Digital Skills, Transmedia, and Artificial Intelligence

Communication has been the basis for “key competencies” in every period of history. In the digital age, these competencies cross over lines of disciplines, modalities, approaches, media, and platforms. This paper shows the evolution of communicative competences, and explores the ramifications of the fourth industrial revolution, also known as Industry 4.0, for teaching and learning. In this revolutionary era, transmedia connects directly with changing educational needs, not only to help students learn to use tools driven by artificial intelligence, but to live in a world where we will be communicating with these agents in hybrid communities that include human and digital agents alike. The author approaches the role of the teacher in guiding students through this complex learning space, where plurilingualism and interculturality are prerequisites for success, and offers two simple activities that are easy to reproduce in the classroom that call upon emerging technologies. The activities present different learning situations that integrate reflection about technology and society while building language competencies. The paper also looks at content, its delivery, data and metadata, and the implications for a better world built on the principles of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) for 2030 enacted in 2015 by the United Nations (UN).