Virtual geology special issue: developing training, teaching and research skillsets for geoscientists

Current physical science students and researchers are becoming ever more diverse in their learning needs and styles, in their ways of learning and indeed their scientific backgrounds in the subjects that they study. Current schools, colleges and Higher Education students are increasingly ‘digital natives’, connected 24/7 through mobile devices, generally goal-orientated and responding well to digitally-based activities and tasks. Whilst the structured nature of classrooms, traditional lectures and laboratory practicals obviously still dominate geoscience teaching, and core outdoor field trips and independent mapping/research are of paramount importance, more innovative complementary learning, teaching and research technologies are being developed by a wide variety of computer software developers, practitioners and educationalists