The Chair and the Sustainable Development Goals

The two major projects (A1: Digital Humanities Laboratory: https://dhlab.fcsh.unl.pt) and A2: CETAPS Digital Laboratory: https://www.cetaps.com/digitallab), from where most activities will be anchored, are being funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), through programmatic funding.

Both Project A1 and Project A2 point to UNESCO IITE’s Medium-Term Strategy for 2018-2021 and the innovative use of ICT for Education 2030. Our projects will adopt the ICT-enabled solutions and best practices described in these goals:

  • Empowering schools, teachers and learners with ICT competency and digital skills, with special focus on vulnerable groups;
  • Enhancing knowledge and information sharing through promotion of digital content of curricula and Open Educational Resources (OER) for all learners;

Our priority will be to widen and improve the access of the digital content and digital technologies in education (all levels) while promoting dialogue, interaction, joint meaning-making and upholding ethical values for the common public good. Thus, the project is aligned with the Programme Activity 2. ICT-empowered Innovative Pedagogy: Competency Development of Teachers and Schools, which states that.

 

The aim of this Activity is to investigate new educational environment and support new competencies of students and teachers of the 21st century schools by identifying, piloting and supporting emerging approaches and practices used in technology-mediated school education.

  • Digital content, social media and smart interface, open educational resources and massive open online courses demand traditional education and learning systems to be more open, flexible, and provide students and teachers with more opportunities for participation and collaboration, and more outcomes.
  • The new ICT-based teaching-learning paradigm affects many aspects of the school system, such as teacher’s role, curriculum areas, school organisation and leadership strategies, assessment, and even school building structures, equipment and furniture.
  • In line with UNESCO’s vision, the Activity will help to form a new generation of teachers who have ICT skills, are able to use innovative pedagogical methods based on existing and emerging ICT, and can teach.

(pp. 16-17 of the UNESCO IITE’s Medium-Term Strategy for 2018-2021)

 

Both Project A1 and Project A2 also align with “Programme Activity 4. Promoting Media and Information Literacy for Quality and Inclusive Education” and its main goal: “to leverage media and information literacy (MIL) in the digital and mobile era and contribute to the development of the digital education environment by MIL-based professional development through a set of mobile learning tools. The Activity is aimed to design a set of mobile learning tools on MIL, to develop and test the mobile learning models for quality teacher training, and to enhance cross-sectoral and interdisciplinary collaboration among media education stakeholders.” (p. 20).

Both Project A1  and Project A2 follow Strategic Objective 4 of the Medium-Term Strategy for 2014-2021, namely the “Access to and the equitable sharing of scientific information and knowledge, in particular through the use of ICTs, will be pursued to reduce the digital divide and to ensure that societies at different stages on the pathway to sustainable development are equipped to build knowledge societies.” (p. 29).

The creation of the NOVA 4 The Globe – NOVA Institute for Global Development – is “one of NOVA’s strategic initiatives that is designed to work as a centre across the institution that promotes the collaboration and interdisciplinarity of areas and that is guided by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).”

In particular, NOVA University Lisbon contributes to tackle the SDG4 with initiatives including, but not limited to:

  • NOVA has several libraries, included in its schools, which are specialized in a wide variety of thematic fields, covering all areas of knowledge.
  • NOVA provides free access to its intellectual production. The NOVA Research Portal and NOVA Repository (RUN) offer a collection of e-journal titles, theses dissertations, e-books and access to bibliographical, statistical and financial databases relevant for all of the major scientific areas.
  • Many events in all of NOVA’s academic units (seminars, cycles, educational programs, workshops) are free and open to the public. Lifelong learning opportunities are provided across the university: Educational events, resources and outreach – archive.

CETAPS contributes to SDG4 with several open access databases and a Digital Laboratory (Project A2); IHC contributes with the Digital Humanities Lab (DH_Lab) (Project A1).

Besides, CETAPS has two funded projects that can be integrated in our Chair activities and also related to the SDG4, in so far as they both have a digital component related to languages teaching:

 

The Open University Digital Repository includes:

  • an archive of audio-visual resources (more than 30 years of audio and video programs) – only partially available online;
  • an old digital library;
  • a unique webspace withaccessible learning materials for students with disabilities.
Calendar of events

CIPSH