To have a new productive environment of smart education, changing the original top-down informatisation construction thinking is necessary, feel experts in China. Agencies also need to break through the barriers between education administrative departments, schools, and enterprises.
Another aspect is to change data from external factors in the development of educational informatisation to internal ones in promoting the construction of a productive educational environment. Education administrative departments, schools and enterprises must use data as a medium and bridge for the interconnection of all things as well as build an ecosystem of multi-agent collaborative advancement.
All data and systems in education must be mutually adjusted, restricted, dynamically balanced, and sustainable development. Education departments are required to change the disparity between the original schools as data producers and users, tap the value of data, realise scientific decision-making, precise social governance, and efficient public services to improve people’s satisfaction with education.
In practice, Guizhou Province has continuously explored the construction path of a new environment of smart education from the four aspects of “breaking boundaries, fusion, reconstruction, and empowerment”. The province then formed the data centred on the two dimensions of data and business. A new model of education data integration of “one-body, two-dimensional and three-ecologies” is formed by the social circle, policy ecosphere, and application ecosphere.
In building a new environment of smart education, it is necessary to establish data awareness and ensure that data is managed by experts, rules are followed, and data is effective and checkable. Cooperating with the construction of the application ecosystem is necessary to deeply explore the potential value of data to make education data truly valuable.
Promoting the ubiquitous operation of management system, teaching system services, and breaking down technical barriers are important aspects to improve the construction method of information system. To ensure data security, the key aspects to pay attention to are data integration, business collaboration, and intelligent services. Agencies must not only enjoy the dividends brought by the data, but also actively face the security risks, and clarify the ownership, use rights, and management rights of the data.
The new environment of smart education will promote the transformation of education service methods from function-driven to demand-driven, governance models from planned management to precise governance, and decision-making methods from empirical decision-making to data-driven intelligent research and judgment. To build a new environment of smart education is to build a new future for Guizhou’s education.
According to their page, the essence of smart education in China is to create intelligent environments by using smart technologies, so that smart pedagogies can be facilitated for providing personalised learning services and empower learners. Smart education will foster valuable talents who have higher quality and stronger conduct ability.
These are four benefits of smart education through utilising technologies in China:
- reduce the cognitive burden on the learners so they can focus on meaningful things.
- deepen and enhance the learners’ learning experience so the development of the learners is influenced holistically (affective, intellectual and physical).
- enable flexible learning and collaborative work which strengthen personality development and collective intelligence.
- provide better-tailored learning support to learners and improving learners’ expectations.
This emphasis to improve China’s education using technologies in line with China’s strategy to improve citizens’ digital skills to eventually enhance the digital economy. As reported by OpenGov Asia, the plan of digital skill education will play a role in minimising the gap and help people from all walks of life benefit from digital services. The training should target real demands and scenario design and different teaching methods are also needed to reach different people.