ICEDU 2022 - Plenary Speech

In the age of digitization, digital infrastructure is the foundation of educational institutions. The cross-curricular use of digital media in the classroom and in extracurricular activities offers the opportunity to teach content more successfully, to make teaching more attractive for young people, and makes an important contribution to the acquisition of digital skills.

Creating meaningful and forward-looking experiences in education is not an easy task - similar to work settings. As our society is in transition from an industrial to a knowledge society, the worlds of work and education are being forced to adapt to the new shift in values to a free way of working and thinking. The outdated classic structures are thus changing in the wake of the new age and giving way to newer, more flexible ideas.

This is because new opportunities are arising through globalization and digitization of temporal, spatial and organizational flexibility, which is why educational workspaces and corporate structures will also change in the future to newer models along the lines of the New Work movement.

The central values of the New Work concept are independence, freedom and participation in the community. New Work is intended to offer new ways of freedom for creativity and the development of one's own personality, thus contributing something truly essential and important to society. In this way, real "freedom of action" is made possible.

Self-determined action is preferred here, with the old rigid working methods becoming a thing of the past.

For many companies and other institutions, New Work means a completely new mindset. Factors such as the development of employee potential, work-life balance, flexible work arrangements (trust-based working hours and locations), and the involvement of employees in decision-making are becoming increasingly important.

All of these aspects are equally important for education. Even more important, since our idea is that our educational institutions should prepare our next generation for the future. Technology alone is not the answer to this complex challenge, but if understood, created and used with the right mindsets and methods it can be a catalyst for change and inspiration.