Promising Digital Schools: An Essential Need for an Educational Revolution

Fouad Mounier Yehya

doi:10.29333/pr/11061

Abstract

This paper endeavors to propose a clear framework to show how the Lebanese traditional schools will be transformed to digital schools to benefit from digital technology. Digitalization is prompting education at a very fast pace. Educational institutions are in vital need of technology implementations to stay digitally relevant to Net-generation learners. Though many schools have digital initiatives and plans, the implementation of these up to a well-studied framework is something many institutions still lack. This study adopts the instructional design theory, which aims to propose a clear technology implementation framework to promote schools’ digital transformation. The study emphasizes that schools are in need to deal with a well-defined framework in their establishment for digital institutions and proposes a digital framework for schools to implement educational technology tools and strategies to gain the benefits attached to technological progress. The suggested framework highlights the need for mutual interaction between schools’ visions, teachers’ professional development, some appropriate tools, learners’ beliefs, and the learning society’s support in guiding schools to attain the opportunities of digitalization in reforming education. Researchers, policymakers, and educators need to contribute to this developed framework and identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT analysis) of the suggested model on schools’ digitalization process. However, additional research should be conducted regarding the impact of the model on enhancing the educational revolution. Hence, a call is made for researchers to continue testing the model in different contexts with the intent of refining it.

Highlights

Digital Technology is an important integral aspect for the learning experience (Selwyn, 2016)
In the context of this situation, the question that arises is: “How will the Lebanese traditional secondary schools be transformed to digital schools in order to benefit from the potential of digital technology?” the present paper aims to answer this question by providing a research-based model for schools to reflect on, to identify what hurdles influence the intentions of digitalizing to understand and improve their practices, and to achieve sustainable pedagogical improvements with the help of digital technologies
Schools should respond to digitalization rapidly and effectively to gain its benefits and develop strategies to overcome the challenges initiated by new technological changes during the pandemics and after it ends

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Digital Technology is an important integral aspect for the learning experience (Selwyn, 2016). The schools’ digitalization process cannot be attained and improved away from well-organized transformation models that combine schools’ visions, individual professional development, pedagogical practices, and appropriate digital resources as main elements to improve schools and working practices with digital technology (Ilomäki & Lakkala, 2018) In this context, the = the literature reviewed revealed a large body of research models about enhancing the digitalization of institutions or e-Learning in the school setting. This model lacks developing policies to encourage the cooperation between the policymakers and the users It lacks the impact of the learners’ socioeconomic status in offering appropriate tools on the digitalization transformation and technological learning process. The coming section “Results and Discussions” will show in detail the suggested framework for the traditional schools’ reforming

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

CONCLUSION

LIMITATIONS