Episode 7: Digitization Disaster at School and the Future of Education
Show transcript
00:00:00: [Music]
00:00:13: Welcome to From Campus to Cyber, the official podcast of the German University of Digital Science,
00:00:19: hosted by Professor Dr. Michael Kretresen, co-founder of the German UDS.
00:00:24: This is your digital gateway to the future of education.
00:00:29: In a world where education and technology are merging,
00:00:32: From Campus to Cyber sheds light on the dynamic field of digital science,
00:00:37: opening the doors to a campus without boundaries.
00:00:41: With every episode, we bring you to the latest developments, debates and discoveries
00:00:46: at the heart of digital transformation.
00:00:49: Why From Campus to Cyber?
00:00:51: Because the future of education is digital.
00:00:54: Join Professor Dr. Michael Kretresen as he guides you through in-depth conversations
00:00:59: that satisfy your curiosity and spark your engagement in the digital discourse.
00:01:04: Whether you are a student, academic, expert or a digital enthusiast,
00:01:10: this podcast offers something for everyone.
00:01:13: Tune in at regular intervals as we explore the cutting-edge topics that shape our digital world.
00:01:19: From Campus to Cyber is more than just a podcast.
00:01:23: It's your window to a world without borders.
00:01:26: Welcome to the intersection of knowledge, technology and community.
00:01:31: Let's dive in together.
00:01:33: Today we are diving into the topic "Digitalization Disaster at School
00:01:50: and the Future of Education with a very special guest, Andre Daniel.
00:01:55: Hello, Daniel. Andre Daniel.
00:01:57: I think I would take Andre, okay?
00:02:00: Yes, a mistake that many people make.
00:02:03: Yes, it's easy because you can take both.
00:02:06: Daniel and Andre.
00:02:08: So, Andre, welcome.
00:02:10: Andre is a teacher of mathematics, English and digital media education, right?
00:02:14: He also is an extensive experience in school projects and collaborations.
00:02:19: I think this is a topic for today. We will just talk about your projects too.
00:02:23: He's also a special focus on digital media production,
00:02:28: which is very interesting for us as a digital media university.
00:02:32: He has some special competence in artwork and design.
00:02:38: So, welcome, Andre, again.
00:02:40: Before we delve into the topics, give us a brief overview about your professional career and the highlights.
00:02:47: Right. So, first of all, thanks for having me.
00:02:50: It's a pleasure to be here and actually an honor to talk about this topic.
00:02:54: As what I used to be just a regular teacher, I studied mathematics and English at the university to be a teacher, of course, including A-levels.
00:03:04: But on the sidelines, since my own A-levels, I basically was interested in digital media production.
00:03:10: We started with a sci-fi project where we designed a complete spaceship and you could walk through it.
00:03:16: It was all put on a CD to basically look at all the information on my fellow students and teachers as like a memory device.
00:03:24: We burned that on a CD and that was in 2003 when the first fully digitally animated film came into cinemas.
00:03:34: Since then, I've always been engaged in lots of creative projects that had the aim of using all the wide variety of digital media production, film, image, design, concepting.
00:03:45: And also business skills, how can I get money to do what I want to do?
00:03:50: How can I organize a project and enhance my skills through practical experience?
00:03:56: And I've always done that with several schools. Hence, I've got a very colorful collection of schools at which I've worked.
00:04:04: Everything was in there from Montessori to Waldorf to private school to state school of different types.
00:04:10: And every time my focus was to not only get a digital component into English and math, but also to build creative projects.
00:04:19: And the latest one is called School Media Hub.
00:04:22: Sounds interesting, Andrei. Let's talk about the School Media Hub a little bit later.
00:04:30: The first point is I read something about the situation in Denmark during the last weeks and they were just thinking about their role in the digitalization of schools and using tools and using devices.
00:04:48: So can you just describe the current situation regarding the digitalization efforts here in German schools?
00:04:56: The situation is dire, I would say. It's a complete disaster from what I have experienced.
00:05:02: Don't get me wrong, there are lots of individual, very great efforts by individual teachers, but that's such a small percentage that you see that it hardly matters.
00:05:13: I can see no consolidated effort to have a German-wide concept on how to tackle digitalization at schools.
00:05:20: We barely have the technology there. Most of it we have no concept to use.
00:05:26: And there's just a patchwork of small short-term projects that ministries of education do or single schools do without measuring long-term effects, without even having a development length of the project that actually enables it to fully be developed, I would say.
00:05:44: And there's also lots of hesitation. You mentioned Denmark where they are basically pulling back digitalization at schools, same with Sweden, same with Norway, but actually my information is that they started the same way.
00:05:59: They flooded the schools with technology, with hardware, without a concept to properly use it.
00:06:04: And they also did this at a much too early age, neglecting analog or manual skills, which are really important. So it was like done as a fashion project, which often here it is.
00:06:15: And since the pandemic ended, I can see a great movement to actually completely get digitalization out of schools again.
00:06:23: Is it a challenge for the education of teachers, or is it a challenge to bring tools and competences to the students?
00:06:35: Both. The students are very much influenced by their teachers and corporations with external institutions are a rarity still in modern schools.
00:06:45: But if you think about it, how many of us, even at the age of 30, 40, older or a bit younger, actual digital natives can really competently use devices or have grown up used to devices that do most of the work for you,
00:07:00: which just like simply using a smartphone won't make you digitally competent, as we can see with misinformation on the rise on social media.
00:07:07: They know perfectly how to use their devices. And the point there is that many teachers need to be digitally competent just by themselves out of their own interest.
00:07:20: And then they're going to implement these principles. And most studies done on that even say that if you ask those teachers, how are you doing it?
00:07:28: They can't really tell. It's just natural. And so we need to measure this. We need to see how are these few examples doing that.
00:07:36: But we also have to change the situation in teachers' education and bring much more digital competence like digital media production, digital media analysis, or research skills into the university education.
00:07:48: And I've finished in 2013. I've got fellow colleagues who just finished university and they say it's not a part of that, not at all.
00:07:58: Or like maybe as a choice module somewhere in there, although it plays such a central role in life. So it's not in the education of teachers.
00:08:07: It's not widely present amongst teachers as not widely present in society. And that's a problem for students as well.
00:08:14: That are some reasons for the disaster, I think.
00:08:17: So what is the next step, Andre? Do we need infrastructure? Do we need educational systems? What do we need to get steps out of this disaster?
00:08:29: We need hardware. What's been done is by far not enough. And I've basically written the concepts for two different schools in the media development plan.
00:08:39: That's what it's called if you apply for the digital packed money here in Germany.
00:08:44: And most of them wear bare bones and not future proof. So hardware is still an issue.
00:08:52: But we also need to change our approach on how do we try to change the project.
00:08:57: We must do away with local solutions where party X or Y out of some ambition to win some voters in the next election will fix a short term solution.
00:09:06: We've seen that with covert look at school cloud. What we had there was a roll out of an application that was still in development, which was suited for some few 10 K people and was then used by about 180,000 people all of a sudden.
00:09:22: Of course, it couldn't bear the load when it was mostly needed. It was underdeveloped. The entire project, in my opinion, was done in a much too short term basis.
00:09:32: And now there's a big backlog of things they need to do. But no one really cares anymore. That's basically dead in the tracks.
00:09:39: There's hardly any development anymore. And it was like for two years during covert when the topic was hot and then done away.
00:09:46: That's a huge waste of resources because lots of money went into that. It's a huge, huge waste of potential because people don't want to use it.
00:09:54: It's to stiff, it's underdeveloped, it's unintuitive, it's unresponsive, it's slow. It's not the fault of the developers. That's not what I'm saying.
00:10:02: It's a complicated situation, which brings us to the next point. We have to do away with ministerial bureaucracy. We have to move fast.
00:10:10: We have to basically more move like a business mind to achieve a change, but only in a German wide collaborative effort with an aim to answer the question,
00:10:21: what is good digitalization at schools together with lots of great ideas participating and openly communicating and not competing with each other?
00:10:31: And that for some 10 or 20 years and then we can see what's been our progress.
00:10:36: So one point which is mentioned very often is the discussion is government and what are the rules behind. The federalism in Germany because digitalization has no borders.
00:10:51: Do you think we have to change our minds and thinking about this federalism in the educational system?
00:10:58: Absolutely, absolutely. Only through an open source and community of practice approach, as wide as you can make it, would you find the best solution?
00:11:08: That's I think just a fact of science and of working together. And the argument I always see, which is an absolutely silly argument, is that if we do away with federalism, we're back in Nazi Germany.
00:11:19: Because it's been implemented because of that reason to get rid of the danger of a community movement like that.
00:11:27: But I'm always liberal when it comes to that and say, yeah, I think we can still change the solution that comes out of that process if we do it on a bigger scale.
00:11:37: But yeah, absolutely, I'm an absolute enemy of the federal education system. It's bad for students, it's bad for projects, it's bad for development of ideas.
00:11:46: And it's a compartmentalization that we don't need.
00:11:50: So it's interesting, and we just talked about solutions. So the APHR just published a study about the idea that we should have digital schools like music schools and others.
00:12:04: Because to define what are the digital skills also for the relevance for the later working positions of students. So what do you think about this idea?
00:12:18: I think the digital can be a component, but must not exclusively be it.
00:12:25: I mean, we have lots of great examples on social media, like for example, Drumeo, which is a big channel promoting young drummers, where they basically can buy courses from professionals, interact with them, have a really good interaction.
00:12:38: But they also do live events, of course, where people can meet and collaborate.
00:12:43: But I think if you have a digital approach to teaching as a form of school or maybe even specialized institution for music, for film, for whatever interest you have,
00:12:53: you then could also have a small space where you can meet regularly and do real life collaboration.
00:13:00: And also especially with music, you need some practical guidance, of course, too. And you can combine the best of both worlds.
00:13:08: I'm all not for substituting what we can do great in an analog way with digital stuff.
00:13:15: But I'm all for using the digital, where the analog has its limits. Think about people, kids living in places where there's no access to a music school, where there's no access to a film school,
00:13:26: who could get access to that through an online version and maybe even go there on a paid basis because there are school programs for such regions.
00:13:35: There is lots of potential in that. But you have to do it the right way.
00:13:39: And you really have to see it as any educational project as a process where you have to do lots of research and development in schools with users to see what are the hiccups and actually mind the feedback that the community of teachers and students constantly tries to give and is mostly ignored.
00:13:58: But if I just have a look to the school these days, how can we just integrate digital competences or digital skills in the curriculum?
00:14:07: Well, the curriculum is rather free and liberal in that sense in that we define most subjects by competent standards and not by a curriculum of content.
00:14:17: Like, apart from some main topics, there's no detailed list in history, for example, of which facts to learn, of course. Same for languages.
00:14:26: So it already on a European level is ready for more open teaching.
00:14:31: We have lots of course to establish a separate subject that combines information technology and media competence, which I think is a great idea if done right.
00:14:40: We have the option to do a seminar course here in Brandenburg in Berlin where teachers can apply for a topic for their course to work two years with students and also have this in their final grading
00:14:53: that they can apply for which can either be academic or basically job preparation. These two things are possible.
00:15:01: And my own project started as a course like that. You also have the option to apply for something like a seminar paper that you do on a practical project during your A-levels that can also be graded.
00:15:13: So there are many, many points where you can integrate it and it's also called for because several formats of media production like podcasting or shooting a small film or doing a digital poster at digital presentation is a part of every subject you have out there.
00:15:31: And the sad thing is that most teachers only marginally use that potential and just do a PowerPoint or a PDF. But there's so much more that you could do in addition to what you can also do on paper.
00:15:47: And so I don't see a problem with implementing it there because we have the freedom. We just have to start doing it.
00:15:53: Before we talk about the university, very often I've heard the idea that the schools should collaborate with companies because if you just talk to teachers and others, now we don't want to work with professionals in this way.
00:16:07: Do you think it's an option talking about this collaboration?
00:16:12: Absolutely. Because I never understood the argument why a school as a state institution should not collaborate with an economic market.
00:16:22: I mean, if we're honest, it's already happening. All the big publishers are milking schools for money literally and they have their foot in the door to use that money for their exclusive development, which in most cases can't even be proven to be done right on a scientific level.
00:16:37: I've done something like an analysis on that in my master paper, so I think I've gotten some insight into that at least.
00:16:45: But otherwise they're always saying, and we've spoken to lots of officials with my own project, the moment we mentioned that we are going to be a commercial enterprise first and foremost, they completely shut us out.
00:16:58: They say, "No, we can't do that. It's not compatible with the law or something like that."
00:17:02: And right now we have a big program, it's called Start Chance and Program, where schools can actually do that and have money at their disposal to cooperate with businesses or with other institutions.
00:17:15: If done right, there is an ethical form of capitalism.
00:17:20: Of course, there are several great companies in Berlin who work as a commercial enterprise but have ethical guidelines.
00:17:28: And I think that would be a perfect model for companies cooperating with schools where you can move faster, have more open development, have less restrictions, can bring people together, can more easily acquire financial means and actually pay people for what they're doing,
00:17:45: because, honestly speaking, most teachers do digitalization at great projects, unpaid, outside of their regular work at school.
00:17:52: And that has to stop. Same with lots of students doing great work for schools, unpaid.
00:17:58: Even I've got cases where schools did the administration of all the digital infrastructure, which is actually illegal, so I won't mention where that happened.
00:18:08: But yes, there's lots going wrong, which could be fixed in an ethical cooperation between businesses and the educational sector of state schools.
00:18:17: at least it depends if our schools are able and willingness to do that.
00:18:23: It's necessary, like you just described.
00:18:29: And as we just came together the first time, André,
00:18:35: you just give me a short overview about your project, Media Hub School.
00:18:40: Is it right? School Media Hub.
00:18:42: School Media Hub, the other way.
00:18:44: Can you just describe a little bit and give us a short input about this project?
00:18:49: Yeah, we have been working for some three years now to get that in a short sentence.
00:18:55: So what is this School Media Hub?
00:18:57: It's basically two things.
00:18:59: It's a digital platform where we want to present a multimedia library
00:19:04: with which you can interact as a user.
00:19:07: It has a school focus, but it's much more than that.
00:19:10: It's also youth culture.
00:19:11: It's everything that the modern digital world can provide from film to music to art
00:19:18: to anything you can imagine and photography.
00:19:21: It's got some social media functionality because you want a positive community to interact,
00:19:25: but it should also provide you as a student at a school or a teacher at a school
00:19:30: easy access to tools of media production and project collaboration.
00:19:35: We want to bring together a community of practice.
00:19:37: And that's the second part that learns digital skills through digital media production
00:19:43: and project work.
00:19:45: That's, I think, a great approach.
00:19:46: And it's an open approach because we don't say your project has to be a podcast.
00:19:51: A project has to be a documentation.
00:19:53: No, we develop the idea with the schools individually to get the best out of both worlds.
00:20:00: What they bring creatively, what digitalization can bring creatively.
00:20:04: Yeah.
00:20:05: And the idea brings us together because we are thought about the collaboration between
00:20:10: university and school.
00:20:12: This is a topic, I think, for the next few years because digitalization brings some interesting
00:20:19: facts together.
00:20:21: And so what do you think or what would you like to to recommend about this idea that
00:20:29: schools and universities should work together?
00:20:33: First of all, there's lots of content already that happens at universities that is a part
00:20:39: of schools.
00:20:41: We work partially on an academic level starting in class 10, maybe even class nine already
00:20:46: with the so-called "Fahrarbeit" in Germany.
00:20:49: So there's that overlap.
00:20:51: And then if you look at the American sector, for example, where it's absolutely normal that
00:20:55: every big university has got a big YouTube channel where they provide full lectures.
00:21:00: And I've got many kids who watch these lectures and have an astounding knowledge already on
00:21:05: quantum physics or astrophysics that's really bulletproof just because they were interested
00:21:12: in the topic.
00:21:13: And also I think we have to bring these two institutions together to solve another conundrum.
00:21:19: If you think about how is educational development for schools done here in Brandenburg?
00:21:24: It is three institutions.
00:21:25: It's universities.
00:21:27: It's the Institute for Teachers Training and it's the KMK, Kultus Minister Konferenz.
00:21:34: These three don't communicate.
00:21:37: They work independently and still make decisions together for what has been my experience for
00:21:43: the last years.
00:21:45: And it would be an opportunity if a university opens itself up to also providing educational
00:21:52: materials, educational support for certain topics in schools that would open up a money
00:21:57: and a much better future orientation for kids because they can look at the real world.
00:22:01: Why should I give them a handout on what a university is if they can experience it partially
00:22:05: themselves?
00:22:07: But it would also give the academic perspective more of a base educational perspective because
00:22:12: my experience as a student has also very often been that academics are not educators.
00:22:18: You can have a good one.
00:22:19: You can have a bad one.
00:22:21: And it's just now that universities are also starting to see we have to give the educational
00:22:27: part, the didactics and methodology much more focus and there is a chance in that by working
00:22:33: together with schools because then teachers can help with their experience in catering
00:22:39: to a new audience and in communicating material efficiently with various method and not just
00:22:45: as a lecture.
00:22:47: And university academics can bring their knowledge and their expertise and really open it up
00:22:53: to the community.
00:22:55: And we're also seeing that already with science communicators on YouTube like for Gakwaschning
00:23:01: for example or Havard Lesch or MyThink for example.
00:23:06: These are great examples and why not integrate them in schools, integrate them in a media
00:23:10: library like the School Media Hub.
00:23:13: Yeah, I agree.
00:23:16: And the first experience we did with you and the first collaborations were very successful
00:23:20: and I think we just can try to start our first lighthouse here in Brandenburg.
00:23:27: Absolutely.
00:23:28: This collaboration and that makes sense and it's I think important also for the university.
00:23:35: And the next step is talking about what happens around us and the one important point is artificial
00:23:43: intelligence.
00:23:44: All the people are just talking about that.
00:23:47: So what do you think is the impact of AI in the future for the educational system?
00:23:54: I think it's going to bring about the nuclear war that is going to destroy us.
00:23:59: All the machines will survive and we shall all die.
00:24:02: Back my pardon.
00:24:04: But first of all, yes, it is a big change on a scale that we cannot yet understand fully
00:24:11: but I don't think it's the singularity of AI yet.
00:24:14: So it's truly artificial conscience, whatever that is.
00:24:18: But we are seeing the fastest change in how the media world works that we have ever seen
00:24:24: in history.
00:24:25: It's such an exponential process.
00:24:27: If you think about where we've been a year ago with Generative AI and where we are now,
00:24:32: how much better it's gotten, how much social controversy it has caused, how much change
00:24:38: it has caused.
00:24:40: And I see great potential in what AI can do because it enables almost everyone to be an
00:24:47: artist.
00:24:48: It enables almost everyone to express themselves professionally or get any individualized help
00:24:53: that they need.
00:24:54: It brings human-computer interaction on a completely new and unseen level.
00:25:00: As a language teacher, it's been a great tool.
00:25:02: But also, there is always the danger of technology taking away a human level that should remain
00:25:08: human.
00:25:09: We have seen that with the publishing and art industry.
00:25:12: They are savvy for just using AI even in film productions because it's so much more
00:25:17: economical, it's so much more cheaper.
00:25:19: There's a big CO2 footprint, which they completely neglected that equation.
00:25:23: But anyhow, for them, it's the business model of the future.
00:25:27: And the question is if we as a society will still hold on to artistic, quality, journalistic
00:25:34: and ethical standards to fight against that and demand a human level for what we read
00:25:40: in the newspapers or the art we consume or the music we consume.
00:25:44: Or if we let publishers just generalize it and automate it, basically, which I think
00:25:49: would be a bad development that science, I think, agrees with, because we've seen if
00:25:55: you take the human out of the equation and human ingenuity and just train AI with AI
00:26:00: data, it's going crazy.
00:26:03: In just a few sessions, so yeah, who's surprised if we can't say what is true intelligence?
00:26:10: How can we assume that this would do the intelligence part all by itself without the human input?
00:26:16: But André, you know better than me that there are a lot of spheres from parents and teachers.
00:26:23: So what do you think?
00:26:25: How can we just take these challenges in the daily work of a school?
00:26:33: What do you think is the next step here?
00:26:35: I think you can solve that pretty easily because any person who has competence already
00:26:39: in writing, in reading, in knowing a few bits and bobs about life and what you generally
00:26:45: need to know can approach an AI without danger.
00:26:48: To use it responsibly, to help in a much more time efficient way than any other person or
00:26:56: any Googling can do.
00:26:57: Let's give it a simple example.
00:26:58: If as a student I have handwritten a great text in English, which I think is really great
00:27:03: but I want to make it perfect.
00:27:04: I can take a snapshot with that on my phone.
00:27:07: I can automatically generate printed text from that and have an AI like chat GPT comment
00:27:13: on the mistakes, make editor remarks and give me tips on how to improve in the future.
00:27:18: I just have to know the right prompts and teaching correct prompts for such tools is
00:27:22: should be an integral part of every lesson at school where the issue comes up.
00:27:27: And also it's becoming much better in collecting links and organizing information that you
00:27:33: want to research on the internet than Google.
00:27:37: On Google I have to go through the pages myself and pick what's more relevant for me and discard
00:27:44: the rest.
00:27:45: I can do that with AI because it's going to give me a good summary of what's out there.
00:27:49: But again, I have to have my own competence before that.
00:27:53: So it should be at a later stage.
00:27:55: But also it creates a big, big problem for teaching, for testing and I'm really happy
00:28:00: about that because it challenges the status quo.
00:28:03: There's enough science on how problematic grading is and how another approach would
00:28:10: be good.
00:28:11: And also we have to move away from learning facts to learning competence of how to deal
00:28:14: with that ever changing world.
00:28:16: And now is the point where we can't stop it.
00:28:19: AI is here.
00:28:21: It's forcing us to rethink everything because the old way can completely be faked and only
00:28:25: the most competent teachers and probably open AI itself can spot the cheating.
00:28:31: But the problem is we're talking at the beginning with the disaster.
00:28:37: If I just understand you right, the disaster is more and more increasing if we just talk
00:28:43: about AI and all the other new technologies.
00:28:45: So we need solutions for this problem.
00:28:49: So starting in the elementary school or whatever.
00:28:52: So what should we do now?
00:28:55: So I understand that you as a teacher with a lot of experience for you.
00:29:01: It's a cool situation that you can use new tools and so on.
00:29:05: But on the other side we have the problem of education in the teacher area and we have
00:29:09: the problem that a lot of teachers are very conservative.
00:29:13: Can I say that?
00:29:14: So I think we need change management in the minds of other people.
00:29:19: How can we start that?
00:29:21: Lead by example.
00:29:22: That's what we're trying to do with the School Media Hub project.
00:29:24: I briefly described it and I hope the point came across that it's very open to input.
00:29:29: We are not only working with the first schools implementing our ideas and further developing
00:29:34: them, but we are also regularly hosting events where any people interested can participate.
00:29:40: You can do workshops with us and acquire the competences that we provide.
00:29:44: We want to multiply with our institutions and we want to be open to all the input because
00:29:49: there is no simple answer to digitalization.
00:29:52: I've mentioned many small solutions that you can implement, but it's like similarly to
00:29:57: climate change.
00:29:58: We have all the solutions.
00:30:01: All it requires is a consolidated effort to implement them.
00:30:04: And we see ourselves as hopefully a successful project starting exactly that process and
00:30:09: being a driver for change and we can need all corporations, synergies, partners that
00:30:14: we can get for that.
00:30:16: And I also want to mention that we are absolutely grateful for the support and cooperation you
00:30:21: have given us as the German UDS because yes, there are many synergies between our work.
00:30:27: There's lots of things we can learn from each other and it's taken us three years and many
00:30:32: talks and many interviews to find someone with the openness and competence and knowledge
00:30:37: and experience like you.
00:30:39: So thank you very much.
00:30:40: I agree in all what you said because as I started with the idea of a digital university
00:30:46: 10 or 15 years ago, it was a vision and now it's more and more realistic.
00:30:51: So my question to you is if you just have a look in the future, describe the school in
00:30:57: 30 years.
00:30:59: Two scenarios.
00:31:01: We always have to give a range like with climate change.
00:31:03: So here is the six degree scenario.
00:31:06: We do nothing.
00:31:08: We can already see the foundations of society eroding through bad education.
00:31:12: If you look at the US, you can see an absolutely polarized society that hardly can make any
00:31:18: decisions for itself and tumbles into disaster.
00:31:20: I think a large part of that is basic education and how we bring kids up in the community.
00:31:26: So that's always 20 to 30 years in the future of our development currently from my experience.
00:31:31: So the do nothing scenario will be problematic.
00:31:35: It will not involve tackling climate changes.
00:31:37: It will not involve having an inclusive society and it will not involve having conscious people,
00:31:44: conscious young people with the agency to make decisions for themselves competently.
00:31:50: It will spell disaster and the downfall of our economy of our society as is that we
00:31:55: can see crumbling.
00:31:58: Especially the influence of misinformation.
00:32:00: People will be controllable and people will use that which we can already see.
00:32:04: Test case scenario, we are successful in effort and build a system of digital education that
00:32:12: at the same time brings education itself into the future with new methods, with new testing,
00:32:18: with much more individualization.
00:32:21: We can solve many societal problems at the foundation in a time where it matters, in
00:32:27: a time where no kid will ever forget what they've learned because the ages from 10 to
00:32:32: 16, that's where you are made.
00:32:35: That's where many things that you will always be and will hold dear to are developed.
00:32:40: And then these people, these future generations will implement more wide range change.
00:32:45: I think it can have a great positive effect if we all work together under one effort to
00:32:50: do this right, to do this open, to do this modern, to the best of rational knowledge.
00:32:55: So I like positive thinking as you know.
00:33:00: Now very important is to give all the teachers and parents some motivation on the way.
00:33:06: So you have a lot of experience also in the international way.
00:33:10: So if we have a look to Denmark, Sweden, Netherlands and so on, what can you give your colleagues
00:33:21: and teachers and parents with on the way, what can we learn from this international context
00:33:28: and what can we do as soon as possible?
00:33:32: The first thing we must not do is be afraid, to not know what we're doing, to be afraid
00:33:39: of change, to want to stick to the old habits because that's what I've learned from my own
00:33:43: philosophy teacher at school, Mrs. Jesho, shout out if you're listening.
00:33:50: That chaos should be embraced because it has got so much potential for something new.
00:33:56: And what I've seen in Denmark in schools and also Norway in schools was people embracing
00:34:01: that as a community, trying to do something new, being absolutely open beyond their original
00:34:11: reasons to hold back basically.
00:34:13: And out of that grew many creative projects like just recently, Daughter of a Dear Friend,
00:34:19: I just now found out what she's doing after class 10.
00:34:22: So she's doing a training as a light technician, which is also combined with her work at school,
00:34:28: which is such a mind blowing concept.
00:34:30: Wow, can you do this?
00:34:31: Yes, you can.
00:34:33: You can take the competences of what you have to teach and be really open and creative
00:34:39: in what you do with that.
00:34:40: Throw away your textbook, for example.
00:34:42: It's a good first step, which I've often been criticized for.
00:34:46: But there's many things we can do, but we have to come together.
00:34:49: We have to exchange these ideas, develop them together.
00:34:52: We have to help each other.
00:34:55: Because what I don't know, someone else in my team knows.
00:34:58: That's what I've come to learn with the people I work with.
00:35:01: And that gives me a lot of safety to try something new, because I always know if I get into trouble,
00:35:06: I can ask someone who's more experienced than me, and I can help them out in some other
00:35:10: issue.
00:35:11: That's how we multiply knowledge and come together.
00:35:13: Andrei, it was a great pleasure talking to you about all these topics.
00:35:18: And I'm sure that we just will have another episode, maybe in one or two years, to talk
00:35:24: about the results of our work and of your project, which is a very interesting project
00:35:30: in the beginning now.
00:35:32: And did I forget a topic which might be interesting for you?
00:35:37: We can always see what the audience says and can have another crack at it.
00:35:41: That's right.
00:35:42: That's right.
00:35:43: And this is also a great selection of topic and questions, which is also not an easy
00:35:46: thing to do.
00:35:47: And I hope I could shed some light from my perspective that might give people inspiration
00:35:53: or ideas.
00:35:54: I'm sure.
00:35:55: I'm sure.
00:35:56: Thanks a lot.
00:35:57: Thanks a lot as well.
00:35:58: Bye-bye.
00:35:59: Thank you for joining us on this episode of From Campus to Cyber.
00:36:03: We hope you found today's discussion insightful and inspiring as we continue to explore the
00:36:08: frontiers of digital education.
00:36:11: Until next time, let's keep pushing the boundaries of knowledge and innovation.
00:36:16: Stay curious, stay connected and we'll see you soon on From Campus to Cyber.
00:36:20: [MUSIC]
00:36:30: (upbeat music)
00:36:33: Bye.
New comment