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In the last decade, Digital Storytelling (DS) has increasingly emerged as a powerful teaching and learning tool for both teachers and students, and many scholars have documented its educational, multilayered value. Becoming authors of digital stories that combine several types of media contributes to enhancing students’ motivation, engagement and creativity; it helps pupils exercise critical thinking and problem-solving competences; it encourages children to organize and express their ideas in a personally meaningful way. When DS is integrated within the curriculum, it increases students’ critical understanding of curricular contents and provides a strong foundation for 21st Century skills. Furthermore, the creation of digital stories in small groups encourages interaction and communication among peers, it supports the exchange of different points of view and it enhances cooperation, social cohesion and inclusion. However, only a few studies have explored the specific opportunities that DS tools can provide when applied in culturally and linguistically diverse school contexts, not only as a means to develop the multilingual and intercultural competences that represent an essential part of 21st Century skills; but also as a valuable tool to increase students’ and teachers’ cultural and linguistic awareness, valorise multilingualism as a resource and reduce prejudice. The present paper, set within the EU-funded international project ISOTIS (Inclusive Education and Social Support to Tackle Inequalities in Society – http://www.isotis.org/), aims to address this gap. It presents the implementation of Multilingual Digital Storytelling activities in two primary school classes in a highly culturally and socially diverse school in Italy. The study was conducted within a qualitative and phenomenological research paradigm. Data was collected through field observations in the classrooms and focus-group interviews with children, teachers and parents. The paper will discuss the e

The inclusive potential of digital technologies in educational contexts is well represented by multimodal communication: the use of different channels and strategies can lower barriers to participation and improve the overall quality of educational intervention. This paper discusses the issues and challenges encountered while developing a pilot multimodal learning platform in the context of the Horizon 2020 research project called ISOTIS (Inclusive Education and Social Support to Takle Inequalities in Society). The overall aim of the ISOTIS project (www.isotis.org) is to address the challenges raised by the cultural and linguistic super-diversity of European society. It tackles inequalities and educational gaps at several levels and using a variety of research methods. One specific task of the project is centered on the design and development of a pilot VLE (Virtual Learning Environment). The platform ultimate goal is to enable children, parents and teachers to participate in various online activities and to communicate using different media (i.e., text, pictures, video and audio recordings), developing skills and acquiring knowledge about multilingualism and multiculturalism. The main theoretical underpinnings of the project are design-based research intervention and Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological model. Research interventions are being carried out in 8 European countries, focusing on understanding and highlighting the system of relationships among the actors involved at intervention sites (educators, practitioners, children, parents...). In all those countries the VLE was presented to participants and used as a means of improving awareness about the implications of linguistic and cultural diversity. The choice of an Open Source software platform proved to be convenient especially on the data management side, but the implementation also had to face some problems – especially when it came to the integration of multiple features into a unique framework. Also, the app

In our society the school is one of the most exclusive places to educate the new generations, so we put trust and many expectations on it. As institution, it has a particular organization of spaces, times, rules, roles and its practices are based on rigorous hierarchies, discipline and authority, training children and young people to become suitable for the society in which they live. School reflects the dominant educational culture and spreads ideas that even if unconsciously internalized, have an indepth action on students. Its spaces are often detached and devoid of beauty and sensibility; inside school everything is under control and quantified, making learning and knowledge influenced by the market laws of our society. It rather focuses the attention on profit and results than on every student's personal path and makes culture something to get close to in a bored attitude and without any interest and passion. That's why in these years Paolo Mottana, a professor of the University of Milan-Bicocca, elaborated a theoretical reflection called "joyful and diffused education" to think about education again and to create educational experiences out of the school as we know it; in this new way of thinking about education the entire society and not only the school is the best context in which children and young people can learn and live rich, deep and exciting experiences. The town becomes an important experience place, in which young people can be real actors and not only spectators of their learning activities and of the city life. But town has to change its spaces, times and rhythms to welcome young generations, to pay them attention, to take care of them and to set their vitality, creativity and competences off. Starting from the joyful and diffused education reflection, Paolo Mottana and his research group elaborated the "Educational District", an experimental project in collaboration with some lower secondary schools of a district in Milan. It wants to foster a mo

The evolution of the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) is requiring new competences from professionals and practitioners operating in the field that is now including not only traditional computer science knowledge but also a wide spectrum of user-centered, user interfaces and interaction design skills. About the same time the Italian University system was progressively reformed to adhere to the Bologna Process and Declaration (1999) a manifesto and a initiatives series to build a common European Higher Education Area. Three successive reforms Berlinguer (2000), Moratti (2003) and Gelmini (2010) completely redefined the higher education curricula and opened the system to a wider range of courses based on specific and mixed competences as required in the professional world. New bachelors and master degrees courses —for example Internet Science at the University of Bologna, Communication and Multimedia at University of Pavia or Digital Communication at the State University of Milan—were established inside traditional department and the people teaching in the new borderline fields had themselves specialized background mainly of the 3 areas: computer science or electronically engineering, architecture and design, cognitive psychology and ergonomic. Starting from such different perspectives, the question that emerges spontaneously is about the basic and essential skills that students should acquire to be fitted for the professional market that actually requires both traversal abilities to see problems and, at the same time, deep knowledge of specific applications field. According to the contemporary debate about “should designers be able to code” or “programmers should learn to understand user needs and cognitive processes” what is clearly emerging is that traditional divisions are no longer efficient and that a new approach and desirable if not even necessary in the direction of an hybrid, cross-disciplinary education. Exploring to this new demand of conta

Nowadays learning in the field of Information and Communication Technologies has become a longterm process and cultural-hybrid experience in an always-changing-world. The fast evolution – both in complexity and variety – of devices and applications is increasing the need of an even more usercentered approach to design and development of digital services and artefacts. According to this evolution User Experience (Ux) and User Interface (UI) design play a strategic role in planning and solving interaction between people and communication ecosystems also for people with technical or humanistic background. Therefore acquiring skills in the field of communication, visual and interactive design is becoming a crucial challenge also in non-design vocational courses and degrees. The paper is aimed to present the first outcomes of the wider research project Zero Design Background focused on the theoretical and practical problem of teaching – visual and UI – design disciplines outside the project culture. The research plan approaches both on- and off-line visual and UI design field – graphic design and graphical/multimodal user interface design – and relatives issue of teaching such principles and praxis in a learning context where design thinking, culture and methods are not the previous and knowledgeshared background. The project covers the visual and UI design teaching field mapping, analysing and reviewing a wide and heterogeneous resources such as basic design literature and bibliography, Visual/Graphic/Ux/Interaction/UI/web design courses – bachelor and master degrees both public and private – on line forums, blogs on-line community

The educational institutions – public as school and university and private ones – and other players in the learning environment are undergoing deep changes driven by different social and technological forces. The new generations of students are born and grown up with digital technologies – Generation X, Digital natives, Millennials and so on – and they represent a sort of genetic evolution in the way they approach and interact with the learning process. In their daily life, search engines, mobile connections, touch interfaces and social digital relationships are natural part of the experience. On the other hand Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) is becoming even more pervasive in many ways as an academic subject, as a learning tool or a teaching supporting framework. Under the pressure of these thrusts – do not necessarily convergent – also teaching methods and praxis are facing with new challenges both in the field of formal learning and in the way to use and implement hard- and soft-digital innovations. Furthermore, ICT is shifting the focus of learning experience based on co-presence of teachers and students in the same place and time, to a deferred interaction mediated by digital tools in which learning activity is extended and enlarged to cover part of the daily and personal lifetime. Collaborative platforms – wiki, social network, video blogging etc. – enable people to spontaneously and informal learning not mediated except by amateurs-experts or by community of interest or peers. Eventually technology is changing the teaching tools moving from mimetic forms simulating the printed book, notebooks and paper to virtual forms such as e-publishing and mobile apps in which medium and contents converge becoming really learn-machine. In this context and according to changing dynamics, the paper presents “Res Logica” – as a paradigmatic a case study – an app pilot for tablet design to study syntax and linguistic construction of Italian language. The rese

Information and Communication Technology (ITC) are massively impacting the school environment and teaching methodologies in the last few years. The school itself is a laboratory of change in which hard- and soft-values are transformed and processed to lead the teaching system closer to the challenges of the contemporary society. On one hand the hard dimension means digital infrastructure, tools and devices that support collaborative, multimodal and innovative approaches to teaching methods, for instance the use of LIMs or tablet in alternative to traditional chalkboards and paper- or printed-based supports. On the other hand school and teachers are facing with the new generation of digital natives (Millennial or Net generation, Generation Z or Post millennial and so on to Plurals) used to a symbiotic relationship with technology and immersed in an experiential continuum between on- and off-line life. Touch, streaming, multitasking, messaging, chatting, real-time feedback, free access, peer relations and social interactions world-wide are the basis of technology-mediated relationship with the world, with tools and between people. The world of education has already taken significant steps into IT applied to teaching & learning methodologies, e. g. video lectures, edutainment, elearning environment and learing Object, online courses and recently MOOC in higher education, but it does not seem to find an effective way in the more traditional training tool that is educational publishing. The digital book seems to remain firmly anchored to the previous paper model, a machine to read. However, electronic publishing (ePub 3, Enanched PDF, hybrid Apllication) the introduction of new multipurpose device (not just aimed at reading as the eBook Reader) and the strong and increasing convergence with the Internet is offering design, expressive languages and interaction modalities hitherto little explored. Despite this apparent delay the world of education is catching the game

Educational presentations are a specific subcategory and research topic in communication field. Most of the educational materials are organized in slide sequences simulating the visual support used in public speaking events. But this kind of communication has two different goals and context of use. Educational slides are a visual support during class lessons and explanations: teachers use them to catch and maintain the students’ attention and to focus on main ideas and concepts discussed. On the other hand slides downloaded, printed or shared on web 2.0 platforms are also a different and remote support that students or self-teaching people can use to improve their knowledge and cultural skills. Conceptual maps – developed in the ‘70 as an educational cognitive support by Novak & Gowin based on the notion of “meaningful learning” – introduced by Ausubel, offers a visual organization of notions and their conceptual connections in an effective and diachronic manner. The paper explores practices of the