DUBAI – Societal approaches to education and upskilling have witnessed a transformational shift in light of the pandemic, buoyed by tech innovations equipping learners with more relevant skills, figures from across the global education sector have asserted as Expo 2020 Dubai’s Knowledge and Learning Week passed the five-day mark on Thursday.
Accessing correct information, simultaneously battling misinformation and disinformation, was the core focus of the World Majlis forum ‘The Science of Everything: Science versus disinformation in the digital age’, a headline event during the Theme Week’s opening day on Sunday (12 December).
“What we at Meta and others have done is accelerate the rate in which information flows,” panellist Fares Akkad, Director of Media Partnerships for News in Growth Markets, Meta, UAE, told an audience at Terra – The Sustainability Pavilion. “Whether it is true or wrong information, we are simply a platform. A new phenomenon we saw, however, is attempts to maybe weaponise some of these platforms.”
He added: “The way we treat disinformation and misinformation is quite different. With disinformation, there is zero tolerance when it comes to people who are doing things with intent. But then there are things that are considered misinformation, and that is a bit of a grey area. We don’t necessarily take down specific things. Sometimes we deprecate and sometimes we just flag them.”
“The same part of the brain that is activated in fear is also active during uncertain situations,” explained fellow speaker Alicia Wanless, Director of the Partnership for Countering Influence Operations, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, USA. “And so, this drives people to really try to find any answer, even simple answers, that are completely wrong.”
The pandemic, more specifically its transformational impact on the education sector, also featured heavily on day two of the RewirEd Summit, hosted by global education platform RewirEd, led by Dubai Cares in partnership with Expo 2020, and in coordination with the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.
Speaker Charles North, Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Global Partnership for Education, said: “The pandemic and technology have also forced us to rethink what it takes to transform education. They have blurred the boundaries of where learning can take place.
“The challenge is to design and apply technology that reaches the very last child, and ultimately improves learning. By this, I don’t just mean the right solution, but the right solution that can be taken to scale within educational systems that is also affordable, and is built with inclusion and equity at its centre.”
Antonello Barbaro, CEO and General Manager, H-Farm Education, added: “Significantly, we also need to develop educational models and approaches that allow students to work at solving global challenges, and think about impact at scale. We’re shifting away from educating students just to get jobs to helping them find challenges in their working life and, most importantly, to be better humans.”
Speaking alongside other leaders from the world of education and learning at the Knowledge and Learning Business Forumatthe DP World Pavilion the following day, Stefan Haenisch, Senior Vice President, SAP Learning, SAP SE, doubled down on the importance of continuous learning.
“We have a platform where everyone can subscribe and have access to the knowledge economy, community, and so on,” he said, joining panel ‘New Learning Methodologies for the Future’ virtually from Germany.
“And we’re increasingly looking at the topic of role-based learning, because sometimes it’s not the point that there’s not enough digital knowledge being shared but about sharing information with those who share your particular role. It’s complex – it’s all about the fast pace and continuous learning, and how to better organise your learning.”
Striking a more cautious tone at ‘Dignified Storytelling: Teaching Information Literacy in the Age of Digital Media’ during the third day of the RewirEd Summit (Tuesday 14 December) was Niamh Spelman, General Manager, Microsoft Solutions, Microsoft.
“Most children who now have access to technology have too many sources, so it’s hard to see the wood for the trees. How do they start to break down that information, those sources, and develop critical thinking? When it comes to dignified storytelling, the overarching theme of inclusion is so important.”
Tuesday also saw three Expo Live grantees speak on their contributions to creating more interactive and engaging exercises for children worldwide in panel event ‘Helping Schools Make Learning Fun and Meaningful’, part of the Expo Live Impact Seriesacross Expo’s 10 event-time Theme Weeks.
“We need a better education system that creates more innovators to tackle the next problems we’re going to have,” said David Crellin, Founder of UK-based ScienceScope. “So, what we do is provide access to students to collect data about their environment, whether it’s inside their school or the weather outside, and to share that across the world. So in our platform, you can use that to look at weather stations all over the world, so they can build solutions to problems they understand.”
Expo Live hosted an additional panel on Thursday (16 December) at its pavilion, The Good Place, exploring how technology can break barriers and make knowledge universal and accessible for all, alongside last-mile education. Panelists during the afternoon event included Expo Live grantee Mike Dawson, Co-Founder and CEO of Ustad Mobile, an app that enables users to download educational content and then share offline.
He explained: “What’s going to happen are [newer] technologies will be integrated by educators, and good educators will use them to improve the education experience. So we need to try and make sure that we offer access to the best technologies available – make it affordable [and] make it accessible, so that those educators can go out and create those experiences for students and learners.”
Knowledge and Learning Week is the fifth of 10 Theme Weeks under Expo 2020’s Programme for People and Planet, offering an exchange of inspiring new perspectives to address the greatest challenges and opportunities of our time. Running from 12-18 December, this Theme Week is being held in association with UAE-based global philanthropic organisation Dubai Cares, and is analysing how knowledge can propel a global community to innovate for a better future for all.
