E-Learning, Sport and Sustainable Development: Mapping the Field

Abstract

The sport for development (SFD) field has grown significantly over the last two decades, and the sector today engages development agencies, policymakers, practitioners and researchers from around the world. In parallel, there has been a significant professionalisation of the field, with numerous institutions offering training on themes and topics of relevance to the field. E-learning tools, in particular, have increasingly been developed to provide education, training, and capacity-building opportunities around sport and sustainable development. Despite this growth, e-learning in sport and sustainable development has only been partially explored. Little is known about the topics, technology and pedagogical approaches used by these courses, nor what that means for how knowledge is transferred to the field. Against this backdrop, the following paper maps out existing online courses that connect sport and sustainable development goals (SDGs), and mainly focuses on the topics and pedagogical approaches embedded in these courses. To facilitate this mapping, a structured online search and analysis of two practitioner-oriented databases was conducted. In the end, our results show that the courses engage with many of the SDGs already common in SFD and that course design is dominated by fully online self-paced courses that use written, visual, and interactive content and evaluations. To conclude, we propose ways for these tools to provide more engaging and inclusive e-learning experiences.

Implication of E-learning and AI Individualized Pedagogical Perspectives

“…In the context of online education, AI has a big potential to improve pedagogical concepts, offer individualized learning adventures, and support better learning results. The goal of e-learning is to customize educational opportunities to each learner's requirements, interests, and skill level [40]. AI systems can continually change the content, tempo, and degree of complexity of learning exercises by analyzing the performances, preferences, and instructional styles of students.…”