This timely volume positions digital and artificial intelligence (AI) competence as a central educational goal. Bringing together novel theoretical, conceptual, and empirical insights from a wealth of interdisciplinary and national contexts, it explores how subject-specific education can respond to emerging technologies, including AI and high-immersion virtual reality.
At the heart of the volume lies its interdisciplinary scope. Contributions span different school subjects, including foreign and general language education, business education, geography, and religious studies, highlighting both shared concerns and subject-specific approaches. Within the interdisciplinary discussion, chapters explore how digital and AI competence can be fostered in teaching and learning, while also addressing teacher education. In doing so, they situate classroom practice within broader institutional contexts and consider the challenges and possibilities presented by digitalization. Ultimately offering key concepts, research tools, and empirical findings, the volume provides a platform for exploring the development of digital and AI competence among learners and educators in diverse educational settings from an international perspective.
This book will be of interest to a range of scholars, researchers, and postgraduate students in the fields of digital education, subject-specific education, and teacher education more broadly. It will also be valuable to educators seeking to integrate emerging technologies into their practice.
Table of Contents:
Introduction
1. Theresa Summer, Karl-Heinz Gerholz, Regina Kaplan-Rakowski
Digital and AI competence: International developments and discourses in subject-specific education
Section 1: Central issues in teacher education
2. Jennifer Paetsch, Sebastian Franz, Moritz Leistner, Fitore Morina, Claudia Schnellbögl
Evaluating teacher professional development programs across subject areas: A framework for understanding digital competency development
3. Gudrun Marci-Boehncke & Carolyn Blume
Negotiating digital competence and discourses of power in a Community of Practice in (foreign) language teacher education
4. Jan-Erik Leonhardt, Carina Leonhardt, Alexandra Kemmerer, Annika Janßen, & Britta Viebrock
Is there only so much we can do to foster digital literacy? Structural and institutional challenges in in-service language teacher education
5. Christiane Klempin, Niels Okuniek, Joline Schmit, & Henning Rossa
Beyond technical skills in English as a foreign language teacher education: Exploring digital action competence three ways
6. Daria Ferencik-Lehmkuhl, Charlotte Stehr, Janna Gutenberg, Michael Krelle, & Jörg Jost
A professional development program for teachers to foster reading competence in German lessons
Section 2: Subject-specific education
7. Konstantin Lindner & Manfred L. Pirner
Addressing social media influencers in Religious and Ethics Education: A teacher training project to promote digital (ethical) sovereignty
8. Hanna Velling & Jan C. Schubert
Capturing pre-service teachers’ beliefs about teaching geography with digital media
9. Anne-Marie Lachmund
Learners creating explainer videos: Teacher perspectives on fostering digital competences in the foreign language classroom
10. Meral Roeben, Melissa Oezsoy, Christiane Lütge, Florian Schultz-Pernice, Yasemin Erdemgil, & Xiao Zhang
Foreign language teachers’ professional technology-related knowledge and skills: A subject-specific extension to the DigCompEdu Observe
11. Susan Parks, Sabrina Priego, & Laurence Capus
Innovating with eTandem in the Canadian context: An emerging practice
12. Megan Dwinger
Digital Individual Learning Paths for the language classroom: Theoretical groundwork, design, and future developments
13. Bernd Frankemölle & Kerstin Göbel
The role of digital teaching experience for learning about digital as well as inter- and transcultural foreign language teaching in a web-based training
14. Sea H. Choi, Hyun S. Cho, & Russell Hugo
Teaching cybersecurity fundamentals to heritage language students
15. Matthias Grein & Janina M. Vernal Schmidt
A digital transformation in everyday Spanish classes? Using habitus theory to trace transformation in classroom interactions
Section 3: Integrating AI and VR into subject-specific education
16. Luciana C. S. Calvo, Shiri Rosenberg, Kyria R. Finardi, & Bruna S. S. Mardegan
Artificial intelligence in education: Connecting Brazil, Honduras, Israel, and Germany through a virtual exchange project
17. Karl-Heinz Gerholz & Anne Wagner
Promoting AI competences among Business teachers: A training concept and first evaluation of the effectiveness
18. Larena Schäfer
Generative artificial intelligence in EFL teacher training: Principles for fostering AI literacy in the context of lesson planning
19. Daniel Xerri & Josianne Block
Leveraging generative AI for teaching writing: A case study of two English language teachers
20. Subin Nijhawan & Britta Viebrock
Fostering critical digital literacy with AI-generated texts: Insights from a case study into an English-speaking CLIL classroom in the Social Sciences
21. Julie Cummings
Artificial intelligence in language education: Community of Inquiry and Social L2 learning frameworks for teacher digital competence
22. Leona Droste
The role of professional learning communities in developing a training concept for language teachers on AI tools
23. Zheying Zhu & Eunkyoung E. Cha
Developing digital competence with high immersion virtual reality in K-12 foreign language education
24. Theresa Summer, Claudia Schnellbögl, Michelle Zirkel, & Regina Kaplan-Rakowski
Pedagogical design cases of high-immersion VR in language education for sustainable development
Afterword
25. Christopher Kaiser & Stephane A. Charitos
Digital and AI competence in education: Continuities and critical futures
About the Author :
Theresa Summer is a professor of English Language Education at the University of Bamberg, Germany.
Karl-Heinz Gerholz is a professor of Business and Human Resources Education at the University of Bamberg, Germany.
Regina Kaplan-Rakowski is an assistant professor in the Department of Learning Technologies at the University of North Texas, USA.
