What impact the corona pandemic is having on digital education and what conclusions science and politics can draw from this for the education system of the future: This was one of the topics at the three-day “Digital State” congress, which ended on Wednesday.
What will the school of the future look like? In principle, the question can be answered very briefly: digitally. However, this answer does not do justice to the scale of the challenge. One thing is clear: digitalisation is the prerequisite for a successful education sector – today and tomorrow anyway. The basis for digitally supported teaching at schools, universities and all other educational institutions must therefore be a functioning and future-oriented technical infrastructure.
Widar Wendt, Head of Education Management at the aconium Academy, was one of the experts on the panel at the “Digital State” congress who spoke in favor of learning from current experiences. “We should use the digitalisation push triggered by the coronavirus pandemic as an opportunity,” he said on Wednesday as part of the high-profile panel entitled “From the exceptional situation to the status quo in digital education”. The task now is to develop best practices for digital education and to continue to drive forward the overarching transfer of knowledge.
Dr. Sarah Henkelmann, spokesperson for the Digital Education Network (moderator), Andreas Schleicher, Director of the Directorate for Education at the OECD, Jens Klessmann, Head of Digital Public Service at Fraunhofer FOKUS, Axel Simon, Chief Technologist Networking at HPE Aruba and Mick Zander, Manager Communication at Increase Your Skills discussed the future of education with Wendt. “We must now set uniform quality standards for digital education,” demanded Wendt. However, he believes that mandatory training courses, as already exist in Austria, are the wrong approach. “It’s more about developing courses that inspire teachers and that they enjoy attending.” In addition, media-related content should be integrated more strongly into the training and further education of teachers.
Two-thirds majority in favor of more digital media in the classroom
However, it is not just in terms of content that the state and educational institutions can benefit from the digitalisation boost provided by the coronavirus pandemic. “In order to be able to provide digitally supported lessons, schools need a very good broadband connection – preferably fibre optics to the school building,” emphasised Wendt. In addition, a good internal school infrastructure with its own data network and the structural prerequisites to be able to use future innovations without complications.
Wendt emphasised that there is already great agreement between parents, pupils and teachers about expanding digital learning opportunities and new forms of learning. In this context, he referred to a special evaluation of the D21 Digital Index published in January. According to this, more than two thirds of respondents believe that digital media and materials should be used more in lessons in future (72%) and that schools should be better equipped with digital infrastructure (70%).
aconium Academy represented with a virtual stand
With “Digitaler Staat”, the “Behörden Spiegel” organises one of the central events for the modernisation of the administration. This year, the congress was held completely digitally due to coronavirus. “We are very pleased that we were able to welcome so many people to our virtual congress stand, especially under these special conditions,” summarised Widar Wendt. “We hope we were able to interest and inspire them with our range of topics, from the Digital Pact for Schools to the Competence Center for Digital Education.”