WS 11: Recent studies on accessing educational content

Rapporteur: Andrijana Gavrilovic, Geneva Internet Platform

• We should develop a culture about tools that can be adapted to optimise e-learning. The criteria of validating the use of a certain tool should include self-determination, digital autonomy and ethics, and human rights. Pedagogical objectives and the learning moment are also important factors in choosing a tool.

• It is important to note that digital should adapt to the learner’s needs, not the reverse. Tutors and facilitators should have the skills to navigate through digital and choose the best tool for their learners.

• Education needs to evolve in terms of content, but also needs to safeguard the public values that we want to transfer. We need to ensure that we safeguard those public values and that they are not manipulated by e-learning platforms and their embedded values. We need to ensure that the tools do not inherit the bias of the industry which developed the software.

• We need to build in the respect for digital autonomy of people in the foundational structure of the tools used for e-learning. We need to ensure that the tools accommodate insecurity about our data, insecurity about our learning process, loneliness, lack of socialisation, and lack of interoperability with other tools.

• It is of essential importance to have a tool that makes the discovery of educational content easier for teachers and students regardless of the platform on which the content is hosted.