Education: learning world at a distance from technology

They are a little like the two royal children who like each other so much but can’t get together: digital technologies and the German education system. The Corona lockdown with the global experiment of “distance learning” born out of necessity could have brought a boost to innovation. But the pandemic, as the latest PISA results show, instead led to a skills decline among the young generation across the board and an educational divide. Why haven’t educational technologies been able to prevent this? The answer: “Educational Technologies” (Ed Tech) still have a shadowy existence in Germany compared to other countries.

The major educational policy campaign of the “Digital Pact for Schools”, initiated by a billion-dollar cornucopia from the Federal Ministry of Education, revealed the distance between the world of learning and technology during its implementation. However, it must be added for the sake of completeness that the largest barricades were erected by an unsupportive bureaucracy.

But Ed Tech is more than just “digital learning”. Using a back channel and evaluating the information based on artificial intelligence (AI), individual interactive learning tailored to the individual student is possible. The AI ​​learns from the students during on-screen lessons and can adapt their next questions to their learning progress. No one will be left behind, that is the educational promise of Ed Tech providers.

As early as 2017, IT journalism discussed why there is hardly any Ed Tech in Germany. The structural dominance of analog teaching with its established didactics was cited as one of the reasons, i.e. refusal to accept it. But also a weakness in supply, which most innovations on the market have to contend with.

In a 2021 study, the Donors’ Association for German Science found that, despite various efforts, the proportion of start-ups in the educational sector in Germany is low compared to the rest of Europe. “While in Hungary, for example, start-ups in the education sector account for 4.3 percent and in Bulgaria 3.6 percent of the total start-ups, Germany lies far behind in the lower middle of the ranking with 1.6 percent,” says the study.

The Institute for Innovation and Technology (IIT) in Berlin conducted an empirical analysis in 2020 and identified 5,324 Ed Tech companies worldwide. “In Europe, in terms of absolute numbers, the United Kingdom is clearly at the top with 435 Ed Tech start-ups,” say the innovation researchers. This is followed by Spain with 107 and Germany with 104 cases. When it comes to the number of Ed Tech start-ups in Germany, Berlin was at the top with 50 start-ups. This was followed by Bavaria with 20 and North Rhine-Westphalia with 13. There were no Ed Tech start-ups in five federal states. The IIT researchers concluded: “From a European and global perspective, Germany performs significantly below average in terms of both Ed Tech start-up intensity and Ed Tech specialization.”

In order to strengthen Germany’s position, a state funding program for the Ed Tech sector was proposed. German universities should also become more involved, for example by adopting successful network approaches from abroad. “Contact with other start-ups, investors, mentors, economic development and industry plays an important role in the design of the programs, in addition to the high practical orientation,” emphasizes the IIT study.

It was therefore logical that the topic of Ed Tech was taken up in innovation-oriented funding programs. For example, in the “Social Innovations” program developed by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) in 2023. For example, it explains what positive effects are triggered by “digital educational innovations”: “They can contribute to better acquisition of skills, to a flexible and inclusive learning experience as well as to the individualization and permeability of the learning process.”

An innovation and start-up initiative for digital educational technologies would “strengthen an education system characterized by openness, cooperation and permeability, promote the creation and use of high-quality educational innovations and support the creation (and growth) of Ed Tech companies,” is stated in the BMBF paper drawn an innovative picture of the future.

Last year, the “start-up strategy” from the Federal Ministry of Economics also listed “easier design of public tenders and procurement processes, including for educational institutions,” among the necessary steps to improve the start-up culture. However, the progress report from autumn 2023 notes that no progress has been made here yet: a red box appears under “implementation status”.

The Berlin Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG) has examined in more detail how Ed Tech can be used better in universities in cooperation with the Hagen Open University. “In our case studies, we found that the productive and creative use of Ed Tech depends to a large extent on the motivation of those who use it,” says a project report. The know-how for using Ed Tech can be “strengthened through independent experimentation, but also through training or technical support from other colleagues.” Other motivational factors include student feedback, recognition from the university management or financial incentives.

The experiences of 181 university employees in 25 countries were evaluated, from which the HIIG working group distilled organizational challenges when introducing Ed Tech at universities. »I have to say, once you master a few tools, didactic difficulties are no longer an issue. These are tools that now work just as well as pencil and paper,” said one scientist in the survey.