The Future of ICT/LKT in the Teaching and Learning of Social Sciences, Geography, and History

Most experts consider that society has entered in a Fourth Industrial Revolution that implies ubiquitous changes characterized by a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines that differentiate physical, digital, and biological spheres. This implies to open a door to important changes in the teaching and learning of the social sciences, geography, and history. Regarding this, it is necessary that both citizens and organizations develop new skills. Artificial intelligence as education technology is possible due to digital and online tools. Adaptive learning, meanwhile, is related to artificial intelligence, personalizing the learning and offering contents adapted to students. New challenges in the teaching of social sciences extends beyond the learning of facts and events. As a result of changes in society of Fourth Industrial Revolution, thinking-based learning (TBL) with the support of learning and knowledge technologies (LKT), creativity, critical thinking, and cooperation are some of the essential learning goals to participate in society.

U-Learning and Virtual Classrooms in Social Sciences Education

The development of internet, wireless devices, and sensors; the expansion of the use of mobile technologies; or the development of applications have enabled different ubiquitous learning modalities. u-Learning is an expanded model from e-learning and m-Learning with features such as mobile, collaborative, interactive, omni-synchronous, and experimental that fosters interaction and breaks limitations by place and time in the teaching and learning of social sciences, geography, and history. U-Learning is considered as a learning model that integrates technology in the assessment and monitoring of educational processes of the students, a learning model where virtual classrooms and virtual learning environments are highlighted. In a social context with a lack of civic engagement and democratic participation, interactive character of virtual classrooms, including social networks, is essential because they connect teachers, students, and parents in addition to encouraging participation in virtual learning environments.

B-Learning and Flipped Classroom in Social Sciences Education

Lecture-driven classrooms allow teachers to teach a lot of information to students over a limited time. However, the traditional classroom lecture format has also limited the communication between student and teacher. The flipped classroom pedagogy is a type of b-Learning that inverts the traditional classroom lecture content delivery. In flipped learning, students are required to read or view prerecorded lectures edited online by the teacher as a part of their homework. After, in class time, they focus on group activities, so that teachers must rethink the design of the teaching and learning process in the classroom with discussions and group work where students can make decisions, apply theoretical knowledge, and make mistakes. Regarding the teaching and learning of social sciences, geography, and history, this approach implies opportunities for students to learn high-level content, besides creative, critical, and collaborative skills.

Gamification and Game-Based Learning

Teachers can use game mechanics in a non-game environment (gamification), or they can consider playing a game as an option to learn content. In the first case, adding elements inspired by games to the classroom environment allows teachers to create a motivating atmosphere for the learning of social sciences, geography, and history. The second case is directly related to games that “teach” content through making decisions and observation of consequences. With a focus on elements, benefits, strategies, and some of the most important resources to introduce gamification and game-based learning in social science education, the authors highlight student motivation and learning of content and skills. Although gamification is not a new concept, it can be considered that the technological development and the recognition of its didactic possibilities have extended the educational experiences in a new way, contributing significantly to education.

Social Sciences, Geography and History Teaching Based on Research

Innovation accompanies us in our daily lives contributing to personal growth and improving social participation. Considering the most important epistemological traditions of teaching-learning processes and teaching models, research-based teaching model is a relevant approach to introduce innovative didactic proposals. Selection, organization, and sequencing of school knowledge in the teaching of social sciences, geography and history, and the construction of meaningful school knowledge connected with the social reality implies considering relevant socio-environmental issues, teacher professional knowledge, student daily knowledge, and metadisciplinarity. As a pedagogical base, in this chapter, the authors focus on epistemological traditions of social sciences education, keys for the design of proposal from a research-based approach, and finally, they focus on alternatives for evaluation of students and the importance of action-research for systematization of decision making and professional development.

Massive Open Online Courses as a Specific Type of E-Learning

In recent years, training based on activities and courses with teaching-learning processes mediated by technology has been promoted. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have opened the possibilities in terms of design, offer, and access to training courses. Considered as a very specific type of e-Learning, they are free access and non-limited in the number of students, and they automate the evaluation processes without a direct relationship between teacher-student. There are several types of MOOCs, but the most popular are xMOOCs, usually traditional university e-Learning courses adapted to MOOC platform features. cMOOCs are oriented under the guidelines of the connective learning. With the popularization of MOOC courses from many universities, the number of web platforms with these courses has increased. Some of these platforms are Coursera, edX, Miriadax, and platforms and tools such as Course Builder and Canvas.

Augmented Reality in Social Sciences Education

The integration of physical reality and layers of digital information in real time can be diverse (text, symbols, audio, video, and/or three-dimensional objects) with the result of enriching or altering the information of the physical reality. It is also usual in the everyday context of citizens. In other words, augmented reality has been used for years, for example, to mark an offside game in football or to alter the face in real time. Regarding the computer and mobile applications, they are those related to the AR, and it is an increasingly widespread technology in the daily environment with potential in the educational field. Educational software creators have noticed that teachers can make a didactic use of AR technology in the classroom. Beyond contributing to educate in a responsible use of AR, with an adequate didactic approach, AR implies important advantages such as improving of motivation, participation, commitment to the object of study, teamwork, and procedure improvement.

M-Learning as a Driving Force of Social Engagement, Responsible Collaboration, and Student Interaction

The normalization of the use of these devices offers facilities for exploration, personalization of learning, and greater adaptation to the rhythm of students. In this chapter, a conceptualization of m-Learning will be presented including the main m-Learning features. After, the authors focus on applications for social sciences education. This chapter is divided into two parts. The authors review general applications that can be useful for the teaching and learning of social sciences, offering numerous procedural possibilities at the service of the area. After, they review some specific applications that, beyond concepts and facts, offer multiple procedural possibilities connected with conceptual contents of this area of knowledge. Finally, other resources and teaching guidance for m-Learning will be presented, including relevant websites with lots of resources for the teaching and learning of social sciences, geography, and history.

Learning Managements Systems and Open Educational Resources for the Teaching of Social Sciences

Learning Management Systems (LMS) include a type of software and web applications that facilitate the online delivery of course materials, student tracking, and work presentation by students. An LMS focuses on the creation of course contents through a learning content management system (LCMS) and on the management of those contents. LMS provides tools for students to achieve assigned tasks and interact in groups or between students through the forums that enrich the construction of knowledge through communication and discussions. Open Educational Resources (OER) are associated with an open license that allows teachers to adapt and redistribute contents without any restrictions or with limited restrictions. In general terms, LMS have allowed learning analytics, adaptive learning, and dynamic social exchanges. Finally, functionality can be increased through the installation or implementation of add-ons and importing OER from LCMS.

Virtual Reality, 3D Recreations and 3D Printing in Social Sciences Education

Virtual reality is a technology for the relocation and interaction of users with a digital environment created by computers through an interface that recognizes actions carried out in the real world. It allows users a multimodal experience, making possible immersion in a digital world. On the other hand, 3D modeling is a process of design and representation of an object (3D model) in three dimensions with specialized software, a model that could become tangible through 3D printing. Virtual reality, 3D modeling, and 3D printing technologies, with appropriate teaching proposals and appropriate tools for process monitoring, offer students new ways of interacting with contents of social sciences, geography, and history. There are more resources for the management of classes with VR devices and specific VR applications for teaching. In general, virtual reality and 3D modeling/painting in class allows both interaction and several opportunities for learning adapted to the needs of students.