The future learning contexts - formal, non-formal, and informal - can only be faced by considering the so-called infosphere in which we are immersed, both in the dimensions of public and private life (Florida, 2017). According to this disruptive scenario, digital transformation in Higher Education (HE) is a major priority for the European Union (EU). By adopting the Digital Education Action Plan (2021-2027), the EU targets a high-quality, accessible and inclusive digital education supporting the Member States' entry into a digital era. Implementing learning and training have been considered key factors to allow modern societies and economies to face the challenges of globalization and technological progress. By 2030, university students worldwide should reach 414 million, and to meet their needs, the current rigidity of education and training systems will have to be overcome. Developing digital skills has become essential in this framework to foster lifelong learning and reduce inequalities. However, how can digital technology guarantee inclusion, equality, and opportunities for all? How does this promise materialize in the real contexts of our universities? These changes require that Educational Institutions review teaching paradigms, organization, management, evaluation processes, relations systems and competencies framework for teaching-learning processes (Johnson et al., 2016; EE.UU., 2013).

In this challenging scenario, our work describes the main research results of the Erasmus+ project ECOLHE - Empower Competencies for OnLife Learning in Higher Education. The work is inspired by the principle of "circularity" between theory and empirical research (Lewin, 1946; Merton, 1967; Merton, 2000; Ardigò, 1988) and adopted a mixed method to realize an exploratory and comparative analysis based on a collection of six transnational case studies (Yin, 2003; Zack, 2006), aimed at understanding the similarities and differences between the cases and exploring the object of the study with a replication strategy.

The main research goal was to observe how the shift towards digital processes and the adaptation of supranational indications took place, to capture differences and similarities in addition to the development and risk trajectories matured within this complex process of building a common space for Higher Education in Europe and its growing emphasis on digital resources as a key to innovation and competitive development. The research contributed to examining national public policies for e-learning in Higher Education, aimed at understanding the transformation of critical concepts to understand the translation process (Callon, 1986; Latour, 1987) into practice from the supranational level to the national level.

The six transnational case studies have been analyzed, exploring the opaque organizational processes and actual outcomes produced by the Bologna Process, focusing on the dominant rhetoric, orientations, legacies, obligations, risks and opportunities, expectations and educational paradigms concerning the digital transformation in action.

«Our kids have no goals because they understand the world they are living in and you can’t have goals in an electronic total-field world. You cannot have fixed objectives. What do you put in their place? Roles! Involvement – participation in depth – in processes. Our youngsters […] understand that the new kind of world in which they live demands absolute participation in processes. […] Under electronic conditions everything becomes a service industry, including education. Education is the biggest service industry in the world and it is only beginning».

So said Marshall McLuhan in 1967 at a conference with Ontario secondary school teachers organized by the Provincial Committee on Aims and Objectives of Education about national education. In those years, the Canadian scholar was very popular: his opinion on pedagogical issues is so crucial that he can range, in his own way, from one discipline to another, from nascent mediology to the history of education, literature, and even the sciences. A close final discussion ensues with the teachers present, who pose questions and seek clarification directly from McLuhan. In his talk, the thinker and author of "Understanding media" touches on several crucial and topical issues, such as what we would call digital identity today, but above all he seems to prophesy the advent of the Internet as an "extension of our nervous system," a sort of collective consciousness: «In our kind of electric world you can’t have that sort of organization of human energies any more. […] In our time there has been this tremendous hassle about identity. “Who am I?” Remember that the adult sense of alienation in our world is another form of drop-out on a much bigger scale than anything that has happened so far in the schools».

The transcript of the talk is published, with postscript and final debate, in the review "Interchange" in 1970, within a dossier entitled The Best of Times, the Worst of Times, now translated into Italian for the Ets publisher. The paper is of great relevance because it surfaces pedagogical and educational issues that are still alive for a world that has become, with the advent of the media, a great "global village" and a huge service industry, now challenged by artificial intelligences. The final discussion with teachers deserves particular attention in this context since it allows us to reason about the new role they assume in the age of complexity, reasoning about key concepts such as that of involvement in the educational process.

The conceptualization of body has evolved significantly over time, transitioning from Descartes’ mind-body dualism to a more nuanced understanding. While Descartes’ dualism relegated the body to a secondary role, subordinated to the primacy of mind, the embodiment theory has emphasized the active and meaningful role of corporeity. According to this perspective, widely discussed in both Foucault and Merleau-Ponty’s philosophies, body becomes the conduit through which individuals can experience the world, exerting influence and being influenced in a continuous loop. The recognition of body’s integral role has profound implications for educational practices, particularly in disciplines like physical education (PE) where body plays a central role. Therefore, this review aims to investigate the intricate relationship between embodiment and education, examining how the embodiment theory has shaped educational approaches and its potential to enhance embodied learning.

Utilizing three prominent databases—PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus—a comprehensive search strategy was devised employing the terms "embodiment" OR "embodied" AND "physical education" AND "school". Following rigorous screening processes, aligned with predetermined inclusion and exclusion criteria, a total of 27 studies were identified for inclusion in the review. Thematic analysis of the selected studies revealed three overarching topics: "embodied identity," "physical literacy," and "embodied multidisciplinarity".

The section on Embodied Identity delves into methodologies that probe the multifaceted nature of the body, encompassing entrenched perceptions such as body image and body ideals, alongside critical facets such as emotional literacy, self-awareness, and gender dynamics.

Regarding Physical Literacy, it addresses a nuanced construct whose definition resists simplistic interpretation. It is acknowledged as a pivotal factor in fostering individuals' adoption of active lifestyles, enriched by bodily experiences. This section encapsulates methodologies focusing on motivation, confidence, physical competence, knowledge, and comprehension to instil a sense of value and responsibility for sustained engagement in physical activities throughout life.

Lastly, "Embodied Multidisciplinarity" centres on methodologies that intertwine PE knowledge and embodied experiences with other academic disciplines. This integration aims to tackle intricate issues and challenges, thereby facilitating the process of embodied learning.

Although only few works in scientific literature delve into the practical application of the relationship between embodiment and educational methodologies, this review has offered multiple perspectives on the embodiment construct. It has provided intriguing insights into the development of novel methodologies to facilitate embodied learning and foster meaningful experiences within the domain of physical education. Future research endeavours should delve into a more detailed examination of the implementation of technologies such as artificial intelligence and immersive virtual reality, which hold promise as effective tools for enhancing the learning experience.

Starting from the testimonies of a group of volunteers of a social promotion association in the Florentine context, this contribution analyses the experience of a multicultural after-school service realised in online mode during the pandemia and its onlife transformation in the post-pandemic phase.

As emerged from the literature (Nuzzaci et al. 2020; Lucisano et al. 2020; Ghighi and Piras 2021), the emergency period highlighted the problems and fractures related to the school sector, as well as amplifying them, starting from the general unpreparedness of schools on the use of integrated digital education (DDI). Students (and families) with migrant backgrounds and in conditions of socioeconomic vulnerability experienced digital schooling more critically due to the lack of skills, cultural resources, and technological tools (Save the Children 2020). A significant aspect has concerned and still concerns the centrality played by the educating community in its entirety in the scholastic and formative success of the student (Ranieri 2020), starting from the role of the Third Sector or 'social private sector' (Donati 2004), which sees the possibility of integrating with the actors of informal education an educational experimentation (Colombo, Rinaldi, Poliandri 2020) and a greater involvement of families. During the pandemia, the Third Sector addressed new projects and intervention actions with respect to the countless forms of "new poverty of isolation and marginality" experienced by every student subjected to emergency education (Ghigi and Piras 2021). The Third Sector seems to have been a promoter in terms of action and support, above all in the support of basic needs, in the structuring of activities aimed at socio-psychological and educational assistance.

These reflections are based on exploratory research conducted within a Florentine social promotion association that designed and organised an entirely online after-school service during the pandemic (2020-2021). Already active since 2018, this service involved a total of 45 subjects between the ages of 8 and 13, almost all with a migrant background and from conditions of socioeconomic fragility, and 35 volunteers from the association of different origins (including cultural mediators). The research involved two time phases: the first concerned observation and data collection through a questionnaire (2020-2021) in order to analyse the perspectives of the volunteers involved on the potentialities and criticalities of the after-school programme; the second phase, based on the analysis of semi-structured interviews (with the support of NVivo software) with the main volunteers involved in the first research phase (2024), investigated the after-school programme's reworking and transformation in the post-pandemic period (Floridi 2014). The research results show the potential of the Third Sector in the construction of good educational practices, despite the limited resources it often has at its disposal, characterised by informality, immediacy, and bureaucratic simplification in its relationship with families and schools. The case study presented, moreover, shows a certain awareness matured on the onlife condition of young students' daily life, hence of school and extracurricular interactions, which must be taken into consideration to develop effective educational strategies in synergy with the educating community in its socio-cultural complexity.

Introduction:

Digital tools are an integral part of the daily lives of teenagers immersed in online environments for a consistent number of hours per day (Rossi et al., 2023; Common Sense, 2022). According to the DigComp 2.2 and DigCompEdu frameworks, there is a growing need to integrate digital skills in educational settings, especially for the ability to navigate and find information online that is verified and reliable (European Commission, 2022).
Yet, a significant gap exists in media/data literacy competencies among students (Breakstone et al, 2021) and teachers (Erdem et al, 2018).
Some studies (McNelly, 2021) suggest that secondary school teachers possess skills in integrating digital technologies in the classroom, while other studies indicate that they have a low level of information literacy (Erdem et al, 2018) and it is important to improve current teacher education (Ranieri et al, 2018).

Objectives:

Our study aims to evaluate the current state of media and data literacy skills among a group of Italian secondary school teachers attending a training course aimed to enhance their skills in evaluating the reliability of digital sources. By focusing on the ability to critically assess websites, social media accounts, images and data visualizations, we seek to foster a more informed and discerning approach to digital information among educators (Jones & Shao, 2011).

Methodology:

The research is performed using a one-group pretest-posttest design (Air et al., 2010). We administered a pre- and post-test to secondary school teachers participating in a 40-hour online training course titled "Alla prova dei fatti" organized in the project “Digital Active Schools”, promoted in the framework of Scuola Futura teachers’ training offer. The course content covered the changing landscape of digital information, methods for verifying websites, techniques for identifying manipulated images, and strategies for assessing data sources and visualizations.

In the study presented here, we analysed the results of the pretest administered to 78 teachers to provide a depiction of their entrance levels of media and data literacy.

The questionnaire, inspired by similar instruments by Stanford University (Breakstone et al, 2021), (Breakstone et al., 2022), collected data in four areas: general information, media habits, knowledge on course-specific topics, and the ability to evaluate the reliability of textual/visual sources and data.

Our sample's responses were then compared with findings from other studies to provide a broader context (Smith & Duggan, 2016; Dupont, 2019).

Conclusions:

Preliminary analysis of the questionnaire results reveals a pressing need for enhanced media and data literacy among secondary school teachers.

Our study highlights the effectiveness of targeted training in bridging this gap, underscoring the importance of continuous professional development in the digital age (Livingstone, 2012; Greenhow & Lewin, 2016; Ranieri et al, 2021). By equipping teachers with the tools and knowledge to discern and evaluate digital sources, we can foster a more critical and informed approach to digital consumption, thereby contributing to the broader goal of creating a more adaptive and forward-thinking educational system.

Future analysis will regard the comparison between pre- and post-tests to evaluate the variations in teachers’ literacies after the training.

In the post-digital global society, the digital realm is seamlessly intertwined with our analogue lives, becoming an integral extension of our lifeworld. Negroponte's vision that "like air and drinking water, the digital will be noticed only by its absence, not by its presence" (Negroponte 1998) has come true. This hyper-digitalisation of our lifeworld has had a significant impact on the way we perceive and engage with learning, even though educational institutions do not appear to be changing.
In this paper we will focus on the strategic use of digitalisation to 1) transform education by stimulating a change in the role of the teacher; 2) increase motivation to learn by making learning more engaging and participatory; 3) foster key competences to contribute to a sustainable transformation of society in the onlife era.
To this end, we will link the theoretical framework embedded in the Onlife paradigm with concrete examples of funded concepts for innovative educational practices in schools and higher education.