IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Winter 2014 - 31

Increased Relevance
for Educational Approach

perspective and conduct, and finally, moral leadership, are essential.

An educational approach oriented to the mitigation
of the pressing social, economic, and environmental
needs of the planet will have an increasingly relevant
role in the emergence of new patterns of learning, interaction and behavior. The understanding, diffusion, and
adoption of digital convergence in educational contexts, with its concomitant technical, sociocultural,
economic, and regulatory implications, could contribute to shaping new forms of social participation and
interaction. The complexities involved in the adoption
of digital convergence demand substantial research to
fully appreciate its nature and guide its potential contributions toward the creation of the new mentality
our societies need in order to thrive in a complex and
globalized world. The challenges arising as a result of
the socioeconomic and cultural forces that shape education in a global society cannot be underestimated,
and it is at this juncture that strategies for digital convergence adoption with a focus on service to society
might be employed to great advantage.
To fully tap the potential benefits of digital convergence adoption in educational contexts, enabling it to
contribute to social wellbeing, a clear understanding
of the nature of our interdependent world, an ethical

OPINION

Author Information
Arturo Serrano-Santoyo is with the CICESE Research
Center, Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico; email:
serrano@cicese.mx.
Mayer R. Cabrera-Flores is with the Instituto de Investigación y Desarrollo Educativo, Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico; email: mayer.cabrera@uabc.edu.mx.

References
[1] H. Gardner, Five Minds for the Future. Boston, MA: Harvard Bus.
School Press, 2006.
[2] C.N. Davidson and D.T. Goldberg, The Future of Learning Institutions in a Digital Age. Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press, 2009.
[3] C. Brown, "The evolving classroom," Converge Special Report,
vol 2, no. 4, 2011.
[4] M.A. Max-Neef, "Foundations of transdisciplinarity," Ecological
Economics, vol. 53, pp. 5-16, 2005.
[5] D. Brooks, "The new humanism," New York Times, May 7, 2011;
http://www.nytimes.com /2011/03/08/opinion/08brooks.html?_
r=2&ref=davidbrooks&.
[6] D. Freitag and A. Thaler, "Intervention models towards more diversity in engineering education," in Proc. IEEE Global Engineering
Education Conf. (EDUCON) 2011: Learning Environments and Ecosystems in Engineering Education, 4-6, M.E. Auer, A.Y. Al Zoubi, and
E. Tovar, Eds., 2011, pp. 518-522.
[7] The NMC Horizon Report: 2014 Higher Education Edition, 2014;
http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2014-nmc-horizon-report-he-EN.pdf.

(continued from page 21)

The major outcome of the workshop will be a communique that will inform the preparation of SAF05
reports and CTAP position papers on the social and
national security implications of RPAVs and related
technologies for submission to the Australian and
United States governments.

(UOW), the Australian Council of Learned Academies (ACOLA)'s Securing Australia's Future Project
5 (SAF05), the Carlton Connect Initiative (CCI), the
IEEE-USA Committee on Transportation and Aerospace Policy (CTAP), and the Australian Defence Science Institute (DSI).

Acknowledgment

Author Information

The Eighth Workshop on the Social Implications of
National Security Series was a joint activity of the
SSIT Australia Chapter, the University of Wollongong

The author is Adjunct Professor at The University of
Western Australia; Chair, SSIT Australia Chapter; and
SSIT Member on CTAP; email: philip.hall@ieee.org.

IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

WINTER 2014

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/08/opinion/08brooks.html?_ http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2014-nmc-horizon-report-he-EN.pdf

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Winter 2014