After the end of the Corona-related school closures, the pressure has ceased. Distance learning is no longer necessary and the topic of digitization in schools is already behind the latest hype topic about how schools should deal with broad language models and artificial intelligence. Is the digital school in Germany slowly falling back into sleep? No, practitioners say. But what is still missing are concerted strategies and digital ethics for digitizing the country’s schools.
Yes, of course, the push to digitize has slowed significantly after face-to-face teaching came back into vogue, professionals say. On the one hand, this is simply a pragmatic reaction from teachers, who don’t necessarily need the extra work like computer idiots, says one observer. On the other hand, education authorities are also holding back when it comes to expanding school computing.
“For the time being, the Pact for Digital Schools has expired. This means that smaller municipalities in particular, whose coffers are empty due to Corona-weakened business revenues, simply lack money,” explains Antje Radetzky, 3rd president of the ‘Bavarian Teachers’ Association (BLV). At the same time, Radetzky assures that while there is still a long way to go, we would be better prepared for another pandemic.
Better prepared for the next pandemic?
Schools have not fully returned to their pre-coronavirus level, confirms Cord Santelmann of the Baden-Württemberg Association of Philologists. Colleges and students would no longer do without many things. “Lectures and meetings continue to take place, some via video. Some teachers continue to use learning management systems introduced during the pandemic, such as Moodle, as a welcome addition and enrichment for the classroom.” Math teachers send “online challenges” before the next in-class test.
In addition, students are using digital devices provided or purchased by parents in the classroom during the pandemic, sometimes completely replacing notebooks, folders or textbooks – the pandemic as a catalyst for a more digital school.
A step forward…
Even in the development of school education platform in Baden-Württemberg things are progressing slowly but surely, reports Santelmann for the southwest of the republic. The next project of the Ministry of Education: the “Digital Workplace for Teachers”, for which the dPhoenixSuite of the public service provider Dataport has been selected. Phoenix is open source and modular.
Each module can be replaced as needed, a Dataport spokeswoman explains when asked. If you don’t like the standard Jitsi as a conferencing tool, you can also get Big Blue Button, according to the spokeswoman.
The service provider set up by six federal states in Kiel as an institution under public law took over the school cloud developed by the Hasso Plattner Institute in 2021, which at least the creators had hoped would become a model for the federal government. Dataport is currently supplying the three federal states of Lower Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg that rely on the HP school cloud and also supply the school cloud instance that has been opened and offered nationwide during the pandemic. In total there are 4100 schools and 2.1 million users. Other clients include the Schleswig-Holstein Institute for Quality Development in Schools (IQSH) or education ministries such as that of Baden-Württemberg.
It is not currently known to anyone, perhaps not even the Stuttgart Ministry of Education itself, when the first major customer from the South will leave. Suite “tested in iteration level 3.09 as part of a pilot project” and currently under development assessment. “After that, a decision will be made on how to proceed within the available budget,” the information said in the state parliament.
According to Dataport, preparatory work is underway for subsequent smooth operation. Contract negotiations with the country are currently underway. The Phoenix Suite will be integrated into the Ministry of Education’s existing infrastructure, no more specific adaptations have yet been made. “It is up to the customer to define and commission the adjustments to be made,” explains the spokeswoman.
What’s missing: In the fast-paced world of technology, there’s often time to sort through all the news and background information. On the weekend we want to take it, follow the back paths away from the current, try different perspectives and make the nuances audible.
… step back
Path to open source and selection of domestic service provider instead of US cloud service provider welcomes initiative members “Our Digital School”, which includes parents, students, teacher associations and organizations such as Digitalcourage. At the same time, they are disappointed that the country has missed opportunities that had developed during the Corona period for a digital platform from a single source.
The teacher’s workplace comes from Dataport and Threema Messenger logins were purchased from Switzerland. However, both are intended for teachers only. Observers warn that this could easily lead to students sticking to Gmail or WhatsApp instead of secure school email addresses or chat options. There are also two learning platforms, the open source tool Moodle, but also the proprietary competing product Itslearning.
Moodle is slowly but surely becoming the standard for learning platforms. It is used in many universities and can be found as a tool for organizing classes, courses and learning in different versions in various state education clouds, from Bavarian Mebis to HPI Cloud. It is also used by universities and colleges and has a large community that is constantly developing it.
At Itslearning, modifications must be commissioned in any case. A dispute with the staff councils of the Baden-Württemberg high school teachers, who had concerns about data protection, also simmered for a long time. Unlike Moodle, Itslearning uses third party providers like Cloudflare and AWS.
Many wonder why spend additional licensing fees to run such a parallel operation.
