The digital school

Plan work at Hofmatt-Schulhaus Arth, a project school for «Bring your own device »: Tablets and smartphones lie on the desks in Year 5 alongside exercise books and pens. Many of the mostly 12-year-old pupils are wearing headphones. One pupil is lounging on the windowsill, scanning a QR code with his tablet, watching a YouTube video and answering questions about it.

Another listens to a text in French that the teacher has stored in the virtual cloud. At the same time, he reads the text in the workbook and stops to look up words in a vocabulary app. They then write these down in pencil in the exercise book.

Next door, pupils listen to a dictation on the tablet with headphones and write along by hand. They can then check whether everything is correct themselves - the file is stored in the cloud.

Online dossier on media consumption

Change of scene, Bläsi primary school in Basel. Teacher Ursula Grunder opens the programming lesson. The primary school pupils are asked to draw a flower on the screen using a virtual turtle. «Who can help me programme a flower shape with the repeat command?» Rustling. No one answers. She tries another way: «How many degrees does the turtle make when it turns 90 degrees four times?» Now the hands shoot up. «360 degrees,» shouts a girl. «Very good!» says Grunder. «If the turtle takes a step 360 times and turns one degree, then we get a circle. What command do we have to give the turtle to make it draw a circle?» A few hands go up again. «repeat360 bracket fd 1 rt 1 bracket!» comes from the other corner. «Exactly! Super job!» Ursula Grunder turns to the blackboard and writes down the command. This continues until the pupils have the whole code - then the children hop from the circle of chairs back to the computers to try out the command.

Between a dusty PC room and «bring your own device»

Digital learning is not yet a matter of course in Swiss schools. But project schools such as the two mentioned above show the direction in which things are heading: a natural back and forth between notebook and tablet, primary school pupils learning to understand the rules of programming with their own programming language.

How digital are Swiss schools today? What can parents expect? While learning is still analogue in many primary schools, Swiss schoolchildren will probably come into contact with digital media everywhere by the time they reach secondary school and sixth form. However, how much and what children do on the computer, whether they use old school equipment in the computer room or their mobile phones and how fast their internet connection is varies greatly. It depends on the school and, above all, on the respective teacher and their affinity for technology.

However, with the introduction of the «Media and IT» module of Curriculum 21, learning objectives relating to digital media are firmly anchored in primary school education. A large number of cantons have signed up to this curriculum and are implementing it step by step. In future, pupils will learn application skills and how to critically scrutinise media at primary school level. It even includes computer science with basic knowledge of programming languages. (More on the new media module in Curriculum 21.) This digital education is described in the curriculum as a necessity in order to prepare pupils for the increasingly digitalised world of work. According to EU estimates, 90 per cent of all professions will soon require digital skills.
The universities of teacher education (PH) offer further training for teachers who will be teaching «media and IT» and who often have gaps in their knowledge, particularly in the area of IT. According to Rahel Tschopp, Head of Media Education and IT at the PH Zurich, places for this further education programme are filling up very quickly, and the area is also becoming increasingly important in the basic training for new teachers.The aim is for all teachers to have the necessary skills to incorporate media education and IT content into their lessons in the medium term. At the moment, it is mainly teachers with an affinity for media and IT or who have completed further training who are doing this, says Rahel Tschopp.

Digital learning: Individualised and integrative

The digitalisation of schools has many advocates, such as ETH computer science professor Juraj Hromkovič: «Computer science promotes important basic skills such as independent and critical thinking. That's why it's as important to me as language and maths lessons,» he said in an interview with Fritz+Fränzi . Teachers such as Zurich secondary school teacher Philippe Wampfler, who already use digital media in the classroom as a matter of course, are convinced that digital makes schools better.

One argument in favour of digital schools: digital learning programmes adapt to the individual performance level of each pupil and at the same time send the results to the teacher, who can then better address strengths and weaknesses.

Jörg Dräger from the Bertelsmann Foundation even sees this as a step towards greater equity in schools: «Digitalisation makes good education possible for everyone.» Teachers at the Bläsi primary school in Basel emphasise the integrative aspect: pupils with weak language skills can also experience success when programming. For once, Swiss pupils are not at an advantage.

Media education only works if schools and parents work together.

However, not everyone is so positive about the move towards digital schooling. While for some parents the development can't go fast enough, others don't understand why their children should be glued to their mobile phones at school when they already do this for two to three hours a day at home. The figure comes from the representative JAMES Study 2016, in which Swiss young people were asked about their media behaviour.

When powerful Wi-Fi devices were to be installed in school buildings, there was very strong resistance in some places because parents feared that their children would be exposed to high levels of radiation. «We have now found a solution to this,» says headmaster Bernard Gertsch: instead of one powerful device, several weaker devices are installed that only switch on when they are in use.
However, there is no such simple solution for other points of friction with parents. «We are aware that media use is the second major area, alongside homework, in which school encroaches into the private sphere - and we are reliant on the cooperation of parents here,» says Bernard Gertsch. For «bring your own device» lessons, for example, children need their own device. If they don't have one, they are allowed to take school tablets home and use them - even if their parents want to wait before introducing such a device.

Media education = a matter for parents, media education = a school task? It's no longer that simple.

Until recently, the assumption was: Media education is a matter for parents. This meant that it was decided at home which websites and programmes could be used and when the device had to be switched off. Schools, on the other hand, support parents by teaching pupils media skills. Questions such as: What are the mechanisms behind programmes and internet applications? Where can you find reliable information and how do you recognise fake news?

So much for the theory. In practice, however, the boundaries have long been blurred: teachers ask pupils to install certain programmes that they need to work together, and they talk to the children about what rules make sense so that the devices don't cause stress. At the same time, they have to deal with the fact that pupils have been able to use media devices unregulated from an early age. They often have little understanding when they have to do maths in their heads or write something by hand.

In addition to parents, many teachers are also sceptical or even critical when it comes to the use of digital media in the classroom. One reason for this is that, according to a study by Ralf Biermann (2009), it is often people who are already critical of media who decide to become teachers. «They themselves have had positive experiences with analogue schools and become teachers in order to pass this on. Not to change anything,» says Philippe Wampfler, teacher and media educator, summarising the situation in the interview.

For teachers, their role is also changing with the digitalisation of the school world: they are no longer the only source of knowledge, but a companion and coach when children acquire knowledge themselves and solve tasks. They show children how to evaluate and process information, but on the other hand they have to accept that many children and young people are ahead of them when it comes to the nimble handling of digital devices.

Does the media make you stupid or creative?

The conflicting opinions of parents and teachers reflect a cultural war that is raging around digitalisation. On the one hand, there are the technology enthusiasts who rave about the fact that even unpopular tasks can be solved with pleasure thanks to playful programmes on the smartphone. On the other side are psychiatrists and paediatricians who warn of the consequences of excessive media consumption.

The best-known critic, brain researcher Manfred Spitzer, writes in books such as «Digital Dementia» and «Cyber Sick» that computers prevent us from engaging with the real world and thus prevent the most important mental training. «If I process information in the computer rather than in the brain, the brain has learnt nothing,» he said in an interview with Deutschlandfunk radio. However, his theories are controversial among scientists. And even more so are the conclusions he draws from them, namely that computers have no place in schools.

Both critics and supporters of digitalisation cite contradictory studies and accuse the other side of being corrupt and biased. This further unsettles parents. However, if you take a closer look at the debate, you will notice that the sides often make different assumptions. Media educators and tech-savvy teachers often talk about pupils using the media as a tool to produce something: Prepare presentations, collate information, complete tasks and receive immediate feedback. Critics, on the other hand, speak of media consumption as entertainment that makes people fat, stupid and unhappy.

In fact, the JAMES study also shows that many young people mainly consume media passively in their free time. The international comparative study on media literacy conducted by an independent association of scientific institutions for educational research(ICILS) showed in 2013 that the digital literacy of «digital natives» rarely goes beyond opening an email. Many young people are far from being able to recognise dangerous content or design a website themselves.

«We don't want to force the use of media, but use media where it makes sense.»

Bernard Gertsch, Headmaster

Doesn't that speak all the more in favour of teaching children a critical and creative approach to media at school? Manfred Spitzer dismisses this argument in an interview with Die Zeit with the words: «Media education? This is just about getting children hooked.» You don't give children alcohol to prevent addiction, says the brain researcher. «It's a completely misguided understanding of media education,» says Thomas Merz, media educator and Vice-Rector of the Thurgau University of Teacher Education.
Headmaster Bernard Gertsch takes a calm view of the whole discussion: «Digitalisation affects us all, and as part of society, schools have a duty to participate. We don't want to force children to use media, but rather use media where it makes sense,» he says. Rahel Tschopp from the PH Zurich says she wants to get parents on board and convince them of the importance of digital media at school: «The children use the devices anyway. At school, teachers can sensitise them to do this more competently and consciously and teach them how media works.»

School sponsorship: when companies pay for equipment

It is undisputed that the use of new media in schools also raises new questions. For example, how do we deal with companies that sense a new market in the classroom and send generous sponsorship offers to schools? There is plenty of potential in Switzerland. According to headteacher president Gertsch, there tends to be an urban-rural divide when it comes to technical equipment in schools. Large companies are quick and easy to provide funding for equipment. Financing with funds from the school community and canton, on the other hand, is complex and time-consuming. To date, there has been no special federal funding for the implementation of Curriculum 21.

For corporations, school sponsorship is a good thing: their names are anchored in the minds of children from an early age and the companies can also use the funding as a social commitment.
According to the New York Times, there are some schools in the USA that have their PC and Internet equipment completely financed by Google. The result: the pupils have memorised Google as a synonym for «good technology». In Switzerland, for example, according to SRF information, Samsung spends around half a million Swiss francs a year to equip pupils with tablets, to finance a study investigating how this changes teaching and to support teacher training at the PH Zurich. Swisscom sponsors services worth CHF 20 million a year for schools, including high-speed Internet access.
Once pupils have become accustomed to a particular device or programme, manufacturers can hope that they will continue to buy it after they leave school. Microsoft, for example, provides teachers and students with free Office packages as well as training courses. These expire at the end of the school year. «It's a win-win situation,» says Marc Weder, Head of Education Customers at Microsoft Switzerland.

How much school sponsorship is permitted and whether schools actually make use of it varies greatly, and no statistics are kept yet. In French-speaking Switzerland, the legislation is much stricter than in German-speaking Switzerland, while in Vaud, school sponsorship is completely prohibited by law.
In order to counteract the appropriation of schools by companies, the Swiss Federation of Teachers (LCH), the Jacobs Foundation and the Mercator Foundation have drawn up a charter that many companies that work with schools have signed. In this charter, they undertake to refrain from product placement and the distribution of discounts for products, among other things. This is intended to prevent cooperation from having too strong an advertising effect.

The transparent student and their data

Another sensitive question is: How is data protected in a digitalised school? As long as class tests were only written in exercise books and entries for bad behaviour could only be found in the teacher's class register, a great deal of effort was required to copy and disseminate this data. Today, some cantons have introduced a digital ID that uniquely assigns data to each pupil and teacher. The ID is intended to make it easier to change schools, even across cantons. There are clear rules as to which data must be encrypted and which not.
However, when pupils access the internet during lessons, whether for research or to use certain programmes in an internet-based cloud, they also leave a data trail there. Marc Weder from Microsoft assures us that data is stored in the Microsoft Office 365 cloud in accordance with the guidelines of the Swiss Data Protection Association. However, teachers at Swiss schools very often use programmes from companies that have not signed a charter or do not comply with the schools' data protection guidelines - Google, Dropbox or iCloud for data exchange, for example. These have their data servers in the USA. They are therefore not officially allowed to be used in a Swiss school.

A good teacher makes the difference - and is familiar with new media!

Another problem is that individual teachers are not watched closely when teaching. And as already mentioned, not everyone who enters the teaching profession is a friend of the use of new media and knows their way around. Guidelines on data protection and sponsorship provide guidance, but the actual implementation is up to the individual teacher. They decide whether the devices are used safely, profitably and in an educationally meaningful way. Or to put it in the words of headteacher president Bernard Gertsch: "There are no convincing long-term studies to date that show us that learning is better with digital media - but there are many that show that a good teacher makes a difference. "
As the digitalisation of schools is in full swing, a good teacher will have to deal with the opportunities and risks of the «smartphone generation» at least as much as the children's parents. Because the digital world is too complex and too important for us to leave our children alone with it.

Digital revolution in the classroom - our dossier in the October issue

You will only find all texts on this topic in our magazine. You can orderthe October issue (10/17) here.
Further texts on the topic:

• Medienpädagoge und Lehrer Philipe Wampfler erklärt, wie er Medien im Unterricht einsetzt und warum
• Ein Vater erzählt, was ihm in Sachen digitaler Schulbildung noch fehlt
• Was steht im Lehrplan 21 über das Modul Medien und Informatik? Was kommt da auf unsere Kinder zu?
• Eine Mutter erzählt, warum sie der Digitalisierung der Schule skeptisch gegenüber steht