by Ruth Kerr, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Italy
I was at the European High Level Conference “Education in the Digital Era” in Brussels, 11th December 2014, curious to see what steps Europe was taking and to report back to the EMMA community as we continue with our MOOCs delivery and questioning of technology. Presenters and panellists included key policy makers at National and European level, as well as representatives from academia and industry. Today’s world was described as one where economic, environment and employment patterns have changed completely.
Lord David Puttnam, Chair of Atticus Education, felt that education should respond by changing tactic and creating “young people with talent and imagination, commitment and belief, and resilience” to thrive in this environment. He sees digital media as a way of achieving this. Other speakers suggested that current use of technology is often limited to overlaying traditional classroom practices with some digital tools, and called for a redesign of policy frameworks to take the hierarchy and routinisation out of schools and their curricula, leaving teachers free to co-construct knowledge with their classes in a digitally rich world. However, Gregor Mohorcic, Director general of the Slovenian Pre-School Directorate, questioned whether society and its teachers are ready for such a big shift. Geopardisation is still an issue in Europe: in many regions, classrooms still need wifi connections and students need mobile devices before a digital agenda can be taken further. And unequal costs for broadband access across the globe need to be addressed.
The centrality of the teacher’s role was a recurring theme throughout the conference, and in the online discussions that preceded and accompanied the event. We often think of today’s students as digitally competent but Stefania Giannini, the Italian Minister for Education, referred to a recent survey that reveals that today’s digital natives are not always able to use new technologies in a critical, creative and informative way. They need teachers to help them develop digital literacy skills. Pasi Sahlberg, visiting Professor of Practice at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, said that “teaching is not rocket science; it is harder than that” but pointed out that we are currently witnessing a decline in the status of teachers, with a recent survey showing that only 19% of European teachers feel valued. He stressed the importance of offering adequate training and support to teachers if they are to act as changemakers, and called for a reprofessionalisation of teachers at European level.
Numerous examples of excellence and innovation can be seen in European classrooms across the education spectrum but individual effort often goes unrecognised. Roberto Violo, European Commission Deputy Director for Communications Networks, Content and Technology, also suggested careful analysis of the metrics used to measure the quality of teaching or a teacher, as HE institutions often give more currency to numbers of publications than to success in the classroom. OER and MOOCs were also discussed. The panellists all championed increased use of OER as a means of widening access to education whereas reaction to MOOCs varied, with some speakers highlighting their value for branding and for blended courses, but questioning their current reach and high dropout rates. Carolina Jeux, CEO of Telefonica Learning Services, however, illustrated the success of their partnership with academia in the form of the Spanish MOOC platform MiriadaX, which is attracting large numbers of users in Latin America.
The closing session was perhaps intended for Ministers to pull together the different strands and define a common way forward for education in Europe in the next decade. The reality was somewhat different, providing food for thought but multiple, divergent scenarios. I will finish with Minister Giannini’s vision, which strikes a chord for the EMMA community: a cross-cultural European campus with multilingual teachers and students from different countries forming study groups and research teams, with their work validated by a kind of extension of the Bologna process.
Video recordings and materials from Education in the Digital Era conference are now online.