Brussel, 15 November 2024

Showing that digital education can be safe and protect well-being

This October, the HERMMES project reached about 400 members of the ALL DIGITAL network, the European Commission, the Council of Europe, and their member states.

Presenting the HERMMES approach to the ALL DIGITAL community

From 15 to 18 Octo­ber a del­e­ga­tion from the HERMMES part­ner­ship attend­ed the Sum­mit of Engaged Dig­i­tal Cit­i­zen­ship in Madrid organ­ised by ALL DIGITAL and Fun­da­cion Esplai. In the Sum­mit, over 400 par­tic­i­pants inter­est­ed in dig­i­tal­is­ing edu­ca­tion and teach­ing dig­i­tal lit­er­a­cy (video) gath­ered. HERMMES was rep­re­sent­ed in the Dig­i­tal Vil­lage by Már­ti Domokos and Dora Šimunović from ECSWE, Pieter Bastin from the Asso­ci­a­tion of Flem­ish Stein­er Wal­dorf schools, and Hilary Sid­dons from Scoula Novalis school in Italy. They also pre­sent­ed a dis­cus­sion, From ana­log to dig­i­tal: A pan­el on safe and cre­ative dig­i­tal media edu­ca­tion in schools.

Contributing to the European Commission’s work on digital education

From 22 to 25 Octo­ber in Helsin­ki, on behalf of the Life­long Learn­ing Plat­form, our advo­ca­cy coor­di­na­tor Dora Šimunović attend­ed a peer learn­ing activ­i­ty of the Euro­pean Commission’s work­ing group on Dig­i­tal Edu­ca­tion: Learn­ing, Teach­ing and Assess­ment (DELTA). The aim of the activ­i­ty was to get input into the Dig­i­tal Edu­ca­tion Action Plan 2021–2027 mid-term review from the group mem­bers, main­ly the rep­re­sen­ta­tives of edu­ca­tion min­istries. They aim for more focus on stu­dents’ and teach­ers’ well-being and safe­ty and empha­sis on using dig­i­tal tools only when it ben­e­fits learn­ing. These pri­or­i­ties align well with the HERMMES materials.

Following the Council of Europe’s work on AI in educaiton

From 24 to 25 Octo­ber, our man­ag­ing direc­tor Georg Jür­gens par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Coun­cil of Europe’s (CoE) Work­ing Con­fer­ence on Reg­u­lat­ing AI in Edu­ca­tion. In the event, over 100 experts from 45 coun­tries gath­ered to explore eth­i­cal AI use in edu­ca­tion. The task of edu­ca­tion should be to empha­sise the dis­tinc­tion between the unique char­ac­ter­is­tics of both human and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence. The under­stand­ing of this cru­cial dis­tinc­tion pre­pares the ground for mean­ing­ful, healthy, and safe use of AI in edu­ca­tion­al set­tings. With the HERMMES mate­ri­als, ECSWE intends to con­tribute fur­ther to the CoE’s work dur­ing its Year of Dig­i­tal Cit­i­zen­ship Edu­ca­tion in 2025.

Further reading