators) within which a «fragmented» approach to educational needs and

obligations was prevalent and where the teacher alone transmitted information to

students who passively listened and acquired facts from the simple transmission of

an instruction based curriculum.

This paradigm has been replaced (the first paradigm shift) by the Student Centered

learning paradigm representing the prevailing nowadays educational environment.

In this paradigm learning is expressed in the form of a set of separate relations,

interdependences and interactions leading to a multidisciplinary framework in

education, which is focused, as previously, in a descriptive way on both individual

learners and on learning itself. But this notion of a descriptive-multidimensional

education requires computer technology which is based in a world of computers and

interactive software (Dede, 2008), leading to a constructivism approach in practicing

teaching and learning.

Both these approaches cannot satisfy the present complex and challenging

conditions and even more so those that will prevail in the future education

environment (Koutsopoulos & Kotsanis, 2014; Koutsopoulos, 2015b). As a result, a

new Network Centered knowing approach is needed (the second paradigm shift),

which requires an interdisciplinary approach leading towards the integration of

all possible learning actors and approaches in order to overcome the

compartmentalization of knowledge. However, such a regard of teaching and

learning establishes a holistic education which requires prescriptive learning (the way

Mono-disciplinary

Fragmented Learning

Multi Disciplinary

Descriptive Learning

Inter Disciplinary

PrescriptiveLearning

TeacherCenteredInstruc ng

StudentCenteredLearning

CommunityCenteredKnowing

CONCIDERINGEDUCATION NATUREOFLEARNING PRACTICINGEDUCATIONPARADIGM

NATUREOFTEACHING

Instruction Traditional

Intergrated Cloud Computing

ConstructivismComputer

Technology

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students should learn) as well as encompasses all stakeholders in different ways,

with the use of Cloud Computing.

2.2 Cloud Computing.

In order to appreciate the Network centered knowing paradigm's contribution towards

fulfilling present and future pedagogic requirements the concept of Cloud Computing

needs to be to fully understood as well as been realized how its components can be

utilized in the operation of such an educational approach. There seems to be many

definitions of Cloud Computing around. The global management consulting firm of

McKinsey found that there are 22 possible separate definitions of Cloud Computing,

none of them dealing with educational concerns. In fact, no common standard or

definition for Cloud Computing seems to exist (Grossman, 2009; Voas and Zhang,

2009; Fadil, 2015). However, despite the many definitions and the various terms

suggested by many computer experts and Cloud users, the concept of Cloud

Computing can be described as an ICT technology that can be fully represented as a

three dimensional space consisting of the characteristics axis, that includes: On

demand service that includes: Network access, Resource pooling, Rapid elasticity

and Measured service; the type of service axis that includes: Infrastructure,

Platform and Software; and the form of deployment axis that includes: Private,

Community, Public and Hybrid (NIST, U.S Department of Commerce, 2013;

Koutsopoulos & Kotsanis, 2014), creating in this way a framework whose axes are an

integral part in designing an educational system, which can meet pedagogical needs

of the future (Koutsopoulos, 2015a).

In addition, this necessary for today's and for the future's conditions Network

Centered knowing paradigm, which promotes Cloud based education, represents a

framework which can successfully serve and support with the same resources and

the same opportunities as well as provide the means to design according to local

needs and conditions all education institutions. That is, Cloud Computing offers an

ideal environment for the fundamentally important unity without uniformity concept in

education.

Indeed Cloud Computing represents an instrument which can successfully serve and

support: multitasking, flexibility, the ability to handle a large number of applications

and to meet changing demands, as well as access to stored files, e-mails, databases

and other applications from anywhere at request. It represents a familiar and

appropriate tool for today’s education participants (the first generation to grow up

within the digital technology era). Moreover, it can support with the same resources

as well as provide the same opportunities to all major education stakeholders

(students, teachers and administrators) no matter where they are located and thus

qualifying as an ideal environment of educational unity. Thus, Cloud Computing

offers unimaginable capacity, among others, in using technology to connect people

across vast distances and store and share information in ways that provide access

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virtually from anywhere (Ferrari, 2015; Donert and Bonanou, 2014). This report in

examining Cloud Computing, without ignoring the existence of sizeable attendant

issues (i.e. cost, security, law issues etc.) that must be addressed, it focuses on the

issue of location as it relates to education.

With regards to the future role of Cloud Computing it should be noted that “Cloud”

refers to machines located in large data centers, which raises a host of interesting

questions about the role of location in shaping the impact of Cloud Computing and

the level of services available to education stakeholders located at any education

institution (either in a school at the centre of a city, in a remote village or in a Roma

reservation area). Cloud Computing by centralizing information and computing

resources (quite contrary to the imagery that the name «Cloud» evokes) transects

location constraints imposed by users and the Cloud itself. Moreover, Cloud based

education although situated on the opposite end of the distance education spectrum

with Moore's Theory of Transactional Distance (Moore, 1991), and avoiding most of

its shortcomings (Hill et al., 2009), it shares the basic principle that cognitive space,

functioning to overcome physical distance between learners and instructors, or

teaching/learning methods or materials, or curriculum etc. is an acceptable and

beneficial approach to education. As a result, the unusual combination of the great

abilities offered by Cloud Computing and the ubiquity in providing Cloud based

education, negate the necessity for physical closeness of the educational factors and

the need for locally available educational recourses, thus raising serious questions

about the universal value and utility of location in education.

For a balanced approach, however, the issue of location in education should be

considered in terms of the dictum «Geography matters but not Distance». More

specifically, on the one hand as ICT developments, in the form of Cloud Computing,

will be continuously diminishing the «need of presence» in remote interactions. Such

interactions are developing not only between families, friends and co-workers, but

also between education stakeholders. The notion of being «together apart» is

becoming a familiar aspect of working, interacting and entertaining as well as in

educating ourselves. That is, the separation of «information resources» from physical

locations with the coming of Cloud Computing has become «natural», resulting in the

diminution of the importance of location.

On the other hand, Geography still matters because Geography will continue to

influence the access of individuals and groups to digital networks, because location

will continue determining in most cases their pricing, infrastructure, legal constraints

and regulation. Moreover, the «face to face» interaction will retain its importance,

especially in terms of the social and educational aspects of our lives, given that

physical proximity is paramount for most of us. For example, people will continue to

use «place» and physical location as a marker for identity, which as it was shown it

plays an important role in education among other areas of human endeavors.

In sum, when someone familiar with Cloud Computing will be asked the question of

the role of location in education, he will surely chuckle and reply something akin to:

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«The location of the Cloud user and of the Cloud itself is irrelevant. Anyone is able to

tap into the power of the Cloud, located at any place, from anywhere». This answer,

while technically and empirically accurate, misses an important issue, namely: Cloud

Computing negates the necessity of considering location as a factor to reckon with,

at least when considering «non-typical» (i.e. rural and remote schools) and

consequently the need to impose upon them «uniform» teaching and learning

practices or curriculum structures that developed centrally and applied in "typical»

urban schools.

2.3 The School on the Cloud

The basic principle that «Technology changes, Education survives» signifies the role

of education as a societal necessity now and in the future and the need to explore

their potential implications to education. It has shown that ICT changes, in the form of

Cloud-based technologies (Pallis, 2010; Koutsopoulos, 2015a), provide the power to

fundamentally change how education should be approached and practiced, creating

the need for a new school, the School on the Cloud.

However, the new School on the Cloud in order to achieve such goals has to address

the following two key questions: How should education respond to Cloud-based

technologies? What is the impact, now and in the future, on education stakeholders

and teachers? Results from the limited application of the School on the Cloud

educational approach has shown that it brings many benefits to education as well as

accelerates trends and developments at the interface of Cloud Computing and

education (Armbrust et. al., 2010; Donert and Bonanou, 2015; Malmiera et al., 2015),

which in turn increase the ability of stakeholders to adjust or alter their educational

objectives. Basically, these applications of Cloud technologies in the classroom

indicate that in answering the two questions, in essence their work reaffirm the need

for the changes mentioned previously as well as create the foundations in applying

them. The School on the Cloud is not anymore a novice application of Cloud

Computing to education, which promises to deliver many exciting things. It is already

a reality and there are many successful implementations (Johnson, 2012; Bradshaw

et al., 2012; Malmierca, 2015; Donert and Bonanou, 2014). The School on the Cloud

is a new and different school that has been born, is partly operating now and is going

to stay with us at least in the foreseeable future.

In addition, the operation of schools on the Cloud offers a range of resources and

services such as infrastructure, service's solutions, the introduction of new processes

etc. (Bradshaw et al., 2012). The School on the Cloud as a Cloud based approach it

provides to every educational institution the conditions to have equal opportunities,

recourses and possibilities (norms in education). Moreover, these schools by being

on the forefront of Cloud Computing technology provide to education a series of

innovations which offers to the teaching and learning system the ability to be

adjusted, altered or revised using identity factors. That is, to design the way in which

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education institutions, students and teachers are able to use equipment, applications

and subjects' content and thus to overcome uniformity constraints (IBM, 2010).

In sum, the School on the Cloud offers to its students a series of very important

competences, which allows them to face the developing pedagogical requirements,

such as:

Digitalization: Refers to their ability to efficiently, confidently and critically use the

new ICT technologies in order to search, sift, organize, manage and evaluate

information, in an efficient and targeted to their individual needs approach.

Learning: Is related to students' ability for learning to learn. That is, students are

motivated to pursue their own learning progress and knowing how to process

information, they are assigning meaning to it and converting it into knowledge.

Understanding: Is associated with students' global understanding. That is, by

overcoming uniformity constraints they can acquire the competence of

understanding in order to be able to analyze the surrounding world, be social and

part of the universal society.

Collaborating: Corresponds to a crucial skill that needs to be learned and

practiced from early on in education, and Cloud based education can support it.

That is, students need to learn to: listen, respect, negotiate and even accept ideas

express by others, understand and work in teams and different roles and finally

participate in communal activities.

Updating: This skill refers to the ability of students to use the recourses of the

Cloud in order to be prepared for the continuous changes and developments as

well as continue updating such skills as: autonomy, lifelong learning, flexibility,

innovation, creativity etc.

Communicating: The use of Cloud Computing in terms of learning and practicing

foreign languages helps students put emphasis on using them as a means for

communication with other people and not on grammatical or syntactical

correctness per se.

2.4 The Pedagogical System in Europe

The way education is perceived and is practiced nowadays in Europe does not

correspond to the present and future needs, the very nature, and the role of the

major stakeholders and generally to the future of education. Yet it should be clear

that education in the immediate future should move towards the new network

centered paradigm, which in essence forces Cloud Computing as the main

educational tool. An instrument which provides the present day Z generation

(students which have been born in the 21st century) not only the required

competences to face today’s and tomorrow’s world and common to all the students,

but in a uniformity free environment a fundamental requirement in the education of

the future.

The final question, which is related and to the issues posed in the beginning of this

section has to be: is the School on the Cloud just another education fad or the only

way to deal with the basic issues facing education? Considering it merely either as a

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fad or the ultimate education truth, however, misses the deeper contribution of the

School on the Cloud as the true base upon which to develop, construct and apply the

new Network centered knowing paradigm in educating students in a holistic way for

the complex and challenging future.

3. TRENDS AND CHANGES

No one questions that society is rapidly entering a new era in which the economy, the

societal institutions and structures as well as education are changing at an

accelerating pace. This new era is going to change teaching and learning so

dramatically, that both the ways in which education prepares students and the

reasons for pursuing learning will be quite different than they are today. Many factors

will be contributing towards this future and they can be discerned from trends in

society, technology, schools with the use of Cloud Computing, innovations etc. These

trends we expect to substantiate the ability of the education community to use these

changes to adapt the whole system of education. That is, the basic dictum that

“Technology changes, Education survives” signifies not only the role of education

as a societal necessity, but mainly the need to understand and discerned trends and

changes, in order to explore their potential implications to education. The future of

education inevitably is affected by many trends, among which the most profound are

the following:

3.1 Trends in Society

From the previous discussion, it should be evident that although Cloud Computing is

not simply a novice technology that promises to deliver many exciting things. It is

already a reality and there are many educational implementations of it. Nevertheless

evaluating the maturity it has reached, its present and anticipated pace of growth as

well as its trends are not easily attainable objectives, but they are achievable as long

as there is a good grasp of them. That is, in order to fulfill the objective of evaluating

the future scenarios for Cloud Computing based education there is a need to

examine trends and developments and their implications as well as their limitations at

the interface of Cloud Computing and education. Following is such an examination of

the trends which are emerging from developments in society, in technology and in

education.

In terms of societal trends, the literature (Molebash, 2013; Facer and Sandford,

2010; Cliff et al. 2008; Goodings, 2009; Horst, 2009; Jewitt, 2009; Reich 2009; Riley,

2009; Young & Muller, 2009) shows that in our society the following long-term

developments have become particularly important in challenging our assumptions

about education and its future.

3.1.1 Towards Denser, Deeper and more Diverse Information Landscape:

Nowadays we "know more stuff about more stuff» because our ability to gather,

store, examine, archive and circulate more data, in more diverse forms, about more

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aspects of ourselves and our world, is and will keep increasing more than ever

before. The reasons are many but simple and are related to social trends towards:

«accountability and security, the decreasing cost and increasing availability of digital

storage capacity, the development of new forms of genetic information, the ability to

digitally tag almost any physical object, space or person, the ability to represent

information in diverse modes» (Sultan, 2010).

3.1.2 Towards Constant Connectivity: The ability to be constantly connected to

knowledge, resources, people and tools is a reality for persons in countries with an

advanced technology and infrastructure. In the very near future it will be available to

all in every place. Individuals will have the capacity to remain in ‘perpetual contact’

with diverse networks, communities, institutions and persons, both physical and

virtual.

3.1.3. Towards personal cloud: As a collateral development of the previous trend

there is and will continue to be a rise in mobile and personal technologies and a

lowering of barriers to data storage. As a result, individuals increasingly are or soon

will be likely to ‘wrap’ their information landscape around themselves rather than

managing it through institutions.

3.1.4. Towards Working and Living Alongside Machines: As I was writing these

lines, I communicated with a computer on the other end of my telephone line who

fixed my Wi-Fi which had stopped working. Nowadays we have become increasingly

accustomed to machines taking on more roles previously occupied by humans,

across both professional and manual occupations as well as in homes and

workplaces. As a result, it becomes increasingly normal to accept the presence of

«machines» in our lives, but at the same time it raises significant ethical and practical

issues and generates public debate relating to questions of dependence and

autonomy, as well as of privacy and trust, particularly with regards to sensitive data

and critical systems. These dilemmas are of particular importance to education.

3.1.5 Towards a Multicultural Society and Schools: Demographic trends follow a

divergent path in the developed and the less developed countries, resulting at the

first level in mass population moves between them (legal and illegal immigration) and

on a second level the creation of a multicultural society which in turn results in

multicultural schools.

3.1.6 Towards a Knowledge Society and Economy?: Today's society operating at

the interface of demographic and technological changes has polarized experts into

believing that the future is either in the development of a ‘smart’ economy based on

knowledge and innovation or that knowledge economy is utopian. That is, on one

hand technological developments lead into a knowledge society and economy where

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highly competitive R&D activities and knowledge work are the driving forces. On the

other hand, the same factors it is believed to enable centralized groups to manage

ever greater numbers of people across dispersed locations. These developments

may bring an end to current hopes of a universal, democratic ‘knowledge economy’

and a rise in massive inequalities.

3.1.7 Towards a Digital Native Society: Digital natives, those born after 1990, are

characterized as having access to networked digital technologies and the skills to

use them. Their lives (social interaction, friendships, civic and other activities) are

mediated by digital technologies and they have never known any other way of life.

However ‘digital natives’ will, like their parents before them, need to learn to use the

new technological advancements that keep coming. For example, in an age when

news often spreads virtually through social media, most experts feel it is critical that

young people learn how to analyze and evaluate the authenticity of the myriad of

messages they encounter every day. As a result, substantial changes in the

distribution of educational resources will be required to fulfill the educational needs of

this population cohort who will be required to learn the rest of their lives.

3.1.8 Towards the Dictum "Geography matters but not Distance": As

technological developments lead to a ‘sense of presence’ in remote interactions, and

as such interactions are developing between families, friends and co-workers, the

notion of being ‘together apart’ is becoming a familiar aspect of working, interacting

and entertaining ourselves. That is, the separation of ‘information resources’ from

physical locations will become widespread resulting in the diminution of the

importance of location. On the other hand, Geography will continue to influence the

access of individuals and groups to digital networks, for physical geography

determines their pricing, infrastructure, legal constraints and regulation. Moreover,

the «face to face» interaction will retain its importance because many, especially

educational and social aspects of our lives, are paramount for them.

3.2 Trends in Technology

Technological changes that have an impact on our lives have started some time ago,

but their important characteristic is that they will be continuing operating, developing

and increasing their influence in our society and in education in particular (Molebash,

2013). As a result, the suggestion of Alan Greenspan, the Chairman of the Federal

Reserve Board who said in 1997 that «One of the most central dynamic forces [in the

economy] is the accelerated expansion of computer and telecommunications

technologies...clearly our educational institutions will continue to play an important

role in preparing workers to meet these demands», still holds today. Among the most

important trends that will influence education in the immediate future are the

following:

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3.2.1 Technology will Continue to have an Impact on Education: The rate of

technology change and growth has been exponential and is not likely to decrease.

Technology nowadays is widely used at all levels of education, influencing teaching

and learning methods and expectations. Technological innovations are changing the

very way that schools teach and students learn. For academic institutions, charged

with equipping graduates to compete in today’s knowledge economy, have to employ

among others online and distance learning, sophisticated learning-management

systems, multi-modal teaching, changing curricula and spawning rich forms of online

research and collaboration. As a result, technological innovations will continue to

have a major influence on teaching and learning methodologies in the near future. In

fact, technology will become a core factor in determining the nature, the form and the

structure of education.

3.2.2 Moore's Law will Continue to Operate: Gordon Moore, the cofounder of Intel

Corporation in 1965 suggested (half in jest) that technology doubles in processing

power approximately every 18 months and at the same time the price for that

technology declines by about 35% a year relative to this power. This trend of

increased power at lower cost, known as Moore's Law, has been operating since that

time and it is likely to continue in the immediate future.

3.2.3 Metcalfe's Law will Continue to Operate: The combination of better, faster

and cheaper computers and the increased bandwidth has caused a boon in the

network community. Based on this, Bob Metcalfe, inventor of the Ethernet, suggested

that the power of a network increases proportionally by the square of the number of

users, which is known as the Metcalfe's Law. That is, as the power of the computer

increases, so do the capabilities of communications and media, including glass

fibers, copper wires, and wireless communication systems. This trend which started

some time ago is expected to continue at least in the immediate future.

3.2.4 Technology Fusion will Continue to Operate: A few years ago there was a

sharp distinctions between computers, photos, publishing, TV/video, and

telecommunications. Now the distinctions between these media are blurring.

However, as Molebash (2013) has put it "Bringing them together results in the whole

having greater impact than each individual part...". Given that in education most of

these media are extensively utilized, this merger is considered as the most significant

trend in education and technology. As a result, technology fusion has and will

continue to have a significant impact on education.

3.2.5 Cloud Computing will Continue to be Integrated with Teacher Education:

The final challenge is related to teacher education and training. In most cases of

schools which are connected and equipped with technology, the teachers lack the

skills or formal education they need to empower students to pursue their own

interests and free class time for more experiential forms of learning. As a result, the

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challenge is to provide teacher education and/or training as how to integrate digital

pedagogies in their teaching in order for their students to best learn with digital tools

and methods.

3.2.6 Technologies will Continue to be an Integral part of Education:

Technologies have changed the nature and the ways of education, because they

shape, change and enable new approaches in accessing, understanding and

creating knowledge. Therefore, it is crucial that the fundamental education

stakeholders: first obtain the necessary skills to find, process and manage

information and to confidently, efficiently and critically use technologies to achieve

their objectives and second continuously update these skills in order to support the

other stakeholders(i.e. teachers their students) for a safe and efficient use of the

relevant technologies available.

In addition, however, technologies have certain requirements that need to be

observed. It is important that education stakeholders learn to safely and responsibly

use them inside and outside the classroom and therefore more knowledge and

support is needed for effective pedagogical strategies for the use of ICT in schools.

3.3 Trends in Innovations

The benefits of innovations applied to the education system as recourses (i.e.

centralized and optimized, sharing, on demand, ability to evolve, etc.) will provide the

system with the ability to revise the way in which education institutions, students and

teachers are able to use equipment, applications and subjects' content. Following

science-fiction author William Gibson who once said, «the future is already

here» several initiatives have been taken in the last few years providing such

technological innovations to teaching and learning. Among them the most interesting,

based on Cloud Computing techniques and technologies, are the following (IBM,

2010):

3.3.1 Creating Intelligent Classrooms: Cloud Computing by providing the

recourses for a set of tools and applications will contribute in creating a classroom

with a quality and effectiveness of teaching that can be considered intelligent. Among

such tools and applications the following are the most interesting:

Access to courses, syllabuses, documentation and information, regardless of the

location of the learner, which can be in the classroom, in the school’s yard, at

home, travelling, or in the library.

Access of students (individually or in group) to the same learning subject content,

which allows for a much sought after collaboration between students.

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Access on an individual basis (personalized) to the learning resources which best

suit the individual student’s needs and learning difficulties. Providing of course

freedom of choice by the student (which includes guidance by the teacher).

Access to the teaching recourses of one institution to students and teachers from

another (close or further away) so that they can share material, practices etc.

Access to real time assessment results of tests, exams and homework, which are

centrally available. Such a tool, in addition of providing immediate identification of

each student’s needs and difficulties, more importantly it provides the means to

place current results in a personal or other contexts (i.e. to compared them with

fellow students, as well as with the student's, the teacher's and the school's

academic history).

3.3.2 Creating Virtual Classrooms: ICT in the form of Cloud Computing by

providing the necessary communication and collaboration tools can help bring down

the walls of the classroom and give rise to the virtual classroom, because it can

promote exchanges, group work and inter-school projects. More specifically it

enables:

Students of the same age located in distant institutions, towns or countries to

share in the experience of any class being taught online.

Teachers in a certain location to teach classes in a different school, town, country

or even continent, complete with the required material.

Researchers can have instant access to research and discoveries from any a

parallel or linked center around the world.

That is, platforms and contents hosted in the Cloud enable: students to approach

topics in a wider context; teachers to create collaboration spaces or forums where

they can interact and invite colleagues to join in; and research activities or

discoveries to be approached simultaneously by scientists of any specialization and

from any part of the world.

3.3.3 Creating Virtual Labs: innovations such as Cloud Computing by offering the

resources for processing, calculating and simulating can contribute in creating virtual

labs. More specifically, students and teachers can carry out in a virtual form the

simulations or experiments they need or want in any subject (chemistry, physics,

geography, economics, and other sciences), and in any degree of difficulty (from the

simplest to the most complex).

3.3.4 Creating Virtual Contents: New technologies in the form of Digital IWB's

(interactive whiteboards), they can help create a virtual reference system of content

that remains in the public domain and thus avoid the pitfalls of using nothing but the

costly commercial content. But mainly such a system can provide teachers with the

choice of using a content as is, have alter it to meet their needs, adapt it to the local

conditions, or finally use it to supplement their own. The opportunity to share this

virtual content, together with the input from the local teachers will have a favorable

effect, both on the diversity and quality of the content, as well as on the ability of all

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schools to access quality content that they have not had the resources to develop

themselves.

3.3.5 Creating eTwinning for teachers and students. eTwinning started very

recently as a teachers network in Europe, in contrast with: Facebook which is still a

US-centric website for university students; Twitter which is addressing a few hundred

special minded web fanatics and Google which is focused on making money as a

search engine. eTwinning started as an initiative of making teachers and indirectly

schools collaborate through the use of ICT, which indicates that in the future students

might need to also participate. So what Professor Derrick de Kerckhove, had said

that, “it’s all about connected intelligences”, might become a truly integrated school

educational network.

3.3.6 Creating Artificial Intelligence (AI): Artificial Intelligence is the capacity of

computer systems or software to imitate or simulate intelligent human behavior. As a

result Artificial Intelligence will be increasingly function as a utility to facilitate many

services and not as a general purpose application with which users will interact,

without losing its ability to be at the service of individuals, including all the

educational stakeholders.

3.3.7 Creating Augmented Reality: This newly promoted digital reality is an

enhanced view of reality created by integrating in real time computer-generated

sensory input, such as sounds, images, graphics, and video, on top of a user’s

physical surroundings. As it continues to develop augmented reality is expected in

the future to play an important role in education, because teaching and learning lies

at the interface between computer and students' generated material.

3.3.8 Creating Intelligent Administration: Cloud Computing provides effective tools

for management, assessing performance and managing resources, which allow

school administrators to perform three important functions:

Analytical Monitoring of students’ progress and teaching programs, which in turn

makes it possible for courses to be adjusted more quickly, helping the student and

redistributing teaching resources to suit needs.

Performance monitoring in the cloud, allows administrators to deal with data and

information in a centralized way and from multiple establishments, which allows

the important to management benchmarking. In this way school administrators can

re-energize teaching policies, as well as better inform, using a series of criteria,

students and their parents.

Performance management or education lifecycle can be achieved using the

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) form of cloud service which enables administrators

to save data related to students, including information from several different

establishments and to process them centrally, in order for the data to be

accessible to everyone everywhere. This is important, in terms of consulting

outside office hours, for teachers who work in a many schools, when campuses

are located far apart and for teaching networks.

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3.3.9 Creating Innovative Research Environment: Cloud Computing can provide

researchers the tools to gain access to abundant information that is increasingly

widespread and scattered all over the world. That is, in order for researchers to be

able to operate and be effective, they need to gain access to information and use it

properly, which can be made possible by centralizing the resources in the cloud.

More specifically, Cloud Computing provides the tools for the:

Creation of Communities and Collaboration Schemes. This scheme between

researchers sharing common or complementary interests, can undoubted have a

stimulating effect on research efforts.

Creation of Shared Calculation Infrastructures. This timeshare approach,

adapted to the concept of virtualization and the cloud, leads to a common pool of

resources accessible to every researcher who needs them.

Creation of Centralized Research Data from a Variety of Sources. This

approach enables the results to be used faster, leading to a speedier progress

from the moment the data are processed by analysis and software application.

3.3.10 Creating New Teaching and Learning Tools.

In recent years, with the rapid development of emerging technologies, the integration

of Information and Communication Technology has increasingly attracted the

attention of education stakeholders, in the form of teaching and learning tools.

Educators are turning their attention to various technological tools that can be used

as learning objectives or contexts, to develop new learning environments, to modify

existing resources, to engage with specific groups of learners or decide alternative

strategies for teaching and learning. Some of these tools are:

Virtual Reality (VR) Teaching and Learning Tools: VR is shaping up to be one

of the most important technological innovations in shaping teaching and learning,

for it represents an educational tool on how the technology could change how

students learn and are taught. That is, it is the technology which allows students to

test educational experiences that could alter the trajectory of their studies and their

lives as well as teach complex problems in a different way than traditional

education methods of today. As a result it is expected that there the demand to

bring VR into the classroom, so that students would be allowed to learn

experientially will increase steadily.

3D Printers as Teaching and Learning Tools: 3D printers represent, among

other achievements, a complete educational paradigm shift. Indeed, as students

print and then print again and keep on printing, because of their adventuring

nature they reach a point in time when they realize, ‘It is of no value to me

something that already exists (a copy), I want something that doesn’t yet exist'. As

a result, and in response to discovering needs, it is of no surprise that 3D printers

have taken a place in education, by helping students bring their ideas to life and

most importantly put their hands on concepts that previously experienced only in

textbooks. 3D printing is already being used effectively in schools fostering the

ability of students to create an object to solve a problem (especially in developing

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countries). Making 3D printed objects with a purpose will increase tremendously in

the future. It is expected that this technology will increase its education use as

these devices become affordable and the barriers in adapting them continue to

drop.

Devices to Connect to the internet (The Internet of Things Concept): In the

modern mobile world, the attention of education stakeholder by necessity shift

their focus on the students who are surrounded by a large network of mobile

devices and on the constant increase in the number of connected technologies

students use daily. Technology is rapidly unlocking new uses for connectivity,

changing not only how our students are networked, but also how The Internet of

Things Concept will become part of the education system.

The Internet of Things Concept applications for education are still at an initial

stage, although a limited number of schools and universities are a tapping into this

technology to create environments that students might not be able to experience

otherwise. But the most important is its potential, because this technology looms

across a variety of applications with an ever increasing speed as part of education

for consumers and in part based on their permanent necessity of being connected.

Wearables as Teaching and Learning Tools: It has been said that the art of

being able to learn anywhere, at any time, should also include any ‘how’. That gap

in learning can be filled by wearable devices which give students more

opportunities to be connected learners. That is, wearable technology has been

pushing the boundaries of what students are able to create anywhere, anytime

and on any subject. In addition, wearable’s can also provide many benefits to

educators, because they offer more options in their effort to monitor and engage

with their students during their teaching, as well as communicate with other

educators, giving them more options for collaboration.

Machine-Learning Techniques: The devises which are based on machine-

learning techniques can perform many tasks that are rapidly becoming more

sophisticated and are improving towards becoming true thinking machines. In

terms of education they could change the traditional role of technology in

education, because the robotics can serve in an actual hands-on role in the

classroom. Today these robotic toys have mainly an important impact on changing

how special-education students learn in the classroom. In the future, most experts

agree that such robotic toys will increasingly serve as counselors and playmates to

children with various learning disabilities like Autism. As Patterson in an EdTech

blog (2016) has written “There are hundreds of other great ways to use these

robots to support student learning. My advice is get one and put it into the hands

of students — see what they can do. Build challenges and celebrate failure.

Learning can be hard but fun and these robots make integration easy”.

Co-presence Technologies: These technologies utilize audio and video

instruments to create a feeling to education stakeholders of being together across

distance. Examples include an in-room hologram of a teacher who is in another

http://www.edtechmagazine.com/k12/article/2015/10/robots-teach-using-sphero-class

http://www.edtechmagazine.com/k12/article/2015/10/robots-teach-using-sphero-class

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classroom or school location and a robot with audio and video displays and

sensors that can move around in one classroom while being controlled by a

student in another classroom or school.

3.4. Trends in Education.

As it was mentioned previously there have been significant advances in Information

and Communications Technology (ICT) in the form of cloud computing that continue

unabated up to now. As a result, there is an increasingly perceived vision that cloud

based education (designed and provided in the form of optional, tailored services,

with operators and teaching establishments pooling their resources) will soon be the

single most important path towards future education. In other words, it is suggested

that the education because of the use of cloud computing in the immediate future will

be affected by the impact of several influential trends as follows:

3.4.1 Education Needs to Change to Respond to Economy and Society:

Learning objectives need to change to take into account future competence needs,

which are determined by societal conditions in general and economic demands in

particular. As a result, a major challenge for the education system in the future is to

cater to the needs and requirements that are imposed upon education by the

economy and society.

3.4.2 Education Needs to Change towards Knowledge: A fundamental challenge

for the future in education will be for students to learn how to safely and responsibly

use technologies in school as well as in their lives. However, in order for that need to

be met more knowledge is needed for effective pedagogical strategies in the use of

Cloud Computing in schools. In other words Cloud Computing has to provide

improved or new ways to increase access to various forms of information and

connections between people or more and better knowledge.

3.4.3 Education Should be Focused on Competences Rather Than Memorizing

Knowledge: EU has accepted a set of key future competences as well as set of

future skills for problem solving, collaboration, negotiation, innovation and self-

management. In addition European teachers have in many instances confirmed the

importance of these key competences and skills as future educational objectives,

Moreover, other educational stakeholders identified that developing one’s personality

and managing one’s place in a changing world and society, together with awareness

of the environmental challenges they represent the crucial future educational

objectives necessary for developing one’s competences over the course of a lifetime.

3.4.4 Education Needs to Change to Become Authentic: Authentic learning is also

an important challenge for the future in education and is concerned with bringing real

life experiences into the classroom. That is, authentic learning has to become a

necessary pedagogical strategy establishing or upgrading a fundamental concept,

namely: help students to engage in seeking some connection between the world as

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they know it exists outside the school and their experiences in school. Cloud

Computing can provide the tools to create learning scenarios incorporating real life

experiences familiar to students, that can bring authentic learning into the classroom

and prepare them for the real world. The upmost challenge of such practices of

course is to "help retain students in school and prepare them for further education,

careers, and citizenship in a way that traditional practices are too often failing to do»

(E.U. Horizon Report, 2014).

3.4.5 Education Should be Compatible with Identity Factors: Encouraging

individual institutions to develop their own teaching and learning practices or

curriculum structures is important because is the only way for them to be in par with

the rest institution in educational attainment and performance. Therefore, educational

approaches should be tailored to the identity needs, learning styles and preferences

of each institution and thus facilitate the common educational expectations. As a

result, support for institutional development, educational practices, learning

objectives and assessment procedures should be revised and should not be uniform

or standardized. Various ways and sources of learning should be provided and

supported so that students in each institution can create a learning journey based on

local factors. That is, educational institutions should take responsibility not for the

common learning goals, but for the ways to achieve them.

3.4.6 Education Should be More Active and Connected to Real Life. It is

universally accepted that the younger generation should learn to grow up as part of

the society and be aware of what takes place around them. This is the only way to

become responsible and independent global citizens, which is the essence of

education. As a result, education in the future should become more active and

constructive, with an emphasis on authentic learning as well as learning by doing.

Because when education focuses on the social interaction of students with other

learners, teachers and third parties they will be connected to real life, nature, work,

and life in the local and global community.

3.5 Provisions of Cloud Computing

Although Cloud Computing is part of the technology due to its importance to

education it is treated in this report separately. Experience and the literature (IBM

2013; Gaytos, 2012; Sultan, 2010) shows that there is a range of resources and

services available to education via Cloud Computing, whether they concern

infrastructure, services, solutions or the introduction of new processes. That is, Cloud

Computing will become the fundamental instrument in a Cloud based educational

environment by bringing many benefits to education of which the following are

considered the most commonly referred and important (Koutsopoulos, 2015b).

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3.5.1 Savings: The Cloud will result in general and in education in particular in a cost

effective use of ITC resources, by reducing the cost through the:

Sharing of IT Equipment which are centralized in the cloud and thus deliver

economies of scale and eliminate the need for costly local infrastructures.

Sharing the Provision of software licenses, management skills, physical security

for servers usually are under- or over-sized and not used to their maximum

potential.

Reduction in the Size and Complexity of the number of machines and programs

installed and utilized at each site, for the cost of licenses and maintenance is less.

Decrease in the Number of Applications that are installed and run in the

computers at each site, for the Cloud provides access to an unlimited number of

users.

Cost of Services this is based on the actual use of resources (pay-per-use

billing).

Savings in Human Resources for the technical staff required to manage in-

house machines is minimum.

Freeing up the Capex budget, for the Cloud involves the operational expenditure

model (Opex).

3.5.2 Flexibility: One of the main benefits of Cloud-based teaching and learning is

that it will prevent individual investments in equipment, programs etc. The reason is

that the centralized infrastructures of cloud computing promotes flexibility in various

ways, including the following as they were reported by IBM:

Speed of Adjusting to Change: Centralizing and standardizing the available

resources enables faster upgrades in line with technological progress and/or

changes to demand and requirements.

Smooth Adjustment to ICT Resources: With cloud Computing due to the

flexibility of the infrastructure and the ease of accessing resources based on

needs (since, with cloud-based ICT, a new version of the application or any

application software can be more easily distributed to users (e.g., servers, storage

space, calculating power, application authorities, content) and made available to

them.

Flexibility in Implementing Teaching Content: With Cloud Computing students

are able to draw from the whole of the content available, as well as find the

information and tools they are looking for that are appropriate to their stage of

education. This is particular useful for personalized learning, a customized

teaching process that meets the needs and specific difficulties of each student (or

each profile of student).

Flexibility in terms of the Number of Machines Needed: Cloud architecture can

potentially support every type of client hardware and application (albeit with a

number of exceptions, depending on the service-provider).

Self-service Potential: Particular useful for students, teachers and education

establishments; and

Flexibility of Learning: Cloud Computing is providing easy access to courses and

content at any time, any place; options to learn outside the school itself, as well as

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outside of the school calendar (holidays, ongoing learning after-

school/postgraduate training) (IBM, 2010).

3.5.3 Effectiveness: Cloud Computing by promoting a dynamic exchange and

participation between teachers, pupils and students, their social network and parents,

leads first into finding the appropriate to the stage of education information and tools.

But more importantly it leads into an effective learning and teaching process. That is,

Cloud Computing provides a more productive students' learning because it helps

them among others, towards the rise in their level of understanding and achievement,

increasing chance of success, gaining a clearer view of the realities of their future

working life, etc. In terms of teachers and administrators Cloud Computing provides

them with the tools to pool and implement effective management practices.

3.5.4 Sharing: Cloud Computing provides the means in every institution to avoid the

duplication of resources that exist elsewhere. That is, skills, good practices,

applications, teaching content and infrastructures can be pooled and shared.

Moreover, the sharing of equipment leads into harmonizing and making it easier to

support resources, as well as avoiding the problems of incompatibility or the difficulty

of integration between various tools and systems. Finally sharing teaching material

and subject content avoids educational inequalities and the present day issue of

“poorly performing” or “second-rate” schools and thus promises fairer access to

educational and learning resources. Overall, Cloud Computing sharing capabilities

can provide a major input into:

Bridging the digital divide.

Promoting a new way of making education more accessible.

Ultimately reducing digital social inequalities.

3.5.5 Real time Access: Cloud Computing can allow students and teachers to

access in real time useful and free information from anywhere in the world in a matter

of seconds. In education, this holds a special importance for it provides teachers and

students a fundamental tool in the learning process, that of constantly updating their

stock of information.

3.5.6 Reduces the Risk of Obsolescence: For all practical purposes Cloud

Computing can provide an “anti-obsolescence” insurance against technological

changes, because it can cope better and more efficiently with their increasingly rapid

development. In addition it can ensure the constant upgrading of all documents for it

can be done in a centralized and systematic way, at a single central point.

3.5.7 Reduces Users' Carbon Footprint: Cloud Computing benefits are not, as

most computer experts think, only related to how many its users can save as well as

provide them with the other educational advantages mentioned previously. Users of

cloud computing are more likely to significantly reduce users' carbon footprint. In an

era (the year 2015 was the warmest year since temperature records are kept) where

the need for educational establishments to become more sustainable, there is an

increasing value in improving the institutions’ carbon footprint and energy costs. As a

result, virtualized services such as those offered by Cloud Computing should be

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considered an important contribution towards that goal and an added benefit of that

educational approach.

3.5.8 Default Web Server: Cloud Computing as it was mentioned can provide a

solution to the limitations of shared hosting and the high expense of dedicated

servers. In this way, hardware is virtualized and managed by a hypervisor that is able

to administer servers as well as create partitions of CPU, memory, storage and

network. Since each education stakeholder gets their own virtual server, it appears to

them as if they have a dedicated server. As a result, the use of cloud computing can

be considered as default web server.

3.6 Trends in Schools

School attendance has becοme obligatory and in a specific knowledge transmission

way, for the last century in all Western societies (Murtin & Viarengo, 2008). However,

recent developments in education, in the form of Cloud Computing, suggest that as

learning can take place where and when we need them and in any way we desire,

the role of schools has changed and still is evolving. Changes in the teaching and

learning approaches, the learning materials and the information conceptualization

have been creating a new school, which should be providing:

3.6.1 21st Century Competences: The literature indicates that the future of teaching

and learning will be towards new competences. As a result some people will need to

update their skills and some others to re-skill. In other words, the future school will

need to foster skills that are «generic, transversal and cross-cutting» (Redecker et

al., 2011), in order for learners to actively engage in lifelong learning.

3.6.2 Deinstitutionalization: A very important trend in the operation of school is the

shift from formal to informal education. With the coming of ICT technologies, in the

form of Cloud Computing, learning cannot be exclusively confined to the classroom.

That is, teaching and learning is becoming an educational activity which: first it is not

bound to any specific educational institution or to any location within them and

second it is not dedicated to predetermined periods in life. The reasons are simple:

Schools have to be responding to future labor market requirements, and thus to be

flexible and responding to individual learners’ needs. In other words, teaching and

learning inevitably will span the period from pre-school to post-retirement time and

will increasingly take place at home, at the workplace and at other institutions

(OECD, 2001). As a result, the new school will actually bring what it can be termed

the deinstitutionalization of the school, associated with informal education.

3.6.3 Technological Innovation and Use of New Technologies: The most

important shift in our schools is the increasing development of new technologies and

their appropriation in teaching and learning. As Mutka et al., 2010 have wrote, "it is

difficult to imagine the future of learning environments without ICT (and we might add

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in the form of cloud computing) at the forefront or in the background". Indeed,

portable applications such as tablets and mobile phones as well as new

communication applications such as collaborative and social networking sites are or

very soon will become standard tools across all schools. The reasons are that

technological applications: facilitate access with amplified diversity of resources; they

allow users to connect through online content: they have become models of

collaboration; and provide complex digital competences juxtaposed with new

communication skills. Because of these reasons, in the new school attainment of

digital competence to use such technologies in a desirable and targeted priority is of

paramount importance.

3.7 Trends in Learning

The use of Cloud Computing in the classroom will have in the immediate future an

impact on the fundamental elements of classroom education (the subjects taught and

the learning methods in attaining them), as well the changing role of several

influential factors as follows:

3.7.1 The Fundamental Subjects need to Increase: In terms of the teaching

subjects it is suggested that Cloud Computing will become the 4th fundamental

subject that students should master (after reading, writing and arithmetic). That is,

education will be transformed into a process consisting of providing an additional

subject that is commoditized and delivered along with the traditional subjects of

reading, writing and arithmetic. In other words, in this educational process students,

in addition to learning how to read, write and do arithmetic calculations, they need to

be efficient in using the Cloud to access all forms of educational material, based on

their requirements without regard to where these are coming from or how they are

delivered. In other words, the new (computing) subject, together with the other three

fundamental ones, will provide a new teaching and learning approach which is

essential to meet the basic needs of the 21st century student.

Therefore, what is suggested is: first, despite the advancement of modern education

approaches the basic subjects will continue to be provided to all students, because

they provide them with the necessary dexterities that later on in their lives will allow

them to accomplish the necessary daily life tasks. Second and most important in the

basic school subjects Cloud Computing should be included. That is, ICT in the form

of Cloud Computing should be taught to students together with the other three

fundamental subjects. Thus, this vision of the foursome set of fundamental subjects

will transform the entire education structure in the 21st century into a different form of

education.

3.7.2 Social and Emotional Learning (SEL): The World Economic Forum has

moved a step further from the previous suggestion. More specifically, it proposed that

because the future economy will transform the workplace simply by been digital,

there is a need for the traditional academic learning to be supplemented not only with

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ICT skills, but with Social and Emotional Learning (SEL). In other words, students

must learn to be adept at collaboration, communication and problem-solving, which

are some of the skills developed through social and emotional learning and are

necessary for the 21st labor market.

3.7.3 Students Need to Change to Complex Thinking and Communication: This

is also another challenge related to students. The web, big data, modeling

technologies and a series of other innovations make possible to train students in

complex and systematic thinking, which in turn have an impact on communication

skills. The challenge for the future is for students to be able to master modes of

complex thinking and the capacity to connect people with other people, using Cloud

technologies. In other words, this challenge requires an ability to understand the

bigger picture and to make appeals that are based on logic, knowledge and data.

3.7.4 Changing in the Learning Process: Policy makers, researchers and plain

everyday experience indicate that with the advent of the 21st century a fundamental

transformation of education is needed to address the new dexterities and

competences required. Indeed several studies (i.e. European Commission/ Horizon

Report Europe: 2014 Schools Edition, European Commission/Ala-Machida et. al.,

2010 and Beyond Current Horizons Programme/Facer and Sanford, 2010/ World

Economic Forum, 2016) have shown that future developments, related to required

skills and competences, will change schools over the next 20 years. Among these

changes the most important are:

Learning will Focus on Four Object Competences: In the future, in order to

focus on knowledge the most important basic future skills will be analytical and

critical dexterities, problem solving, collaboration, negotiation, innovation and self-

management, which, however require Languages (good handling of reading and

writing), Mathematics (ability to calculate) and the help of Cloud Computing. That

is, the four fundamental subjects approach is considered crucial for developing

one’s competences over the course of a lifetime.

Learning will be Tailored to the Needs of Individuals or Personalized

Learning: In the future, in order to encourage individual learners to develop their

own talents and interests, the educational approaches should be tailored to their

individual needs, learning styles and preferences. But, such a goal can only be

achieved only using Cloud Computing which can provide the students with the

necessary skills and competences for a personalized learning, which in turn allow

the rigid walls of the classroom to be transform into the random, moving shape of

the internet. It should be noted that truly personalized learning will continue to

increase its utilization, despite the efforts of many vendors who force products on

us that aren’t really personalized.

Learning will be Based on a New Vision: A broader concept than the previous

one was introduced by Redecker et. al. (2011), who have suggested that a three

axis vision of personalization, collaboration and "informalization» (informal

learning) should and will be at the core of teaching and learning in the future. That

is, these three principles for organizing learning and teaching will be the guiding

force in the school of future, which will be characterized by lifelong and life-wide

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learning and shaped by the ubiquity of Information and Communication

Technologies in the form of Cloud Computing.

Learning will shift: A process that started a few years back, continues now, but it

will take a new integrated form in the immediate future will continue to find ways to

shift from teacher-directed, transmission-oriented, passive classrooms to

environments in which student voice and agency are both honored and enabled.

Thus creating more engaged, student-directed learning opportunities.

Learning will be Active and Connected to Real Life: In the future, in order for

the younger generation to learn to grow up as part of society and be aware of what

takes place around them, learning is required to be active and constructive and

take place in social interaction with other learners, teachers and third parties. In

this way, student's learning will be connected to real life, to nature and to the local

and global community.

Learning will be Towards Open, Flexible and Networked Relationships: In the

future, to limit barriers to students in order to participate across institutions,

cultures and educational settings, it requires: the development of compatible

personal learning records owned and managed by the students themselves;

interoperable systems and standards that will enable students to demonstrate

attainment and experience across diverse settings; the arrangements and tools

that will enable students to take advantage of learning opportunities across

different providers; and the means to support students and teachers to navigate

the future complex environment effectively. Of course none other than Cloud

Computing can provide students and teachers the ability to accomplish each one

of those as well as their combination.

Learning will be Meaningful and Authentic: In the future, learning will be based

on access and participation to the world’s global information commons and

learning communities. That is, students can find additional ways to use digital

learning tools to do meaningful, authentic work instead of traditional, artificial,

"decontextualized» classroom assignments. As a result, educational institutions

will be forced to recognize the power of students by that access and participation.

Online Learning will Continue to Gain Acceptance: Online learning has been

part of the university education for a long time and its use is increasing unabated.

However, this trend is now extending to the lower levels of education which are

rapidly adapting to the new technologies. In essence, online learning has enjoyed

a renaissance over the last few years and has sparked an explosion of

development, new ideas, and experimentation. Online pedagogical models are

proliferating all over the world and in all levels of education. For example, in

Europe, the European Commission’s “Opening Up Education» has put into place

several initiatives to stimulate their development. The major reason online learning

is expected to transform teaching and learning are:

o It is less expensive to deliver than classroom-based education because it

does not require physical plant.

o It is accessible to learners anytime and anywhere.

o It appeals to the Net Generation’s unique needs and expectations in many

ways.

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o More students using digital learning tools do more meaningful work.

Finally this trend is especially important to institutions with a public-service

mandate, for they consider online learning a key to advancing their mission of

placing education within reach of people who might otherwise not be able to

access it. Basically, educational institutions are leveraging advanced technologies

to put education within reach of many more individuals than any other time in

history. This trend is more likely to be strengthened in the future.

Learning will be Changed by how Social Media are Used: There is no doubt

that presently there is a shift underway, which will continue to be pushed forward

and it is related to the way social media are utilized in teaching and learning.

Social Media services for both teachers and students are changing all the time,

along with the attitudes towards them, creating new opportunities and challenges.

Mobile Learning will Continue to Gain Acceptance: Mobile education anymore

is becoming increasingly acceptable to all levels of education. Basically, as the

benefits of mobile learning are increasingly recognized in the education sectors,

learners will increasingly be equipped with mobile devices for learning and training

purposes. In the future Mobile learning will dominate learning due to the ever

increasing capability of mobile devices to enhance learning through multimedia

consumption, creations tools and speech recognition.

Hybrid Learning will Continue to Gain Acceptance: As students become

familiar with and adept at using the internet, classroom pedagogical approaches

increasingly include hybrid learning strategies and this trend is expected to

continue. Hybrid learning models by using both the physical and the virtual

learning environments allow teachers to engage students in a broader variety of

ways extend their learning day and increase the focus on collaboration within the

classroom. On the other hand, these models when designed and implemented

effectively, enable students to use the school day for group work and project-

based activities, while using the network to access readings, videos, and other

learning materials on their own time, leveraging the best of both environments.

Non- Formal Learning will Continue to Gain Acceptance: As citizens continue

to be active and focus on the kinds of self-directed, curiosity-based learning, then

the trend toward a non-traditional, non-formal learning will continue to increase.

That is, as more people are able to connect to the internet and pursue inquiries at

their leisure from wherever place they choose, there will be an increasing

acceptance of this form of learning as well as formalizing it. In addition, there is a

realization that non-formal learning has great value for students as well. Many

experts believe that blending outside learning experiences into formal education

will create a dynamic environment that fosters experimentation, curiosity, and

creativity and most importantly a propensity for learning that will endure throughout

a student’s lifetime.

Learning Through Gamification will Continue to Grow: Recently, gamification

is becoming less focused on games and more on learning. Moreover, gamification

not only has taken this positive direction, but it exhibits an exponentially

development growth, thus becoming a valuable tool in the hand of educators. As a

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result, learning through gamification represents another important tool available to

education in the future.

Network learning will Determine the Design of a Curriculum: Such a

curriculum would enable students to learn to work effectively within social

networks and to develop strategies to establish and mobilize social networks for

their own purposes. That is, students should be provided with tools, resources and

skills to, among others, to be able to: manage information, develop experience of

working remotely, explore the human–machine relationships, be involved in socio-

technical networks etc. However, such competences and dexterities characterize

Cloud Computing and certainly can be utilized to fulfill future development.

3.8 Trends in Teaching

3.8.1 Trends in Teaching Methods: The previous discussion clearly indicates that in

the learning and in the digital landscape in which education is operating, comparable

teaching trends are present to fulfill the new needs for subjects and learning

(Vuorikari et. al., 2010). Some of those are:

Collaborative Teaching: The existence of collaborative applications tools such as

wikis, videoconferencing, interactive whiteboards and social networking, on one

hand are encouraging students to collaborate between themselves and on the

other they are enabling teachers to participate in the same lessons. That is,

collaboration can also be established not only between pupils, but also between

students and teachers as well as with others outside the classroom. The last

network opens up teaching to outside contributors, such as a specialist in a

subject being studied who might, for example, be a parent or colleague of a

parent.

Collective Teaching: Another trend in innovative teaching is the collective one,

which enables several teachers to participate in the same lessons with other

teachers, resulting in the virtual presence of several teachers for the same subject.

Personalized Teaching: With the rapid advances in technology (before we have

completely assimilated "Web 2.0", we are heralding "Web 3.0") the new teaching

environment, which enables teachers to spontaneously manage metadata,

structure and filter data and disseminate knowledge, it can provide alternatives for

the selection of the teaching content that matches the profile of every individual

student.

Parents' Teaching: The Involvement of parents in the teaching process is not

only desirable, but attainable. For example, portals or solutions along the lines of

digital work spaces (DSW) certainly enable parents to follow the academic

progress of their children, using comparative data (i.e. evaluating data from

students of the same age from other institution, areas or even countries). The

availability of this kind of information can serve as a springboard at first level for

the interaction with teachers and in a second level for their direct involvement in

their children's' education.

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3.8.2 Trends in Teaching Applications: Given the environment education is

operating, the most important teaching application trends are the following:

Real-time Assessment: Another trend in teaching is the use of technology in

applying innovative systematic and regular assessments in order to monitor and

track the activities and educational progress of each student. The results of the

assessment can then be send to a central point to be analyzed and assessed

leading to recommendations in real-time. This assessment approach certainly will

change the nature or purpose of traditional exams and tests.

Predictive Analysis: A collateral to the previous trend is the notion of gathering

information and applying analytical diagrams that make it possible to assess a

student’s progress on a day-to-day basis, which however at the end enables

teachers to have quick and easy adjustments to their teaching material (i.e., the

type of exercises being used) as well as the method of supervision and guidance

used. Of course, the ultimate goal is to create a dynamic educational process

designed to reduce the risk of failure or dropping out. Because all involved in

teaching know that having assessment data in real time, it is possible to predict

student's failure and identify the signs if someone is going off the rails or is losing

his motivation at school. In this way the teacher can be immediately aware of the

situation and can take the necessary actions.

3.9 Trends and Changes in Education Stakeholders

3.9.1 Teachers Need to Change to Become Part of the Changing Process:

Another challenge is the one faced by teachers who should be confident dealing with

technologies as part of their work in the future. That is, teachers have to create a

daily working environment that encourages innovation and new learning approaches.

In doing so, they become part of the changing educational process, which not only

enhances their professional development, but also promotes educational innovation.

It is crucial for all teachers to be confident with technologies as part of their work in

the future. For example teachers should familiarize themselves with eTwinning,

which is an effective practice enhancing teachers’ professional development and

promoting educational innovation.

3.9.2 Teachers Should Become Lifelong Learners Themselves: Various short

term teachers' training approaches have always been part of modern education.

However, in the future teachers' training should be understood as a lifelong learning

task and be supported as part of their daily work. That is, teachers should be

required to continuously update their knowledge of their students’ learning needs and

taking advantage of the technology available to adjust their teaching methods

through networking and the use of cloud computing, which allows them to observe

their peer experience.

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3.9.3 Teachers Must Change their Role: All the trends mentioned previously can

become a reality only when teachers are trained to exploit the available resources

and tools to support the new tailor-made learning pathways and experiences, which

are motivating, engaging, efficient, relevant and challenging. That is, teachers must

become capable of:

Guiding students in the new «time-space» that is created.

Guiding and advising them in their various methods of learning (including via

social networks, online discover, etc.).

Acting as referees to avoid bad habits (e.g., filtering unsound knowledge gleaned

from the internet or from “friends” on social networks).

Basing their teaching on collaboration between students and promoting their

more energetic participation in classes, something that is fuelled by

unencumbered access to information.

In addition, teachers will be increasingly expected to be adept at a variety of Cloud

Computing approaches for content delivery; learner support and assessment; to

collaborate with other teachers both inside and outside their schools; to routinely use

digital strategies in their work with students and act as guides and mentors; and to

organize their own work and comply with administrative documentation and reporting

requirements. In other words, with the coming of Cloud Computing teacher training

has to go beyond the present paradigm of teacher preparation (Caroll & Resta,

2010), or to reinvent it, in order for prospective teachers to experience this new

learning environment.

Finally, a teacher facing networking tools that enable them to network and

collaborate with other teachers from anywhere, at any time is an important factor to

be concerned with. In other words, such a development in the profession of teachers

is a significant aspect, which cannot be ignored when discussing the future of

education.

3.9.4 School Administrators Must Adapt: The administration of any institution has

to adapt and reflect the new ways of teaching and learning. Educational changes are

constantly bringing new conditions that need to be imposed and become operational,

such as:

New forms of curricula.

Assessment approaches and networking.

New practices that work, find ways to share, make visible and learnable their

results.

Both, top-down and bottom-up approaches to make changes happen.

Support Innovation in all educational and administrative aspect of an institution.

Facilitate the monitoring and dissemination of good practices.

3.9.5 Leaders Need to Change to have a Holistic View: This challenge concerns

the education leaders who in the future need to have a holistic view of the education

process, by taking into account aspects such as skills, attitudes, regulations, IT

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resources, time resources, links between schools, parents and community as well as

social support. Leading a school in the future will require a holistic approach,

whereby all aspects of education and all stakeholders as well as their

interrelationships are part of a successfully led institution.

3.9.6 Policymaking Need to Change towards Universal Participation: Policy

makers are also facing an important challenge, for they have to change the way

policymaking has been practiced up to now. More specifically, policies should be

developed by taking into account the viewpoints of all education stakeholders,

including especially the education practitioners. Towards that objective networking on

a European level is important for accelerating change. For example, eTwinning

participants can take part in developing the future of Twinning through community

spaces, and thereby contribute to the development of educational policies and

strategies in Europe. In general Cloud Computing can help in developing policy

making strategies.

3.9.7 Changes in Organizational Should Allow and Encourage Innovation: From

all education stakeholders those that invariable need to take the maximum numbers

of issues into account are the school administrators. That is, the leader of a school in

any institutional decision has to consider aspects such as skills, attitudes,

regulations, IT resources, time resources, links between schools, parents and

community, and social support for change. In addition, he has to utilize networks that

enable practices to be shared with others and adapted efficiently in similar

circumstances.

3.10 Changing of Other Educational Elements

Cloud Computing with the recourses it can provide to educational elements, it can

force them to adapt to new developing situations, which in turn will change their role

in the education process. Among them the most adept to change are:

3.10.1 Transforming of Knowledge: With the emergence of new technologies,

teaching strategies and pedagogical approaches will undergo drastic changes as to

the transfer of knowledge. That is, even the current change in teaching context

(internet versus the blackboard) clearly implies a new relationship with knowledge,

namely that knowledge is now easier to access and can be used differently. As a

result, there will be a notable difference between teaching an individual and running

flexible learning communities. The reason is that virtual communities will operate in

different ways, depending of course on the area of learning and the people involved,

than a single individual. This means that students might be in the same classroom,

but operating in virtual networks and the knowledge that each one will be receiving

will be very different from each other.

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3.10.2 Social Media: Technological developments have brought about changes in

the way people interact, present ideas and information or in other words have

brought to our lives social media. By the end of 2014, the agency «We are Social»

declared that there were around 310 million active social media users in Europe,

accounting for 40% of the continent’s population. A large part of them are students

and teachers who routinely use social media to communicate with each other on

school matters and keeping up to date on assignments. That is, social networks will

continue to have a different role for the education shareholders, who will be using

them as professional communities of practice, as learning communities and as a

platform to share information about assignments, content and interesting stories

about topics students will be studying in class.

3.10.3 Open Education Resources: Cloud Computing is an efficient conduit for

open educational resources (OER),which can be described as materials that can be

freely copied, freely mixed with other material, and free of barriers to access, sharing,

and educational use. The last few years the use of these materials in the education

environment has change considerably not only in terms of their constant growth in

breadth and quality, but mainly as a matter of policy in schools, especially in the

many disciplines in which high quality educational content is more abundant than

ever. That is the role of OER has been changing as it relates to the creation,

circulation, and standardization of educational resources (UNESCO, OER Paris,

declaration, 2012).

3.10.4 Data-Driven Learning and Assessment: Another important change that

Cloud Computing has brought about is the role of data sources in the education

process. There is a change in using data sources for personalizing the learning

experience, for ongoing formative assessment of learning and for performance

measurement, which have led to the development of a new role of data sources and

a relatively new field named data-driven learning and assessment. The goal of this

field is to build better pedagogies, empower students to take an active part in their

learning, target at-risk student populations and assess factors affecting completion

and student success. In this way teachers get crucial insights into student progress

and interaction with online texts, courseware, and learning environments used to

deliver instruction.

In sum, because the world of education will follow and be influenced by those trends

and changes, it will bring changes and developments in the way education is revised

or innovated and will be presented later.

4. METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK OF THE SoC FORSIGHT

Presently there is an outburst of foresight initiatives from academic institutions as

well from private and government units. However, all these efforts suffer from two

important shortcomings. First, most of them have been oriented towards economic or

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defense disciplines (Sandford & Facer, 2007). Second, in the few recent

educationally oriented foresight projects the future of education is examined without

regard or separate from specific technological, educational etc. factors. The foresight

effort reported here provides an educational application where the combined

existence of the future of education and Cloud Computing is presented. In other

words, the examination of the future of Cloud based Education addresses both areas

as they are combined and interact.

Another issue is that this report represents a forward-looking analysis to support

policy decisions and is based primarily on the examination of the emergence of

important trends and changes in schools, society, technology and innovations and

their implications to education. However, these factors on one hand interact with

education in a complex way and their «effects» are not immediate and direct, but

rather they take place after a substantial time delay (European Science and

Technology Observatory, ESTO, 2001). On the other hand, policy-makers do not or

cannot afford to wait until the situations are clarified, the effects are clear and the

results are practically final, in order to take the necessary decisions. Therefore, a

careful methodological framework is required of the activities conducted by the SoC

network members before, during and after foresight exercise, to reach the proposed

scenarios, in order to be able to harmonically resolve successfully these two

opposing conditions and thus the proposed scenarios and policies to be accepted.

In sum, the methodological framework of SoC futures-oriented work is directed on

one hand towards exploring the implications of potential future developments for

educators, learners and administrators and on the other towards Cloud Computing as

an educational technology field. Therefore, the basic question methodologically that

needs to be answered is: what might be the implications of Cloud Computing on

future changes in education, and what does this mean for teaching and learning over

the coming 15 years?

4.1 Foresight: Methods Chosen

In the SoC Foresight approach, it was decided to apply three methods: the Delphi

method, the “six thinking hats” technique and a brainstorming approach. The first two

were applied in the Palermo SoC's expert’s workshop and the last on the various

working groups' meetings.

Delphi Method: This method, sometimes called and Delphi survey, is a relative

straightforward process aiming at collecting and distilling knowledge from a group

of experts through the use of a series of questionnaires. Each round give feedback

for making a new series of questionnaires until a consensus is reached.

Six Thinking Hats: This method is utilized to go through decisions from different

perspectives, enabling participants to move outside their habitual intellectual

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pattern and thus provide them with a more rounded view of the topic under

consideration.

Brainstorming: It is a method, used in groups in order to support creative

problem-solving, the generation of new ideas and greater acceptance of proposed

solutions.

4.2 Definitions

In this report, as in many others dealing with issues of the future, two terms are used

extensively and although they are well defined in the literature their use is not always

appropriate. As a result and for reasons of clarity it is considered important to provide

a definition of these terms to remove even the slightest misunderstanding, because

they represent the central part of the report.

Foresight: Is the attempt to map projections of recent and current developments

into the future and to explore their potential implications. That is, foresight is NOT

some forecasting by experts, neither a prophecy nor a prediction, but it is a range

of methods that allow key stakeholders, including decision and policy makers, to

share a vision and to extend the depth of knowledge base for decision-making so

as to organize long term thinking.

Scenarios: Is the attempt to work with those who are concerned with the future's

inquiry and its implications to generate a set of plausible divergent future worlds

that can be productively used to test out current strategies. That is, scenario

formulation is not just a foresight exercise, but mainly a tool to challenge the

assumptions of any given or inevitable future.

As a result, the formulation and later the interpretation of the SoC scenarios were

intended to address the conditions existing today in teaching and learning in order to

create an innovative Cloud based education. That is, the scenarios that have resulted

from the SoC foresight exercise should be considered plausible systematic visions of

future education possibilities that can be used for decision making as well as

exploring the future impact or developments of Cloud Computing. This approach is in

accordance with the literature on future research (Janssen, et. al., 2007; van der

Duin and Huijboom, 2008).

4.3 SoC's Future and Its Values System.

As it was mentioned previously one of the major goals of the SoC network was to

inquire into possible future trajectories due to socio-technical-educational changes.

Its task was: To understand what the education system might look like in 2025 in

order to anticipate the demands that will be placed on teaching and learning taking

as a focus not "the future» in its entirety, but specifically the intersection between

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education and Cloud Computing. The specific objective was: "The group will use the

partner conference to examine significant issues affecting the use of the Cloud in

education and create and develop a report on scenarios for the future (D5.3). The

aim is to develop scenarios (stories) built around carefully constructed plots based on

trends, towards the balanced thinking about a number of possible alternative futures."

In order to attempt to understand and create future developments and their

implication to education, there is a need to define the future upon which to base

these scenarios. In other words, it is necessary to determine, accept and take into

consideration during the scenario developments a set of concepts/beliefs for the

future society and a set of principals upon which to build the scenarios. It should be

noted that these are mentioned here not only to provide a context to this report, but

because these concepts and principles, should become a part of the discussions and

representations of the education future in general.

4.3.1 Future Society: The SoC network believes that the future society will be

characterized by the following:

Local but under Global conditions Society: Society is changing due to

globalization and the requirement for complex functioning in many diverse and

multiple dimensions. People need to work, develop and seek happiness locally

under a global influence. As a result, there is a demand for a different type of

citizen, which in turn requires a different student in our schools.

Knowing Society: A Society in which the real-time and real-world ability to

continuously track, measure, and interpret (to know) and react to the current state

of phenomena at any scale at any time through data capture and analysis (today

known as “Big Data”). As a result, knowledge becomes the primary source of

economic, social and political power at any scale.

Remixing Competencies: Competencies should continue to be a combination of

knowledge, skills and attitudes, necessary for all individuals for personal fulfillment

and development, active citizenship as well as social connectivity under global

communities. As a result, there is a demand of cultivating the remix of

competences, according to the new needs, where «high order» level of knowledge

should be «creating», of skills should be “collaborating” and of attitudes should be

«respecting» ourselves, others and the environment.

4.3.2 Principles: The SoC network believes that the future scenarios should be

guided by the following:

Principle 1: Any scenario for future education should aim to challenge present

assumptions/beliefs rather than present a predictive model. That is, the aim of

examining the future cannot be simply reduced either into a set of predictions of

what «will happen» or what we «want» or «will make» happen, as though that a

multitude of factors do not intervene or shape our actions. Rather, it is best to

explore future in terms of as though this were beyond the intervention of

individuals (Bell, 1997).

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Principle 2: The future has to be determined within a holistic framework; it cannot

be determined solely by its technologies (Cloud Computing). The majority of

policy-makers, industry representatives and even some researchers have been

solely use a Technological determinism to determine the future. However the

literature strongly supports the notion that social change such as education is the

combined result of technical and social factors (Wertsch, 1991; Latour, 1993;

Deleuze & Guattari, 1988; Woolgar, 2002).

Principle 3: Building future scenarios is a linear process whereby knowledge from

the literature and practical experience, based on the accepted value

system/paradigm, determines the basic principles involved, which in turn is leading

into the formulation of future scenarios that in the end are put into practice by

specific actions.

4.4 Methodological Approach

The formulation of the scenarios followed the well-known and traditional foresight

application. Namely, their design has started with an examination of future needs and

opportunities under various educational conditions based on an extensive

bibliographical work (Koutsopoulos, 2015b) as well as the suggestions of SoC's

participating experts. This extensive examination and analysis resulted in a set of

questionnaires used in foresight exercise, which in turn led to scenarios that were

formulated as appropriate narrations (storytelling) of future educational classroom

conditions, learners’ activities and tools as well as school operation in response to

the use of Cloud Computing.

That is, the SoC methodology consisted of two parts: the foresight exercise and the

scenario development. In terms of the foresight effort it was rested basically on the

application of the Delphi method (the other two methods: the six thinking hat and the

brainstorming were complimentary to Delphi and were used in the scenario

formulation). It was based on a number of questionnaires whose questions were

related to factors considered appropriate to the three major education stakeholders

(Τable 1). The SoC foresight was applied in the following 5-step approach.

LEARNERS TEACHERS MANAGERS

TRENDS TRENDS TRENDS

COMPETENCES/

LABOR NEEDS

COMPETENCES/

LABOR NEEDS

COMPETENCES/

LABOR NEEDS

TECHNOLOGIES TECHNOLOGIES INTERACTION/

COMMUNICATION

Table 1: Factors examined in the questionnaires

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The first step was based on the main findings of the review of the state-of-the-art of

the research in teaching and learning and in ICT, in the form of Cloud Computing.

This review was then complemented by an analysis of the main policy orientations on

Cloud Computing for education in Europe, identifying relevant trends and normative

policy visions. The second step was focused on formulating the set of key uncertain

developments that may drive the future of education, to accomplish that an analysis

of the main trends (societal, technological, educational and innovations) was

conducted. The third step was based on the previous steps. That is, in order to face

the increasing number of challenges in education in Europe, expert knowledge is

required which was solicited in the form of a questionnaire addressed to such

experts. The fourth step, probably the most fundamental to the success of the

foresight was the administration, in two phases, of the questionnaires to the SoC

participants at the foresight workshop. The fifth step that concluded the foresight

effort was the qualitative analysis of the participants’ responses, an assessment

necessary in deriving conclusions for the scenario formulation.

The scenario design adopted as part of the SoC's foresight exercise was: first,

evidence-based, as it builds on the trends emerging from a literature review; second,

expertise-based, as it included the views of experts which by definition are the

participants of the other three WG of SoC (learners, teachers, administrators)

gathered in Palermo Italy in the Expert Workshop; third, interactive, as it incorporates

inputs in person at the workshop; and fourth creative, as it is based on the "creative-

thinking» that came out from the brainstorming activities and the application of the six

thinking hats, following Popper's suggestions (2008).

5. APPLICATION OF THE BRAINSTORMING APPROACH

Brainstorming is a widely applied method, used in groups in order to support creative

problem-solving, the generation of new ideas and greater acceptance of proposed

solutions. Basically, its goal is to reduce inhibitions about generating “wild» ideas and

thus stimulate creativity and innovations. Given that this particular foresight exercise

is focusing in determining different future possibilities and creating new strategies it

was used to generate ideas on the future of education in relation to the development

of Cloud Computing and on creating corresponding scenarios.

The main advantages of this method are:

Fast.

Collaborative.

Cheap.

Well known.

Proven successful technique.

Producing unconventional thinking and solutions.

However, it can be characterized as inadequately underlying thinking, if it used

exclusively and there are no other foresight methods used to support it. And that was

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the reason that in the SoC network foresight it was used together with the six

Thinking Hats approach as an input to the Delphi method.

5.1 Process

The application of the method followed the next steps:

The participants were divided into three groups, in relation to the major education

stakeholders.

For a successful utilization of this method, the task of each relevant group was

exemplified with the use of a persona (a fictitious archetypical representative of

learner, teacher and administrator).

Encourage “out of box» thinking.

The participants of each group were asked to develop a joint statement describing

the stakeholder under consideration. For example, the following issues represent a

good example of describing education:

o Teaching and learning needs.

o Teaching and learning challenges.

o Teaching and learning strategies.

o The role of education stakeholders.

o The role of technology.

o Other possibilities.

Afterwards all the ideas produced by the groups were ranked according to the

participants’ priorities and the results they became the input to the Delphi technique.

5.2 The Brainstorming Persona

In order to show the form and structure of brainstorm personas those suggested for

use in the Soc exercise are presented next. It should be noted that the participants

were members of the three WG's of the SoC network. They were asked to participate

in the brainstorming exercise of SoC because by definition they are aware and have

examined the subjects of SoC and the brainstorming technique. The exercise had

only one question requiring up to three answers (changes),namely: What do you

believe will be the main changes to school education due to Cloud Computing?

Thus the focus of each Working Group (WG) was:

The "Average» grammar or high school student for WG2.

The "Average» grammar or high school teacher for WG3.

The "Average» grammar or high school administrator for WG1.

The "Average grammar or high school leader for WG1.

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The participants stated their opinion in terms of the role of Cloud Computing as it

relates to their learning needs, objectives and strategies in order to enhance the

activities they are good at and improve those that they face difficulties with.

The «average» persona examined by each WG, were:

5.2.1 Average grammar student: Kostis is a 7 year-old grammar school student

who likes to play computer games, to entertain him with play station and play football.

In class he can't sit still, be quite and listen to his teacher. He needs corporal

movement and can be considered hyper-active.

How i teacher will provide education for Kostis in 2025?

This persona can be accessed and used at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itAv2MWWWn8

5.2.2 Average High school student: Sylvia is an excellent high school student who

likes all the school subjects, but she is very good in math and physics as well as

languages. She has a steady boyfriend and likes to travel and read books. In class

she is bored to death, does not socialize with her classmates and she treats students

and teachers in an arrogant way stemming from the fact that she is good in

academics.

How i teacher will provide education for Sylvia in 2025?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifV65YzjOq8

5.2.3 Average teacher: Panos is a 41 year-old high school teacher who loves his

job and he is a very good teacher, for his students admire him, enjoy his lessons and

they are very successful in his subject at the university entrance exams. His major

concern is that the approach he has been using for so many years cannot keep them

interested. On the other hand every year the new students pose less basic skills than

the previous ones.

How will Panos provide education for his students in 2025?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kt4WYtG-Iac

5.2.4 Average administrator: Karl is a 53 year-old principal at a high school for the

last 20 years. He is considered very successful for most of his school students pass

the university entrance exams. He is very friendly and accommodating with the

teachers and the parents. He believes in planning of any activities and he wants to

be sure that any innovation will be for the benefit of his students who are his only

concern. The school student either they are indifferent or afraid of him.

How will Karl run his school in 2025?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9D1AuJSWiQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itAv2MWWWn8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifV65YzjOq8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kt4WYtG-Iac

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9D1AuJSWiQ

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5.2.5 Average Leader: Sophie is a 38 year-old education leader who has lots of

creative ideas about education. She is considered very dynamic and a thinker about

the future of education. She is highly motivated and well organized, communicating

online and face-to-face. She believes that education needs to change its

stakeholders and be changed and expresses herself widely to promote and

encourage innovation and change.

How will Sophie persuade others her ideas and opinions are the ways schools should

be run in 2025?

5.3 Application

The results of the discussions of the participants that took place in a workshop in

Porto Portugal and were related to the three first personas have provided a better

understanding of the issue of Cloud based education and has helped constructively

the main SoC foresight effort, the Delphi method.

6. APPLICATION OF THE SIX THINKING HATS APPROACH1

6.1 The Six Hats Technique.

Six Thinking Hats is the proven technique from Edward de Bono, the creative

thinking guru. This technique focus on enhancing the structure of thinking so that

group decision making and idea evaluation can be dramatically improved.

The Six Thinking Hats use parallel thinking as an alternative to (and not a

replacement for) traditional ways of thinking. However, this way of thinking is often

much more productive than adversarial thinking, discussion or debate. There are six

different coloured hats that can be put on or taken off to indicate a mode or strand of

thinking. Only one hat is worn at any one time by the individual or group (in parallel)

allowing more thorough, expansive thinking, increased creativity, and decision-

making.

The Six Thinking Hats is a time-tested, proven, and practical thinking tool. It provides

a framework to help people think clearly and thoroughly by directing their thinking

attention in one direction at a time (white hat facts, green hat creativity, yellow hat

benefits, black hat cautions, red hat feelings and blue hat process).

1 ©All rights reserved – Edward De Bono Foundation

(http://www.edwarddebonofoundation.com )

http://www.edwarddebonofoundation.com/

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It's a simple mental metaphor. Hats are easy to put on and to take off. Each hat is a

different colour which signals the mode of thinking. In a group setting each member

thinks using the same thinking hat, at the same time, on the same thinking

challenge—we call this focused parallel thinking.

During each critical thinking discussion meeting the facilitator determines which hat

should be worn in any specific part of the discussion and at the end of the discussion

session stakeholders should have a better understanding of the problem from

different approaches and thus reach creative and innovative solutions. The

hats(types of thinking) used in the SoC foresight exercise were the following:

Blue Hat: This is the process control plan where the meeting leaders manage

difficulties during the discussions. It makes sure that the guidelines of the six

thinking Hat process are applied. This is used to drive the thinking process to

better routes.

White Hat: This Hat represents the facts and the information available about the

problem or the argument. While the group was dressing the White Hat, information

and data about the object of the exercise are collected.

Yellow Hat: In contrast to the black Hat, the yellow Hat supposes to reflect the

sun or an optimistic attitude. The stakeholders think from an optimistic point of

view about the problem or suggestion. It helps to spotlight the advantages and

benefits of the suggestions. So the trainer motivated the groups in find the positive

aspects of the subject under examination.

Black Hat: Wearing the black Hat drives participants to think about the problem or

suggestion cautiously and defensively. The aim of this part is to identify the cons

of the suggestion and the disadvantages and why the suggestion may not work

based on logical reasons. The question asked during the discussion are “what are

the risks?” and “why is the suggestion not working?”

Red Hat: This emotion Hat presents the stakeholders feelings about the problem

and their gut reactions toward it. The target of using this Hat is to understand the

different emotional reactions such as love, hate, like and dislike. The red Hat does

not aim to understand the reason behind these feelings. The questions asked

during this part are “what do you feel about the application of concept?” and “what

is your gut reaction toward that?”

Green Hat: This represents the creative thinking part of the discussion. During the

critical thinking discussion, this Hat fuels the stakeholders’ thinking to a more

innovative thinking creative solution for the problems or look to the suggestions

from a creative perspective.

Finally, the overall benefits of The Six Thinking Hats approach are:

Better, more productive thinking and ideas.

Improved communication, collaboration and understanding.

Increased levels of creative thinking and fresh ideas.

Shorter, more productive and effective meetings.

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6.2 Objectives

The Six Thinking Hats is a simple, effective parallel thinking process that helps

people be more productive, focused, and mindfully involved. Essentially, the method

is easily accessible, succinct, well-structured and easy to follow. As a result, it has

been a very interesting experiencing for the School on the Cloud partners, because

the application workshop ensured them a round view of the analysis of Cloud

systems and their future scenarios. Generally speaking the Six Thinking Hats helped

them to:

Look at problems, decisions, and opportunities systematically.

Use Parallel Thinking as a group or team to generate more and better ideas as

well as solutions.

Make meetings much shorter and more productive.

Reduce conflict among team members or meeting participants.

Stimulate innovation by generating more and better ideas quickly.

Create dynamic, results oriented meetings that make people want to participate.

Go beyond the obvious to discover effective alternate solutions.

Spot opportunities where others see only problems.

Think clearly and objectively.

View problems from new and unusual angles.

Make thorough evaluations.

See all sides of a situation.

Keep egos and "turf protection» in check.

Achieve significant and meaningful results.

The SoC workshop was focused on the two major of the points mentioned above.

Namely, how to stimulate innovation by generating more and better ideas as well as

see all sides of the situation related to the future application of Cloud systems in

education.

6.3 The Process.

6.3.1 General: The workshop on the Six Thinking Hats was applied to the three

different SoC Working Groups (i Learner, i Teacher, i Manager). In addition, each

workshop started with the division of each group into three sub-groups. At the

beginning of each workshop the trainer asked each sub-group to build the

“educational centre of the future”, imagining on how it could be or have to be in the

future. They had to realise it using recycling materials that the trainer gave them.

Then, the participant of each subgroup had to explain to each other how they built

their educational centre of the future and how they would image it. Finally, the

process through the Six Thinking Hats has started where there was only one main

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question to be analysed and related to the interest of the WGs, namely: What is the

role of manager/teacher/learner working in a Cloud based education?

It should be noted that the trainer was "wearing» the Blue Hat, which stands for

process control, for all the workshop duration, in order to manage the group dynamic

and guide them through the six Hats.

As for the choice of Hat sequence there is no single correct six Hats sequence. The

sequence can vary with the subject and with the group. A decision is made on the

sequence and then it is used. The blue Hat wearer usually manages the thinking

process based on a previously agreed or decided on the spot sequence.

6.3.2 The Use of the Tool: The first question to be asked in the application of the

technique is: How and When to use the Imaginary Thinking Hats? For the SoC

exercise it was decided to use the systematic use. In this approach the Hats were

used in a sequence, one after the other, in order to explore the subject thoroughly.

Each Hat may be used as many times as required in the sequence, but at the same

time not all Hats need to be used. The systematic use was utilized in the SoC

exercise because of the following circumstances:

Those taking part in the thinking process had strongly held and different views.

There was a rambling discussion that was not getting anywhere.

The subject of cloud based education needed to be discussed thoroughly.

6.3.3. The Idea Generation: In the SoC effort, for the idea generation process they

were followed both the Conversational and Meeting uses.

The benefits of Conversational use are:

Creates structure in important conversations.

Allows all sides to be heard.

Helps more easily to different type of thinking when stuck in a conversation rut.

In conversation, one of the most frequent uses of hats is simply asking a person to

switch from one hat to another. This will help to view all sides of a topic in

conversation.

Meeting Use.

The benefits of Meeting use are:

Provides a road map for a thinking agenda.

Promotes robust, full-coloured thinking.

Reduce meeting time by up to 50%.

Ensures all meeting attendees participate.

Promotes teamwork and respect for individuals.

Rules to be follow:

o Using the designated hat (everyone makes an attempt to use the hat has been

designated).

o Encouraging all to participate.

o Blue Hat prompting.

o Only the blue hat interrupts.

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o Directions, not descriptions (the hats are not a description of what is

happening but a direction for thinking behaviour).

o Handling conflicts (In meetings, there should be no disagreements during the

use of the hats).

6.4 Application of Six Thinking Hats.

This technique was applied as part of the SoC Foresight exercises (all the rights are

protected by the Copyright and reserved to the Edward de Bono Foundation), to

complement the Delphi method in probing educational scenarios related to the Cloud

based education. It was accomplished in the following steps:

6.4.1 First step: The process started by providing the participants with basic

information about:

How the method is structured and used as well as the use and purpose of the

different hats.

The fundamental issues in using the “Six thinking hats” method in learning about

education in future.

6.4.2 Second step: This was the most important part of the method's application. It

was concerned with going through decisions from different perspectives, namely

applying the thinking processes expressed by the different Hats:

White hat: The members of all Working Groups of the

SoC were first asked to put on their white Hats and

define cloud based education in the future. In this Hat

participants were asked: What we know about Cloud

computing? What is it? That is, in this ‘Hat’ the members

discussed what they know, what they do not know and

what they want to find out. During the application

information and data about cloud computing has been

collected. At the conclusion of the participants'

discussion, the instructor used case studies in education

to explain the method and the results.

Yellow Hat: The yellow Hat was used to bring out the

advantages and benefits of Cloud based education in the

future. That is, in this ‘Hat’ the participants were

expected to produce ideas and expectations about Cloud

based education in future. So the trainer motivated the

groups in finding the positive aspects of Cloud based

education. It should be noted that the application of the

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Yellow Hat is a very difficult task, because many

participants may be critical and not objective.

Black Hat: When the participants put on their black

Hats, the disadvantages of cloud based education in

future were discussed. As a result, in this ‘Hat’

statements were generated related to such issues as the

feasibility, the funding etc… of the future plans or of

various courses of action. That is, the participants were

asked for these plans and actions: what are the

weaknesses? What might go wrong with them? So that

no fatal flaw and risk can surface before anyone

embarks on them.

Red Hat: In the red hat activity the participants were

asked to discuss what they would do as well as think

what they might do to improve the cloud based

educational system. By asking a participant “what do you

feel about the application of cloud based

education?” and “what is your gut reaction toward cloud

computing? An opportunity for discussion was provided.

Green Hat: This Hat was focused on creativity and, as a

result, the participants consider whether they should

change the design of their new ideas concerning cloud

based education.

Blue Hat: The Blue Hat stands for process control. This

is the Hat worn by people chairing meetings. When

running into difficulties, because ideas are running dry,

they may direct activity into Green Hat thinking. When

contingency plans are needed, they will ask for Black

Hat thinking, etc. In the case of cloud based education

this hat proved to be the most beneficial

6.4.3 Third step: Finally the results of the “six thinking Hats” application were

presented. That is, each working group shared their findings and then discussed their

group activities with the rest of the other teams.

In general, the groups in each session had the chance to develop new ideas and

think about future scenarios of cloud based education. So the chairman clarified to

the groups that being creative does not mean to be an artist, but being able to create

new ideas! (See picture 1)

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Picture 1: iTeacher working group Six Thinking Hats method

6.5. The Results.

The application of this technique focusing on the thinking processes expressed by

the different Hats provided the following for each hat results.

6.5.1 White Hat: With this thinking Hat, the focused was on the data available. That

is, participants examined the information available about Cloud based education and

determined what they could learn from it. This is where they analysed past trends

and tried to extrapolate from historical data. The following facts and information of the

problem were available:

Process of education.

Tool to organize learning objectives and information.

Availability of data for personal and staff purposes and school infrastructure.

Know the budget needed.

New projects and school networks.

Information for administrative issues and local community.

No rules and regulations.

Know education process, learning and teaching.

Know how to organise information.

Know the students, team, parents etc.

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Be open minded, flexible.

Be connected – networking.

Keep costs low.

Sharing.

Design the programme my pupils need (identity-based).

Facilitate open data.

Judgements and predictions based on data.

Enable the flow of information.

Connect external and internal data.

Monitoring and maintenance of information.

Filter and share information.

Measurement, indicators - provision of responsibility for information.

6.5.2 Red Hat: «Wearing» the red Hat, the three groups looked at intuition, gut

reaction, and emotion. Also they tried to think how other people will react emotionally.

In addition they tried to understand the responses of people who do not fully know

their reasoning. The emotions and feelings about the Cloud based education and

their gut reactions toward it were:

Successful.

Efficient.

Useful.

Effective.

Linked/connected.

Satisfactory.

Open-minded.

Adventurous.

“Hero”.

Happy.

Effective.

Excitement.

Playful.

Interested.

Frustrated.

Angry.

Not satisfied.

Realistic.

Under-achieved.

Under-control.

Frightened.

Challenged.

Feared.

Frustrated.

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6.5.3 Black Hat: Black Hat thinking helps to make your plans «tougher» and more

resilient. It can also help you to spot fatal flaws and risks before you embark on a

course of action. Black Hat thinking is one of the real benefits of this technique, as

many successful people get so used to thinking positively that often they cannot see

problems in advance. This leaves them under-prepared for difficulties. In terms of

cloud computing in education the following negative aspects were considered:

Budget constraints/ mismanagement, lack of resources and (initial) finance.

Lack of competences (e.g. collaboration, workload).

Lack of motivation.

Rigid application of rules, regulations.

Safety, ethical issues.

Digital divide (groups), exclusion.

Stuck in a virtual world.

Loss of Control, privacy problems, data not safe.

Non-flexible role.

Economic issues.

Opposition of teachers, policy makers.

Barrier between teachers and learners.

Unsustainable projects.

No leadership from the top (policy).

6.5.4 Yellow Hat: The yellow Hat helped the participants to think positively about

Cloud computing. It is the optimistic viewpoint that helped them to see all the benefits

of the decisions and the value in them. Yellow Hat thinking helps to keep going when

everything looks gloomy and difficult. The positive aspects of cloud based education

were:

Open minded.

Flexibility/instant-contemporary use/ accessibility.

Connection /networking /sharing.

Cost reduction, benefits over costs more, efficiency.

Transparency.

Learning analytics (meta-data).

Provide materials in easy way/learning many different things.

Information flow (admin-schools).

Sharing ideas, good practises.

More engagement/cooperative/coordination/knowledge.

Interdisciplinary, positive praxis, interactive, adaptive.

To know how to curate information.

Responsive teachers and personalised learning.

Make life easier, provide solutions.

Empowerment of learners.

Provide new knowledge.

Change the management vision.

Coordinate stakeholders.

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New methods of control.

Changing paradigms - new technologies.

Teach the teacher - adapt the education system.

Find support/finance.

6.5.5 Green Hat: The Green Hat stands for creativity. This is where participants

develop creative solutions to issue of Cloud based education. It was a freewheeling

way of thinking, in which there was little criticism of ideas. New ideas, alternatives,

possibilities were generated by the participants, as well as many solutions to 'Black

Hat' problems.

6.5.6 Blue Hat: The Blue Hat represents management of difficulties. The exercise

started and ended in each session with the Blue Hat. The Blue Hat can be thought of

as bookends. At the beginning, the blue hat determined the focus and sequence of

Hats; at the end the Blue Hat summarised the thinking and planed the next steps.

A summary of the results of the application of the Six Thinking Hats technique that

took place in the second SoC annual conference at Palermo Italy and run by the

CESIE institute, included three groups of participants, is shown in Table 2

HATS GROUPS

WHITE HAT INFORMATION

RED HAT EMOTIONS

BLACK HAT BARRIERS

YELLOW HAT OPTIMISTIC

GREEN HAT CREATIVITY

GROUP 1

data for personal, staff

data for their purposes

data for school infrastructure

budget projects and school networks

information for administrative issues and local community

satisfaction

control

exciting

adventure

open-minded

“hero» happy

safety, ethical issues

telecom problems

digital divide (groups)

stuck in a virtual world

economic issues

control

exclusion

reduce costs

transparency

learning analytics (meta-data)

provide materials in easy way

information flow (admin-schools)

sharing ideas, good practice

coordination

learning many different things

more engagement

interdisciplinary

cooperative

connectivity

not schools - education

differentiation

inclusion

exclusion

give opportunity for teachers to stand out as creators

changes (out of stereotype)

flexibility

GROUP 2

know regulations

know education process, learning and teaching

know how to organise information

know my students, team, parents etc.

be open minded,

successful

efficient

useful

effective

linked/connected

frustrated/angry

not satisfied

realistic

workload

budget mismanagement

lack of competences (e.g. collaboration

lack of motivation

rigid

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flexible

connected - networking

keep costs low

sharing

design the programme my pupils need (identity-based)

underachiever

application of rules/regulations -

non-flexible role

GROUP 3

INFORMATION- ROLE

facilitate open data

judgments based on dats

enable the flow of information

connect external and internal data

monitoring and maintenance of information

filter and share information

predictions based on data

measurement, indicators provision of

responsibility for information

Feelings

frightened, challenged,

excitement, fear, frustration,

satisfaction, playful, angry,

happy, interested

CRITICAL JUDGEMENT

data not safe

loss of control

opposition of teachers, policy makers

barrier between teachers and learners

unsustainable projects

lack of resources and (initial) finance

no leadership from the top (policy)

benefits

instant

more knowledge for all

contemporary

accessible

sharing

responsive teachers

makes life easier

provides solutions

personalized

interactive, adaptive

benefits over costs

cheaper, more efficient, positive praxis

creativity

empowerment providing new knowledge

changes lead, manage

vision coordinate stakeholders

new methods - control, direct

changing paradigms new technologies

teach the teacher adapt the education system

find support/finance

Table 2: Results of the Six Thinking Hats Application

6.6 Possible Future Scenarios.

In the application of the Six Thinking Hats technique, the groups had the chance to

develop new ideas and think about future scenarios of Cloud based education

(Picture 2). The trainer clarified to the groups that being creative does not mean to be

an artist but being able to create new ideas!

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Picture 2: Possible Future Scenarios.

Based on the previously discussed application the following series of future scenarios

by the participants of all the groups and related to the Cloud based education were

developed.

Empower people with confidence/interaction/solving problems.

Give team’s self-management and leadership.

Connect people and create flexibility.

Create new role model, shift (changing) paradigms.

Meet the needs of other users (in terms of data / information literacy).

Adapt technology to education aims.

It should be the short term investment of money to buy up property or upgrade

computers and books.

Connectivity/changes (out of stereotypes).

Not schools – education.

Give opportunity for teachers to stand out as creators.

Educate people to work with the Cloud.

Have an EU policy approach.

Focus on the de-industrialisation of education.

Need intelligent leadership - intelligent management based on information brought

to leaders and managers by the Cloud.

Evolutionary thinking will be adopted - adaptation to the Cloud.

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Have to co-create vision (i.e. involve all stakeholders).

Need to have clear indicators of success - what data is required and how

presented?

Need data literacy skills for managers and leaders.

Must create an information platform - sharing data with others so that (good)

decisions can be made.

Helping people make use of the information will be vital.

Breaking the barrier between real-life and school life.

Flexible and co-created leadership.

Collaborated school organisation - connected also to the external (real) world.

Build community of leaders.

Imply leaders as learners.

A single platform for managers/leaders - with all data needs supplied.

Leaders/managers given the freedom to express themselves.

Important is getting rid of “classes” - need a good mix of approaches.

Differentiation, inclusion/exclusion, flexibility.

6.7 Concluding Remarks

The main conclusion of the Six Thinking Hats in terms of Cloud Computing and

education was that: there should not be followers of an approach, but followers of the

changing process that allows people to have access to different information and to

manage such information at different levels and for different objectives and results. It

should be noted that the processes, the results and the conclusions of the Six

Thinking Hats technique have provided powerful insights, which helped tremendously

the main SoC foresight Delphi method.

7. APPLICATION OF THE DELPHI METHOD

7.1 Delphi Definition and Historical Background

Delphi, the most popular and widely accepted method used in foresight and other

futures studies (Hsu & Sandford, 2007; Torres, 2005), is a qualitative research

method with quantitative elements that belongs to the subjective-intuitive methods of

foresight. It relies on the judgment of a panel of experts about emerging trends and

future developments in a given field for which there is limited information (Rowe &

Wright, 1999). The method systematically combines expert and tacit knowledge, to

(hopefully) arrive at an informed group consensus about the likely occurrence of

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future events (Stag, 1983). It is “an adaptable research technique employed as an

iterative and interactive process» (Skulmoski, Hartman, & Krahn, 2007), which is

conducted in two or more rounds through the development and administration of a

series of carefully designed, sequential questionnaires.

In the first round of the Delphi process, experts anonymously complete an open-

ended questionnaire, where they indicate their views of likelihood of certain

developments taking place. This initial survey round aims at the generation of ideas

and/or brainstorming (Skulmoski et al., 2007). Experts’ views are then collated and

fed back to panel members for further comment. Participants are encouraged to

reflect on the responses provided by their peers, as well as their own answers and, if

applicable, to modify or refine their initial judgments based upon the collective views

of the group (Mitroff & Turoff, 2002). Typically they are asked to expand, detail or

rank their responses. The process can be repeated a number of times before final

results are collected. In all rounds of the Delphi study, some degree of anonymity is

maintained through reliance on written responses. Although participants interact and

cooperate among each other throughout the study by reassessing their own previous

iterations (Linstone & Turoff, 2011), this is done anonymously in order to minimize

the influence of group dynamics (Guzys et al., 2015). A central working group carries

out the whole Delphi process.

The Delphi technique is intended to provide a general group perspective on the

future rather than a sharp picture. It is based upon the assumption that, despite being

uncertain, the future can be approximated by individuals whose experience and

knowledge enables them to make informed judgments about future contingencies.

Delphi aims at digging out new and fresh viewpoints and ideas from experts, and at

making experts reflect and comment on those ideas for future development. It is built

upon the premise that forecasts (or decisions) from a structured group of

knowledgeable individuals are of richer quality than those the limited views of

individuals or unstructured groups.

Delphi was developed at the beginning of the Cold War in the USA by Project RAND

to forecast the impact of technology on warfare. It took its name from the legend of

the Oracle at Delphi in ancient Greece, which implies "something oracular, something

smacking a little of the occult” (Dalkey, 1968 in Adler & Ziglio, 1996, p.5). Kaplan,

Skogstad, and Girshick (1950) referred to the 'principle of the oracle' as “a 'non-

falsifiable prediction', a statement that does not have the property of being 'true' or

'false’”(p. 94). Many similar studies were patterned after the RAND study. First

applications of Delphi were in the field of science and technology forecasting. The

objective was to combine expert opinions on likelihood and expected development

time, of the particular technology, in a single indicator. Later, the Delphi method was

successfully applied, with various modifications and reformulations, in other areas,

especially related to public policy issues (e.g. economic trends, health), and to

business forecasting. The Delphi method has also been used as a tool to implement

multi-stakeholder approaches for participative policy-making in developing countries.

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In educational settings, it has been used since the early years following its inception

(e.g. Clarke & Coutts, 1970; Cyphert & Gant, 1970) and continues to be widely used.

For example, the New Media Consortium, for example, uses the Delphi method to

uncover trends and set priorities regarding ICT in education (Johnson et al., 2016).

Traditionally, Delphi aimed at a consensus of the most probable future by iteration. In

modern applications of Delphi, the main aim is not necessarily to gain a consensus,

but to find/create well-grounded ideas and views of possible future states of the topic

under study. Modern Delphi’s pay special attention to divergent views so that as

many relevant ideas, factors, trends etc. can be considered in decision-making

(Nworie, 2011).

Delphi is flexible enough to be applied in a variety of situations and to a wide range of

complex problems for which there is often no other suitable means of analysis, being

particularly useful for long-range forecasting where expert opinions are the only

available source of information (Stevenson, 2010). It can be used to evaluate the

spread of opinion as well as consensus points (Linstone & Turoff, 1975). The iterative

approach followed is conducive to independent thinking and gradual formulation of

reliable judgments or forecasting of results. Experts’ judgment generates information

usable by all the stakeholders involved, including policy makers. It allows analyses,

rankings, and priority-setting, thus making longer-term thinking and decision-making

possible. Finally, the technique can be easily enhanced by the use of other foresight

approaches, which may act as a supplement and input to the Delphi method itself

(Stevenson, 2010).

7.2 SoC Foresight Procedure.

The results of a comprehensive literature review on the state-of-the art related to the

Cloud and its educational applications, as well as the results of the Working Group

meetings, and the discussions among the partners helped formulate the form and

structure of the SoC Delphi application.

The application of the Delphi method for the needs of SoC followed the steps

mentioned in the previous section, which in essence are also those suggested by the

IPTS of the European Commission (2009). More specifically, the major actions were

as follows:

7.2.1 Definition of the Procedure: All the actions of the procedures that were

followed were arranged in advance in a meeting of the WG 4 in Paris. Among them

the most important were the following:

Determine the time horizon of the study (it was decided to be 2025).

Logistics (choices from the place of the meeting to the number of the groups of

experts).

Designing the questionnaire and the factors to be included.

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Determining the feedback process between rounds.

7.2.2 Formulation of the Statement: Although the task to structure the project and

to formulate its topics were determined in the accepted proposal of the SoC,

nevertheless the steering committee is constantly examining, evaluating and

adjusting them to meet the existing conditions.

7.2.3 Formulation of the Questions: The goals and objectives of the foresight

exercise determine the nature and structure of the questionnaire. To put this principle

into effect the questions were clearly defined to reflect and match the SoC's goals

and objectives. That is, criteria on the basis of which statements can be judged as

well as the assessment of the validity of each round and answers were established.

7.2.4 Selection of the Panel of Experts: The Delphi method represents an expert

based iterative approach which in order to maintain its credibility requires, among

others, that the experts:

Should be recruited using well defined criteria.

Willing to participate for the duration of the exercise.

Understand completely the purpose of the inquiry.

The steering committee of SoC, at the suggestion of WG 4, decided to utilize the

participants of the three other WGs (i learners, i teachers and i administrators) as the

experts for their corresponding WG objective. These participants by the simple fact

that they have chosen their WG indicate that they have the experience, the interest,

the knowledge and the wiliness to be such experts.

7.2.5 Administration of the Questionnaire: The need for consistency, comparability

and validity, requires that the procedure and the other rules have to be understood

and applied as well as administer and manage the questionnaires in the same way.

For that reason verbal and written instruction were given to those in charge of the

foresight groups. In addition, it was decided the process to have the following steps:

First round of questionnaire answering.

First round analysis.

Revision of questionnaire questions.

Second round of questionnaire answering.

Second round analysis.

Stop when stable consensus are achieved.

7.2.6 Analysis of Responses: The SoC foresight method, due to the nature of the

subject studied was qualitative in nature, and therefore a qualitative assessment was

necessary.

7.2.7 Presentation of the Results: Given that the goals and objectives of SoC are

basically qualitative, the presentations of the foresight results naturally were

qualitative. As a result, as it is in the case of qualitative methods, the determining

factors were opinions, judgments and beliefs. Given, however that these forms are

difficult to attain, simplified indicators of these factors were used in the process.

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7.2.8 Output: The output of a Delphi exercise has the form of a report accompanied

with tables. However, the same results with further analysis and from a different point

of view can be presented in other ways.

7.3 Questionnaires' Application

At each phase, three types of questionnaires were developed and administered – to

experts on learning, teaching, and administrating institutions.

7.3.1 First Round: Round one for all practical purposes leads to round two in any

traditional Delphi application. That is, given the results of the applications of the

brainstorming and Six Hats methods there is no need for an initial first round in the

form of an open-ended questionnaire. As a result, SoC's round one is focused on

getting qualitative information from experts represented by the three groups of WGs

participants: i-Learners, i- Teachers, i- Managers using a "close" questionnaire. Each

designed questionnaire contained four questions permitting the respondents a

maximum of three responses to each question, in order for the questionnaire

administration process to be manageable. The first round questionnaires for each

group were the following:

i-Learner Questionnaire

Which of the following trends do you consider the most important and why?

Which of the following key competences do you consider the most important and why?

1. Personalized learning 1. Data Management and information

2. Internet access 2. Collaboration

3. Digital classroom 3. Privacy awareness

Which of the following key challenges do you consider to be the most important and why?

Which of the following technologies do you consider to be the most important and why?

1. Health Issues 1. Free, Open-source Software

2. Digital and collaborative competence 2. Mobile Devices

3. Critical Thinking 3. Smart Technologies

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i-Teacher Questionnaire



1. Meaningful individualized learning 1. Greater participation Collaboration –

cooperation

2. Improvement of web-based IT for learning

2. Teachers' training

3. Digital support for learners 3. ICT infrastructure and security

Which of the following key role do you consider the most important and why?

Which Technologies do you consider to be the most important?

1. Multidisciplinary teachers 1. Learning Analytics tools

2. Teachers as facilitators, inspirers and student guides

2. Virtual reality & Artificial Intelligence

3. Provision of personalized learning 3. Open-source software and data

i-Manager Questionnaire (WG1)



1. Universal 1. New vision, removing barriers between

teachers and students

2. Equal opportunities 2. Finances/cost

3. Educational content - new teaching - learning methods

3. Greater participation


Which Interaction/Communication do you consider to be the most important?

1. Management abilities - change management

1. Communicate - proactive and reactive

2. General technological and pedagogical background

2. Use of technology

3. Communication - collaboration - negotiation abilities

3. Collaborative school organizations

By the end of the first round (respondents answering the above questions), the

administrator of the questionnaire compiled all of them into a list of discreet and

distinguishable answers and ranked them by the number of respondents that have

given these answers. the administrator then used the qualitative information extracted

from round one(all the answers to each question are shown in appendix 1). to

prepare questionnaires for round two. In the second round the respondents were

asked to identify the most important from the top three answers of the previously

compiled list.

7.3.2 Second Round: The following three questionnaires were administered to the

corresponding experts on the second round (all the answers to each question are

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shown in appendix 2). Each questionnaire contained four questions. In each

question, respondents had three options from which they had to select one and to

explain their choice.

The following were the questions the three most preferred answers:

i-Learner Questionnaire o Which of the following trends do you consider the most important and why?

1. Personalized learning 2. Internet access 3. Digital classroom

o Which of the following key challenges do you consider to be the most important and why? 1. Health Issues 2. Digital and collaborative competence 3. Critical Thinking

o Which of the following key competences do you consider the most important and why? 1. Data Management and information 2. Collaboration 3. Privacy awareness

o Which of the following technologies do you consider to be the most important and why? 1. Free, Open-source Software 2. Mobile Devices

3. Smart Technologies

i-Manager Questionnaire o Which of the following trends do you consider the most important and why?

1. Universal 2. Equal opportunities 3. Educational content - new teaching - learning methods

o Which of the following key challenges do you consider to be the most important and why?

1. New vision, removing barriers between teachers and students 2. Finances/cost 3. Greater participation

o Which of the following key role do you consider the most important and why? 1. Management abilities - change management 2. General technological and pedagogical background 3. Communication - collaboration - negotiation abilities

o Which Interaction/Communication do you consider to be the most important? 1. Communicate - proactive and reactive 2. Use of technology


i-Teacher Questionnaire o Which of the following trends do you consider the most important and why?

1. Meaningful individualized learning 2. Improvement of web-based IT for learning 3. Digital support for learners

o Which of the following key challenges do you consider to be the most important and why?

1. Greater participation Collaboration – cooperation 2. Teachers' training 3. ICT infrastructure and security

o Which of the following key role do you consider the most important and why? 1. Multidisciplinary teachers 2. Teachers as facilitators, inspirers and student guides 3. Provision of personalized learning

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o Which Technologies do you consider to be the most important? 1. Learning Analytics tools 2. Virtual reality & Artificial Intelligence

3. Open-source software and data

At the end of the second round there was a practical consensus as to what were the

most of important future conditions, concerning the three major education

stakeholders in the event of Cloud computing and related to the factors. As a result,

the data were available to contemplate in a qualitative manner what actions

stakeholders should take to benefit maximally from Cloud Computing, while avoiding

its potential pitfalls and thus open the way to determine the scenarios. All the

answers to all the questions of the SoC Delphi exercise are presented in the

Appendix and are analyzed next.

7.4 Analytical Presentations of the Result

7.4.1 Round One: In this section, we provide an overview of the study findings from

the first round of the Delphi process, based on an analysis of the responses provided

by the three groups of experts (i-Learners, i- Teachers, and i- Managers) participating

in the study:

i Learner Questionnaire

Table 3 summarizes participants’ responses to f the i_Learner question: "What trends

do you expect to have a significant impact on the ways in which European

educational institutions approach learning using Cloud Computing by 2025?"

Trend expected to have a significant impact Frequency

Internet Access 7

Personalized Learning 7

Digital Classroom 6

Shift to competence education 1

Multiculturality and mobility of learners 1

Reinforcing critical thinking 1

Lifelong learning using digital resources 1

Table 3: Distribution of i Learner experts’ responses to LQ1

As shown in Table 3, the major trends that were mentioned most often by the

participants as being expected to have a significant impact on the ways in which

European educational institutions approach learning using Cloud Computing by 2025

were the following:

Internet Access (n=7): It is expected that by 2025, there will be much higher

«accessibility/affordability of the internet», leading to «permanent connectivity»,

and to «open access to the fast internet» for all. There will also be ubiquity of

technology through the development of «the internet of things».

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Personalized Learning (n=7): The experts are expecting advances in technology

to lead to less standardization and to personalization of learning, «allowing

students to learn at their own pace, any time and everywhere».

Digital Classroom (n=6): A future classroom is envisioned in which «everything

will be digital», and learning will be occurring «with cloud support», through

utilizing «free and open source» learning resources, «game-based learning» tools,

and «collaboration tools -apps enabling direct contact of learners and teachers».

Individual experts (n=1) also mentioned the following as being trends expected

to have a main impact on how European educational institutions approach learning

using Cloud Computing by 2025: Shift to Competence Education, Multiculturality

and Mobility of Learners, Reinforcing Critical Thinking, and Lifelong Learning using

Digital Resources.

In the second question: «What do you see as the key challenges related to

learning using Cloud Computing that European educational institutions will face by

2025?» panelists had to point out the key challenges related to learning using

Cloud Computing in the European educational institutions by 2025. Several

challenges emerged (see Table 4):

Key Expected Challenge Frequency

Digital and collaborative competence 9

Health Issues 5

Critical Thinking 5

Teacher Education and Teacher Role 3

Free time vs. time for learning/working balance 3

Digital Inequality 2

Decreased social competence 2

Table 4: Distribution of i_Learner experts’ responses to LQ2

The following key challenges were noted by several panelists:

Digital and collaborative competence (n=9): Experts pointed out that

educational institutions ought to find ways to help learners develop «collaborative

competences» as well as competences in how to «select reliable resources», and

to «handle big data» by «extracting, selecting important data /information».

Critical thinking (n=5): Several experts noted the need for educational

institutions to put emphasis on «reinforcing critical thinking» in learners, pointing

out that this will a vital competence to be acquired in order for future citizens to be

able to successfully function in information based society.

Health Issues (n=5): Health problems resulting from excessive «sitting in front of

the computer», and/or from exposure to «Wi-Fi and 3/4/5G radiations» are

expected to become a major challenge in forthcoming years.

Teacher Education and Teacher Role (n=3): Some experts mentioned the need

for providing «adequate education to all teachers», in order for them to be able to

adopt «new didactic approaches» that will «keep learners motivated to learn».

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Free time vs. time for learning balance (n=3): In a world where lifelong learning

will be a necessity and «time spent on learning» ever increasing, and which «work

will never stop», finding a balance between free time vs. time spent studying

and/or working will be a main challenge.

Digital Inequality (n=2): A couple of experts mentioned digital inequality, pointing

out that in the future the main challenge will not be «access [to technology] but

quality of use».

Decreased Social Competences (n=2): Two of the experts expressed their fear

that «increased digital competence might reduce social competence».

Table 5 summarizes responses to the third question «What do you see as the key

competences/labor market needs that learning using Cloud Computing in European

educational institutions have to provide by 2025? » The panelists had to point out

what they consider as key competences/labor market needs that learning using

Cloud Computing in European educational institutions ought to provide by 2025.

Key Competencies Frequency

Data management and information 8

Collaboration 4

Privacy Awareness 4

Lifelong learning & ability to adapt to new technologies 1

Flexibility 1

Cultural dimension of media use: acquire cultural media competence 1

Keeping a sustainable work-life balance (for a working lifespan > 40

yrs.) 1

Be able to develop own learning path 1

Critical thinking 1


The following key competences/labor markets were noted by several panelists:

Data management and information: Instruction should provide learners with the

skills and competences required to manage big data, «judge reliability of

resources», and «recognize / search for relevant information».

Collaboration: Future citizens have to acquire the «openness and willingness» to

cooperate with others. Thus, they ought to develop strong social skills for

interacting both face-to-face and online.

Privacy Awareness: Learners ought to develop awareness of challenges of data

privacy and security, and to «acquire a reflexive/ critical media competence».

Individual panelists (n=1) pointed to the following key competences/labor market

needs: Flexibility, Cultural media competence, Keeping a sustainable work-life

balance (for a working lifespan > 40 yrs.), Being able to develop own learning

paths, and Critical thinking.

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The results of the fourth question: «Which technologies will be the most important to

learning in European educational institutions by 2025? » are shown in Table 6. The

i_Learner panelists identified several technologies as being the most important to

learning in European educational institutions by 2025.

Technology Frequency

Mobile Devices 8

Free, open source software 5

Smart technologies 4

Free internet everywhere 2

Increased capabilities of reliable communication - translating from

speech to text, between languages,... 1

Learning Analytics 1

Augmented reality (for learning outdoor) 1

Technology should dealing with huge amount of data 1

ICTs with universal design 1


The technologies mentioned most frequently by i_Learner experts were:

Mobile Devices (n=8),

Free, open source software (n=5)

Smart technologies (n=4).

i Teacher Questionnaire:

Table 7 summarizes the patterns of i_Teacher panelists’ responses to the first

question “What trends do you expect to have a significant impact on the ways in

which European educational institutions, approach learning using Cloud Computing

by 2025?". Their responses pointed out the trends that they expected to have a

significant impact on the ways in which European educational institutions will

approach learning using Cloud Computing by 2025.


Improvement of web-based IT for learning 7

Meaningful individualized learning 6

Digital Support for Learners 4

Moving towards bilingual and trilingual schools 1

Collaboration between primary, secondary education and

universities

1

Reshaping organization including physical spaces 1

Digital accreditation (badges) 1

Table 7: Distribution of i_Teacher experts’ responses to TQ1

The main trends identified by i_Teacher experts were the following:

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Improvement of web-based IT for learning (n=7): i_Teacher experts expect

further development and use of institutional platforms and networks that will «allow

students, teachers and parents to access online resources (textbooks, online

lessons and resources, etc.) and will enable the creation of real educational based

internet communities». They also expect «virtualization of the management of the

educational structures», and project that IT infrastructures and devices employed

by educational institutions will be more simplified than they currently are and that

there will be «large broadband for all without any problems».

Meaningful individualized learning (n=6): Similarly to i_learner panelists,

i_Teacher panelists also consider personalized learning to be a major trend for the

next decade. They expect «individualization in education 1:1» and adaptable,

«data-driven learning tailored to each individual student's needs». Students will be

self-learning, with «learning occurring beyond the confines of a school classroom

at one's own pace and convenience». There will be «convergence between

students' everyday life, interests, activities and school-based education».

Digital Support for Learners (n=4): According to some participants, there will be

more digital support for learners, provided through tools such as «Intelligent

tutoring systems», «videos instead of texting», and «augmented reality».

Individuals (n=1): Some individual i_Teacher experts suggested the following: the

education system will move towards bilingual and trilingual schools; there is a

need for collaboration between primary, secondary education and universities; the

educational organization should include physical spaces; and Digital accreditation

(badges) must be instituted.

i_Teacher experts’ asked the question: “What do you see as the key challenges

related to learning using Cloud Computing that European educational institutions will

face by 2025?". According to i_Teacher experts, key challenges related to learning

using Cloud Computing to be faced by European educational institutions by 2025

include the following (see Table 8):

Expected Key Challenges Frequency

Collaboration-cooperation 3

ICT Infrastructure and Security 3

Teachers’ training 3

Multicultural Schools 2

Accessibility internet 1

Connecting school-based and higher education to actual vocational

needs

1

Competence-based learning 1

Classroom management 1

Personalized learning 1

Data analytics 1

Empowering students 1 Table 8: Distribution of i_Teacher experts’ responses to TQ2

The main trends identified by i_Teacher experts were the following:

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Collaboration-cooperation (n=3): It will be essential for educational institutions

to adopt cultures that promote «a much more collaborative and cooperative role»

for teachers, viewing them «as team members».

ICT Infrastructure and Security (n=3): It will be challenging for educational

institutions to build «reliable infrastructures: broadband connection, tablets, smart

boards, etc. », and to take precautions and to inform regarding «cyber protection

of children and data misuse».

Teachers’ training (n=3): To be able to successfully tackle future challenges

facing education, teachers will need to be provided with high quality pre-service

and in-service training.

Multicultural schools (n=2): Students’ training «in areas where there are

multicultural communities» will also be a challenge facing several educational

institutions.

Individuals (n=1): Challenges identified by individual experts include: Accessibility

internet; Connecting school-based and higher education to actual vocational

needs; Competence-based learning; Classroom management; Personalized

learning; Data analytics; And Empowering students.

Table 9 shows the patterns of i_Teacher panelists’ responses to question three

“What do you see as the key role/profile of teachers using Cloud Computing will be in

European educational institutions by 2025?". Respondents described how they see

the key role/profile of teachers using Cloud Computing in European educational

institutions by 2025.

Key Role/Profile Frequency

Teachers as facilitators, inspirers and student guides 5

Multidisciplinary teachers 4

Provision of personalized learning 4

Accessibility and inclusion 2

Maintenance 2

Classroom management and leadership 1

Bilingual teachers 1

Intrapersonal competences in a cloud-based learning environment 1

Competences in IT and skills 1

How to select quality contents 1 Table 9: Distribution of i_Teacher experts’ responses to TQ3

The main teacher role/profiles envisioned by participants are the following:

Teachers as facilitators, inspirers and student guides (n=5): Several of the

experts noted that they expect teachers in 2025 to act as «coaches-mentors», who

guide, support, and engage learners, and «inspire them to pursuit knowledge for

themselves».

Multidisciplinary teachers (n=4): Teachers will also «need to be

multidisciplinary, in order to help learners understand applications of knowledge

and skills in real-life contexts».

Provision of personalized learning (n=4): Since individualized learning will be a

major trend in 2025, the teacher’s key role will be to provide a personalized

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instructional environment that allows learners to «create a secure, safe and

personalized digital learning portfolio, available for the lifetime».

Others: Κey roles/profiles of teachers using Cloud Computing in European

educational institutions by 2025 mentioned by the Delphi participants were the

following: Accessibility and inclusion (n=2); Maintenance (n=2); Classroom

management and leadership (n=1); Bilingual teachers (n=1); Intrapersonal

competences in a cloud-based learning environment (n=1); Competences in IT

and skills (n=1); How to select quality contents (n=1).

In the last question of Round one questionnaire was “Which technologies will be the

most important to learning in European educational institutions by 2025?". The

following technologies were listed by i_teacher experts as being expected to be the

most important to learning in European educational institutions by 2025 (see

Table10):


Open-source software and data 6

Virtual reality & Artificial Intelligence 5

Ambient Technology/The internet of things 4

Learning Analytics Tools 3

Game based technology/Serious Games 2

Reliable high quality broadband 1

Programming Tools that allow students to be creators and not consumers

1

Table 10: Distribution of i_Teacher experts’ responses to TQ4

The main technologies identified by i_Teacher experts were the following:

Open-source software and data (n=6): Panelists believe that «open source

software and operative systems of quality», as well as «YouTube-alike websites»

will assume an even more important role in the next decade.

Virtual reality & Artificial Intelligence (n=5): Virtual reality simulators and

machines, «3D and augmented reality gadgets», as well as «collaboration

between Artificial intelligence and robots» are expected to have a key role in the

near future.

Learning Analytics Tools n=40: Learning analytics tools «combining medical

data, educational data, personal data, etc.», will assume a central role, helping to

«turn big data accessible».

Ambient Technology/The internet of things (n=3).

Game based technology/Serious Games (n=2).

Reliable high quality broadband (n=1).

Programming Tools that allow students to be creators and not consumers (n=1).

i Manager Questionnaire

Similarly to the other two groups of experts, i_Manager panelists were also asked the

first question: “What trends do you expect to have a significant impact on the ways in

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which European educational institutions using Cloud Computing approach school

management by 2025?» The main trends identified by i_Teacher about the trends

that are likely to have a significant impact on the ways in which European educational

institutions using Cloud Computing will approach school management by 2025 are

shown in Table 11 which summarizes their responses.


Universal accessibility and Flexibility 6

Educational content – new teaching - learning 4

Equal opportunities 4

More standardization 3

Overflow of educational contents 1

Lack of coordination (umbrella) 1

Cultural differences 1

Unsustainable pilot projects - no continuity 1 Table 11: Distribution of i_Manager experts’ responses to MQ1

As shown in Table 11, i_Manager experts identified the following main trends:

Universal accessibility and Flexibility (n=6): Several i_Manager experts noted

that they consider «accessibility for everyone», and «more flexibility and

decentralization of the educational system (teachers as creators of their

materials)» as trends likely to have a significant impact on how educational

institutions will be using Cloud Computing in upcoming years.

Educational content – new teaching - learning (n=4): Some trends identified by

some of the experts as likely to have a big impact on the learning environment are

«open knowledge, sharing collaborative resources to create new schools: open

source software and Open Educational Resources, open hardware»,

«Connectivity and mobility (indoor & outdoor activities) for teachers and students»,

and «Blended learning, distance learning, virtual classroom».

Equal opportunities (n=4): Some of the experts envision a more equitable future,

with «Every child using a digital device in the school».

More standardization (n=3): Unlike experts who expect «more flexibility and

decentralization of the educational system», some other experts expressed the

belief that there will be «more policy from the top», and «standardization of

approaches (from a managers’ perspective)», leading to «less flexibility on what

we can do - i.e. more simple but less creative».

Individuals (n=1): Individual experts also identified a number of other trends likely

to have an impact: Overflow of educational content; Lack of coordination

(umbrella); Cultural differences; Unsustainable pilot projects - no continuity.

The i_Manager panelists in answering question “What do you see as the key

challenges related to school management that European educational institutions

using Cloud Computing will face by 2025?”, indicated the following(Table 12):

Key Expected Challenge Frequency

New vision, removing barriers between teachers and students 5

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Greater participation 5

Cost/Finances 3

Powerful internet connection 1

Answering the societal problems 1

Not enough (considered) evaluation 1

Too much change, too often, in many directions, no focus 1

Not learning from others - too little networking 1 Table 12: Patterns of i_Manager experts’ responses to MQ2

There are three key challenges related to school management to be faced by

European educational institutions using Cloud Computing by 2025 include the

following:

New vision, removing barriers between teachers and students (n=5): Having

a «different vision of school», and «stimulating the change» through «persuading

policy makers and leaders», and supporting teachers in implementing reforms, is a

key challenge to be faced by the managing team of educational institutions in the

next few years.

Greater participation (n=5): Another challenge to be faced by managers is the

need for «a wider participation in school (educational system), less drop-off and

differentiation and for the taking of measures for «inclusion of all pupils, teachers

and parents, rather than having social division between «information elite» and

«marginalized groups».

Cost/Finances (n=3): The high «cost of personalization of curricula» will also be a

key challenge due to the «lack of financing».

Individuals (n=1): Individual experts also identified a number of other key

challenges related to school management: Access to powerful internet connection;

Answering the societal problems; Not enough (considered) evaluation; Too much

change, too often, in many directions, no focus; Not learning from others - too little

networking.

The distribution of i_Manager experts’ responses to question: «What do you see as

the key role/profile of managers in European educational institutions using Cloud

Computing will be by 2025? « are shown in Table 13.


General technological and pedagogical background 4

Management abilities – change 5

Communication - collaboration – negotiation abilities 4

Flip the school system 1

Creation of a secure data infrastructure (data privacy) 1

Reduce the costs 1 Table 13: Distribution of i_Manager experts’ responses to MQ3

The three main manager role/profiles envisioned by participants are the following:

Management abilities – change (n=5): Leaders will need to have the

management abilities required to «provide vision for change» but also to «enable

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change to happen» through «making a roadmap - building an infrastructure to

make their visions happen sustainably».

General technological and pedagogical background (n=4): A key role/profile of

managers of European educational institutions in 2025 will be that of leaders who

have «good knowledge about the technological pedagogical possibilities», who

«understand the potential, benefits, advantages, and issues» surrounding

technology use in education, and are thus able to «identify first pedagogical

problems and then identify technological or media based solutions».

Communication - collaboration – negotiation abilities (n=4): Managers will

also need to have well developed communication, collaboration and negotiation

skills in order to «organize collaboration among members staff», to «engage the

competent staff», and to «organize self-managing teams».

Individuals (n=1): Individual experts also mentioned the following key manager

roles/profiles: Flipping of the school system; Creation of a secure data

infrastructure (data privacy); Reduction of costs.

The last question of the i_Manager questionnaire was “What do you see as the key

elements for interaction/communication /cooperation of the education stakeholders

(students-teachers- parents-policy makers-society) to help run/manage educational

institutions using Cloud Computing in 2025?". The panelists had to list what they see

as the main elements for communication and collaboration of the education

stakeholders (students-teachers- parents-policy makers-society) to help run/manage

educational institutions using Cloud Computing in 2025. (Table 14)

Key element for interaction/communication /cooperation Frequency

Use of technology 5

Collaborative school organizations 3

Communicate – proactive and reactive 3

Need for special training to lead and manage 1

Less bureaucracy 1 Table 14: Distribution of i_Manager experts’ responses to MQ4

The following elements were pointed out by the panelist.

Use of technology (n=5): To «redirect funds from old school to the new

learning», managers and other stakeholders need to have «a clear vision of cloud

computing» and its educational applications.

Collaborative school organizations (n=3): Leaders will need to promote

communication and collaboration among school staff, so as to «work together

towards a better school (parents, learners, teachers...) ».

Communicate – proactive and reactive (n=3): Managers ought to «be able to

call on necessary expertise when, where and how needed. - i.e. communicate with

an extended team». They «must connect all forms of communication to all others -

i.e. be at the heart of their network - i.e. proactive», but also «be

anyway/anytime/anywhere to respond to needs – and make decisions - i.e.

reactive».

Need for special training to lead and manage (n=1).

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Less bureaucracy (n=1).

7.4.2 Round Two: Next is presented an overview of the study findings from the

second round of the Delphi process, based again on an analysis of the responses

provided by the three groups of experts participating in the study: i-Learners, i-

Teachers, and i- Managers.

i Learner Questionnaire

In the first question "Which of the following trends do you consider the most important

and why? » , the i_Learner experts had to choose among (i) personalized learning;

(ii) internet access; and (iii) digital classroom (Table 15).

Most important trend Frequency

Personalized Learning 8

Internet Access 2

Digital Classroom 1

Table 15: Distribution of i_Learner experts’ responses to LR1

Most participants (8 out of 11) selected personalized learning as being the most

important trend. They justified their selection with comments such as the following:

“Personalized learning because it might embrace aspects such as online

communities (digital citizenship), flipped classroom as well as game-based learning”;

“Personalized learning - to allow person to discover all his/her potential; to take

ownership of their education and discover their passions and interests”;

“Personalized learning because it can make the difference in a digital classroom with

internet access”; “Personalized learning because it gives freedom”. Two participants

selected Internet access, pointing out the importance of «Internet access – Internet of

things» and of «Constant connectivity without any problems». Only one person

selected the Digital Classroom as being the most important trend.

In the question “Which of the following key challenges do you consider to be the most

important and why?”, the i_Learner experts selected among the following three

challenges the one that they considered to be most important (i) Health issues; (ii)

Critical thinking; and (iii) Digital and collaborative competence (Table 16).

Most important key challenge Frequency

Health Issues 8

Critical Thinking 2

Digital and collaborative competence 1


Most of the experts considered health issues as the major challenge to be faced by

educational institutions in 2025. They justified their choice by giving explanations

such as the following:

«Health issues seem to be a key challenge as they concern a wide range of users

from kindergarteners to 90 year olds! ».

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«Health & physical & mental health issues: too long, uninterrupted sitting, focused

watching, forced sitting position, increasing number of older people with their

specific limitations; addiction to ICT problem ».

«Those can be physical for instance visual or radiation and metal issues like lose

connectivity from reality or depression ».

«They need to be taken into consideration as they affect the wellbeing of users

who then might not be able to fully exploit the benefits of digital interaction».

«Health issues have been seen too long only as problems of risk by radiation, but

there's much more: (i) mental health: addictions, become a kind of zombie when

being constantly online, not sleeping enough; (ii) physical health: consequences of

sitting in a wrong way».

«This is the only challenge not addressed right now. Maybe because we use

technologies not so long. After a decade or few we would be able to notice

problems with eyes, our back, or even mental problems».

Two experts selected critical thinking, pointing out that the development of critical

thinking should be a top priority for educational institutions: «Critical thinking is the

base for the evolution; the basis for the creation of sustainable human oriented

development»; «Critical thinking enhances the didactic process and provides new

methodological approaches».

Only one expert selected digital and collaborative competence.

In question 3 «Which of the following key competences do you consider the most

important and why? », the participants had to select the key competence they

consider the most important among the following three: (i) Data management and

information; (ii) Collaboration; (iii) Privacy Awareness (Table 17).

Most Important Key Competence Frequency

Data management and information 9

Collaboration 1

Privacy Awareness 1


Almost everyone selected data management and information as the most important

key competence justifying it as follows:

«How to deal with the enormous amount of information; how to make the best

selection; how to find the most relevant».

«Data management and information includes: how to deal with the abundance of

information; how to protect you from privacy issues when accessing info (think

about the cookies) ».

«Data management since it is a notion which incorporates a number of issues

including avoiding copy-paste, time management, communication, collaboration

and privacy awareness so as to avoid cyber bullying».

«You have to be able to manage the data you have because if you don't then it is

the same as no data at all».

«How to handle with big amount of data & information treatment».

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«Data and information management: knowing about the reliability of resources,

being aware pros and cons of privacy and personalization».

«Data and information management includes both awareness on how to get data

really needed and also awareness on how to publish our own information,

protecting privacy».

The expert who selected collaboration did so because in modern society, working

in teams and projects is becoming increasingly important: «Collaboration means

more than working with partners or teams in the classroom. It means to work with

institutions and partners out of school. That's a core».

The expert who selected privacy awareness considered this as the most important

competence in forthcoming years due to the fact that «everything in the internet

will stay there forever».

Finally i the question «Which of the following technologies do you consider the most

important and why? », the participants had to select the most important technology

among: (i) Free-open source software; (ii) Mobile devices; and (iii) Smart

technologies. Their choices are shown on Table 18.


Free, open source software 8

Mobile devices 3

Smart technologies 0


Eight of the 11 participants selected free, open source software pointing out and

justified their choice with responses such as the following:

«Free, open-source software: unleashing the power of huge programmer

communities, free accessible software to avoid digital divide».

«Schools with a little budget can afford this software».

«Free, open-source software to enable equal opportunities».

«Software makes a device work. If the software is not free or it is expensive for

most of the people then the device and its technology are useless».

«Free & open source software a potential tool in order to decrease disparities in

education».

The remaining three participants selected mobile devices, pointing out that «to

make smart technology possible you need the two others, and certainly mobile

devices». Nobody selected smart technologies.

i Teacher Questionnaire:

In the first question of the i_Teacher questionnaire «Which of the following trends do

you consider the most important and why?», experts had to select among the

following trends the one that they considered most important: (i) Meaningful

Individualized Learning; (ii) Digital Support for Learners; (iii) Improvement of Web-

Based IT for Learning. The number of experts voting for each trend appears in Table

19.

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Most Important Trend Frequency

Meaningful individualized learning 6

Digital Support for Learners 5

Improvement of Web-Based IT for Learning 4

Table 19: Distribution of i_Teacher experts’ responses to TR1

Experts seem to consider all three trends of equal importance since their selections

are split among the three choices. Specifically, six (n=6) selected Meaningful

Individualized Learning, four (n=4) selected Digital Support for Learners, while the

remaining four (n=4) chose Improvement of Web-Based IT for Learning. The

respondents selecting Meaningful Individualized Learning did so for reasons such as

the following:

«This puts the learner at the centre - focus on people».

«Meaningful individualized learning, because the only way to empower our

students and properly equip them for their future personal and professional lives is

to provide education tailored to their interests, aspirations and needs ».

«This shows a clear added value and makes it possible to realise efficient

differentiation».

The panelists selecting Digital Support for Learners pointed out that «digital support

is the future of learning» since «without it; it is not possible to teach». Finally, the

ones voting for Improvement of Web-Based IT for Learning did so because, as they

stressed: «without a good, up-to-date Internet infrastructure, Cloud technology

cannot reach most schools and cannot become a trend setter in education».

In the second question “Which of the following key challenges do you consider the

most important and why?». The experts had to select among (i) Collaboration-

Cooperation, (ii) Teachers’ training, and (iii) ICT Infrastructure and Security. The key

challenge that they considered most important responses were almost equally split

between (i) and (ii), while only two respondents selected (iii) (Table 20).

Expected Key Challenges Frequency

Collaboration-cooperation 6

Teachers’ training 5

ICT Infrastructure and Security 2


The following explanations are typical of those provided by experts (n=6) who chose

Collaboration-Cooperation as the most important key challenge:

«Collaboration and cooperation are to me the key challenges - in and outside

classroom, through electronic devices as well as through face-to-face

communication».

«We need good trained teachers using very good and secured infrastructure. Only

Collaboration and cooperation between those two domains can make this a

success».

«The teacher in the future becomes a virtual collaborative and cooperative

transparent world».

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«Collaboration among teachers and students, teachers and their colleagues, as

well as students and their peers is a key challenge. Creation of knowledge is a

collective process and occurs as a result of engagement in collective processes».

Experts (n=5) selecting Teachers’ Training as the most important key challenge,

justified their choice by comments like the following:

«Teachers are the real driven force of the learning process. ICT is continuously

changing and teachers need the skills to be adapted».

«Efficient use of cloud computing for teaching should be part of a teachers

training. They should learn to apply it for example for collaborative learning».

«Without qualified teacher the implementation of IT in education cannot take

place. Nevertheless, without ICT infrastructure and security even qualified

teachers have only limited possibilities. And good teacher will need to cooperate

anyway».

The two experts, who selected ICT Infrastructure and Security, noted that the other

two challenges are also very important, but that «security is most important before

we can go ahead».

Table 21 displays participants’ responses to the third question of the i_Teacher

question «Which of the following key roles do you consider the most important and

why? ». They had to select the most important one among the following three key

roles of future teachers: (i) Teachers as Facilitators, Inspirers and Student Guides; (ii)

Multidisciplinary Teachers; and (iii) Provision of Personalized Learning.


Teachers as Facilitators, Inspirers and Student Guides 4

Multidisciplinary Teachers 4

Provision of Personalized Learning 5


As seen in Table 21, expert’s selections were almost evenly split between the three

key roles. Four experts (n=4) selected Teachers as Facilitators, Inspirers and Student

Guides to be the most important teacher role/profile, for reasons such as the

following:

«The role of the teacher as an expert and inspirer is the key role and a must all

along transformation and innovation in education».

«Teachers need to curate the material to facilitate students individual learners

needs, and encourage ownership of their own learning, self-responsibility».

«It is not about pure knowledge anymore; it is more about how to give access to

knowledge and how to deal with the knowledge to improve the effect on learning».

Experts (n=4) selecting Multidisciplinary Teachers as the most important role for

teachers in the forthcoming years, justified their selection by statements such as: «A

multidisciplinary teacher is able to provide personalized learning, he can facilitate and

guide.» Finally, panelists (n=5) selecting Provision of Personalized Learning, gave

explanations like the following: «Facilitating individualized learning will be a key

responsibility of the teacher of the future».

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As shown in Table 22, in the question «Which of the following technologies do you

consider the most important and why? », there was no consensus among i_Teacher

experts regarding the type of technology that they anticipate to be most important in

2025.

Most Important Technology Frequency

Open-Source Software and Data 4

Virtual Reality & Artificial Intelligence 3

Learning Analytics Tools 6 Table 22: Distribution of i_Teacher experts’ responses to TR4

The type of technology selected most frequently (n=6) was Learning Analytics Tools.

Experts selecting them pointed out that such tools are the key:

«To scientifically based efficient individualized learning»

«To managing big data».

«We cannot accomplish the goal of providing personalized learning and education

to our students unless we develop high-end learning analytics tools».

Other experts (n=4) selected Open-Source Software and Data, noting that their

expansion «will give opportunities to more people and institutions to use them».

Finally, other experts (n=3) chose Virtual Reality & Artificial Intelligence, stressing

that «massive data needs artificial intelligence».

i Manager Questionnaire:

In first question of the i_Manager Questionnaire «Which of the following trends do

you consider the most important and why? », panelists had to choose among the

three trends pointed out most frequently in round one: (i) Educational content-new-

teaching learning; (ii) Equal opportunities; and (iii) Universal accessibility and

flexibility (Table 23).

Trend Frequency

Universal accessibility and Flexibility 7

Educational content – new teaching - learning 1

Equal opportunities 1

Table 23: Distribution of i_Manager experts’ responses to MR1

As shown in Table 23, the respondents almost unanimously chose universal

accessibility and flexibility as the most important trend, justifying their selection with

comments like the following:

«The main trend will be full and open access to data, applications and education

solutions based on the cloud computing. The future of education is interdisciplinary

approach of methods and solutions».

«In time of globalization the manager needs to have access from everywhere to

anything semantic, innovative and changing for education (education in a new

era)».

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«The cloud school should include everyone, no matter where they are located, to

allow real changes to happen. At their own speed, with their own characteristics,

bringing richness from every voice».

«School Staff and teachers/learners should be able to access the content from

everywhere».

«Universal accessibility for mobile learning».

«A frank universal accessibility. Every teacher, every pupil must have access to

the cloud. At any time in any place with any device».

Only one expert selected Educational Content – New Teaching - Learning as the

most important trend, noting that «a visionary manager must also have a strong

opinion/knowledge in the educational model - pedagogy framework of his

educational organization».

Only one selected the trend Equal Opportunities, pointing out that «the school

must be fair somehow».

In the question «Which of the following key challenges do you consider to be the

most important and why?», the experts had to select among the following three

challenges the one that they considered most important and to justify their response:

(i) New vision, removing barriers between teachers and students; (ii) Finances/Cost;

(iii) Greater Participation. The frequency of responses for each challenge is displayed

in Table 24.

Key Challenge Frequency

New vision, removing barriers between teachers and students 9

Finances/Cost 0

Greater Participation 0


Everyone, without exception, selected «New vision, removing barriers between

teachers and students” as the most important challenge, considering new vision in

relation to the cloud paradigm shift as essential for effectively implementing cloud

computing in schools:

«Having a new vision, being able to understand the implications of what the Cloud

can bring».

«I think many schools (and also politicians) have a strong tendency to keep "the

old way», with minimal changes to please the gallery (parents, society), but not

real changes that imply big changes».

«Manager has to be a visionary, open-minded to new ways of learning and

teaching methods. He has to make reality the new role of teachers and learners».

«The main key challenges are new vision of education. The traditional approach to

teaching will be gradually replaced by alternative methods, data sources and

solutions».

«Vision on the new learning Leaders must co-create a vision with the team and

give the teams’ self-management to realize that vision for their pupils».

«Manager/Leaders should understand the benefits of using Cloud Applications

and get all the opportunities for their school».

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Question «Which of the following key role do you consider the most important and

why?», asked panelists to choose between (i) Management abilities-change; (ii)

Communication - collaboration – negotiation abilities; and (iii) General technological

and pedagogical background, the key role for managers in 2025 that they considered

the most important.


Management abilities – change 4

Communication - collaboration – negotiation abilities 4

General technological and pedagogical background 1


As shown in Table 25, an equal number of respondents (n=4) selected Management

Abilities-Change and Communication-Collaboration–Negotiation Abilities, while only

one selected General Technological and Pedagogical Background. The ones

selecting Management Abilities-Change stressed that «The Cloud is a paradigm

shift», and thus «management have to be able to manage and lead for change».

They pointed out that «the school leader must work on the organization, the

instruments, the people and the culture to change the way the organization works».

Experts voting for Communication-Collaboration–Negotiation Abilities noted that such

abilities are necessary for «implementing the cloud on all levels». They emphasized

the need for «new school leaders» who are «the role model for all the stakeholders»,

and who «can communicate and lead, by showing their real involvement in the

change, leading the change from inside, so they can inspire their team with real

evidences, and know the problems from inside (not because someone tells them)».

Finally, the expert who selected General Technological and Pedagogical Background

justified his or her selection by noting: «The main role of the manager will be showing

the possibility of new solutions used in teaching and education, and creating

conditions for their implementation. It’s widely mean technical and pedagogical

background.»

In the final question of the i_Manager questionnaire: “Which key element do you

consider to be the most important?» experts selected among the following elements

for Interaction/Communication /Cooperation, the one that they considered most

important: (i) Collaborative School Organizations; (ii) Communicate – Proactive and

Reactive; (iii) Use of technology.

Key element for interaction/communication /cooperation Frequency

Collaborative school organizations 4

Communicate – proactive and reactive 3

Use of technology 2 Table 26: Distribution of i_Manager experts’ responses to MR4

Responses to this question indicate lack of consensus among the experts. While four

(n=4) experts selected Collaborative School Organizations pointing out that «If pupils

come to the school as to the place where they can learn their own way, at their own

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pace», then the leader must «organize his/her school as a collaborative

organization», three (n=3) other experts selected the key element Communicate –

Proactive and Reactive, defending their selection with comments like the following:

«Manager / leader must connect all forms of communication to all others - i.e. be at

the heart of their network - i.e. proactive Must be anyway/anytime/anywhere to

respond to needs – and make decisions - i.e. reactive». Finally, two (n=2) other

experts selected Use of Technology as the most important key element for

interaction/communication /cooperation: «The main key elements to help in

Communication-Collaboration are use of technology. Technological possibilities and

showing of their applications create the future success of this project».

7.5 Concluding Remarks

One of the most pivotal aspects of ICT developments has been the difficulty to

examine mid- to long-term future perspectives. The Delphi method employed in the

current study is the most effective foresight technique, providing useful means for

exploratory research to investigate current technological trends (Isaac & Michael,

1997; Linstone & Turoff, 1975), and for developmental research to gain insights

regarding “the patterns, direction, and sequence of growth or change”, and the

factors impacting them (Isaac & Michael, 1997; Green, 2014). Utilizing the Delphi

approach has enabled us to use the advantages of group opinion, while at the same

time overcoming obstacles appearing in group work. The anonymity of the approach

had the following advantages: (i) prevented the authority, personality, or reputation of

some participants from dominating others in the process; (ii) freed participants (to

some extent) from personal biases; (iii) minimized the "bandwagon effect» or "halo

effect”; (iv) allowed free expression of opinions, encouraged open critique; (v)

facilitated admission of errors when revising earlier judgments (Charlton, 2004;

Fletcher & Marchildon, 2014; Rowe & Wright, 1999). Moreover, the process followed

in Delphi gave participants more time to think through their ideas, leading to a better

quality of responses than those provided in an interview or discussion.

Despite its many benefits, Delphi also has a number of key limitations that have

adversely affected the quality of the study findings. Delphi is a time-consuming and

thus expensive technique, characterized by complexity of data analysis. The

technique is also extremely sensitive to the following factors: (i) level of panelists’

expertise; (ii) composition of the panel; (iii) clarity of the questions; (iv) way

questionnaire is administered; (v) way in which the survey administrator(s) report(s)

results (Yousuf, 2007). Despite our best efforts, there might have been some

facilitator bias and/or manipulation in how we conducted the data analysis. For

example, without intending it, we might have somehow influenced the results of the

second round through our decision to include only the three most frequently cited

responses provided in round 1 (Linstone & Turoff, 1975). This might have, to some

extent, led to artificial consensus - ignoring and not exploring disagreement (Linstone

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and Turoff, 1975). We also had difficulty in finding out the reasons for dissenting due

to the anonymity of the approach. Additionally, our study might have suffered from

the effect of a majority opinion, whereby panelists acquiesce and conform to the

median judgment.

Delphi is also susceptible to the danger of regarding its results as facts. The findings

of our Delphi process represent exclusively the view of the particular groups of

experts participating in our study, thus they may not be reliable due to poor sampling

procedures or an invalid instrument. Sometimes unconventional thinking by amateur

outsiders may be superior to expert thinking.

A high degree of “error” is to be expected in the outcomes of any Delphi foresight

exercise, including the one we employed in the current study. However, despite

limitations, seeking advice from an international base of experts in Cloud Computing

has provided some useful insights on how to best utilize Cloud technologies as tools

for teaching, learning, and managing European schools.

Using Delphi in combination with other foresight methods will, hopefully, help us

make better predictions of future developments in cloud computing. The Delphi

results can act as working tools for challenging current assumptions about education.

They can help articulate the socio-technical developments playing a critical role in

shaping cloud based educational futures.

8. FUTURE SCENARIOS FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING

It should be reiterated that SoC scenarios are aimed at discussing different possible

futures of education or formulating the set of key uncertain developments that may

drive the future of education using Cloud Computing in 2025. The scenarios, which

were carried out by the SoC network, they take the form of short stories of possible

futures, imagining how the education could look after 2025, in order to challenge

assumptions and stimulate thinking about current and future practices. That is, the

constructed scenarios were aimed to identify uncertain developments in the future

and include them as elements of the scenario narrative (Vander Duin and Huijboom,

2008). Within this framework, the main relevant question underpinning this report is:

taking into account the fact that possible future scenarios may be radically different

from present conditions, what Cloud Computing tools will be needed for future

teaching and learning?

8.1 Scenarios Design

At the onset, it should be pointed out that the importance of scenarios design does

not rely exclusively on the characteristics of each scenario. Neither is of uttermost

importance to assess which scenario is more likely to occur or which is the most

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desirable. But to make sure that the SoC objectives were the guiding force and were

used as basis for the development of the various scenarios related to the future of i

learner, i teacher and i manager in 2025. The departure point of these scenarios was

the basic issues and the key dimensions of expected changes that happen in a

specific direction (i.e. a possible state of learning the future), which were taken into

consideration to create a specific «story» representing the future. It is considered that

these stories/scenarios provide information that better describe possible real-life

situations in which specific users (i.e. i learner, i teacher and i manager) could find

themselves in the future.

In order to make the description of the scenario context natural, easily understood,

and comprehensive, a specific «story» for each scenario was developed. That story

illustrates the reference context that could develop in the future if a number of key

trends and expected changes happen in a specific direction (i.e. a possible state of

the future, thus providing information that better describes possible real-life situations

in which learners, teachers and administrators) could find themselves. In addition,

they provide a «day-in-the-life» of the major education stakeholders in the possible

future situations envisaged, which in turn can be used to serve the purpose of

stimulating education policy debates.

It should be reiterated that the scenario design was developed as part of the SoC

network aims to provide a structured framework for analysis of current and future

challenges related to the impact of cloud computing in education. However, instead

of attempting to forecast several future cloud computer-enabled scenarios, it was

chosen to define three internally consistent – but radical– views of what the future

European major educational stakeholders might look like in 2025, and what the

implications would be to them and education in general.

As for the process followed in building the scenarios, the approach followed was to

mash-up data and information available from two sources in an intelligent, efficient

and effective way. More specifically, the uncertainties and opportunities underlying

the scenarios design were: first the trends and changes in Society, in Technology, in

Education as well as the capabilities and benefits of Cloud Computing, thus creating

a descriptive vision of the future; and second the major findings of the foresight

exercises which included the results of the Delphi method with input from the Six

Thinking Hats technique and the brainstorming approach which in turn created an

experts' vision of the future.

The intend of the constructed scenarios, their formulation and interpretation was to

expose the gaps that exist today in our knowledge of teaching and learning and what

needs to be addressed in order to enable better education as well as construct a

more innovative and to the public interest, digital European education of tomorrow.

Given that scenarios are systematic visions of future possibilities deriving from

foresight exercises, which produced plausible possibilities, they can be used as tools

to explore the future impact of educational decisions or developments. To achieve

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such aims the SoC, scenarios building was aimed to identify uncertain developments

in the future and therefore include them as elements of the scenario narrative.

In addition, this WG 4 effort was settled for scenario design aiming at exploring

possible alternative futures in education in order to elaborate the possible impacts

that future mainstreaming Cloud Computing tools may have on policy making. That

is, the scenarios' design by relying on foresight methods, which call upon a wide

range of themes and stakeholder perspectives, examined the social and economic

aspects of future Cloud based education developments. As a result, clues and key

impact dimensions were utilized in order to emphasize the increasing ability of Cloud

Computing tools to facilitate possible development paths for education and help

decision makers take advantage of future opportunities.

Finally, the approach to scenarios building rested upon a 4-step approach as follows:

Analysis of trends and changes to determine the developments that could be key

drivers for the future of cloud based education.

Selection of the stakeholders’ scenarios content by determining their main impact

dimensions and key uncertainties.

Writing of the scenarios.

Deriving conclusions for policy implications and research challenges.

8.2. Scenario 1: The story of Luc the Future School Learner

Luc enters his school, which has no walls, follows the EU and the ministry priorities,

but adjusted to the local conditions. He looks if there is anything new in the

intercultural area, greets his friends who are doing a small game in the playground

section and checks his mobile device because his school is equipped with fast

internet.

This represents the Learning environment where Learning is:

Relaxed.

No walls.

New furniture.

Connection with nature.

Connection with other learners.

Diverse.

Collaborative.

No Classes.

He finds that one of his schoolmates has posted a question to their teacher, which is

still unanswered, because the teacher still discusses the issue with the person

responsible for technical issues related to ICT, although himself has acquired at the

university the competences to teach media education which is part of every subject.

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So he decides to meet members of another group in the cantina, joining them for an

orange juice, to have fun and seek their help.

This represents the Learning Process where Students can have:

Personalized Learning.

Critical thinking.

Flipped classroom.

Data management.

Open source software.

Peer learning.

Tutorials from learners to learners.

Privacy awareness.

Preparation for the real working environment.

Time-wise and content-wise organization.

Creative thinking.

His classmates have been already advanced in that area, so they indeed can help,

although the assessment will be on an individual basis. Luc and his classmates

continue to get data from the open data cloud, using the free open-source software

available and other smart technologies supported by the school and based on Cloud

Computing to analyze, manage and compile them, preparing a cool interactive

visualization.

This represents the Technological Competences where Students can handle:

Internet access.

Digital classroom.

Open data cloud.

Free open-source software.

Mobile Devices.

Smart Technologies.

After two hours, following the rules of the school, the principal reports to Luc's device,

based on information brought to him by the Cloud, that he is sitting in front of his

computer for two hours and needs rest. Theresa the yoga teacher comes and guides

him and the rest of the group of students to the relaxation room, showing them some

new exercises to relax their neck muscles.

This represents the Health Issues where Students have the attention for their:

Physical Health.

Mental Health.

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Right after they finished their exercise they hear the «bell of good ideas». They move

to the school's amphitheater and wait for the announcement. One of their colleagues

just had the idea that his teacher supported and helped, of using a 3D-pen to

experiment, while at the same time practice with the technique with the rest of the

schoolmates, in order to create an individual model of chocolate for their Christmas

party that interests him very much.

This represents the Competence Characteristics where Students display:

Digital Competence.

Collaborative Competence.

Data management Competence.

Introducing new ideas.

Solving problems.

Sharing ideas.

Then the team goes back to work. They proceed very well, achieving the «flow»

state. Suddenly the system warns «15 minutes left until automatic shutdown for

today». They concentrate and finish their work, having the evening for their outdoor

non-school related activities and games, participating thus in a reindustrialized

approach to education.

This represents the Time management where Students can:

Organize their time.

Manage their time.

Luc's scenario indicates that in 2025 as a child he should be offered opportunities to

enjoy learning and experience it as being fun. The learning strategies under which he

should operate have to encourage him to concentrate his efforts on learning the

things he is good at, while at the same time challenge him with things he is not (yet)

so good at, and presented to him in a way that makes them relevant and interesting

to him. In addition, one important issue with the future school learner is the fact that

the emotional aspect of the learning process should not be overlooked, because the

learning success for young children, like Luc, should make them feel protected and

cared for, which would help them develop self-esteem, express their feelings,

communicate and listen to as well as collaborate with others. Moreover, Luc's

learning environment should incorporate more holistic, active and corporal

experiences, involving all senses, and thus he should follow a learning path that

leads him to where he learns things that are important for his personal development

as well as things that are important to society and economy. Finally, technology is

always present, but invisible in Luc’s life and learning. Basically, during his learning

processes he gathers evidence, which however represent a tool providing fun, but

mainly the challenges he requires needed for learning. And it is this reason that Luc

has teachers who are facilitators, moderators and friends for his learning journey.

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The succinct and very compact description of the previously presented i learner

scenario it has to be examined and evaluated in terms of the major categories which

in turn are characterized by a multitude of characteristic.

8.3 Scenario 2: The story of Chrisanthi the Future School Teacher

Chrisanthi enters the open teaching area, one of the many the school has (there are

no typical classrooms and the arrangements of the learning environment are totally

different than it is today), which is equipped with ubiquitous internet access, easy-to-

use digital devices as well as access to various forms of learning resources for the

students to work with. As a result, Chrisanthi is focused on his pedagogical role

which is to organize and motivate his students’ learning by mixing methods and

strategies as needed.

This represents the Learning Environment where Learning is:

Focused on competences rather than knowledge.

Tailored to the needs of individuals.

Active and connected to real life.

Integrated with Technologies.

Organized and motivated by his teacher.

Motivated by his teacher.

Facilitated by his teacher.

Demand teachers to be lifelong learners themselves.

Given that the curriculum is competence-based and not focus on teaching of specific

subjects, the interaction between Chrisanthi and his students is focused on getting

them to become engaged in projects of learning activities tailored to their needs and

interests as well as creating his/her own e-portfolio. Chrisanthi's role is to inspire the

students and show them the way to challenge themselves. In addition, his students

discuss with him issues related to benchmarks and assessment criteria(new

assessment methods have been developed so that each individual student's learning

is appropriately evaluated) and they are actively involved in the process of monitoring

their progress.

This represents the Learning Process where Teachers can:

Think critically.

Solve problems.

Manage time.

Introduce new ideas.

Share ideas.

Build teams.

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Mix methods and strategies.

Act as a role model to others.

Cooperate with students, teachers, parents and local community.

During the teaching period a student faces a technical problem. Although Chrisanthi

is participating in lifelong learning as the only way to adapt to changes, keep updated

with the needs of his students as well as the technological and societal

developments, nevertheless he has been trained to understand that technologies

only enables learning to take place and not to occupy his teaching time. Actually he

is an adequate user of Cloud Computing and its tools and systems, which Chrisanthi

uses only to design and organize his students' learning. As a result, he immediately

calls the technical support staff that the school has to provide the needed assistance.

This represents the Competence Tools where Teachers are:

Open minded.

Original.

Creative.

Capable of critical thinking.

Understands curricular and cross-curricular issues.

Able to solve problems.

Manage time.

Able to take responsibility.

Sometime later a student faces a difficulty in updating his e-portfolio. Chrisanthi can

guide him to resolve his difficulty, because he has been continuously updating his

digital competences on Cloud Computing, in order to provide learning opportunities

for his students, as well as help himself to plan and organize his teaching tasks.

This represents the Technological Tools where Teachers can handle:

Internet access.

Digital classrooms.

Open data in the cloud.

Free open-source software.

Mobile Devices.

Smart Technologies.

When his teaching time is over he participates with other fellow teachers, the school

administrator, parents and community institutions to set the rules for cooperation as

well as put into practice the accepted concept that teaching and learning should be

integrated (all education stakeholder should be involved). Everybody in that meeting

accept that by sharing and exchanging experiences as well as watching, observing

and copying examples from others, both within and outside the school, is a very

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efficient way for all education stakeholders to learn. In fact, this is the way Chrisanthi

has learned and practiced him the skills he needs for teaching his students.

This represents the Teaching and Learning Practices where Teachers practice:

Employing suitable methodologies.

Cooperating with students and teachers.

Acting as a role model.

Displaying leadership.

Chrisanthi's scenario indicates that in 2025 he has been trying to stay on top of

things, since skills updating has become a continuous task for all teachers. The

reason is simple; Chrisanthi's major concern is to organize and motivate his students’

learning and as learning cannot always be entertaining his job requires from him not

only hard work, but mainly several skills to engage his students in learning, by mixing

methods and strategies as needed. In addition, Chrisanthi has learned to cooperate

with parents, the local community and mainly to co-operate with his fellow teachers.

In fact, this is the way Chrisanthi has learned and practiced himself the skills he

needs for teaching his students to be collaborative.

Chrisanthi has learned that to share and exchange experiences as well as watching,

observing and copying examples from other teachers both within and outside the

school is a very efficient way to learn. For it is well known that by teaching someone

reality he learns. In addition, however he is receiving help from teacher trainers who

are good facilitators of learning and which in turn motivate and encourage Yiannis to

become a facilitator himself. Furthermore, he strongly believes that lifelong learning

is essential and that it is the only way to adapt to changes, keep updated with the

needs of his students as well as the technological and societal developments. He has

been conditioned and trained to understand that technologies as such do not teach

anything, but they can enable learning to take place by providing access to

information and resources in an efficient way.

Chrisanthi is an adequate user of Cloud Computing and therefore its tools and

systems help him to design and organize his students' learning. At the same time he

has accepted that it is crucial for him to acquire and continuously update his digital

competences in order to benefit from Cloud Computing. That is, he is appreciating

that technology can help him to plan and organize his teaching tasks and provide

various learning approaches for his students.

The comprehensive description of the previously presented i teacher scenario it has

to be examined and evaluated in terms of the major categories described, which in

turn are characterized by a multitude of characteristic.

8.4 Scenario 3: The story of Jen the Future School Manager

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Jen arrives in his school where he is superintended. The school he manages does

not have classes with neat rows of chairs and desks and the students do not have to

focus intently on the teacher delivering a lecture or explaining concepts on the

blackboard. Actually, among the rules he instigated in his school is that there must be

flexible seating arrangements so that they are appropriate for the tasks that students

are working on, and that the focus must be on the comfort of the students.

This represents the Learning environment where the School offers:

Standing desks for students who have difficulty maintaining focus.

Moving walls which make spaces more adaptable.

Accommodation for students who need more movement.

Private workstations available for individual tasks.

Collaborative workspaces for group projects.

Interactive projectors and other technological visual tools which have replaced

blackboards or the interactive whiteboards.

Students are given more autonomy on how and where to sit.

Open teaching areas.

As soon as Jen arrives in his office, he calls a meeting of the persons responsible for

upgrading some of the classroom software that he had impose to all of his school

stakeholders to use as part of his educational vision. Jen is a typical manager who

has chosen to embrace technology as a kind of learning possess for all to use and

the school to operate utilizing its applications.

This represents the Learning Process where the School has:

Online posting of grades and assignments.

Group projects completed through collaborative software.

Assignments completed online.

Assignments uploaded through classroom portals.

Students using cloud based tools (i.e. cloud storage instead of flash drives or

paper to store their work).

Education stakeholders (teachers, parents, students, and administrators)

communicating using specially designed for education social media platforms.

Jen vision for his school is to implement innovative learning experiences by adding

sound, video, images, and interaction in providing additional dimensions than the two

dimensional world the simple texts express. Moreover, he strives for all of his school

students to be fully competent in using the available technological tools that provide

them with virtual and augmented reality to alter the learning landscape they have

been operating on.

This represents the Learning Experience where the School provides:

http://www.weareteachers.com/blogs/post/2016/02/01/10-game-changing-ways-to-use-an-interactive-classroom-projector

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Educational devices for virtual reality.

Educational devices for augmented reality.

Supports and applies the use these tools to virtually visit different locations around

the globe and view any image they want from any angle (virtual reality), walk

through cultural or other establishments (i.e. museums, galleries), page through

books, watch presentations given by speakers outside their school (augmented

reality).

Removal of barriers to teachers to give student’s access to materials that can be

found outside the school building.

Accommodation of various learning styles.

A multidimensional educational environment by adding sound, video, images and

interaction.

Jen has instituted in the school he directs the concept of students' "flexible

assignments". That is, in Jen's school the students are allowed to complete their

assignments, which might be different than any other, taking into consideration their

learning style. The teachers, on the other hand, are interested in evaluating the

students' competency by the competences or understanding them poses to

successfully complete the assignment, rather than in just receiving assignments

completed in a common predetermined method. In addition, students are

autonomous in deciding how they will accomplish their tasks. They are free to utilize

any implementation approach, such as recording a video, creating an elaborate

timeline, giving a presentation, or even putting together a traditional research paper.

This represents the Multiple Learning Approaches where the School allows:

Teacher to exercise flexible assignments, focused in proof of competency than in

receiving common assignments.

Teacher to just outline for his students what skills or understanding they must

demonstrate to successfully complete any assignment.

Students to have their own assignment. That is, one size fits all assignments is not

part of the school's learning approach.

Students are given the autonomy to decide how they will do their assignments.

Students to choose and utilize any approach to complete an assignment.

Jen holds regular meetings with the teachers of his school, but mainly he has

completely revamped their role and contribution in running the school. He has

institute a less hierarchical and more peer managing model that encourages and

engages stakeholders, mainly teachers, in the teaching and learning process of the

school. He considers teachers as agents of change rather than objects of change

and encourages them to take ownership of their innovation. Because he believes that

innovative teachers must be rewarded, he has instituted tangible recognitions and

incentives when they implement their innovations. In addition, he unceasingly tries to

instill to his teachers that they have to act and teach as innovation managers and

thus they should not considered innovation as “additional work”, but as an efficient

http://www.essaysupply.com/blog/the-pro-of-technological-devices-for-education

http://www.essaysupply.com/blog/the-pro-of-technological-devices-for-education

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way to accomplish teaching activities. Finally, in his institution there is a balance

between his vision of leadership, the teachers' training and participation, the

students' free choice of tools and the selection of the physical environment.

This represents the School's Teachers' Role where the Teachers are:

Agents of change, rather than objects of change.

Owners of their innovations.

Provided with tangible recognition and incentives.

Making innovation a leadership priority.

Participating in professional innovators networks.

Sharing and disseminating pedagogical, technological and societal innovations.

Trained in the use of ICT which should be accompanied by “innovation support»

activities.

Transformed into innovation managers.

Participating in innovation which they do not considered as “additional work”.

Jen's scenario indicates that in 2025 in the school he is managing, the well-known

neat rows of chairs and desks as well as fixed classrooms cannot be seen around.

Actually, the sitting arrangements are flexible so that students can accomplish their

tasks in the most comfortable and efficient way for them, while moving walls make

spaces adaptable to students needs and desires, giving them more autonomy on

how and where to sit.

By 2025 one of Jen's visions of incorporating into the teaching and learning process

the utilization of virtual and augmented reality not only represents an important

addition to teaching and learning, but they have altered the educational landscape of

his school. That is, a student in studying a Geographic Atlas by using a new

technological tool (i.e. a pair of special glasses) the flat images of the Atlas become

three dimensional images of various landforms (virtual reality). Similarly, a student

visiting a museum he can «read» with his smart cell phone the scanning code next to

a statue and watch a video providing much information related to that statue

(augmented reality). The utilization of these tools mean that various learning

approaches can be accommodated in the learning process by adding sound, video,

images, and various interactions.

Jen's school applies a new technology based multiple learning approach, involving

both students and teachers and using flexible assignments. That is, on one hand the

teacher is more interested in the proof of his students competency in the use of

technological tools, than in evaluating a set of predetermined, common to all

assignments and completed using the same methods. As a result, instead of passing

out any assignment, the teacher outlines for his students what skills or understanding

they must demonstrate to successfully complete the assignment. On the other hand,

the students enjoy the freedom to autonomously decide how they will achieve their

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task. Such approaches can take various forms (i.e. recording a video, creating a

musical synthesis etc.).

Finally, Jen's scenario indicates that in 2025 school managers, like Jen; recognize

the change in the role of teachers from subjects of change to agents of change by

taking ownership of their innovation. As a result, they provide innovative teachers

with tangible recognition rewards and incentives for their work, making innovation a

leadership priority. In general school managers give teachers the support they need

not only in the use of ICT for learning, but also by “innovation support» activities. In

addition, the school is operating in a less hierarchical and more peer learning and

managing model, by encouraged and engaging all school stakeholders in the

learning process as well as in sharing success and failure efforts.

The comprehensive description of the previously presented i manager scenario it has

to be examined and evaluated in terms of the major categories described, which in

turn are characterized by a multitude of characteristic.

9. FUTURE EXPECTATIONS

From the previous analysis and presentations it should be clear that Cloud

Computing represents a fundamental change in the way computing power is

generated and distributed, transforming the delivery and the use of ICT tools and

products. A number of educational institutions in the EU already use some kind of

cloud services, but full adoption of the Cloud model is still far away, hindered by a

wide range of bottlenecks and barriers (Koutsopoulos, 2015b). Although cloud

computing is undoubtedly shaping, changing and enabling new ways of accessing,

understanding and creating knowledge (Koutsopoulos & Sotiriou, 2015), and is

already an integral part of modern life, precise predictions about its future uses in

education are impossible due to the high degree of uncertainty involved in technology

forecasting. Still, foresight methods can be employed to provide some insights

regarding the probable importance and implications of various factors, trends, and

events related to the emerging technology under study.

Foresight studies such as the ones of the SoC network, which are related to the

future of education, have two main objectives: (i) map how learning processes are

expected to change in the future, based on expert knowledge and the literature of

current and future trends; and (ii) develop a vision for the future of education, in the

form of scenarios or education strategies, in order to explore their potential

implications and to ensure that future teaching and learning contribute in fulfilling

societal needs and plans.

However, it would be naïve to believe that given a desirable scenario, a specific

action can be defined and happen, because this is not in accordance with what

foresight stands for. It is almost certain that the future will occur in ways that will not

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match exactly with any of the four SoC scenarios. It is expected that the future will

have elements from each of the four scenarios and the purpose for all of us and

mainly the decision makers is to increase the likelihood to impose as many as

possible of these elements. Therefore, what is of interest in terms of meeting the

challenges and planning issues for education is to consider all scenarios and to

highlight and discuss critically some important dimensions of expected changes,

which in turn will identify the main policy challenges and future research directions.

Moreover, in interpreting the results of the scenarios, it must be acknowledged that

the participants were not a representative sample of all European stakeholders, as

they belong to the specific group of the SoC network. However, this effort does not

aim to gather empirical evidence of stakeholder’ opinions on Cloud Computing in

Europe, but seeks expert advice for developing visions of the school of the future.

According to the steering committee of SoC the bias of the sample is considered

strength rather than a limitation. Indeed, the participants in the SoC foresight

exercises proved to be extremely knowledgeable, reflective and critical of current

developments in educational policy and practice. These observations confirm that the

participants contributed rightly were considered as experts in their corresponding

interest related to the future of school education in Europe.

In addition it should emphasized that the constructed scenarios based on trends and

challenges coming from various sources, as they have been reported in the literature

and expressed by experts' opinions, will determine our education system and what

propositions should be taken into consideration for its future. Accepting the basic

principle that «Technology changes, Education survive» signifies the role of

education as a societal necessity and the need to explore the potential implications of

technology to education. It has shown that ICT changes, in the form of Cloud-based

technologies, provide the power to fundamentally change how education should be

approached and practiced. That is, Sugatra Mitra's work on self-organized learning

solutions which lead him to write about the need to «Build a school on the cloud», it

is suggested that it has reached the point where it has to be put into operation.

However, in order to put such a school into operation there is a need to take into

account the changes in the role, the responsibilities and the approaches of the major

education stakeholders, which are expressed as a set of future expectations, as they

were described or inferred in the constructed scenarios and the literature, the most

important of which are presented below:

9.1 Future Expectations in Technology

The scenarios developed were aimed to define how the advancement of Cloud

Computing could affect education and in turn education policy ten years from now, so

as to identify which policies should be promoted. Indeed, challenges in the emerging

domain of Cloud based education are huge and complex and cannot be dealt with in

https://www.theschoolinthecloud.org/

https://www.theschoolinthecloud.org/

https://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_build_a_school_in_the_cloud

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isolation from other societal issues. Therefore, there is a need for a very close

relationship with the broader task of envisioning and developing of future Cloud

Computing, the internet and the rest of the technological developments.

9.1.1 Cloud computing: Cloud Computing supports and encourages emerging

technologies like streaming, high quality video and running 3D applications, as well

as other applications to education. However, the School on Cloud in order to enable

mass collaboration, data processing, simulation and visualization through complex

interactions, face severe constraints in terms of effortlessly running anytime, in any

school, with good quality educational services. That is, developments in Cloud

Computing are as inevitable as the new school on the Cloud.

Another important issue related to Cloud Computing is its need to improve its security

given the inexperienced school users. In the coming years, Cloud application

providers will improve the security and reliability measures they will be putting in

place. It is expected that Cloud processes and techniques for securing data in

motion, a fundamental requirement in educational institutions, will need to be

dramatically improved. In addition, auditing and monitoring they have also to be

improved and more predictive and alerting capabilities need be built directly into the

cloud services to safely support education.

9.1.2 Internet: The future internet infrastructure is expected to support longer-range,

more complex human planning and decision making. The technology requirements -

tremendous storage and computing resources linked with advanced software

systems that generate a variety of graphical displays for analyzing data will increase

accordingly.

However from an education point of view there is great concern for its future in

schools. Technologically the internet as the universal means for communication and

computation, despite being extraordinarily successful so far in our schools, presents

a series of inherent unresolved problems that hinder extensive educational utilization.

As the European Commission (2009b) has pointed out the internet is expected soon

to reach its technological limits at least in regards to its architectural capability and

capacity, but mainly in terms of addressing many social challenges, among which

education is the most profound, due to its potential pervasiveness and the risks in

large scale application such as schools and the involvement of not so versed users

such as the education stakeholders.

9.1.3 Developments: The scenarios presented previously clearly indicate that in ten

years the education structure could be radically different due to the unprecedented

growth and improvement of Cloud Computing and the impact of this development on

the operation of our schools as well as on education policy making. That is, mass

collaboration tools, reporting and decision-support systems, sophisticated algorithms

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for processing data and performing statistical simulation and analysis, visualization

tools, personalized and location aware services, among others, are expected to

become reality and mainstream in the next 10–20 years. But more importantly,

pathways of information, a fundamental ingredient in education, will be changing. The

evidence suggests that all aspect of the physical and social realm, including

education, is becoming a form of information system.

9.2 Future Expectations for Policy Making

Throughout this report it was repeatedly mentioned that there is a need in the future

to harness the potential of ICT tools, in the form of Cloud Computing, to support

policy challenges such as:

9.2.1 Information Management: As future Cloud Computing networks will link data

from any person, object and operating environment, they will generate better

information which can enhance decision making significantly. Limited applications

have been developed in various areas of education, showing the future path to

generate information. In terms of persons, applications have been instituted in order

to support educational policies, to care for stakeholders, for students transport, for

school building energy efficiency etc., providing the necessary information; sensors

are embedded in objects so that schools can track their movement and formulate

policies to avoid recursive expenses; and cloud computing tools and technologies

could be developed to animate large scale societal forecast for potential outcomes

and impacts of proposed policy measures. For example, in higher education

information on enrolment, housing needs, costs, benefits, social impact and resulting

social burdens is a fundamental necessity in policy making.

9.2.2 Data Processing: Cloud Computing has created the foundation, using the

computing power leading to the growing amount of data available to produce a

quantum leap in educational institutions' capacity to support policy making with real

time, robust, and evidence based insights. But more importantly, while now each

institution collects, process and stores significant quantities of data that they control

and update. In the future, this practice might change and all institutions, everywhere

by authorizing access of their «data spaces» will create the condition for a «shared

space» which can be jointly accessed by all to fulfill their policy making needs.

9.2.3 Real-time: Data from sensors deployed in the physical infrastructure of a

school (such gymnasiums, yards and buildings) can provide real time data on

excising conditions and give school decision makers an instant awareness of real-

time events, particularly when the sensors are used with advanced display or

visualization technologies. The system can extend to a central monitor center for all

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schools of a district and a multitude of agencies for a district wide real time decision

making. In addition, the range of possible uses for tracing and tracking is expanding

technologically, but also as decision making tools. For example, the use of advanced

Cloud Commuting for tracking could be used for security and optimization of such

school activities as transport planning and implementation, preventing and managing

eventual disasters.

9.2.4 Participation: In the future cloud computing should build on and extrapolate

from social computing and future collaborative technologies, to facilitate bottom-up,

user-controlled, massive social collaboration and networking applications. That is, it

should enable education stakeholders groups to form, engage, create, learn and

share group knowledge. Because in this way education stakeholders participation will

provide them with the ability to track the educational decision-making process and

see whether and how their contributions have been considered in the decision

making process.

9.2.5 Artificial Decision Making: Most experts agree that in the future there will be

rapid, real-time sensing of unpredictable conditions as well as instantaneous

responses guided by automated systems. Moreover, these artificial approaches that

will mimic human reactions will certainly vastly enhanced performance levels. But

such expectations should spur serious thinking about how to tackle education tasks

taking place in a complex and delicate environment where narcotics, bulling,

shootings etc. are present.

9.3 Future Expectations for Research

There is no question that European scientists are at the forefront of ICT, in the form

of Cloud Computing, throughout the rapid technological developments of the last few

years. However, in terms of teaching and learning, now is the time, in addition of

bringing together different research disciplines (not only educators), to help education

benefit from the present and future opportunities of Cloud Computing.

9.3.1 Research needs: The previous discussion clearly indicate that there are needs

for future research to:

Overcome Special Risks: There will be possible risks to the school systems, due

to the large scale applications required by them.

Overcome Special needs: Technologies will be developed to address the

technological challenges linked to educational concerns, but additional risks will

arise, due to the nature of education and the involvement of users/stakeholders

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characterized by different interests, various needs and differentiated difficulty in

accepting them.

Develop new Paradigm: The opportunities provided by future cloud computing

tools for education are indeed huge, but they should be utilized only if appropriate

conditions and an «educational research paradigm» are developed.

Prepare for Changes: Education stakeholders, including decision makers, should

realize that not only research in that area is forthcoming, but they will force

changes in institutions, no matter how resistant they try to be.

Redefine Stakeholders Knowledge: As conditions (educational, social,

economic etc.) are changing, tensions may emerge as stakeholders need to know

more about the educational institutions they serve, which will have a new structure

and form.

9.3.2 Research Conditions: In connection to these needs and following the

examination of the risks and opportunities of each scenario, it is suggested that a

series of Cloud Computing conditions should be fully realized, including:

Cloud based education stakeholder adopters will have to prove that the tools

and applications they use indeed support innovative teaching and learning and

create public value.

The cost of Cloud Commuting applications must decrease in order to facilitate

widespread adoption in our schools. For example, applications such as

inexpensive Networking technologies can allow data to flow freely and with

minimum friction between real and virtual environments.

The Government should strengthen regulations, in order to protect data privacy

and security, particularly for educational uses that touch on students' sensitive

data.

The Government should instigate risk analysts, as well as create legal liability

frameworks in order to be able to face eventual problems which might be

generated by the automated systems.

In addition, the increasing research demands from the education community for

applicable concepts, inevitable will lead, in the near future towards the emergence of

«experimentally-driven research», as the only way to address teaching and learning

challenges. This would eventually allow the testing of new Cloud-based education

applications as well as their socio-economic impacts.

Finally, although the gap between education stakeholders and long-term research

actors might be considered unbridgeable all indications point out that this gap will be

bridged enabling cross-fertilization across different scientific disciplines interested in

education as well as integration of resources on fostering needed common research

results.

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9.4 The future Expectations of Uncertainties

Τhe scenarios developed indirectly, but clearly, indicate that a number of gaps exist

in terms of policies and practices and actual needs and desires of the educational

community. Among the most important are:

9.4.1 Security and privacy issues: It should be clear that internet, upon which

Cloud Computing is based, was not designed to serve massive scale applications

such those in teaching and learning, which additionally has to guarantee quality,

security and privacy. In our schools, which by its nature provide mechanisms with

large amounts of data and transactions, the opportunities and incentives are present

for malicious use of data and information. Therefore, the future uncertainties in

designing management systems capable of dealing with innumerable entities as well

as with trustworthiness and control of distributed applications and secure and trusted

interaction with real-world objects and entities are still to be resolved

9.4.2 Government Issues: Public administrations all over Europe are still designed

and functioning in exact the same way as the 19th century model of Weberian

bureaucracy. As a result, the institutional inertia of governments to radically change

education policies and practices, as a result of new Cloud based education

possibilities is here to stay with us in the foreseeable future and any hope of

bureaucracy fading away is at least unsubstantiated. However, it should be pointed

out that: it is one thing to imagine that Cloud Computing will radically and rapidly

change government's policies toward education, and it is a completely different thing

to envisage public and private institutions as well as legal provisions that will indeed

make possible to modify, codify and apply the needed educational policies.

9.4.3 Societal Issues: As a final issue that needs to be pointed out in this report is

that in considering future developments that might change policy and decision

making and their implications to education in particular and to society in general, we

must remind ourselves that we are dealing with socio-economic issues far more

important than pure technological requirements and applications. That is, the issues

under discussion have a strong socio-economic dimension, which relies on

practically all research areas and not only the technological challenges of Cloud

Computing.

10 CONCLUSIONS: THE FUTURE SCHOOL

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In conclusion, this report, by presenting the results of the SoC foresight exercises,

corroborated with the literature review of the D 5.1 document, suggest that the future

school will offer a teaching and learning environment characterized by the following:

10.1 Personalized

The work of WG 2 of the SoC network, among others, anticipates that

personalization will put a stump on the future of education. The reasons are simple

and forth worth: first personalization is based on self-awareness and fun producing

trip along a route selected by the students themselves; second personalization puts

the student in the center of the educational environment, which allows them to decide

what and how to learn, while at the same time teachers do not lose their significance

but they get more responsibilities than before (Gusic et. al., 2015).

10.2 Holistic

The educational processes of the future that this report has presented will be

characterized by openness, sharing, interpersonal relationships, discourse, and

personal motivation, tacit over explicit knowledge, as well as the sharing and

reusability of learning resources on the web, which however cannot be addressed in

the present traditional way. In other words, these processes cannot be dealt with

unless we accept the fact that they represent different manifestations of "a whole",

which is the dialectic entity of the new school, the School on the Cloud. That is, the

focus is neither on what we are learning nor on how we are learning, both aspects

are very important (Brown & Adler, 2008), but mainly the approach to achieve them,

which needs to be holistic. This concept is not new; the difference is that the holistic

thrust is not only towards the learner, according to the situated learning approach

(Lave and Wenger, 1991), but mainly towards the education system (a process for all

educational stakeholders).

10.3 Integrated

In the new school the most important impact that the power of Cloud Computing may

have is in the integration of the teaching process which will increase the openness of

the teaching environment. Such an integrated approach in turn is expected to

radically change teaching and learning. Literature and experts unanimously agree

that these characteristics can harness collective intelligence, building on the

knowledge, experience, and competence of various education stakeholders.

Moreover, independent of the degree of acceptance of each scenario, conventional

wisdom and familiar educational practices will be challenged as Cloud-based

changes in integration will impinge on the policy-making processes. That is, teaching

and learning in the new school has to be simultaneously pedagogical (i.e. new role of

teachers), technical/technological (i.e. use of the internet), administrative (i.e. new

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role of school administrators), social (i.e. a different disposition of parents towards

school), political (i.e. a different approach of government to school) and cultural (i.e.

new role of students), in dialectic harmony and respecting all aspects of teaching and

learning an integral part of which are pupils, teachers and school administrators.»

(Koutsopoulos and Kotsanis, 2014)

10.4 Technological

The literature (Gusic et. al., 2015; Koutsopoulos 2015) clearly shows that technology

is creating opportunities and challenges for our schools. That is, technology provides

learning that is not confined to the school walls, because students can learn

anywhere and they can participate in educational activities around the globe in an

easy and costless way. Moreover, as society moves towards the next industrial

revolution, which certainly will be based on «Do it yourself culture» schools and their

students will need to take full advantage of technology and its developments.

10.5 Knowledge - Centered

Cloud based education can provide to teaching and learning a prescriptive approach

towards both on individual learners and on learning itself, which satisfy the future

complex and challenging conditions . As a result, the new Network Centered knowing

approach will come to the fore in order to overcome the compartmentalization of

knowledge. In this knowledge -centered teaching and learning approach, where each

education stakeholder's individual needs and progress are taken into account, the

traditional roles of education stakeholders (teachers, students, managers) will

change to support this development. That is teachers will become moderators and

guides for students’ personalized and collaborative knowledge created and applied

by visionary school managers.

10.6 United but not uniform

Cloud Computing, which is the fundamental instrument in a Cloud based education,

can fulfill all the future requirements for the coming new School on the Cloud,

because it represents a fundamental change in the way computing power is

generated and distributed. That is, Cloud Computing as the main educational tool

represents an instrument which on one hand can support with the same resources as

well as provide the same opportunities to all major education stakeholders and in the

process create a unified education system. On the other hand, the irrelevancy of the

location of the Cloud user and of the Cloud itself negates the necessity to impose

upon all educational institutions uniformity in teaching and learning practices or

curriculum structures. Moreover, Cloud Computing by incorporating mixed reality

applications based on semantic cooperation platforms that traverse language and

cultural interpretation can enable multi-national groups to create, learn and share

information and knowledge (European Commission, 2009a).

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10.7 Active

In the Cloud based education of the future schools teaching and learning due to the

opportunities provided, inevitably will become more active, focusing on education by

doing, experiencing hands on approaches. At the same time, education will be more

social, in that each student will construct his/her knowledge in interaction with others

in the context of those necessary practical applications and tasks.

10.8 Revised

Cloud Computing in addition to more active and constructive ways of learning will

revise teaching and learning by shifting the balance between knowledge and skills,

which will lead to the emergence of new competences. That is, in an educational

environment that is already characterized by school information overload, «knowing

how» will become more important than “knowing what”. Furthermore, it is expected, if

not hoped, that Cloud Computer will direct a shift in values, like respect, tolerance,

responsibility and cultural awareness and diversity, which will become important

educational objectives.

10.9 Facilitative

Cloud Computing naturally will bring changes to teaching and learning objectives and

the ways to accomplish them. Furthermore, these changes will be accompanied by

the emergence of new learning settings and their connections to different educational

contexts. That is, education will be supported by virtual environments, tools and

applications to facilitate individual and collaborative teaching and learning processes

associated to various contexts. It is envisioned that in the future:

Physical or virtual boundaries will become obsolete and education will take

place in environments that are integrated into the students' life.

Educational environments will be motivating, social and connected to the local

community and the global society, but mainly to nature.

Education will represent a holistic and integrating framework by providing an

information system domain within which virtually all aspects of education can be

practiced.

10.10 Collaborative

An important evolution that will take place in the new school is that students will be

taking the initiative and develop their own projects, which in turn will lead to

collaboration among students in the classroom. However, this development should

be considered in association with the fact that in the future European societies will be

more intercultural, forcing young will people to come to terms with the increasing rate

of change finding their way in a complex world. As a result, schools in addition must

provide their students with the necessary instructions for intercultural understanding,

active citizenship and direct interaction with society. Thus, collaboration not only

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within the classroom, but with the community at large, and with people from other

social, cultural or age groups, will become increasingly important to enable the

students of the future school to come to terms with life in an increasingly diverse and

uncertain world.

10.11 STEM focused

Given that innovation represents the driving force for developing the economy, a

need exist, which will increase in the future to produce professionals with a good

knowledge and background in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering,

Mathematics). The reason is simple, a STEM focused education helps student gain

skills and knowledge activate mathematical and scientific thinking and sustain

interest in science, mathematics and technology for the rest of their lives. Therefore,

the need to produce qualified candidates for employment in the technology sector

requires a STEM focused education, an important element of the new school.

10.12 Multimodal

The way we communicate has been changing in the last few years and this trend will

continue and intensify in the future as accessibility and mobility of technology will be

increasing. The same holds true in education where the nature of communications

not only has been changing, but mainly it is becoming multimodal. That is, the nature

of communication in education is slowly moving towards an integration of modes

(sound, color, text, image, etc.) as recourses that operate simultaneously in order to

create more complex messages with richer meaning, than it can be accomplished

with the use of one mode that dominates the rest. As a result, in the new school

multimodality will make educational messages easier to understand and thus it will

improve the teaching and learning process.

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Appendix I

i-Learner Questionnaire


Which of the following key competences do you consider the most important and why?

1. Personalized learning 1. Data Management and information

2. Internet access 2. Collaboration

3. Digital classroom 3. Privacy awareness


Which of the following technologies do you consider to be the most important and why?

1. Health Issues 1. Free, Open-source Software

2. Digital and collaborative competence 2. Mobile Devices

3. Critical Thinking 3. Smart Technologies

i-Teacher Questionnaire

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1. Meaningful individualized learning 1. Greater participation Collaboration –

cooperation

2. Improvement of web-based IT for learning 2. Teachers' training

3. Digital support for learners 3. ICT infrastructure and security


Which Technologies do you consider to be the most important?

1. Multidisciplinary teachers 1. Learning Analytics tools

2. Teachers as facilitators, inspirers and student guides

2. Virtual reality & Artificial Intelligence

3. Provision of personalized learning 3. Open-source software and data




1. Universal 1. New vision, removing barriers between

teachers and students

2. Equal opportunities 2. Finances/cost

3. Educational content - new teaching - learning methods

3. Greater participation


Which Interaction/Communication do you

consider to be the most important?

1. Management abilities - change management

1. Communicate - proactive and reactive

2. General technological and pedagogical background

2. Use of technology

3. Communication - collaboration - negotiation abilities


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Appendix II

i--Learner (WG3)

Please respond to all 4 Questions with up to 3 answers using Q1, Q2, Q3 or Q4 as titles in correspondence.

http://padlet.com/schoolonthecloudeu/5mbn7awgn5a7 Q1 What trends do you expect to have a significant impact on the ways in which European educational institutions approach learning using Cloud Computing by 2025?

Q2 What do you see as the key challenges related to learning using Cloud Computing that European educational institutions will face by 2025?

1. i. Free and open source ii. Collaboration tools - apps enabling direct

contact of 2.

i. management of big data ii. quality of data iii. way of selecting data

3. i. risks of privacy -how to handle that ii. quality of the use of internet iii. health issues - wifi and 3/4/5G radiations iv. role of the teacher/tutor

4. i. Free and open access to the fast internet ii. Personalization of learning - less

standardization 5. take advantage of the extraordinary

technological advances in online learning for personalization, allowing students to learn at their own pace, any time and everywhere.

6. i. Shift to competence education ii. Game-based learning

7. personalized learning digital clasroom, free internet and free devices to all

8. i. everything will be digital ii. multiculturality and mobility of learners iii. personalized learning

9. i. more perzonalized learning, because of the

growing ii. digital classrom

10. i. permanent connectivity ii. lifelong learning using digital resources iii. personalized learning

11. Reinforcing critical thinking 12.

I. accessibility / affordability of internet II. increasing need for learning with cloud

support (lowering costs, learning & employed,...)

III. ubiquity of technology (internet of things) IV. personalization of learning

1. i. selecting reliable resources ii. privacy "the fully transparent user" iii. increased digital competence might

reduce social competence 2.

i. selecting reliable resources ii. privacy "the fully transparent user" iii. increased digital competence might

reduce social competence 3.

i. being able to handle big data ii. critical thinking iii. collaborative competences, efficient

competences 4.

i. Data Security/ Big Data ii. digital inequality: not access but quality of

use iii. the digital transformation of the economy

and the growing importance of media competences in vocational

5. i. time spent for learning & effectiveness of

learning ii. health issues (sight, backbone, stress

related to extreme time spent sitting) iii. extracting, selecting important data /

information from growing amounts of available information

6. i. social competences might decrease ii. health problems due to sitting in front of

the computer iii. work doesn't stop anymore

7. digital inequality, adequate education to all teachers, health problems

8. i. Reduce of social competences ii. Free time vs. time for learning balance iii. Keeping learners motivated to learn even

without a teacher controlling him/her 9. new didactic approaches to

increase, knowledge 10. teacher training

Q3 Q4

http://padlet.com/schoolonthecloudeu/5mbn7awgn5a7

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What do you see as the key competences/labor market needs that learning using Cloud Computing in European educational institutions have to provide by 2025?

Which technologies will be the most important to learning in European educational institutions by 2025?

1. i. judjing reliability of resources ii. privacy awareness iii. keeping a sustainable work-life balance (for

a working life span > 40 years) 2. Ability to cooperate with others - openness and

willingness 3. critical thinking, cooperation, flexibilty 4.

i. Data management ii. Privacy

5. i. Ability to select information and choose the

proper the one needed ii. Be able to develop learners' own learning

paths 6.

i. collaborative working/ learning ii. awareness of challenges of data security:

need to aquire a reflexive/ critical media competence

iii. cultural dimension of media use: acquire cultural media competence

7. i. high level skills to recognize / search for

relevant information ii. social skills (team work - also online,

cooperation) iii. lifelong learning & ability to adapt to new

technologies 8.

i. mobility of people ii. high level of training

1. i. mobile devices (cheap) ii. augmented reality (for learning outdoor) iii. free, open source software

2. a) free and open source b) mobile devices

3. mobile devices, smart technologies, technology should dealing with huge amount of data

4. i. open and free software ii. cheap technologies iii. safe engagement

5. i. mobile devices with increased capabilities

(sensors, communication - written, audio, ...)

ii. increased capabilities of reliable communication - translating from speech to text, between the languages,...

iii. free internet everywhere 6.

i. free and open source ii. mobile devices

7. a. Learning Analytics b. 3d

8. a) mobile devices b) ICT's with universal design

9. i. free internet for, everyone ii. using open source or free accesible tools

/ software iii. using mobile tools iv. ubiquitous, learning if the technology is

ready for it 10. mobile devices

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i -Learner (WG3) Responses

Please choose the most important in your opinion for each separate case. Name your choice with the corresponding title of the chosen respond (e.g. R1b).

http://padlet.com/schoolonthecloudeu/axkbuv8zd84t

R1 Which of the following trends do you consider the most important and why?

R2 Which of the following key challenges do you consider to be the most important and why?

R1a Personalized learning

1. Personalized learning: learning will be inevitable but must be personalized

2. Personalized learning, The learner decide what

3. Personalized learning because it can make the difference in a digital classroom with internet access

4. Personalized learning will probably be the biggest trend for learners;

5. Personalized learning because it might embrace aspects such as on-line communities(digital citizenship) ,flipped classroom as well as game-based learning

6. personalized learning to allow person to discover all his/her potential; to take ownership of their education and discover their passions and interests;

7. Personalized learning. Because it gives freedom

R1b Internet access

1. Internet access - Internet of things. Constant connectivity without any problems

R1c Digital classroom

R2a Digital and collaborative competence R2b Health issues

1. Health & physical & mental health issues, too long, uninterrupted sitting, focused watching, forced sitting position,... increasing number of older people with their specific limitations; addiction to ICT problem

2. Nothing is more important than health issues 3. Health issues:

radiation of mobile networks, back problems because of sitting, eye problems because of too long focus, mental health problems (addiction

4. This is the only challenge not addressed right now. Maybe because we use technologies not so long. After a decade or few we would be able to notice problems with eyes, our back, or even mental problems.

5. Health issues have been seen to long only as problems of risk by radiation, but there's much more- mental health: addictions, become a kind of zombie when being constantly online, not sleeping enough: consequences of sitting in a wring way

6. The learner will be more in a sitting position in front of a computer.

7. Eye problems R2c Critical thinking

1. Critical thinking - is the base for the evolution; the basis for the creation of sustainable human-oriented development

2. critical thinking enhance the didactic process and provides new methodological approaches

R3 Which of the following key competences do you consider the most important and why?

R4 Which of the following technologies do you consider the most important and why?

http://padlet.com/schoolonthecloudeu/axkbuv8zd84t

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R3a Collaboration

1. It becomes more and more important to work in teams and projects. Collaboration means more than working with partners or teams in the classroom. It means to work with institutions and partners out of school.

R3b Data management and information

1. You have to be able to manage the data you have because if you don't then it is the same as no data at all.

2. Data and information management includes awareness on how to get data

3. Data and information management: knowing about the reliability of resources, being aware pros and cons of privacy and personalization

4. Data management and information 5. how to deal with the enormous

amount of information; how to make the best selection; how to find the most relevant

6. Data management since it is a notion which incorporates a number of issues including avoiding copy-paste, time management , communication ,collaboration and privacy awareness so as to avoid cyber bullying

7. Data management & information treatment

8. Data management and information also includes: I. how to deal with the abundance

of information II. how to protect yourself from

privacy issues when accessing info (think about the cookies

R3c Privacy awareness

1. Privacy awareness 2. Everything in the internet will stay

there forever.

R4a Mobile devices R4b Free, open-source software

1. Free, open-source software: unleashing the power of huge programmer communities, free accessible software to avoid digital divide

2. Software technologies Will affect the education 3. Free, open-source software 4. Free &open source software a potential tool in order to

decrease disparities in education Software makes a device work. If the software is not free or it is expensive for most of the people then the device and its technology are useless

5. Free, open-source software to to enable equal opportunities

R4c Smart technologies

1. To make smart technology possible you need the two others, and certainly mobile devices.

2. Smart technology will be helpful for the learner as it will turn his mobile device into his personal tutor/teacher/trainer/doctor… Thus being the perfect cooperator in his learning

3. Mobile devices but I might add 3d printing in education http://3dprintingindustry.com/education

http://3dprintingindustry.com/education/

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i-Learner (WG3) Scenario

Technology moves really fast so we need to think in a radical, innovative creative and imaginative way. Schools need to have no walls 3D printing will enable learners to experiment while at the same time practice project and game-based learning preparation for real working environment where learners will actually collaborate. All schools are well equipped with fast internet. A responsible person for technical question cares about the ICT's. Teacher Students acquire at University the Competences to teach media education which is part of every subject. This includes knowledge about accessibility for pupils with special needs. All learning materials are based on open-source software The Story of John [PPT Presentation]

John enters the school door, has a look if there is anything new in the intercultural area, greets his friends who are doing a small game in the playground section and checks his mobile device…

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i-Teacher (WG2)

Please respond to all 4 Questions with up to 3 answers using Q1, Q2, Q3 or Q4 as titles in correspondence

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Q1 What trends do you expect to have a significant impact on the ways in which European educational institutions, approach learning using Cloud Computing by 2025?

Q2 What do you see as the key challenges related to learning using Cloud Computing, that European educational institutions will face by 2025?

1. Institutional platforms such as

Escholarium where students, teachers and

parents can access online resources

(textbooks, online lessons and resources,

etc.).

2. i. Intelligent tutoring (personalized support) ii. augmented reality support for learners iii. Digital accreditation (badges)

3. Institutional platforms i. Increase and promote school networks

in order to create a real educational based internet community

ii. There will be no more so complex IT infrastructures in educational institutions

iii. Simplify the devices in order to make them easier to reach information

4. It depends what politicians and owners of the big IT companies will decide.

5. Virtualizing the management of the educational structures i. Videos instead of texting ii. Broadband for all iii. Collaboration between primary,

secondary education and universities 6. moving towards bilingual and trilingual

schools 7. individualization in education 1:1 8. Self-learning students 9. Large broadband for all without any

problems 10. Data-driven learning tailored to each

individual student's needs. Exploitation of data (solely for learning purposes) that are produced as a result of students' interactions with technological tools.

11. Learning anywhere, anytime. Learning should actually occur beyond the confines of a school classroom at one's own pace and convenience.

12. We need to focus first un básica knowledge. How to select quality contents. Possibilities one global perspective. Turn información into knowledge. Increase sharing experiencia

1. i. Empowering students ii. Skill set of staff iii. Infrastructure iv. Data analytics

2. A much more collaborative and cooperative

role. 3. Teachers' training for the present and future

challenges. 4. Students' training in areas where there are

multicultural communities. 5. Focus On teaching On a structural and

strategic level (not instrumental level) 6. classroom manager 7. Inform about cyber protection of children

and data misused i. The teachers will be seen as team

members. ii. A much more collaborative and

cooperative role iii. Oriented based teaching

8. Bilingual schools/infrastructure /accessibility internet

9. Reliable infrastructure: broadband connection, tablets, smart boards, etc.

10. Connecting school-based and higher education to actual vocational needs

11. Personalized learning 12. Competence-based learning

Q3 What do you see as the key role/profile of teachers using Cloud Computing will be in European educational institutions by 2025?

Q4 Which technologies will be the most important to learning in European educational institutions by 2025?

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1. Intrapersonal competences in a cloud-based learning environment

2. The teacher as a contextual strategist i. Mentoring, guide, support... ii. Improving learning environment iii. Selecting a mobile program that will

engage and empower students

3. Intrapersonal competences in a cloud-based

learning environment

4. The teacher as a contextual strategist

5. i. Mentoring, guide, support... ii. Improving learning environment iii. Selecting a mobile program that will

engage and empower students 6. technical support 7. competences in IT and skills

i. Classroom management and leadership

ii. Human resources and maintenance iii. Accessibility and Internet connection

8. Coach-mentor 9. Teachers as facilitators of knowledge. 10.

i. Increasing the habit of personalized learning.

ii. Create a secure, save and personalized digital learning portfolios, available for the lifetime

11. The teacher-educator needs to inspire learners to pursuit knowledge for themselves.

12. The teacher needs to help learners understand applications of knowledge and skills in real-life contexts

13. Bilingual teachers 14. Multidisciplinary teachers 15. teachers as guide of the knowledge

16. accessibility, inclusion, maintenance

1. Virtual reality 2. Relationships on the cloud. Tablet with

different subjects or mobile. New programs more easy.

3. Cloud-based technologies 4. To stress the use of free software and open

data of quality in order to be inclusive with teachers and students.

5. Serious Games i. Reliable high quality broadband ii. Tools that allow students to be creators

and not consumers - coding, programming

iii. Game based technology, develop a skills set of problem solving

6. YouTube-alike websites and open-source software and operative systems.

7. Robotics i. The internet of things ii. Wearable tools iii. Collaboration between Artificial

intelligence and robots iv. Learning analytics combine medical

data, educational data, personal data, etc.

v. Turning big data accessible 8. ambient technology 9. invisible technologies 10. 3D and augmented reality gadgets 11. Internet of things 12. Learning Analytics 13. Open Sources 14. Simulators and virtual machines

Q 1.

i. Lifelong learning ii. Teaching Aboutaleb valeus and safety

2. i. How to select quality contents. How help

teachers to select information. We need to focus first in basic knowledge.

Achieve a global perspective. ii. It is not enough public funds for work

with devices. iii. Inhomogeneity of people: try to

individualize the learning process in order to achieve a better level of knowledge and help others: social learning process. Cyber security, data misused and protection of personal atmosphere.

iv. Geolocation technologies and the challengers con Galileo project. The proyecto can give innovación to the educación sector.

v. Learning environment tool for educational use of Spatial Infrastructural data

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i-Teacher (WG2) Responses


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R2 Which of the following key challenges do you consider the most important and why?

R1a Improvement of web-based IT for learning

1. Without a good, up-to-date Internet infrastructure, this technology cannot reach most schools and cannot become a trend setter in education

2. It is very important that education starts demanding the developers what kind of tools or applications are needed in educational process

R1b Meaningful individualized learning. 1. This puts the learner at the centre - focus on

people 2. Meaningful individualized learning should be the

overall aim for everyday teaching. IT and support nowadays are important to be able to reach the aim.

3. Meaningful individualized learning, because the only way to empower our students and properly equip them for their future personal and professional lives is to provide education tailored to their interests, aspirations and needs.

4. Individualized learning is nowadays very important although it should not lead into isolation of a student. Social skills/competences as very important - to develop them we need an interaction with others.

R1c Digital support for learners

1. digital supports are the future of learning 2. It is important for the future. 3. without digital support is not possible to teach 4. digital resources are vital for the teacher

R1 1. This shows a clear added value and makes it

possible to realize efficient differentiation

R2a

Teachers' training 1. Without qualified teacher the implementation

of IT in education is not taking place. Nevertheless, without ICT infrastructure and security even qualified teacher have only limited possibilities. And good teacher will need to cooperate anyway.

2. Teacher´s training must include ICT infrastructure and cooperation

3. Teachers are the real driven force of the learning process. ICT is continuously changing and teachers need the skills to be adapt ted

4. initial teacher training should take into account new ways of learning of which ICT enhanced learning is an important one. Efficient use of cloud computing for teaching should be part of a teachers training. They should learn to apply it for example for collaborative learning

R2b ICT infrastructure and security

1. Both of them are important, but security is most important before we going ahead.

R2c

Collaboration – cooperation 1. We need good trained teachers using very

good and secured infrastructure. Only Collaboration and cooperation between those two domains can make this a success.

2. it is really necessary to have collaboration and cooperation between available ICT infrastructure and teachers

3. The teacher in the future becomes a virtual collaborative and cooperative transparent world

4. Collaboration and cooperation are to me the key challenges - in and outside classroom, through electronic devices as well as through face-to-face communication.

5. Collaboration among teachers and students, teachers and their colleagues, as well as students and their peers is a key challenge. Creation of knowledge is a collective process and occurs as a result of engagement in collective processes.

R3 Which of the following key roles do you consider the most important and why?

R4 Which of the following technologies do you consider the most important and why?

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R3a Teachers as facilitators, inspirers and student guides

1. The role of the teacher as an expert and inspirer is the key role and a must all along transformation and innovation in education.

2. Teachers need to curate the material to facilitate students individual learners needs, and encourage ownership of their own learning, self-responsibility.

R3b

Multidisciplinary teachers 1. In the future teachers must be more collaborative

and multidisciplinary 2. A multidisciplinary teacher is able to provide

personalized learning, he can facilitate and guide. But to be able to allow multidisciplinary teachers the education (school) system need to change.

3. Teachers today should be multidisciplinary. But it is not enough. Learning to be multidisciplinary is not enough. To get it working the system should change to. Giving multidisciplinary lessons in with teachers teams could be a solution. And cloud can be a facilitator.

R3c Provision of personalized learning

1. In future teachers must be able to provide personalized learning as a multidisciplinary teachers

2. Personalized learning will be more, and more important in the future.

R3 1. Facilitating individualized learning will be a key

responsibility of the teacher of the future 2. IT is not about pure knowledge anymore, iT is

more About How to give access to knowledge and How to deal with the knowledge to improve the effect On learning.

R4a

Virtual reality & Artificial Intelligence 1. Massive data needs artificial intelligence 2. In the future is necessary to create virtual

rooms

R4b

Learning Analytics tools 1. Learning Analytic tools are paramount in the

present-day technological context, in order to be able to see the limits of every innovation and thus make the most of it

2. We cannot accomplish the goal of providing personalized learning and education to our students

3. Learning analytics will be a key to scientifically based efficient individualized learning

4. In order to realize personalized learning and for managing big data. The idea to provide digital support.

R4c

Open-source software and data 1. Open source and availability of data 2. Open-source software and data will give

opportunities to more people and institutions to use them.

R 1. Improving digital support for teachers and

students to increase the personalization of learning.

2. Wireless internet everywhere (even in the smallest corner of the word). The whole word is connected (schools, stress, hotels, restaurants, gyms, ...). Development of smart cities

vi.

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i-Teacher (WG2) Scenario

Ubiquitous Internet access, as well as access to resources, and easy-to-use digital devices so as to allow teachers to focus on their pedagogical role. Support will be only needed at the technical level (and will be provided by technical staff). The classroom size needs to be reduced or not to have classrooms at all. Existing stiff time schedules will be reconsidered. Arrangements of the learning environment should be totally different (e.g. open learning spaces). Curricula should become competence-based and not to focus on teaching of specific subjects. New assessment methods need to emerge so that each individual student's learning can be appropriately evaluated.

6. Each student creates his/her own e-portfolio Students will become engaged in projects or learning activities tailored to their needs and interests. They will discuss with their teacher-supervisor about benchmarks and assessment criteria and they will also become actively involved in the process of m The teacher will inspire the students and show his/her students the way of to challenge themselves. Parents should have active participation in their children's learning. Monitoring their progress.

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Please respond to all 4 Questions with up to 3 answers using Q1, Q2, Q3 or Q4 as titles in correspondence

http://padlet.com/schoolonthecloudeu/rfs3gxso27mo

What trends do you expect to have a significant impact on the ways in which European educational institutions using Cloud Computing ,approach school management by 2025?

What do you see as the key challenges related to school management that European educational institutions using Cloud Computing will face by 2025?

1. Accessibility for everyone (Frank)

2. Equal opportunities 3. Connectivity and mobility (indoor & outdoor

activities) for teachers and students

4. every child use a digital device in the school (Detlef)

5. blended learning, mobile learning, distance learning, virtual classroom (David)

6. Standardization of approach (from a mangers perspective), thus not taking advantage of the real opportunities Less flexibility on what we can do - i.e. more simple but less creative. More policy from the top. Not based on research. Unsustainable pilot projects - no continuity. (Karl)

7. Overflow of educational contents. Lack of coordination (umbrella). Cultural differences. (Dalibor)

8. Create more flexibility and decentralization of the educational system (teachers as creators of their materials)

9. Open knowledge, sharing collaborative resources to create new schools: open source software and Open Educational Resources, open hardware.

1. A vision about the new learning

2. Finances/cost 3. Greater participation

4. to provide a good technological

infrastructure (Detlef)

5. Lack of financing. The barrier between

digital natives and teachers. Costs of

personalization of curricula (Dalibor)

6. Personalized learning and

teaching environment & autonomy wider

participation in school (educational

system), less drop-off and differentiation.

7. Answering the societal problems. Costs

and benefits of SoC. Stimulating the

change (Dalibor)

8. inclusion of all pupils, teachers and

parents. No social division in a "information

elite» and "marginalized groups» specific

learning material data of all school´s

stakeholders should be in their own hands

(David)

9. Teacher training (not only on technology,

but also in working in a "different» vision of

school.

What do you see as the key role/profile of managers in European educational institutions using Cloud Computing will be by 2025?

What do you see as the key elements for interaction/communication/cooperation of the education stakeholders (students-teachers-parents-policy makers-society) to help run/manage educational institutions using Cloud Computing in 2025?

1. Knowledge about the technological-pedagogical possibilities (Detlef)

2. Identify first pedagogical problems and then identify technological or media based solutions (Detlef)

3. creation of a secure data infrastructure (data privacy) profession of media literacy Negotiation of all type of institutions [David]

4. Flip the school system. Organize collaboration. Organize self-managing teams

5. Providing visions - what they want Understanding the potential, benefits, advantages, issues. Enabling change to happen, so problems can be overcome. Making a roadmap - building an infrastructure to make their visions happen sustainably.

1. A vision of cloud computing (Detlef) 2. usage of everyday life technology (David) 3. Redirecting funds from old school to the

new learning 4. Flexibility of digital platform for learners and

teachers 5. Access non-consumers

Manager / leader must connect all forms of communication to all others - i.e. be at the heart of their network - i.e. proactive Must be anyway/anytime/anywhere to respond to needs - and make decisions - i.e. reactive Must be able to call on necessary expertise when, where and how needed. - i.e. communicate with an extended team Need special training to lead and manage Basic awareness of the Cloud, but knows

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6. Reduce the costs. (Iuliu)

where to get advice (Karl)

6. Personal communication will be taken for granted. The challenge will be to achieve group communication to work towards a better school (parents, learners, teachers...)

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i- Manager (WG2) Responses


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R2 Which of the following key challenges do you consider to be the most important and why?

R1a Universal accessibility and flexibility

1. Universal accessibility for mobile learning (David)

2. Universal access, using fully the potential of the cloud (Karl)

3. Every teacher, every pupil must have access to the cloud At any time in any place with any device. (Frank)

4. The cloud school should include everyone, no matter where they are located, to allow real changes to happen. At their own speed, with their own characteristics, bringing richness from every voice (Maria)

5. School Staff and teachers/learners should be able to access the content from everywhere (Iuliu)

6. In time of globalization the manager needs to have access from everywhere to anything semantic, innovative and changing for education (education in a new era)

7. The main trend will be full and open access to data, applications and education solutions based on the cloud computing. The future of education are interdisciplinary approach of methods and solutions. (Miec)

R1b Equal opportunities

1. The school must be fair somehow

R1c

Educational content - new teaching - learning

methods 1. A visioner manager must also have a

strong opinion/knowledge in the pedagogy framework and the educational model (competency-based), of his/her educational organization (Yannis)

R2a New vision, removing barriers between teachers and students 1. Manager/Leaders should understand the

benefits of using Cloud Applications and get all the opportunities for their school. (Iuliu)

2. Vision, removing barriers between stakeholders. (Dalibor)

3. Vision on the new learning 4. Leaders must co-create a vision with the

team and give the team’s self-management to realize that vision for their pupils. (Frank)

5. Having a new vision, being able to understand the implications of what the Cloud can bring. (Karl)

6. I think many schools (and also politicians) have a strong tendency to keep "the old way", with minimal changes to please the gallery (parents, society), but not real changes that imply big changes. (Maria)

7. Manager has to be a visioner open minded to new ways of learning and teaching methods. He has to make reality the new role of teachers and learn. (Katerina)

8. The main key challenges are new vision of education. The traditional approach to teaching will be gradually replaced by alternative methods, data sources and solutions. (Miec)

9. New vision is essential because we need to have the school as the right learning environment. (Danny)

10. New vision in relation to the cloud paradigm shift. (Yannis)

R2b

Finances/cost 1. Vision is the most important condition to

implement the cloud.

R2c

Greater participation

R3 Which of the following key role do you consider the most important and why?

R4 Which key element do you consider to be the most important?

R3a

General technological and pedagogical

background 1. The main role of the manager will be

showing the possibility of new solutions used in teaching and education, and create conditions for their implementation. It’s widely mean technical and pedagogical

R4a

Use of technology 1. The main key elements to help of using CC

is use technology. Technological possibilities and show their applications create the future success of this project. (Miec)

R4b

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background. (Miec) R3b Management abilities - change management

1. Change Management, have to be able to manage and lead for change - the Cloud is a paradigm shift. (Karl)

2. To change the management. (Iuliu) 3. Change management. The school leader

must work on the organization, the, instruments, the people and the culture to change the way the organization works. (Frank)

4. Change management according to the cloud paradigm shift (infrastructure - HW/SW, goals, communication, educational methodology-activities & educational cloud-based tools used by the staff of his/her educational organization etc.). (Yannis)

R3c

Communication - collaboration - negotiation

abilities 1. Communication - collaboration - negotiation

abilities to implement the cloud on all levels (David)

2. Communication – collaboration. (Danny) 3. We need new school leaders, that can

communicate and lead, by showing their real involvement in the change, leading the change from inside, so they can inspire their team with real evidences, and know the problems from inside (not because someone tells them). (Maria)

4. Manager has to be the role model for all the stakeholders and also the group that communicate the changes. (Katerina)

Communicate - proactive and reactive 1. Manager - leader must connect all forms of

communication to all others - i.e. be at the heart of their network - i.e. proactive. Must be anyway/anytime/anywhere to respond to needs - and make decisions - i.e. reactive. (Karl)

2. Manager has to be proactive (produce networks and communities to work in an effective way). But also to listen the problems and find solutions (so it has to reactive). (Katerina)

R4c

Collaborative school organizations 1. School organization. If pupils come to the

school as to the place where they can learn their own way at their own pace, then the leader must organize his school without traditional classes. (Frank)

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Cloud-based Education: Scenarios for the Future

Education

Transcript of Cloud-based Education: Scenarios for the Future