Smart education as empowerment: outlining veteran teachers’ training to promote digital migration

Abstract

Within the enhancement of technology and its ongoing integration into formal education setting, learning environments have been challenged to operationalize and arrange systems that engage pedagogy and technology together. The nature of this ongoing transformation is closely related to the paradigms that reign in the twenty-first century, in a scenario of what is now called a Fourth Industrial Revolution. School, despite losing its monopoly on knowledge diffusion, still plays a central role in educating new generations, therefore, it holds key responsibility in addressing contemporary logics of learning, living and becoming a citizen. Amidst the course of change and the ultimate calls for innovation in education, we encounter veteran teachers, professionals with a long teaching history, whose challenges include becoming familiar with new devices in order to fulfil their work demands. In this article, we then explore how central veteran teachers are for the progression to a smarter education scenario, through debating a training carried out in Portugal with 38 teachers from pre-school and k-12, aimed at promoting their digital migration. Data strengthen ties regarding teachers’ perceptions and attitudes in relation to technology and consequent resource on it as pedagogical tools. Also, the overall discussion of the training provides clues on how teacher-oriented actions might address their identity if meaningful output is desired, in order to support a real change of practice.