From internet users to digital citizens – WS 06 2017

From EuroDIG Wiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search

7 June 2017 | 11:00 - 12:30 | Ballroom III, Swissotel, Tallinn, Estonia | video record
Programme overview 2017

Session teaser

The Internet’s role as a means of providing people access to information is clear. But the realisation of its full potential as a driver of creativity, innovation and community building will require people who are competent, confident and able to engage in the information society. The digital literacy skills needed go beyond digital literacy today means more than just the mastering of basic ICT user skills. Users need are expected to understand how to protect themselves from cybercrime, manage their privacy and create Internet content in order to feel ready and able to get involved. How do we increase and deepen digital literacy in our communities – should it be government-led, private sector supported, or bottom-up through community initiatives, or a mixture?

Keywords

Digital literacy, e-skills, education, training, capacity building, cybersafety, privacy

Session description

Participation in economic, civic and social life is increasingly dependent on digital skills. They have digital skills have become a prerequisite in many areas of the constantly evolving job market in Europe. A certain level of digital literacy is also required to benefit from different online services (both private and public) and the social opportunities provided by the Internet.

Yet, there is a significant gap between the existing skills levels and the demand in the market. Having access to the Internet doesn’t automatically give the competence and confidence to use it fully. Realising the potential of the Internet as a driver of creativity, collaboration, innovation and change will require us to fill this gap. Empowered with a wide set of skills digital citizens develop resilience and awareness in digital landscapes: they know own digital rights and responsibilities, value personal privacy, they are active and resilient to authoritative governments, who may make attempts to restrict their fundamental freedoms (freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, etc.).

There is also a growing social and economic gap between those with up-to-date digital skills and those without. The lack of digital skills, and hence access to information and services, can further marginalise disadvantaged and remote communities. Educational strategies can play a key role in levelling this divide from an early stage.

Traditional definitions of digital literacy mainly refer to basic ICT user skills. This is no longer sufficient in today’s Internet environment. Digitally savvy citizens understand and embrace tools to protect their safety and privacy online, and they know how to use, create and share online content in a responsible manner. Action is required at all levels of society through government, private sector, and bottom-up community initiatives.

The objective of this workshop is to discuss what digital literacy means in today’s Internet environment and how can we upgrade the existing skillsets to correspond to the new reality? We will also examine successful examples of digital literacy initiatives and debate the best digital skills strategies at community level.

Format

This workshop will feature key participants, who will share their insights on the topic to kick off the discussion. Following the introductory part, the two moderators will facilitate an interactive discussion with the audience.

Further reading

Until 30 April 2017. Links to relevant websites, declarations, books, documents. Please note we cannot offer web space, so only links to external resources are possible. Example for an external link: Main page of EuroDIG

People

Focal Point:

  • Maarit Palovirta, Internet Society

Subject Matter Expert:

  • Olivier Crepin Leblond (EURALO)

KEY PARTICIPANTS:

  • Dr. Signe Balina, Counselor to the Latvian Minister for Environmental Protection and Regional Development, President of Latvian Information and Communication Technology Association (LIKTA)

Biography: Signe Balina is a Counselor to the Latvian Minister for Environmental Protection and Regional Development with responsibility for Information Society, e-Government, information technologies policy development, implementation and coordination. Also, since 2009 Signe Balina is a president of the Latvian Information and Communications Technology Association (LIKTA). Since 2010, Signe Balina is a chairperson of the Board of “IT Competence Centre” which promotes a long-term cooperation between ICT enterprises and science institutions in the fields of natural language technologies and business process analyses technologies.

  • Kristel Rillo, Digital Skills and Lifelong Learning, Estonian Ministry of Education and Research

Biography: Kristel Rillo is currently working on digital education policy, 21st century skills agendas and lifelong learning. She has led the technology strand of Estonia’s digital skills since 2013 – planning, setting, promoting and delivering an agenda for educational transformation in relation to the use of technology on different education levels.

  • Clara Sommier, Public Policy, Google

Biography: Clara Sommier is an Analyst within the Public Policy & Government Relations team at Google in Brussels. She focuses on how to strengthen the positive impact of the web and make sure the web remains a safe place, and follows as such actively the work of European institutions. Before joining Google, she worked in the European Parliament for more than three years, focusing among others on fundamental rights, but also for the Brunswick consultancy group. She beholds a Master in European Affairs from Sciences Po Paris and a Master in Political Science from the Freie Universität Berlin.

  • Vitor Tome, Educational Policy Division, Council of Europe

Biography: Vitor Tomé, PhD in Education, professional journalist, in-service teacher trainer and researcher (Algarve University, Portugal), is a member of Council of Europe’s Digital Citizenship working group. He is working with COST Action - The Digital Literacy and Multimodal Practices of Young Children (Digilitey), and coordinates the ongoing project “Digital Citizenship Education and Democratic Participation” (Odivelas, Lisbon area, Portugal).

  • Stephen Wyber, Policy & Advocacy, International Federation of Library Associations

Biography: Stephen is responsible for IFLA’s work to promote the values and priorities of libraries in policy discussions, and ensure that they have the laws and resources necessary to realise their potential. In the Internet Governance field, IFLA argues that libraries will not only play an essential role in bringing the rest of the world population online, but can also help provide the skills necessary to create empowered digital citizens. This, in the context of an open Internet with protections against undue invasion of privacy and discriminatory controls on access, is the recipe for realising the potential of the Web.

MODERATORS:

  • Narine Khachatryan, Safer Internet Armenia

Biography: Narine is co-ordinator of Safer Internet Armenia, a country wide initiative to raise public awareness about Internet safety, privacy and security issues and build the capacity of young people and adults in the field of ICTs and digital citizenship. She has played an important role in launching a number of educational initiatives in Armenia, including those in the field of media and digital literacy. Ms Khachatryan has been actively involved in Internet governance debates since 2010 through participation in the European Dialog on Internet Governance, ICANN, Internet related projects of the Council of Europe and ISOC. She is currently co-organises a program on Internet Governance and Human Rights in Armenia.

  • Oliana Sula, University of Durres Albania

Biography: Oliana Sula is a lecturer and researcher at the Department of Management, Faculty of Business, University "Aleksandër Moisiu" Durrës, Albania and doctoral student at Estonian Business School, Tallinn, Estonia. Her research focuses in social media, ethics,digital literacy, cybersecurity education and entrepreneurship focusing more in Eastern Europe, Latin America and MENA region.

Remote Moderator

  • Syuzan Marukhyan

Organising Team (Org Team):

  • Stephen Wyber, International Federation of Library Associations
  • Oliana Sula, Durres University
  • Narine Khachatryan, Armenia
  • Ucha Seturi, Small and Medium Telecom Operator's Association of Georgia
  • Fotjon Kosta, Albania
  • Marina Sokolova, Belarus
  • Mikhail Doroshevich, e-Baltic Initiative

Reporter

  • Tessel Renzenbrink, Dutch ISOC Chapter

Biography: Tessel Renzenbrink is a freelance writer with a focus on the impact of technology on society. She is especially interested in information technology and the transition to a low carbon energy system. She’s a board member of the Dutch chapter of the Internet Society and studied Philosophy at the University of Amsterdam.

Video record

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIzetvM7_wg

Messages

Conclusion and recommendations

Digital literacy today means much more than just mastering ICT skills. Digitally savvy citizens are empowered to improve their education, and subsequently their economic and social wellbeing; they can participate actively in the political and cultural life of their countries.

Information and media literacy competence helps not only to navigate in the abundance of information and data, but also critically evaluate and analyze it. Communication and collaboration skills enable people to engage in citizenship being aware of netiquette, valuing human rights and democracy, cultural and generational diversity. Genuine participation can be demonstrated by the ability to create and co-create digital content by producing, designing, writing, and publishing it. Safety competence helps people to protect their devices, personal data and privacy, as well as own well being online. Digital emotional intelligence gives the ability to be empathetic with others and build positive relationships online.  While problem solving capacity helps people innovatively use digital technologies by creating knowledge, innovating processes, resolving problems and conflicts, all above mentioned skills should be viewed in aggregate and acquired integrally. Moreover, transversal competences for accessing, communicating, participating and creating online, as well as cross-disciplinary digital skills are becoming indispensable for deeper learning outcomes and effective citizenship.

Besides, the notion of digital literacy may be incorporating new skills such as data analysis and coding. The recent developments in data science, information visualizations, artificial intelligence, and robotics necessitate rethinking of traditional approaching to learning and education.  While advancements in artificial intelligence and machine learning may open up new avenues for efficient learning, coding skills may help students to define and co-create technologies of the future.  Therefore, not only will the next generations will need to understand the technology, but they may be empowered to further develop it.  Education institutions, public-private partnerships can play a crucial role in providing necessary tools and opportunities for that (in frames of formal, non-formal and life-long learning education institutions).

Hence, it is important to acknowledge that digital literacy definitions and models will continue to evolve. The concept of digital literacy may be constantly viewed in light of development of the Internet, ICTs, and big data — the evolution of which is yet difficult to forecast. Apparently, digital literacy education requires cross-institution collaboration, massive teacher training, and a comprehensive plan of action involving all stakeholders.

Transcript

Provided by: Caption First, Inc., P.O. Box 3066, Monument, CO 80132, Phone: 800 825 5234, www.captionfirst.com


This text is being provided in a realtime format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) or captioning are provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.


>> MODERATOR: Hi. Okay.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the event will begin in one minute. We kindly request you to continue in one minute. Ladies and Gentlemen, the conference programme will continue in one minute. We kindly request you to enter the room and take your seats.

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the EuroDIG workshop from Internet users to digital citizens. My name is Narine Khachatryan, and I work for Safer Internet Armenia. Our workshop is co organized by the Internet Society European Affairs Bureau. And we have distinguished speakers today with us who will help us explore what digital literacy means in today's world.

Steven Wyber is responsible for policy and advocacy work at the International Federation of Library Associations.

Kristel Rillo is from the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research. Kristel is currently working on digital education policy, 21st Century skills and lifelong learning. She has been leading Estonia's digital skills programme since 2013.

Vitor Tome, the Council of Europe. Vitor has a PhD in education. He is also professional journalist and in service teacher/trainer and researcher. He's a member of the Council of Europe Digital Citizenship Working Group, and he coordinates currently digital citizenship in Portugal.

Clara Sommier at Google. Before Europe, she worked in the European Parliament focusing on fundamental rights.

And we are also honored to have with us today Dr. Signe Balina, who is Councilor to the Latvian Minister for Environmental Protection and Regional Development, responsible for Information Society and e government. Dr. Balina is President of Latvian Information and Communication Technology Association, and she is also a leader in IT competence centre, and also she's a former Special Assignments Minister for Electronic Government Affairs in Latvia.

Oliana Sula from Albania, she's a lecturer and researcher at the Department of Management, Faculty of Business, University "Aleksandër Moisiu" Durrës. She will help us coordinate the session.

Everybody in the world is invited to contribute to the discussion, and remote participants are more than welcome to send their comments and questions.

Everyone today is trying to figure out what kind of skills and competences are necessary for the 21st Century. The notion that there is a digital skill gap is now widely accepted. But there are governments, institutional institutions, employers or civil society organizations getting the whole picture. What type of digital skills and competences are required for a successful, globally connected digital economy and knowledge based society. And the evidence is rather disturbing. The recent study on adult skills suggests that the majority of adults living in those countries have no ICT skills, have no basic ICT skills or have just basic skills to perform simple tasks in technology rich environment such as writing an email or browsing the Web. The study says that the most part of adult population living in those countries on average have low proficiency in problem solving in a technology rich environment.

And technology doesn't wait. It continues to advance and change our every day lives as rapidly as the skill profile of our jobs where most of the tasks are to be replaced by machines.

No doubt digital literacy is as important as Internet access. But while traditional definitions of digital literacy refer to basic ICT user skills, they are no longer sufficient in today's Internet environment.

Our workshop will discuss today what digital literacy means and how can we upgrade existing skill sets to correspond to the new reality? Do digital natives who grow up with Internet access automatically develop by default digital literacy skills, helping to improve the education, helping them to better participate in their societies. And what educational strategies should be applied, not to deepen the existing divides between technology literate and those who are not? And I have a pleasure to welcome Stephen Wyber who will tell us what libraries are doing to become digital citizens. The floor is yours, Stephen.

>> STEPHEN WYBER: Thank you. And good morning. Thanks for having me here. As Marina set out, I work for international library association institutions. I think everyone is aware that libraries were set up by governments, by philanthropists, by societies in order to help communities, in order to help people become citizens. And the way of doing this is through the principle of access to information. Meaningful access to information, allowing people to go out, find what they need and actually use it, apply it in helpful ways.

And clearly we're in a changing environment. We're here to at the Internet Governance Forum. Things are becoming Internetized, a term used a few years ago. The way of being a citizen, the way of being engaged is clearly changing with it.

Sadly, having, we haven't thrown away the old inequalities we had, the old problems we had, these are just manifesting themselves in different ways. So the way to go out and make sure everyone can benefit from the possibility of being a citizen is as strong as ever. And this is one of the areas where libraries come in. In the past, libraries were the one to make sure that people could have access to culture, to information. They're the ones that help people to come together as communities, the one public space that was available. And this is happening in the digital age, as well. So what I'm going to try to do, which will compliment what Marina mentioned there was just give a couple practical examples of how citizenship, digital citizenship is being developed in libraries.

I'm not going to try to define digital citizenship myself, I think everyone has ideas, I think the examples I give will evoke different dimensions of this, different sets of skills, different curricula that might lead on to there. I have very expert panelists who can go into more depth on the specific curricula and so on.

I think the interest of the library example is because these are local institutions, so you're looking at how efforts come together on the ground, how the non digital, the social, everything else.

First example I'm going to give comes from the U.S. Now in the U.S., digital community archives is very strong one. Now, there was a project that was supporting Denver, Colorado, a couple of years back where they received a grant from the institute of museum and library studies to set up infrastructure but then went out to neighborhoods, which were in rapid change, often poor neighborhoods, ones being gentrified, vulnerable groups, often from tribal groups, people who were really at risk of losing their citizenship rights. And what they did is they sat down with them, brought them together to talk about what makes the community? What makes them special? Gives them ownership of being aware of themselves.

But then there's the digital bit, how do we build you an archive? How to create content, how to create and curate it, how to add media, create media, how to add metadata, how to present yourself online in a way to allow you to value yourself. One potential example digital citizenship.

Second example of Colombia, nice example bringing together data literacy skills, political engagement. Project in Colombia has seen in Medellín, very polluted city. The government is knowledgeable about this. Something needs to be done. They got citizens together to use the data. So again this is other digital skills. How do you use data, manipulate it, get it to tell you stories? And this has been a fantastic way of getting people into one room, talking about how information from the Internet can be applied and how to use it to involve yourself in civic engagement.

Again, a potential definition of digital citizenship.

Final example comes from Europe this time from Croatia where city libraries have had an initiative to work with the homeless because this is another group of losing their digital citizenship due to exclusion, due to a lack of skills, due to low self worth, poor self image. What the library did there is go to the homeless shelter because that's where they felt comfortable bringing I. T. How do you search for jobs online? How do you use key words? How do you analyze what's a good job, a bogus job, how to develop your NCV, how to present yourself? They worked alongside social workers who worked confidence, networking skills, presentation skills, a mix of things that allow people, again, to become economic citizens. Plenty of people have had jobs, but an interesting thing about this is that people have gone on to become ICT trainers. So they've gone from being recipients to being producers to being educators of other people. Which is fantastic the empowering as a way forward. So that's the third example.

And I'm going to let others who do interpretation think for yourselves how this man IP fests the digital citizenship. I think it was a nice example for how when you're on the ground, when you bring together all the ideas and resources and when you have contact with the communities, with the people you need to help, you can actually achieve some progress.

>> NARINE KHACHATRYAN: Thank you, Steven, so very interesting presentation from you and I just would like to continue with what you have said and just would like to emphasize those competencies, I with like to refer to Europe and digital framework for citizens. What it means to be digital savvy in an increasingly globalized and digital world. And it sets five areas of competencies, if we try to structure what you have taught. Information literacy and data literacy. Communication and collaboration, including e citizenship, digital content creation, safety, including privacy awareness and protection of one's own well being if a digital environment, problem solving, which is about creatively using digital technologies.

So my question is to Kristel: Those skills, what do you think are those skills developed automatically by digital natives who grow up with Internet access? Or if not, how to ensure that these skills are adequately promoted in the curriculum, in teacher development, in assessment practices, and in learning content. Kristel, the floor is yours.

>> KRISTEL RILLO: The answer to your question is that no, the digital natives today, they are, of course, as we say digital natives, they are very good consumers. They are more able or willing to take risks and to test different buttons. Probably older people are not so eager to try different versions when some kind of errors appear on the screen. But the youngsters are doing that. So they become more competent in consuming different hardware or software solutions.

But for sure they are also facing risks. You already mentioned the safety issues, more risks. You already mentioned the safety issues not only for the data but also regarding health. For example, and this is something that needs to be addressed in the formal education and panelists. The work area for schools has grown significantly when the digital world came into picture. And now the schools do not have to address not only the students within the school buildings, but also the parents behind the children who at some point are very aware parents but there are also parents that are against digital means or against the digital evolution or revolution, as one might say it. And this is something for teachers and schools to face.

In Estonia, it's necessary to bear three things in mind. First, with resources in our disposal, we simply cannot afford being non digital. So we need to make our processes and systems very efficient.

Secondly, education is highly valued. 95 percent of children go to kindergarten. It's starting from 1.5 years up to 6 years. And we have also defined very clear learning outcomes for kindergartens. So this kind of starting level for schools is sort of generalized, or it's more simple for schools to take on the students in schools.

And the third is that IT is highly appreciated and emphasized by different stakeholders. Never mind what kind of politics are in power or private sectors are increasing, everybody are appreciating IT skills, and those are the usage of IT solutions.

It's very easy in Estonia if you're doing the right thing. You can make the changes happen very fast. And bearing in mind also those three aspects. And we put this digital competence or we regulated the digital competence in our curricula in 2014. It doesn't matter that nothing happened before that. Because we had technology and innovation in our curricula before that, since 2008. But, actually, it does not bring along the impact. If you have something regulated, the implementation must follow. So it's pretty clear that we had to start explaining what the digital competency's all about. And that's why also this framework coming from the commission researchers was very useful. We took the five competences, we adjusted those to Estonian circumstances and age groups because the framework is for citizens. And we introduced into our curriculum. It was in 2014. Since then, we have been explaining to teachers and to schools and to the public what is digital competence all about? Because it was really the case that we the teachers always asked the question whether we should now start teaching coding in foreign language lessons or something like that. The other is simple computer literacy. How to use Word or Excel. So a lot of explaining had to be done.

I believe that also the teacher training. Digital training was also following simultaneously. As soon as we had this regulation in place in national curriculum, we introduced the teacher trainings. The teacher trainings before then were more focused on computer literacy. But then it had more focus on how to develop student schools and how to use technology for pedagogy.

This is the digital competence part which is one dimension of three we are addressing in education system. It's like the digital skills for consumers or for using to be competitive enough in the Information Society.

The second set of digital skills is digital skills for profession. Like I mentioned already for the teachers, how they would actually effectively use technology supporting them in teaching, whether they use robots in teaching math or 3 D printers in art lessons or these kind of activity monitors in the physics education it's up to them only learning outcomes. How teachers achieve that is up to them.

The third set of digital skills as I said it had to be explained what kind of skills is meant because even if you look at the different regulations coming from different policymakers, it is not commonly understood what is meant by digital skills.

The second part, the digital skills for work is actually the trickiest part because how it's possible to foresee what kind of IT skills will be needed for 10 years when today's children, like my youngest going to school this year, will enter labour market in around maybe 13 years. So probably I should start teaching something to her already today. In school or at home, it depends on the skills. Whether I'm competent or not. This is something very difficult to predict because Ministry of Education systems are conducting skills panoramas to identify what kind of IT skills will be there necessary for future work. And the best coming from there is IT skills or codling skills. Really, codling in every profession, probably not. But understanding what the coding is all about and what coding or technology could bring as value added to their fields is another story.

And another aspect from the personal experience, I attended one research presentation, it was half year ago again regarding skills panorama where the kind of book accountants and metal workers and these kind of fields were in question. And, for example, that we don't need in the future as many accountants we need today because accounting is done by the software solutions and we need more analysts. And going home and just talking to my husband about this topic, then my son comes along, 10 year old, and said that "I decided to become a YouTuber." Okay. It wasn't stated in the skills panorama set. Where can you study it? "I have decided because this and that YouTube earns this many millions. Why not? Video editing, I like this kind of thing and it's beneficial so I will become a YouTuber."

Okay. We made that channel for him with close control and monitoring, of course. And within 2 weeks he earned $8. 10 years old with this kind of idea earning $8. The education system has a huge challenge to address these youngsters today. And this has to be done differently. We have solved it with the flexible curriculum leading autonomy teachers and agreeing on learning results. Thank you. Mama thank you, Kristel. You have brought.

>> NARINE KHACHATRYAN: Thank you, Kristel. You have brought amazing examples that as you said, people in Estonia cannot afford not being digitally literate. As you see there is a great focus on bringing Internet skills into the school classroom and there is even a trend towards integrating coding into the core curriculum and not only in Estonia but across most of Europe. But when we prioritize those technical skills or generic literacy skills, how can we address much more complex digital teal, much more complex digital skills phenomenon? The idea that today's students and tomorrow's workers are not just passive recipients of information; they are themselves becoming content makers, expressing and presenting their ideas to wide audiences. They not only understand problems but can produce solutions to problems. And they not only know how to use technology, but they can apply it creatively and produce and create something new.

Vitor, can you please tell us about your experience in the field and the Council of Europe's digital citizenship Working Group approaches to digital literacy and digital citizenship? The floor is yours.

>> VITOR TOME: Thank you. My personal experience is I'm working with 800 families and children. Children from 3 to 9 years old in Portugal. First training teachers, preschool and primary school teachers, this was in January 2016 and now the project is going bigger and bigger.

And next September we are going to start a new project, similar project in Lisbon area starting from a public library, the main public library in Lisbon just to see. But I think it's really, really important. It is crucial to start at the preschool and primary school level and if we don't train teachers first, it will be impossible. And even if we train teachers first, it is very important, it is really crucial to work with the teachers after the training, not only during but after. And we need to add the teachers, to develop activities and to assess the activities, to share, I would not say good practices but sensible practices.

In the Council of Europe, I have a PowerPoint to help me because in the Council of Europe, we are trying to define a set of digital competences that citizens should develop from the crib. It's to answer one of the current challenges. Of course, we want to answer different challenges, but one of the most important is we charted for assessing, participating and creating online. And what can be the role of the Council of Europe? Of course the Council of Europe has already big experience regarding digital citizenship education and citizenship education itself, of course.

There are legal instruments developed by the Council of Europe like Internet governance, Human Rights, data protection, privacy, media information literacy or media literacy, of course. And the Council of Europe works with 47 countries, of course, and the education department with 50 countries suggests integrated policies, policies that we can say that are not prescriptive but descriptive. Mainly descriptive.

Recently one of the groups developed the competence model, the competences for democratic culture. And this is the starting point of the most recent project of the political, sorry, educational policy division of the CoE, Council of Europe. What we are trying to find out is the set of competences, digital competences that the children should start developing from the crib and continuing in preschool, primary school and so on.

The main idea or the basis is safety and protection are really important, of course. We are not saying that they are not important. But we are trying to move from policies aimed at safety and protection to policies that promote positive measures and empowerment. Prepare citizens not only try to avoid problems but try to train people to act in a positive way only and offline. So, we think that is really, really important to reshape the responsibilities of the education sector and its major actors. And this means ministries of education, school boards, teachers' associations, teachers, families, local communities because it's really important to work at the common level starting from the basis.

Until now, the project is called Digital Citizenship Education. What we have done so far, the literature review, the conceptual framework and the multistakeholder consultation on sensible practices in Europe over the 47 countries.

The project is going to be officially launched the 21st and 22nd of September during a meeting that will take place in Strasbourg. And after that, after airing the hearing of the specialists, teachers, students and other actors, we are going to try to develop guidelines, share best practices for each competence. We are going to develop descriptors. And those descriptors will be tested in European schools with children, teachers, families and local communities. Mainly to try to find out if this competence through the descriptors are teachable, learnable and measurable.

And of course after that, if possible, we want to share all the experience and suggestions to all the CoE Member States. That's all. Thank you.

>> NARINE KHACHATRYAN: Thank you, Vitor, for your presentation. I noticed that new concepts in your presentation. So we see such notion as transversal skills or I've just noticed empathy mentioned among the skills, the ability to understand another person's feelings while being in a digital environment, not to harm.

So in our increasingly digital world, the skill needs are continuously evolve. And policymakers need to make sure that everyone can learn new skills. Meanwhile most existing education systems at all levels provide traditional training and continue 20th Century practices.

One popular study says that 65 percent of children entering primary schools today will ultimately work in new job types, in functions that currently don't exist.

Clara, my question is to you: What a true 21st Century curriculum might look like? The floor is yours.

>> CLARA SOMMIER: Thank you. And thank you for inviting us and enabling us today to share our view on this crucial issue.

So maybe to start, I'd like to differentiate between three different type of skills and competencies when we talk about digital that we think are really important. So when we're talking about skills, of course, you have the digital skills. The competences you need for a job, what will be looked for. How to use a computer, how to launch a marketing campaign online, those are really crucial. We also talk about digital literacy. What does it mean. You are digital literate if you know how to handle yourself online. If you know to be safe. If you know the importance of posting the right information and not divulging any private information if you're not aware of the consequences it can have.

But third concept we also talk about digital citizenship today. So what does it mean? Digital citizen for us is someone who can commit, engage on the Web, be there, react and call out when something out there happened that shouldn't happen.

And those three important concepts, we try to support it because it's just connection to Internet, it takes education commitment to have digital citizens. And that is why at Google, we really try to play our part and support those efforts.

I'll try to focus on five different dimensions that we think are really important and explain what private companies can do in that regard and give you also a few examples of what we are doing at Google.

So the first part we've talked at length about it, but it's key. Education. We have to form the new generation. We have to explain how to be safe online again, how to make the most of the online environment. And there are lots of civil society work that are working on it and trying, then, to engage with it as we evolve and we try to support them, be it from handbook that we also have to prepare for teachers with example of activities they can do with their kids.

Another example is the recent contest, online contest that we organized for teenagers. It was called Connected: The Game. It was an online game for teenagers from 8 different countries. And they had to fill questions in how to be safe online, also Copyright issues, various online topics, actual one. And they were in contests between each other everywhere in Europe to have the most right answers.

The second dimension that I wanted to touch upon is training because we're talking about young people, but there are also lot of people who are not in education system anymore that would benefit from digital skills training. We see there are lots of job openings and lots of people want the job, so we have to match the two. And that's a thing that we're really being committed to recently at Google. We've launched an online platform which is called the digital workshop that you can look for. And on this platform you can find lots of free online trainings to form yourself in how to make the most out of the web, online marketing, online advertising, different skills that are essential to business. And we've combined it with lots of trainings in different countries. I'll give you one example, an Italian one. So if there are any Italian, pardon my Italian. The programme is called (?)

We partner with the Department of Labor. We offer online training for all the needs, so older people that were not in education, employment or training that were also part of the youth guarantee. We offer them a training and then in combination and in collaboration with the Ministry of Labour, we help them to find paid internship in a company that needed to have this digital expertise as a first step towards employment. So education first, training then.

Then the third part I wanted to mention is employment. Exactly along the line that has just been said. We also need in order to have fully fledged digital citizen to help them and empower them to choose. Which kind of Internet do they want to have? How do they want to behave online?

And one thing that comes to my mind in terms of what Google is doing in that regard is in the field of privacy and safety. So, for instance, we have developed what is called "my account." I invite all of you to go on it because it will help you to better understand what we are doing with your data. We know it's a sensitive topic. And to make the decisions that are right for you. On this tool, you can decide which kind of data are collected and what we do with that. So empower people to choose what their Internet will be and how they want to be part of it.

The fourth point that I wanted to mention is giving people a voice. We really happy to see that many people are embracing Internet and YouTube also in particular, like your son Kristel, as a platform to express their views and we really want to contribute to that because we believe that everybody has something to say and there are lots of people who want to commit. And we have to help them express their voices. That's also why we launched another programme which is called Creators for Change. What does it mean? It means we were supporting YouTube creators that want to make something positive out there in the world because they care. They want to promote tolerance. They want to fight against hate speech. Maybe they care about sustainable development and we want to empower them through grants, production facilities to develop more videos and to be able to express themselves and contribute to this digital world that we're all living in.

And the last part that I wanted to stress that I think is really important is also acknowledgment. I think it's really Mr. That we recognize all those people that work, that are digital citizenship that are out there that say something when they see something happening online and not just offline. When we will see a video that is not appropriate. Where they will see cyber bullying on someone receiving mean comments and acts. And this is really important to acknowledge those people and reward them. And that's the last point I wanted the make. Looking forward to the questions.

>> NARINE KHACHATRYAN: Thank you, Clara, for this very interesting presentation. As we see, like the future is coming and Internet combined with the Internet of Things may transform most of the jobs across all industries, requiring a much higher level of digital literacy than in past. And those technological changes create many cross functional jobs for which people will need technical, social and analytical skills. And with automation of some functions and some jobs, a wide range of occupations will require a higher degree of cognitive abilities such as creativity, logical reasoning, problem sensitivity.

My question is to you, Dr. Balina, what type of skill development policies are needed to reduce the risk of increased unemployment and global inequality? And should those development, skill development policies be government led or private sector supported or bottom up through community initiatives? Or a mixture, the floor is yours.

>> DR. SIGNE BALINA: Thank you for inviting me. And I would like to say that the world is going digital and we need to manage with the challenges, the skills. Later, also I would like to provide two examples from lat very an how we manage this.

And digital skills are really important and also in the new skills agenda, the digital commission published last June, digital skills is one huge part. As we see, all countries are working on digital skills. And also European council is working on digital skills. And I think altogether we need to manage this because it is huge challenge. And what we look to how we manage in Latvia, I think this is classical multi stakeholder approach. And how we can manage and how we can manage with this challenge is to work together. Private sector and public sector. Because there is no way for only private sector and only for public sector to manage with this.

And the question is that of course the digital skills nowadays is something like one of the basic skills like literacy, like numeracy. And they are studying the basis for functioning digital society. And of course also digital single market all round Europe. And we have modern technologies, we have modern communication tools. But the question still is: Are our citizens ready for this? And are our citizens skilled? And we have those two groups of citizens. We help digital natives, the young generation and the digital immigrants, me and many of you also in this audience because we do not grow together with the Internet, together with the digital technologies. But nevertheless there are many young people who use Internet daily but do not have the skills necessary to convert this usage of Internet in actual job, in IT sector or whatever other sector because in all sectors of our economy we need digital skills, we need to be digital literacy. And this is despite we have huge use unemployment in Europe. And we have a lot of I IT specialists all around Europe and all around the world. And on national level, at Latvia, as I mentioned before, we together efforts for bus for public sector and private law private sector to develop digital skills policy and to also later coordinate this policy and to coordinate them also the development of this policy because no one, state institution, no one, business organisation, no one, IT or another industry association or trade union, can manage this by itself.

And talking about digital skills national level lat Latvia, it involves many it's the same case in other countries, Ministry of Education is Ministry of Economics because it's next people who will work in labour market? And this is IP industry of Welfare and this is also the ministry in our case reasonable regional development environmental protection because this ministry is development of Information Society and e government in Latvia. And on the policy planning level, we help the digital skills development strategy, and this strategy is included in our national development plan. It means that at the policy level, we point out and we stress how important the digital skills are for the country and for the development of the country.

And, yes, as I mentioned before, we develop those documents in really, really close cooperation with the industries because there is no other way how to manage this.

I would like to give some practical examples because of course we need to plan how to develop digital skills for digital native as well as for digital immigrants, for small and for entrepreneurs, for civil servants, for all, all, all members of society. And in Latvia, we help more than 95 percent of all people, of all companies, small and medium enterprises. And small and medium enterprises ensure jobs for almost two thirds of our population. And we found out that there is a major gap in IT skills level between and also the usage of digital technologies between small enterprises and large enterprises.

And, of course, we need to manage what to do in such a situation. Now we have ongoing project on digital technology and innovation training with small and microenterprizes with help of regional development fund. And the aim is to provide training for more than 7,000 to provide more than 7,000 trainings in three digital domains: In technologies, in digital tools, and also in digitalization of business processes.

We had similar project in last years. We trained we had more than 6,500 trainings. And we trained employees from one half thousand small and microenterprises in Latvia and in all regions, in many places in our country. And they found out this is very, very important because training for employees in large enterprises, it is something usual but for small enterprises, sometimes it is absolutely unusual. And sometimes we found out that there are people who are not active. And they are not in lifelong learning. And, therefore, they need to find out how to help them to be digitally literate and to understand the benefits from the digital scale.

And we started with some simple examples, with some simple programmes, how to present your company, how the run your business, about the marketing, about the online marketing. If you are not in the Internet, how your client can find you and what to do, how to communicate with the client.

And another one, project, another one, idea in our country is of course about the digital natives. We started in the year 2015 computing from the first class, from the first grade. And we started this project as a pilot in more than 20 percent of all schools over all the countries. And they involved more than 24,000 pupils and teachers. We trained pupils. But first of all of course we trained teachers. And this is also good project for corporation because this project, this idea about this pilot was introduced by private sector, by ICT association, by Latvia, by IT company lat very an in cooperation with universities, in cooperation with schools. And the idea is that we have something like training materials and also support, online support 24 hours per day for teachers who teach the pupils in coding also, yeah, but also what is necessary that pupils need to understand what to do and how to do in the digital environment, yeah? How to live in the digital environment. And of course critical thinking, algorithmic thinking, all these things we need to put in curricula starting from the first grade.

And now there is huge project, huge changes in education system in Latvia. And starting from the year 2018, we will start with new curricula on competence based curricula and, let's see, but I think that only together we can do a lot of good and necessary things. Thank you.

>> NARINE KHACHATRYAN: Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Everyone in the room is invited to contribute to discussion. And if we have remote participants, they are more than welcome to send their comments and questions.

So we are happy to answer your questions. Can we bring this mic? Can we put it here?

>> Hi. I just wanted to share my experience with trainings and education within the educational system.

I'm Lilliana. I come from protection agency and PR of the agency and also work within the project. I'm the project manager of the privacy lessons.

It is a project, it is a three year project, actually. And I'm working with three target groups within the educational system: With the parents, the children and the teachers. And basically I just want to echo what was previously said. I made research first of all at their high schools, the entire high schools in the capital of the state. And I asked around 800 students from high school to tell me if they face online abuse, if they face data protection breach, if they face privacy concern or cyber bullying or no hate speech within the school environment, to whom they want to address first? To the teachers or to the parents? And they said this is a sensitive matter, but I want to address to the parent first. I want to be able to discuss it within my home, within a safe and secure environment. And then I want to be understood from my teacher, not just to tell the teacher, but to have a teacher who is going to be with more digital understanding, the competences that will be able to tell me what next and not to just, you know, bring on the issue within the school highest level.

So basically when I turned to the parents of these high school students, I asked them what do you think? If you face with these issues or the same questions. And the parents said oh no, no, no, we don't know how to address these issues. These are the issues and topics that my children are supposed to learn into school environment. So basically the parents just back away from the issue.

And when I asked those teachers within the same schools, the teachers said "okay, but the children actually know much more from us. And they know all about computers. And we are not digitally literate. And we do not have received enough trainings. We don't have competences to address and to answer them. What happens if I lose my authority when I don't have the answer as a teacher? I'm supposed to have all the answers as a teacher."

So basically I had around 10,000 students. And based on the research that are left alone in a school environment without any answers from both the parents and the teachers. And it was very sad. But we need to move on. And I tried for these three years to provide each Monday morning a training to different school, different 30 participants, different 30 students on different topics, on policy, privacy, which they don't read, on the safe online, how to behave on Internet, on data protection, on privacy issues, cyber bullying, no hate speech was definitely the first topic they with come to as a carrot, let's say, to discuss much more on the issues.

What I want to say that basically we need to face all of the three target groups at the same time if we want to have strict results. And we need a systematic approach first of all for the teachers. I mean parents, as parents you cannot urge them to have a computer in each home. You are not able to have it. Or you cannot urge parents as much as you have to urge teachers. And you must, let's say it's a must. It's a to do work.

So basically one more thing. We started to, we launched a project. And it's an Erasmus project. We thought that maybe we could have a special curricula for postgraduate studies. And I'm drafting the curricula for this postgraduate studies on these topics in order for those teachers or the age rate from the teachers that could possibly want to learn much more and to gain competences again because it is not a curricula that is going to be within the pedagogy faculties but within the IT faculties. And therefore we kind of addressed this issue with a small group of teachers that are willing to move on with their education.

So basically it's a long run programme for all of us, but, again, as I wanted to point out that not only Ministry of Education but also the public protection agencies could be part of this lifelong learning programme for our teachers in gaining competences and skills for IT. Thank you.

>> NARINE KHACHATRYAN: Thank you.

>> May I just quickly comment on that?

>> NARINE KHACHATRYAN: Kristel?

>> KRISTEL RILLO: From the perspective of my professional belief, I would say yes, the teachers are the key figures.

However, I would still emphasize that it would be to my belief again, it should be 50, 60 for the favor of parents because this is where the values are actually developed. And this is the main time a child spends with the families. The families are the ones checking in in Dubai just announcing to the world that their homes are open to thieves and such approaches. So additives come also mainly from families. Of course they can be further designed and hopefully designed for the better within schools.

But, again, the role of families, parents and the public in a wider speaking is a very significant factor in this play.

>> Just one sentence. We have to be careful with the parents. And we have to get careful policy design, especially for them.

I prepared a guide for parents for these issues, answering all of the questions and having all the reporting mechanisms if. If something happens, what to do step by step. It was online. And they all requested the printed version.

[Laughter]

>> But you also got online the one already online.

>> Hi, oh, sorry.

>> NARINE KHACHATRYAN: Your question, please?

>> I'm Rosie from Romania. I would like to address for each of the speakers a couple of words. Stephen, library as a space for digital empowerment, I think it's a very good example because it's an institutionalized, prepared already connected to the digital highway. I would be interested maybe in the coffee break to know more about such empowerment projects that could be implemented in countries like Romania.

I know that small town libraries in Romania work together with university from London in digital storytelling project which was aimed at empowering ordinary citizens. So I will be contacting you during the coffee break.

Kristel, very inspiring this YouTube idea. I participate in this cost network on digital literacy for 0 8. So maybe YouTube would be also a space of research, not only of empowerment but also to look at how connected are these very young generations to the YouTube?

Vitor, hello from the cost team. It is very important to see that there is a systematic approach. And this term of digital empowerment, which is embraced by the European council, I'm very interested in how these projects go on. So I will contact you in the break. What is related to this in recent literature is that more and more digital inclusion and digital empowerment is connected on a research level with the social inclusion.

So for years, social inclusion was a separate research topic as if it was disconnected from the Internet highway. And the digital literacy was on a separate track, like they were totally disconnected. And recent research is addressing them together.

I also read an Article about the digital underclass, which is a quit harsh way of putting those left behind, a new term in the literature.

Clara, these Google tools, I think they are useful. I think those who are more interested in these issues, I talk about myself, we should learn, we should be ourselves more open and test these instruments and recommend them for those who want to learn because the way I'm very impressed by Lillian's ideas and Dr. Balina's impressive number of teacher trainings. I don't know if it would be implemented in Romania. We don't have a digital curriculum yet. All what is done in Romania is done by the civil society sector, organizations like Save the Children or Association for technology and Internet. Or we were doing strawberry net foundation since 1995 we were doing some net ethics corpses.

So it's a lot to do for us, digital immigrants, as well. And I think it's nonstop learning for all of us. Thank you.

>> Hi, I'm from International Youth Service of Germany. Yep. What you have been saying and also, Clara, I think that we are facing a situation where it's getting obvious that we need something quickly reacting an and more flexible than sometimes education system can be.

And, sadly, I have the feeling that my generation cannot just trust on my parents' generation because they are they have well they have grown up in totally different circumstances. And that's why teachers do feel sometimes overwhelmed with the questions. And they don't want to lose their authority.

So what I think it's missing here in the discussion is the nonformal approach or the approach that from our side we are working. And sorry for a little pitch now. So the youth work and youth information work is doing that already since several years and working on digital skills especially those as Clara also said that are out of system. What do we do with those who are not in schools? Neither in education nor in training.

So this is also something that I think we shouldn't forget from our scope of view, especially there are actors as European youth information and counseling agency that work 30 years and has the network of 13,000 youth information workers all over Europe who go to also schools who go to beaches, even just there where young people are and they try to get them. They just take the Facebook application with them asking people to get on board and just check your privacy settings. So just making it very handy and very easy to understand. So this is something that young people can start with and see what the potential, what maybe the risks are.

>> NARINE KHACHATRYAN: Thank you.

>> Okay, hi. Yes, good morning. Marianne Franklin. I'm speaking this afternoon with the extension of this workshop. I'm also speaking as an educator today from Goldsmiths. So, yes, I really enjoyed this panel. I learned a lot. I think there are in each of the presentations is some very important initiatives of the but there's a big disconnect I'd like to put to you, and that disconnect is within educational institutions, particularly large ones like universities, technical universities. There are the teachers who are also researchers. There are students, so called digital natives. There's the management. And then in the middle, digital IT department, the ones that handle the private law privacy, the infrastructure resilient and then next to them, parallel, are the virtual environment, online learning platform staff. And there's a huge disconnect within the institutions.

And what is happening, sadly, is more and more commercial platforms which are large, for instance Massive Open Online Courses, MOOCs, as these are being pushed into the curriculum as the sort of silver bullet to resolve all our recruitment issues, let's say, or marketing issues. The assumption is that this is always better. And the assumption is starting to become embedded across the board not just in UK and Canada is that the educator, the academic teacher, researcher Internet Governance ignorant and that the student is young, always, and knows everything about these technologies. As as the panel is showing today, that is not the case.

But in the middle is this idea that if you digitize, you put it all online, nothing really changes. But that is not true. It changes how you design your programme. It changes how you deliver your programme. It affects the sort of content that is considered legitimate.

But my concern is the disconnect is that these platforms will be designed teal talking to the researcher teacher, and they're being designed on the assumption that all the digital natives are under 25. We have a lot of returning students, which ties to another problematic assumption, is that older people are digitally illiterate and younger people are digitally literate. If anyone worked with students today, you will understand that they are not literate in the way we say digitally. I would like to ask from the institutions. It's understood from the privacy point of view, they have an effect on what is wrong with printing it out? Why should you not print it out? I've printed out my notes for this afternoon. Does that make me a dinosaur? No, it doesn't.

I think part of the literacy profile we're building here has there has to be alternatives and there have to be low fi understandings of digital and hi fi understandings of digital. It's more than just pressing an application button. Not everybody wants to be a computer programmer.

So I know you're on your way to addressing these connections, but organizationally, how do we get our IT departments, our virtual learning teams, our teachers and our students talking together so that starts to make sense and we get critical skills and diverse sorts of skills? Thank you very much.

>> NARINE KHACHATRYAN: Kristel, please, could you answer the question?

>> KRISTEL RILLO: Yes, thank you for the question. It's always very challenging to talk about the higher education because of the alternative the universities have and so on.

Yeah, it was expected, the MOOCs, to be the "new revolution" just for the fact I've heard the costs for designing MOOCs on the marketing budget line not on the content creative budget line. So echo to you back to that.

When talking about digital skills in higher education, we can talk about how students learn and teachers teach. It's also known that professors from the university are not so eager to attend the trainings, the general education teachers attend because they sort of need or expect certain other approaches, which is very useful tool in Estonia, it is all in vocational education and general education. We have this mentor called educational technologists. It's more digitally competent teacher who supports other teachers using technology.

Also, designing these courses as blended courses, not bearing in mind that MOOCs should be there, but blended learning today should be work based, audience and also web based learning, depends on the subject and objectives to be reached.

So this educational technologist is something that is something someone that is well taken on board by the universities to become as fascinating as general education schools are already today. So this is a shift today. We know this also in Estonia that it's fun, it's very fun in primary education, in base Internet Governance school, it's fun in secondary level; but it's getting more boring in higher education in terms of pedagogy. So this needs to be shifted. So I still believe that web based learning with the help of MOOC, although it's question when this should be online course and when MOOC is starts and online course ends, but in terms of MOOCs, it's very good awareness raising tool. It's very good tool for adult training and I attended one MOOC myself to better understand how the universities are asking such money from you.

You are asking and also wanted to know about coding, learning python. There were different conclusions coming out from there. For example, coding is not for me. But this is a very good awareness raising tool because many people attending this course ended formal education in higher education the study IT. So this is one value of the MOOC.

I don't know why whether I responded to the remarks, but thanks.

>> Hi, my name's from the University of Nottingham. First of all, the various approaches towards digital citizenship, education that we heard from the panel sound to me quite superior to what we've been hearing from the UK, so far. So congratulations on that.

But I was wondering, since we're at a multistakeholder Forum here, to what extent the stakeholder of the student has been involved in the development of these kinds of programmes that you're presenting.

For instance, I'm thinking about one of the projects that we did interacting with the 13 to 17 year old crowd. And one of the things that they brought up is what they would want to have some skills with or how to deal with issues was the stickiness of a lot of the online platforms and things that they're dealing with. That once you start with it, it's really difficult to let go of it. They're losing sleep because there's constantly new things that they need to be doing on the app, et cetera. So help us with getting way from the stickiness of the thing. Just as an example, something that came out of that stakeholder group's perspectives.

>> NARINE KHACHATRYAN: Thank you very much for the question. Stephen, you? Clara, please.

>> CLARA SOMMIER: Just to say that I absolutely agree. And I think it's maybe something we haven't made clear in the discussion that every group should be involved. And we've discussed on the target groups. But we've seen that many programmers are useful when they're designed with the kids. We mostly involve the children. We involve them in the end book for instance. Which kind of activity will work best?

And also one thing to mention, maybe I forgot to mention it earlier, is the importance of associating other young people and the role that YouTubers can play in that regard, for instance. So the role of influencers, be it YouTubers of other young person, that young person can look up to and that can play a very positive, that can have very positive influence in every programme that we're designing. But, yes, we have to design it with them together.

>> NARINE KHACHATRYAN: Thank you very much. Vitor, you also have some perspectives?

>> VITOR TOME: Yes, two very important comments.

In Portugal, maybe in other countries, too. It's important to tell universities especially universities that train teachers that media information literacy or digital citizenship education is not is not ICT education or ICT in education. This is really important because even teachers and parents, most of them, they think that this is ICT. This is about computer literacy. And this is much more than that.

Second comment is: The youth centre is most welcomed in all, at least in our project in Portugal. And I say community based projects, this means formal, informal and non formal contexts. For instance, in a small primary school where I am working with 180 students, their families and 10 teachers, part of the psychologists, the social service, they make part of our group discussions when we are trying to develop new activities with the students. But also the football club or the daughters' sports club, all the people from the community, local library, for instance.

And final comment, I think it's important. When we ask students: If you face problems online, hate speech, other, what would you do? "I would speak with my parent or my teacher." But we can ask: Did you face this? Yes. What did you do? I thought a little bit and then I talk with the peers. So it's really important to train peers to identify the most resilient students and to try to improve, to empower them as key peers that are able to talk with others and to hear from others.

>> Grabbing the mic, sorry for speaking so much. Regarding the stickiness, isn't this the case where we think that stickiness is too much? Because as a parent, of course, we need to choose the right games to be stuck to. But I for sure have used technology for baby sitting. So it's sort of very fun to go jogging outside when my daughter spends time with the tablets. But, sorry, this just a remark.

But what is happening in Estonia is that we have made of course it's not yet mainstream. It's in very many schools. And I would like to next time I would like to point out figures and percentages. But the lessons are today designed so that they are sticky themselves.

So actually children enjoy, in math lesson, as I said, they use robots. They are learning geometry with the help of robots. In language lessons, they design web pages. So they are doing those things that they enjoy consuming.

So to be more aware what they are consuming is one figure. And this has made education, we have asked also representation of students, we have those in 16 year olds as well as for the secondary level and what we expect from digital skills or from the strategy, education strategy in Estonia. And they actually echo back. They echo back on the same issues that we have outlined. They understand the concept. Of course, they are not using pedagogy as often as we use these words, but they say that with the help of computers, it is much more interesting to learn.

And also it's very practical.

Just one very good example how we make the education sticky is brand new example of how new skills are necessary to develop. We have used listening or hearing that we have mathematical key competence. It's no longer anymore about only calculating or numeracy only, it's about data analysis. In our invasive school, which was designed as 0 energy school, they have installed the sensors in the classrooms to measure the carbon dioxide and the different dimensions that they are measuring with the sensors. And the students are analyzing the same data. Why during these hours, for example, their level of carbon dioxide was so high? Because, I don't know, the choir was singing in the room or something like that. So this is something that we're making education more practical. They see the value of the skills being learned in school. And they get more sticky to the education.

Of course in Estonia, we have also the privilege to learn and teach in Estonia, then not so much different sticky things are available in Estonia than in English. But the language doesn't seem to be a problem when gaming comes into picture.

>> Probably to respond to Marianne's earlier and here. Totally the point of youth. We can't wait and hope for the problem to die off. That's not a responsive way of doing things. Need solutions that work for everyone in the community. And so you need all relevant community institutions potentially involved. What Vitor was saying about aiming, it's not just the schools, it's the library, it's the football clubs, et cetera. That's super important. And it is slightly controversial thing to say anything positive about the UK at the moment.

[Laughter]

But at least in the latest strategy document this came out, one every two years or so, I think, there was this thing of an obligation on government to make sure that citizens are digitally skilled, digitally literate. Now if you actually said a very specific curricula, do this, do this, do this. That doesn't work. You have to focus on what is the outcomes and allow people to focus on to respond and how do you actually get there? Again this is a plea for community institutions, schools for the under 18s, universities for the over 18s and beyond but also libraries, social centers, who can look at what are the needs?

Clearly MOOCs have been very well sold as a silver bullet. Well done MOOC produces good job. It's complicated. Education is complicated. If education was easy, we would have solved it so long ago. But we have to keep innovating. MOOCs will help for a large number of people. You need responsive ways of doing things.

I think that's broadly. Oh, final point is that I think came occupant in many of the examples here and I hope in the examples I was giving, if we paint digital as this fantastic new techie world that's slightly intimidating, it's mixing with it skills that people are already trying to give. Critical thinking is nothing new. Problem solving is nothing new. Creation is nothing new. Underlining that it is a change in what's already happening. It's not that. It's only so dramatic. It is not a massively different skill set. Everyone and what they do things is digitally now. But making them understand that you can float as a community. You can engage in civic life using these new digital teal makes it more approachable as a thing, less scary, really.

>> NARINE KHACHATRYAN: That. Thank you very much. And we have another question also to the audience.

>> Thank you. From European school net. First of all I would like to thank all the panelists and so many that best practices so far. Also I would like to bring in one example.

Not sure how many of you heard about digital skills in jobs coalition, but if you hadn't, you'll probably look it up online after my comment. We're talking here about an initiative by the European Commission to tackle the lack of digital skills that may lead to half a million ICT professionals, the lack of half a million ICT professionals by 2020. Now why do I know about this digital skills and jobs coalition? Because the nonprofit for which I am working for is doing the Secretariat together with digital Europe and telecentre Europe and we also made a pledge to contribute to tackle this lack of digital skills through our educational projects.

And one example of this project and just commenting upon basically elements that you mentioned in your presentations, you mentioned that you were surprised that your child wanted to become a YouTuber. Now, YouTubers are today's online trendsetters, or at least some of the main ones. And we know this because at one of our projects, which is called better Internet for kids that we coordinate on behalf of the European Commission and we work through a network of safe Internet centers throughout Europe, we had a publication last year in December specifically talking about online advertising and we also had a video, a vlog from Evelina, she's a famous YouTuber from Latvia. And she was talking about youth entrepreneurship and how at 16 years old she became a national star and how she started earning money and how many other young people are watching her and see her as a role model if not just trendsetter.

So you also mentioned MOOCs. And at European school net, we had an online safety MOOC that my colleague Sabrina here was coordinating. And we were aiming to reach out to teachers but not only who wanted to learn more about online safety and media literacy that could be taught to young people. So it was just to raise awareness and to echo all these best practices that have been shared so far.

And if you have any questions about the project, we are here and we also have a representative from the Português Safety Net Centre. So thank you.

Just comment from the digital jobs and coalition, being the one member of the subcommittee designing the framework, the main issue that seems to be problematic in different countries, the reason we need such frameworks is that states don't have common strategies. Countries have very many different strategies and they haven't agreed on the kind of objectives or results. So everybody are doing their own business. It shouldn't be the case.

>> Hi, my name's I'm a Dutch student information scientists at the University of Amsterdam and I am also printing, so no worries.

I got two questions. One, we are living in a rapid world. Everything's changing rather quickly. And if we design a training on one period, it may be already outdated when it's getting implemented or executed. How can we assure that the trainings are being developed constantly?

And, secondly, the politicians in the countries are deciding about issues that are also they are needed to have good digital skills. But some of them are just voting and don't really have a clue about the digital things they are voting for. How can we assure that also politicians are trained and also people working at the ministries that can decide really about issues they know about?

>> I would like can I give some short answer to your questions? First about the curriculums, how to be sure that everything will be not outdated, yeah? I think there is really important this cooperation between public and private sector.

For example, in case of Latvia, we have this initiatives, the association start IT. And all the time IT specialists, people from industry is looking on those curriculums. And we are, together with teachers, industry together with teachers, create the content. And because of course the world is changing so quickly, and all this administrative process is so long, yeah, therefore I think it's very important that there is this dialogue between public sector and private sector and that private sector take care also about the content and what the people are training on at schools.

The next question about them politicians and about the people on politicians side, in Latvia, we are also planning a lot of trainings for civil servants. And also a lot of trainings for the high level of civil servants. And we had trainings on cybersecurity and other such issues because it is really important that our policymakers they know and they are also updated what is going on. Thank you.

>> Thanks.

>> NARINE KHACHATRYAN: Thank you very much. We are approaching the conclusion part of our session. And so we all have come to a conclusion that we have come to an understanding that digital literacy today means much more than just muscling some certain competence. These are like it should integrate technical, social, analytical, empathy and the wide sets of skills, digital citizens, they know their responsibilities, their rights. They value personal privacy. They know how to protect themselves from Cybercrime. They embrace tools to protect their privacy and safety online. And they know how to use, to create, to produce content in a responsible manner.

And also transversal skills are very much important, the connections between different competencies and efforts are required from all stakeholders at different levels of society. So government, civil society, institutions, private sector, this should be like common, universal efforts from everyone.

Do you have any comments? Anymore comments? If not, we will thank everyone for participating in our workshop. Thank you, everyone. And we will continue this discussion about what a 21st Century curriculum may look like during our next workshops and during our next meetings. Since this is a complicated question, complicated issue. And we will need to meet more, more discussions, more experts to come to some interesting conclusions. Thank you very much, everyone.

>> You may take Estonian curriculum as basis.

>> NARINE KHACHATRYAN: Thank you. Thank you very much.

[Applause.]


This text is being provided in a realtime format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) or captioning are provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.