Call for papers: The School of the Future: New World, New School - Knowledge Society to its Best

Call for papers: The School of the Future: New World, New School - Knowledge Society to its Best.

A special issue of International Journal of Social and Humanistic Computing

Many people claim that education at school level suffers from inefficiency in responding to a fast changing world. Obsolete knowledge, rigid practices and formal models have a significant impact on creativity, knowledge exploration, and young people’s development.

Various initiatives worldwide concentrate on the reformation of education at the school level and various disciplines contribute with interesting ideas and propositions. The role of the teacher, family, government and technology are analysed extensively and various prestigious associations and government offices deliver white articles, position documents and policies.

Our special issue wants to deliver a scholarly edition of excellent quality summarizing the thoughts, ideas and suggestions of key academics and organizations for the school of the future. Such a goal requires the specification of the big agenda and a list of priorities for the school of tomorrow.

This special issue promotes the role of the IT as a key enabler of the school paradigm in the knowledge society. The following are the four pillars of the editing strategy:

1. Discussion of the big agenda of issues that require an integrated approach for the realisation of the school in the knowledge society.
2. Discussion of the emerging pedagogy that responds to the various needs of the knowledge society and delivers a unique value proposition of the modern school.
3. Discussion of the emerging technologies that promote new ways for exploiting IS for well defined priorities and objectives of the knowledge society
4. Contribution to the triptych: society objectives/needs, schools services/paradigms, IT support.

The special issue aims at helping in communicating and disseminating the vision of a better world based on education. The issue is intended to initiate a dialog between the government and the research community based on a well-defined context. The School of the Future special issue aims to cover the international perspective: not only discussion for approaches in advanced economies but also in Africa and regions of world where poverty eliminates the access to education and schools.

Topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

Section A. The School of the Knowledge Society

• The vision
• Critical Success factors [e.g. agenda of Microsoft and the School District of Philadelphia initiative: http://www.microsoft.com/Education/SchoolofFutureVision.mspx
• School of the Future debate from leading Organisations such as the World Bank, UNESCO, European Union, etc)

Section B. The Big Agenda of Open Issues

• Key variables,
• Performance metrics
• Technology
• Human Development
• Finance
• Teachers and Society Role

Section C. The Key Propositions

• An involved and connected learning community
• A proficient and inviting curriculum-driven setting
• A flexible and sustainable learning environment
• A cross-curriculum integration of research and development
• Professional leadership

Section D. Cases/ Demonstration of worldwide activities

Important Dates

1-2 Page Abstract: 30 April 2007
Submission of manuscripts: 15 June 2007
Notification to authors: 15 July 2007
Final versions due: 15 September 2007