Digital Education, Geography and Multidisciplinarity: Themes, Methods and Critical Issues

Abstract

In the last few years education has been strongly marked by the digital paradigm: captivating resources, new teaching tools, methodologies and unprecedented interactions between teachers and students have become part of the scientific debate on new teaching/learning processes. This has had positive effects on teachers leading them to new stimuli and new ways of boosting creativity in their didactic approach. The pandemic period has acted as a catalyst of this digital progress in the education field and has also provided the foundation for a scientific reflection on this matter as can be seen in many international congresses and research programs. The visual nature of Geography, both in terms of study and research of the landscape and with reference to cartographic production and analysis, seems to be more involved in this change. Moreover, the propensity of Geography to multidisciplinarity – subject which can be seen as a synthesis of various disciplines including social sciences – implies an in-depth reflection on several levels. This is why when analyzing digital education in reference to Geography it is necessary to take into account themes, methods and critical issues that are at the heart of an ongoing teaching/learning process. In this Special Issue we intend to explore links between the teaching/learning of Geography (at any school/university level) and the digital world, even in a multidisciplinary perspective, including both the critical issues and the advantages in terms of sustainability and greater awareness of geographical phenomena also in relation with cultural dynamics (e.g. migrations, urban transformations, development, geopolitics, tourism).