Forum Education Digitalisation

Embracing digitalization and its educational opportunities

How can digital media improve education? The Forum Education Digitalisation provides numerous starting points.
© Deutsche Telekom Stiftung, Photographer: Phil Dera

Overcoming challenges in education, such as how to handle increasingly diverse groups of learners, demands that we embrace the digital transformation and use it to increase participation and equal opportunity around the world. We have accepted this challenge and are working with the Forum Education Digitalisation on solutions.

Working Area:

Education

Region/Country:

Germany

The Forum Education Digitalisation is a platform for constructive dialog on education as we navigate the digital transformation. The forum seeks to consolidate public discussion on the process of digitalization in education, creating a pedagogically-driven strategy for the German education system. Siemens Stiftung and five other renowned German foundations are co-founders of the forum.

»Courage, cooperation, and a culture that is accepting of trial and error – digitalization in schools is a question of attitude.«

The founding members invite anyone sharing this belief to join the discussion with the Forum Education Digitalisation, which seeks to bring together all relevant stakeholders in the field of education for mutual learning and collaboration. This includes everyone from political and administrative decision-makers to those working directly in the field.

Among other activities, a school development workshop known as Werkstatt schulentwicklung.digital has proven to be a promising networking exercise. Over the course of a year, school directors and teachers from different German states and school systems meet on a regular basis to discuss practices, tools, equipment, and didactic concepts involving digital media. From there, they work together on ways to share their knowledge with other schools.

In 2019, Forum Education Digitalisation is focusing on three key strategic fields:

Based on practical experience, the field of action “Products for good schools in the digital world” forms the cornerstone of our activities. Together with educational practitioners, scalable assistance is created that is further developed and transferred in networks using a community approach. On the basis of the associated knowledge and the associated impact, we make concrete recommendations to politicians and decision-makers and help shape the framework conditions – from practice for practice.

Siemens Stiftung plays an active role in the forum, contributing expertise in education and digitalization as well as experience with Open Educational Resources (OER). Our Media Portal has provided teaching materials for science and technology lessons since 2009. It contains more than 3,200 high-quality OER for STEM lessons, making us pioneers in this field in Germany. These materials also highlight the importance of inclusion and value formation in our work.

»Digital inclusion is more important than ever: the only people who can become fully involved in a society are those who are digitally included.«

Dr. Nina Smidt, Managing Director Siemens Stiftung

Incorporating Open Educational Resources into a political agenda is a relatively straightforward matter of ticking a box that they have been addressed. OER: check. But how are OER really used in schools? Teachers often ask the same questions about OER: Where is the pedagogical value? Are these materials any good? What is the copyright situation? How can I create my own OER, and what do I need to consider if I do so?

There are now nine foundations in the Forum Education Digitalisation:

  • Deutsche Telekom Stiftung
  • Dieter von Holtzbrinck Stiftung
  • Bertelsmann Stiftung
  • Vodafone Stiftung Deutschland
  • Dieter Schwarz Stiftung
  • Joachim Herz Stiftung
  • Robert Bosch Stiftung
  • Siemens Stiftung
  • Wübben Stiftung
  • Heraeus Bildungsstiftung
Project manager Forum Education Digitalisation
Corinna Hartung

+49 89 540487 325

Managing director Forum Education Digitalisation
Jacob Chammon

+49 (0) 30 5858466-66

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