Project and Design Literacy as Cornerstones of Smart Education. Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Smart Learning Ecosystems and Regional Development

We are proud to present the proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Smart Learning Ecosystems and Regional Developments (SLERD 2019). Following a successful first edition in the East of Europe--Timisoara, Romania (2016)--a second edition in the West--Aveiro, Portugal (2017)--and a third edition in the North--Aalborg, Denmark (2018)--the fourth edition was in the South --Rome, Italy (2019)--covering all four cardinal points of the old continent. This fourth edition was co-organized by ASLERD, in collaboration with the Institute of Educational Technology of the National Research Council of Italy, Quasar Design University, ISIA Rome, and the University of Rome Tor Vergata's SPFS Department with the endorsement of the Ph.D. program in cultural heritage, learning and territory, in May 22-24, 2019.The conference welcomed researchers and practitioners from all over the world involved in the development of smart learning ecosystems, as engines of social innovation and territorial development. At the core, the adjective smart comprises terms like intelligent, purpose oriented, supportive, artful, clever and the like. Thus, smart does not necessarily include the usage of technology (neither does it exclude technology!). Smart is referred to learning ecosystems in ASLERD and SLERD contexts and, thus, does not simply mean "technology enhanced" (to include expert systems or AI). The smartness is a more complex multilayered construct related to the well-being of the players operating in the ecosystems that hopefully are also in relation to the territory (see Declaration of Timisoara, the Wikipedia page ofASLERD1, the proceedings of the previous SLERD conferences published by Springer and the special issues (N.16, N.17, N.20, N.27, N.31, N.35 and N.39 in preparation) devoted to SLERD by IxD&A Journal). Smartness is affected by the improvement of any relevant aspects of the learning processes and ecosystem functioning, especially if connected with territorial development and social innovation. Technologies are in this sense mediators. Hopefully, they should be included but they are not a "sine qua non". The achievement of the learning ecosystems' smartness is a process that needs a long-term vision, multidisciplinary competences, an attitude to understand people and contexts and to mediate point of views and a dynamic resilience to keep on track to achieve, step by step, the foreseen goals: in short, a design literacy from which emerge projects and processes capable to reify them, all aimed at achieving a people-centered smart education, social innovation and territorial development. Overall, we received 31 unique submissions from 18 countries, demonstrating the global interest for this research area and for the SLERD 2019 conference. Out of the total submissions, after a rigorous double-blind peer review and meta-review process, we accepted 12 full papers and 7 short papers. Additionally, we included five extended abstracts to show the breadth of the work in this research community. To complement the oral presentations of the papers, the SLERD 2019 program also included presentations of the best ideas from the 2019 international and local student contests (not included in these proceedings). These competitions challenged local and international students to propose ideas and proofs of concept/prototypes to make learning ecosystems smarter. The selected scientific papers aim to understand, conceive and promote innovative human-centric design and development methods, education/training practices, informal social learning and citizen-driven policies. The papers are organized mirroring the main conference sessions in six themes, namely (1) the virtue of design and that of technological environments; (2) schools: evaluation and design; (3) toward future technological tools and environments;(4) learning ecosystems and regional development; (5) schools: technologies and contexts; and (6) disabilities and interaction. SLERD 2019 contributes to foster the social innovation sectors, identifying and discussing ICT and economic development and deployment strategies alongside new policies for smarter proactive citizens. The proceedings are relevant to both researchers and policy makers. In summary, SLERD 2019 offered an exciting program that provided an excellent overview of the state of the art in smart learning ecosystems and was an occasion for bringing research forward and creating new networks. We are very proud of the final selection of papers, which would not have been possible without the effort and support of our excellent Conference and Program Committees, including more than50 international researchers. We would like to thank all the ones who, in different roles, have contributed their time to organize the event with enthusiasm and commitment.