Paving the Way for New Learning

	US Delegation to Europe, 2002: Internet Technology and Schools Agenda Working Groups Delegation Members London Briefing Materials Paris Briefing Materials Brussels Briefing Materials Bonn Briefing Materials Sponsor Background Information US Education System Review Trip Report #1: Government Demand/Resource for Education Technology/ICT Trip Report #2: Assessing ICT's Educational Impact Trip Report #3: Standards & Accessibility - SIF, SCORM, IMS, GEM, etc. Trip Report #4: As a Member of the European Delegation of CoSN Trip Photos

The e-nitiative.nrw points the way to the future of education in North Rhine-Westphalia

The new initiative entitled e-nitiative.nrw sets an example for the whole of Germany to follow. The aim is, by the end of 2004, to put in place the necessary conditions to establish new media learning as an everyday part of the school curriculum.

The e-nitiative.nrw project was launched in November 1999 by the state government and local authority representative bodies in North Rhine-Westphalia. Their joint statement left no room for doubt in their conviction that tomorrow's world will be digital, a multimedia world. "It is inconceivable that the future of education should fail to include multimedia", the project founders declared. The "e" in e-nitiative.nrw stands both for "electronic" and for "education".

Responsibility for day to day operations is shared between a hard-hitting team based partly in the project's own offices and partly at the media consultancy department of the Media Centre of the Rhineland, and the Ministry of Education, Science and Research of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. At a local level, a support structure has been set up comprising 54 'e-teams.nrw', whose task is to advise and support bodies maintaining schools, schools and teachers. The e-teams cover all aspects of new media teaching, media development planning and qualifications.

As the first year of the new millennium fades into history, the e-nitiative.nrw's aim, to lay the foundations today for the education of tomorrow, has acquired considerable topical interest - not least because of the much-quoted "Pisa" study. To roughly summarise one of the findings of this study, young people in Germany spend too much time learning what their schools dictate, and too little learning for life itself. Experts have long been aware of what is lacking: school students need to be motivated towards independent learning. This is an indispensable requirement for survival in the information age, in which knowledge has a significantly shortened half-life. Among today's skills-in-demand is the ability to use new media - not just in terms of technology, but in a way which will enable young people to benefit from the accurate and discriminating use of the tools at their disposal. The key word is media literacy. It is the objective of the e-nitiative.nrw to enable students to acquire this competence.

If the aim of promoting new media learning in schools is to be achieved, and if the quality of education is thereby to be raised, it is not sufficient just to put computers into classrooms. The task set for the e-nitiative.nrw is therefore not simply to support schools and bodies maintaining schools in equipping themselves with PCs and hardware. A major aspect involves advising teachers on new media learning and helping them to acquire the necessary qualifications. To ensure that the requisite educational resources are available, the e-nitiative.nrw project is also focusing on the development of multimedia learning content and educational software.

Another task for the e-nitiative.nrw is to develop partnerships and joint ventures with companies and business associations. In their joint declaration the regional and local government founders of the project explicitly invited partners from trade and industry to support the e-nitiative.nrw: "The opportunity to enhance the skills of future employees and develop new education and training markets, as well as the general interest in a future-oriented education and training system for our young people speak strongly in favour of private enterprise participation."

In the first two years of its existence, the e-nitiative.nrw has already made solid progress. One of the best-known projects spawned by the e-nitiative.nrw is entitled "T@ school". Working jointly with telecommunications giant Deutsche Telekom, the e-nitiative.nrw scored a notable success: since January 2001, every school in North Rhine-Westphalia has been connected to the net. North Rhine-Westphalia was the first of the larger federal states in Germany to achieve this result. All the more remarkable, given that it has the highest population density and the largest number of schools in the state.

The 'e-card.nrw' has become a kind of 'computer driving license', a qualification which interested teachers can obtain at all adult education centres (Volkshochschulen) in North Rhine-Westphalia. To some extent, the Intel project "Teaching for the future" forms an extension of the 'e-card.nrw'. This project aims to broaden teachers' knowledge and understanding of the Microsoft Office suite. Demand for this qualification was so great that in 2001, the e-nitiative.nrw arranged with Intel to provide 20,000 extra training places for teachers.

In 2001 the e-nitiative.nrw held conferences in Leverkusen and Dortmund offering concrete support to schools and education authorities. Under the heading of "Technology needs planning", one of the central themes focused on the planning required for the development of media-based education. A guidebook on "how to equip schools for new media learning" explains the dos and don'ts of setting up networks and how to plan and install low-maintenance systems which will be economic to operate. The booklet which has been sent to all schools in North Rhine-Westphalia becomes a hit. Other states in Germany are meanwhile considering introducing the same guideline, suitably adapted of course to their own particular circumstances.

All schools in NRW have to work out a specific school profile concerning the school's educational aims and the kind of learning skills their students need? Part of this profile should be a media development plan to organize a range of media-in-school related questions. Which subject teaches which aspect of media literacy? In which cases do we need internet access? Which educational software do we need? - The distribution of financial resources for schools through local administration is tied down to those development plans.

Detailed information on the activities covered by the e-nitiative.nrw, as well as a range of current education policy issues is available at www.e-nitiative.nrw.de.