Digital Education

German schools have been slower to embrace digital education than US schools over the past decade, due to concerns about the influence of commercial players and data protection. The Covid-19 pandemic has now significantly increased reform pressure in Germany.

Schools made a quick pivot to online teaching in spring 2020 as the pandemic sent kids home to learn. But educators soon faced a host of data sharing issues, as classrooms moved to platforms neither designed for education nor in compliance with privacy laws.

In the United States, the pandemic made obvious what has long been a problem – students without access to the internet or computing devices at home are at a serious disadvantage.

When schools shut down, many students around the world were shut out, as their education systems were ill-prepared for online learning. The OECD’s 2018 PISA report revealed wide disparities between countries and socio-economic groups on the availability of adequate technology and schools’ capacity to use digital tools to enhance learning.

Is data protection an obstacle to innovation? And is its easing in favor of digital educational opportunities inevitable? On the contrary!  

The Covid-19-related switch to online learning in German schools could exacerbate existing educational inequalities, due to wide variations in access and digital literacy at home.

Schools in the United States have placed a lot of faith into the possibilities of education technology for improving both access and learning outcomes. But the pandemic has revealed that most technology is used to replicate traditional school routines.