Pitt Gives Digital Adoption A Nudge In Schools

Pitt.lu, a new platform for ensuring teachers and youngsters get the most out of digital learning tools, recently launched its training programme. Its interdisciplinary team from the University of Luxembourg offers a snapshot of digital adoption in schools in Luxembourg.

How do you rate the current level of technological adoption in teaching in Luxembourg? 

With regard to the technological equipment in Luxembourg schools, it can be noted that this was already very good before the Covid-19 pandemic. The International Computer and Information Literacy Study (ICILS 2018) showed in 2018 that Luxembourg was among the best-equipped schools of the participating countries.

Since the school year 2018/19 secondary school pupils can be provided with their own iPads on the basis of a rental model (€50/year) within the framework of the so-called One2One-Programme. Moreover, coding, and computational thinking have been promoted in primary schools since 2020/21.

As in many areas, the Corona-related school closures have also led to a digitalisation push in Luxembourg. In a study we conducted, we could see that in the school year 2018/19, 5,892 secondary school pupils were equipped with an iPad alone through the One2One-Programme, and that by the school year 2020/21, this number had already reached 16,954 (Milmeister/Baumann 2021).

We could also see that work with the iPad has increased in all subjects over the years. Even before Corona, it was math lessons where the iPad was used most often. 52% of students surveyed responded that they used it almost every lesson in 2019/20. Surprisingly, the subject in which it has been used most frequently since Corona is music classes.

In another study we conducted (EICEL 2021), we found that while teachers frequently use iPads, they often still stick to more traditional teaching methods. That means often the entire potential that digital technologies offer is not fully exploited to do completely new things that would not be possible without digital technologies. Sometimes analogue is simply converted into digital (instead of copying worksheets, they are made available as PDFs).

To encourage teachers to enhance and transform their teaching and learning methods through not only digital technologies, our team creates teaching materials with PITT (Programme of innovative teaching and training) that show concrete examples. We have just released 5 new modules on Pitt.lu for the new school subject digital sciences. These cover various subjects, ranging from more IT topics like algorithms and programming robots to more societal issues like the ecological impact of the digital revolution. These modules were created in collaboration with scientists from the University of Luxembourg doing research on these concrete topics.

In what ways can technology help teachers and learners?

It is obvious that we are all surrounded by smart technologies in our everyday lives. Digitalisation is here and it’s not going away. If pupils have skills to deal appropriately with new technologies, they offer huge opportunities to actively participate in our democratic society. Of course, this includes the technical handling of the devices as well as using them to investigate, create, and communicate. Pupils must be able to evaluate the information they find and gain an awareness of how fake news spread algorithms can influence their own opinion.

In today’s society, the ability to work together plays an increasingly important role. Digital technologies such as digital whiteboards offer excellent opportunities for collaboration. They can be used by pupils simultaneously in the classroom or asynchronously when they find time to work at home.

Research also shows that meaningful feedback on performance is extremely important for pupils to improve. For example, if a teacher writes a commentary on a pupil’s essay, it is often not read. However, if the teacher records feedback as an audio file, it is much more likely to be considered by learners, especially in large classes and for more detailed feedback, it is sometimes more convenient and resource-efficient for teachers to record audio files (Voelkel/Mello 2014).

For our heterogeneous population in Luxembourg, made up of many different nations, digital tools also offer great potential to support and encourage everyone in the exact way they need it. For example, explanatory videos can be provided in different languages. Students can then watch the video individually at their own pace – as often as they need and wherever they like.

Another way is to use artificial intelligence productively. Instead of preventing students from using these tools to cheat, they learn how to use them and reflect on ethical and epistemological questions about these AI tools. For example, translation software such as DeepL can be used to translate a text into a foreign language and then translate it back again – in this process, on the one hand, pupils can recognise their own errors (e.g. in sentence structure, style and spelling) on the basis of the revision by AI. When the text is then translated back into the source language, the pupils can also identify – mostly stylistic/idiomatic – deviations and correct them autonomously in the source language. Or students have an argumentation written by an AI tool (e.g. GPT-3). Then they do research on the net to check the content of the AI texts, to find their own arguments and to revise the AI text. AI is thus an instrument that opens up and redefines learning possibilities.

Also for STEM education, new technologies offer a lot of advantages. For example, in traditional science and math classes, self-experimentation through trial and error, which is the essence of science and mathematics, is often neglected. Digital tools offer the possibility to set up individual lessons for the pupils and let them work at their own pace, which lets much more space for self-exploration. This does not mean that the teacher becomes obsolete, but he or she will act more as a coach guiding the pupils through their learning instead of moderating a passive class.

What is your vision for the future of technology and teaching in Luxembourg?

Luxembourg is very open to technological progress and offers the best conditions through numerous projects. We believe that the Luxembourg education system is well on its way to making effective use of the potential of technological innovation in the classroom.

Nevertheless, the potential should be further exploited, and it is worthwhile looking at Estonia. Estonian society can already be seen as a thoroughly digital society for some time. All administrative procedures can be carried out digitally by citizens. It has an exemplary school system, especially with regard to digital learning opportunities and identifies the school curriculum as the hub of digital innovation.

Estonia stands out with nearly 70% of its curriculum linked to digital literacy. In International Student Assessments, Estonian pupils are among the top performers, especially when it comes to equal opportunities in the education system. While Estonian pupils’ socio-economic status has the lowest impact on reading performance in the OECD, we know that in Luxembourg, the socio-economic background of pupils is one of the main factors influencing their school performance.

Luxembourgish pupils from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds perform more frequently lower than their peers (e.g., PISA 2018). Whether the weak influence of socio-economic background on school performance in Estonia is related to digitalisation has not yet been researched. It would be more than worthwhile to investigate this and possibly draw conclusions for Luxembourg.

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