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Transforming education with digital learning
Harnessing the power of Digital Learning and Transformation
In the lead up to the Transforming Education Summit (TES) in September 2022, were identified to rethink and reimagine the purpose, content and delivery of education, and to transform education for peace, inclusion and sustainability. These Action Tracks serve as key levers to transform education systems 鈥 one of these is Digital Learning and Transformation (Action Track 4).
Within this thematic track falls the to ensure and improve quality public digital learning for all, and to ensure that digital platforms empower teachers, learners, and families, support accessibility and sharing of content, and meet the diverse needs of users including learners with disabilities, girls and women, and people on the move. In this call, three keys were identified to unlock the power of digital teaching and learning 鈥 content, capacity, and connectivity 鈥 making digital teaching and learning more universally accessible and a more reliable pillar of holistic educational experiences.
Gateways to Public Digital Learning is a global initiative that focuses on the often-overlooked key of digital learning content. It ensures that every learner, teacher, and family can easily access, find, and use high-quality and curriculum-aligned digital education content to advance their learning. One of the key moments of this year鈥檚 Digital Learning Week was UNESCO鈥檚 update on the strides made in implementing the鈥疓ateways to Public Digital Learning Initiative鈥one year after its launch at the TES.
Country commitments to Digital Learning and Transformation
From UNESCO鈥檚 Dashboard of Country Commitments and Actions to Transform Education, it can be seen that Action Track 4 remains as an integral approach for countries to introduce innovation and transformation in their education systems. Out of 143 countries who expressed their national statements of commitment to transform their education systems as a pivotal outcome of the TES, 119 countries 鈥 accounting for 83.22 % 鈥斺痟ave committed against the theme 鈥渄igital transformation and learning.鈥
In particular, countries tackled on their statements of commitments subthemes that fall within Action Track 4:
digital learning (110 countries)
connectivity (78 countries)
digital regulations (14 countries)
In the second phase of the TES follow-up, a survey was shared with countries so that they can track and monitor their actions against these commitments. Country actions will also be added to the Dashboard in due time.
Highlights of UNESCO Digital Learning Week 2023
Ensuring that Action Track 4 remains on top of its focus areas, UNESCO held its annual flagship event on Digital Learning and Transformation, the Digital Learning Week, in September 2023, one year after the TES. The Digital Learning Week is a reboot of the Mobile Learning Week, which ran for a decade.
In its inaugural edition and under the banner of 鈥淪teering technology for education,鈥 the Digital Learning Week focused on public digital learning platforms and generative AI (GenAI), examining how both can be steered to reinforce and enrich humanistic education.
Several countries shared their vision and experiences in advancing Digital Learning and Transformation.
This initiative will help us to have a shared, collaborative solution to the challenges we have been facing.
We hope to gain opportunities to work closely with other countries that have similar interests; We hope to facilitate some of these conversations about a shared standard that will allow for the resources that are developed to be cross-operable across different platforms.
We really feel the responsibility to join this effort because we鈥檝e been working on trying to address this issue for a long period of time and we needed a lot of partners to actually deal with it; The challenges ahead are huge, never-ending, so what we are trying to get from this coalition is a different peer group for our students and our teachers, a different conversation in which we can understand better what it looks like to work towards digital sovereignty in education.
Keynote address by Stefania Giannini, UNESCO Assistant Director-General for Education
Lecture on Generative AI
Panel attended by Daniel Andler, Mathematician and Philosopher, Member of the Acad茅mie des sciences morales et politiques and Professor Emeritus, Sorbonne Universit茅, France, and Stuart Russell, Professor of Computer Science, University of California, Berkeley
See more UNESCO Digital Learning Week 2023 resources here
First edition of UNESCO鈥檚 Digital Learning Week explores frontier technologies for education
- Digital Learning Week 2023 wrap-up article
(NEW PUBLICATION)
- Publication warning against the overuse of technology. It shares experiences with educational technologies during the COVID-19 pandemic and the implications for the future of learning.
(NEW PUBLICATION)
- UNESCO鈥檚 first-ever global guidance on generative AI in education, which calls on countries to regulate its use.
