IGF 2017 - Day 0 - Salle 4 - Disruptive Digital Literacies in the Era of Data Governance Addressing Generation Z, With and Beyond Education

>> DIVINA FRAU-MEIGS: Okay, everybody.  Thank you for attending this session, in spite of a huge competition with other sessions that you're also able to attend.  This session is long, and we're expecting more people to come in and some of you will go out.  The idea is to be open.  Even though we have a program and there are designated speakers, feel free to add your experience to us, to ask for the floor.  The format of the room doesn't make it easy for us to see each other.  I'll stay in the corner here and make sure I see all of you far away like bad students that you are, and in front, very good students that you are.

The purpose of this session, as you know, is disruptive, and the word disruptive has been placed as a title to stir your attention.  Usually the word disruptive is attached to data and disruptive Internet.  We wanted to look at this dimension, how the disrupted data and disrupted Internet impacts education, in particular information literacy, but we wanted also to think of how we could use media information literacy and maybe new kinds of literacies that are cropping up, like net neutrality literacy, privacy literacy, how the literacies can disrupt education.  Maybe disrupt Internet as it is going to maybe have a better idea, a better command, a better control from the citizens' level at the Internet we want.  This is why if you have seen the program, at the end one of the things we would like to get out of this session collectively is mapping the different literacies that you may all be bringing forth from all of your perspectives and we have key stakeholders here.  I'm very happy to see the presence of UNICEF, UNESCO, et cetera, so huge communities of learners and of educators around young people.  We're also playing with the idea of a digital debate, a global citizen's debate on the future of the Internet among which I would love to have the idea of literacy and it has been mentioned in the panel before and we're putting forward this idea of a global debate and Vint Cerf concluded the debate saying yes, we need this Consultation where only because of the education potential, because at the moment there's not enough empowerment of users as citizens and as a result there is not enough agency.  You see fears emerge around fake news and misinformation, you see net neutrality happening without the American public being asked ‑‑ even Congress voting on it, it is a commission that decides on something so important.  We can see with what's happening in the news at the moment the governance of Internet is really for a few, by a few, in spite of the promise of Internet when it was started and some of the pioneers are still in the room, which is to say much more open‑ended decentralized way of acquiring knowledge, of sharing content, et cetera, et cetera.  I forgot to mention, of course, Disney buying Fox, et cetera, et cetera, but that's for Larry to say.

All the changes that are going to take place in content, entertaining content, educational content, et cetera, et cetera.  So it is a burning issue.  We would like to convey the idea that it is an emergency to start thinking really out of the box and with young people.  We're very happy to count among us young people who have mandate to react whenever they feel like this to the different proposals that you are going to be making here. 

I'm going to declare this session opened, and we have the great honor because he's extremely, extremely busy, great honor to have Frank La Rue from UNESCO, the Assistant Director‑General of Information and Communication Division to talk to us.  UNESCO has spearheaded such an amount of initiatives about education, Human Rights.  Frank La Rue has a past before coming to UNESCO, and he was very impactful in his actions at the Human Rights level of the U.N.  I think he's carried that with him at UNESCO as I think he'll show us in a minute.

After that, we'll have Villano Qiriazi from the Council of Europe who is cohosting this with us, Savoir*Devenir, he's head of the education policy division, they have been having initiatives on the Internet from the very start.  It is a good omen that the two entities speak together, coordinate and help us to coordinate at the global level.

Thank you.  Frank, the floor is yours.

>> FRANK LA RUE: Thank you.  Thank you for being here.  This is a very important topic.

We were just having conversation before we began that every technological advance in history is a wonderful leap forward for humanity, but every technological development also brings with it its own dangers and its own pitfalls.  During the industrial revolution many artisans were trying to destroy the machines because they understood perfectly well that the new machinery and the lines of production would increase productivity, but for them would produce unemployment because artisans would lose their traditional jobs.  This was true unless someone would requalify them as industrial workers and give an opportunity.  Today, we see similar phenomenon with Artificial Intelligence, everybody in robotics, everybody talking about improving productivity with machines that don't get tired, that don't need a break for coffee time, that don't need to take a break for lunch.  They can actually work longer hours and all they need is a little bit of maintenance at the end of the month, and therefore can be perfect substitutes of human workers.  In the meantime, very little debate is given to what would be the perspectives of unemployment that this would generate.

In the case of UNESCO, we always say we have the humanist approach to issues.  For us, Internet and the new technologies, new digital technologies have to be seen in the perspective of what do they do to improve human being living standards, to make work easier, more human, not reducing the amount of workers.  The same things happy with Internet in the sense of content and communication and connectivity.

When Internet came about ‑‑ I was in another panel ‑‑ it was an invention that came from academics that did not have an the anything in mind what would happen with it, it was for them a way to share information, the knowledge, the research, their latest advances to be able to accelerate their academic work.

Immediately it caught on and began to grow and began to grow fast because it was a very adaptable to the needs of sharing information of everyone.  It takes an essential instrument to access information, to Atlanta right to access information as a Human Rights.  Obviously when we talk about the right to access information, that's not only an academic endeavor but it is linked to development.  We can't think of development or environmental protection or reaction to global warming without access to information.  So this became a very crucial issue.  Pretty soon people said, well, we cannot think about education in the future without Internet because obviously it would be those utilizing education at a distance.  I was able during my years as Rapporteur to evaluate a wonderful program which actually began making every public school wi‑fi service providers because the state had control over the broadband.  It was wonderful, they have the exact school libraries in all of the schools in the country, from the biggest schools in the capital cities to the rurallest schools out in the mountains.  They were able to unmarginalized certain services and all children began to get a lab top, a little tablet at the beginning and now they have reached 99% of children in primary school and going up almost all the way through secondary school.  This was very important because at the beginning, the biggest opposition by the way were the teachers, the teachers thought they would lose their job.  Pretty soon, the teachers were convinced that no, teachers were always necessary to guide the students, to understand the students. 

What happened in reality, the teachers were rerouted in a new capacity, to learn how to use the new forms of digital communication.  The textbooks were made digital, they now have video support in their work.  The teachers began to teach in a different way and to interact.  The experience, it has been wonderful. 

Then again, we still have the pitfalls.  What are the pitfalls?  Yes, we also have cyberbullying in the schools.  We have sexual harassment of women.  We have now incitement to organize crime in places like Latin America or to terrorism or to violence extremisms in other parts of the world.  When you have such an open, free mechanism of communication, most people ‑‑ I would say the vast majority ‑‑ use it for the good.  You do have people using it for the wrong purposes.

What to do then to prevent this?  Many States immediately would like to sensor the Internet.  Of course, we believe that there are issues that can be effectively censored on the basis of the law, the three principles established by law for the protection of Human Rights of others and when necessary and proportional to protect those Rights, yes.  Those issues are very much related to a crime, child pornography, child trafficking, trafficking of individuals, forced slavery, issues ‑‑ incitement of extreme terrorism, organized crime and to commit a crime under drug dealers.  These are issues that in themselves are a crime, so the content is a criminal content, so it is diligent to have regulation of the matters.  That doesn't happen all the time and always.

Then you have also the problem of the volume.  With the volume of communication, if you establish rules who applies them?  The regulatory authorities of communication?  The state authorities?  The big platforms themselves, as ends up happening.  Do you privatize the idea of deciding content?  Of course, we believe that this is an open debate because you have ‑‑ I always said for me you have three categories, you have the Human Rights category in which Human Rights establishes the legal standards for Freedom of Expression from which we have Articles 19 and 20 which we should not go below.  You also have social standards that maybe should not be law, but in a way, do build some degree of social responsibility between corporations and the public.  Then you have in the third category ethical standards.  One of the debates that happens with us at UNESCO and happens in Geneva at the Human Rights Council oftentimes many States want to confuse the level and would like to establish, let's say, social standards as a limitation as if they could be legal standards.  It is very important to understand the three levels but not to confuse them.  All three of them are very important, but you could never have a breach of Human Rights law utilizing other standards that are not Human Rights oriented or based.  This is essential.

So what is the best policy in this open debate?  The best policy is a policy of prevention we believe.  In the policies of prevention the alternative is to have our youngest people, our youngest girls and boys to learn how to use Internet in a positive way, as a tool of understanding, of sharing knowledge, of celebrating the triumphs of others, celebrating the cultures and the diversity in the world of understanding the world in a different way.  When the Constitution of UNESCO says it was established as an institution to build peace by facilitating the free flow of ideas and knowledge between peoples of the world so the idea of free flow of ideas and knowledge between peoples is an element for building peace.  We have to rediscover this and building this culture of peace.  This is where exactly the media information, literacy programs, where they come in.  Of course, in many parts of the world there is a temptation to ban Internet from schools, to ban, to not have children use it, or to not allow them to learn how to use it in the sense relatively freely.  There is a danger in this.  Children will learn how to use it anyway.  It is very tragic if they learn how to use it in a hidden way because then in the act itself the openness, the transparency that should exist in the forms of communication of digital communication, the idea is that children should learn how to use Internet in an open way, sharing it with parents, friends, neighbors, to understand that there are elements of privacy that they should not breach, but there are elements of openness they should maintain, that they should begin questioning issues that they read and they see.  And in the case of adults today we should all learn to question information we're receiving.  How to be able to analyze media and the new media we're receiving online and to be able to contrast and to compare.  This is the fundamental element of building our own freedom of thought and freedom of opinion.  This issue is something that you have to learn. 

In Argentina, there is an old journalist that says because of his age he has a television program just to criticize the media.  He says he could get away with it because he's old enough he says I don't care, I'm not making a career.  It turns out to be a very popular program.  He can freely criticize his peers.  The other friends in the media and journalists, the idea for him is we should begin exercising this and say, well, this is news that was not well presented.  We are doing some cases, media development programs, and in a sense of how media can understand global warming, for instance, how to report on it. 

How can media understand terrorism and report it in the right way?  How we have to prevent campaigns, because this so‑called fake news ‑‑ which the term we don't like, I particularly don't like because I think you cannot mix fake with news, it is either news or fake.  The idea is that you have campaigns of this information, this is true, that does exist, and then there is the information campaigns, not fake news.  How to make a difference between this information campaigns and true information? 

Even if you don't agree with information, because the journalist can make a mistake, yes, and can make a subjective mistake of analysis or an objective mistake of using facts in the wrong way.  This is exactly what we want, the people beginning to understand what is right information, wrong information.  Intentionally or non‑intentionally and precisely this is an exercise I think we did not do in the past.  In the past we used to trust the media because we thought especially the written press had the tradition of being very professional, very serious.  We know of a newspaper is relatively conservative or liberal, beyond that, we also knew if it was trustworthy or not.  People used to trust it.  Today you have to really compare notes.  In some cases you have to verify sources and say, well, really is this the right source or is it the right thing?  This is crucial and very important.  Of course, today we can consult online anything we want.  We can Google it, we even invented a word for this, even in Spanish (says Google in Spanish).  You don't know if you're receiving back as an answer, whether you do it on ‑‑ you don't know who designed the database from which this is picking up the information.  So then we go again with the idea that, yes, even in the best of cases, we still have to be able to contrast and compare.  Today was the famous algorithms able to qualify individuals to tell a candidate what message to send to certain populations or tell a company how to market their goods to certain sectors of the population.  This is crucial.  They were telling me that ‑‑ I don't know if there is any Italian here present today, they were telling me recently that there is another run, he's doing something interesting, talking about retirements in the campaigns and talking about dental services for the elderly.  Everyone thought he was crazy until they began to look at the numbers, because of the population reduction, they're probably the most important sector of voters in Italy today.  He was very clear in who he's speaking to.  He was clearly addressing the messages to the population he wants to be heard or wants to hear him.  These are the issues ‑‑ of course, we don't know who designs an algorithm or where exactly it goes.  We do know that the information we receive, we can contrast and compare, and we can try to look for other sources.  The importance of media information literacy today, it is bigger than ever, precisely because of the amount of sources of information online are much bigger than ever.  The flow of information is huge.  If this flow of information continues coming, we would fall into the trap of just receiving that information and swallowing it.  Of course, we're in the time of the big data processing, yeah, big data before information was thrown out, today, everything is saved because the most minute information will be relevant to understand the personality of an individual or whatever they like or consumption habits.  This means that someone is analyzing the information with a particular algorithm that they designed and then again you go into the subjectivity of this.

It is more than ever, I think, the challenge of all of us, to say today, to understanding the Internet, to understand how it works, to understand the fact that we have to build critical minds is probably one of the crucial fundamental elements.  Of course, that has to be done at all ages and for all peoples.

I mean, those of us that are not native to the digital era and those that are native to the digital era, what we have to do, to develop this.  This is the moment.  This year, in our day, the slogan, Building Critical Minds for Critical Times and I think this is in a way, it should be the motto for all of us, Critical Minds for Critical Times.  Although we're working for all ages and all times, I think it is essential to work with the children, and to work with the children means to work through the teachers and education system.  Having massive capacity building programs for teachers on MIL I think should be a fundamental element of the training of teachers of today and this is one of the issues to propose that I would like to at least propose in this debate today to be discussed and to be debated.  Through the teachers to reach children.  Not to take children away from the Internet, but on the contrary, to have children dominate Internet in a very positive way.  They themselves can benefit from building their own critical minds.

>> DIVINA FRAU-MEIGS: Thank you very much for these words that we'll keep with us to keep working on this issue.  We can all go on the website of UNESCO and type in gap mail, and you see the global alliance for partners in media literacy and the work that they offer, especially terms of policy and also in teacher training.

Villano Qiriazi, what do you say to this challenge?

>> VILLANO QIRIAZI: It was a very ‑‑ I would like to thank you, and thank Frank La Rue for the introduction, his very good start. 

I would say that the Council of Europe started precisely in education ‑‑ we have several sectors working on the questions that Frank just mentioned.  In the education sector we started from the media and information literacy and going beyond.  I'll explain in a couple of minutes.

There are many sectors in the council working right now from to the Children Rights sector, from the youth sector in media and Internet Governance and from the cybercrime sector working on the issues related to Internet, et cetera.  We have been moving for many years, for almost a decade, we have been working mainly on protection and safety and now we're moving from protection and safety without forgetting it but to the empowerment of children and young people in order to empower them to act as responsible and democratic citizens in the online environment that has become an integral part of their lives.

The Council of Europe also is very much focused on people and Human Rights, but also on the rule of law and democratic processes.  This is the core mission.  Increasingly the widespread use of social media by pupils and students in and outside of the school environment, the use of tools such as Facebook, Twitter, et cetera and the related production of data, big data points strongly to the need to reshape education, to enable it, to keep pace with today's digital revolution and as Frank already underlined, to promote positive measures with regard to all education actors and more specifically to children becoming full digital citizens.  Very often we say that the majority of young people today are digital natives, but technology might be mastered at different levels.  Digital natives need to acquire skills and appropriate use of behavior with the use of technology and the skills to participate and to engage.  In the Council of Europe we have a lot of specific definition for what kind of quality education we should provide with four major elements.  Of course, education is very important for the preparation for the labor market, but is also very important for the preparation of responsible citizens, for personal development and for the development of the world advanced knowledge base.

Based on this definition that we'll give to quality education, we have also developed a series of initiatives in the education sector and the last initiative I would say, the most important for us, it is going to also shape a little bit the work that we're doing with regard to education policies, it is the development of a framework of competencies, we call it framework of competencies for democratic culture which is organized around four major clusters on values, skills, attitudes, and then critical knowledge and critical understanding of the world economy, et cetera, et cetera.  We launched this reference framework of competencies this year, the final version this year in October in Prague and we started working on the specific project related to digital citizenship education, which is very much connected to the competence, to the competence framework and would like to see how the digital or the digital competent students of tomorrow will be able to fully engage in society not only for work, but also as responsible citizen.  Now, not all young people have the opportunity to be digital citizens, and the development of relatively inexpensive technology means that the digital gap is more likely to be on the side of competences required to make best use of the technology than access to technology per se.

So, for us, the major purpose of digital citizenship education, it is to create learning opportunities for young people to develop their online proficiency engagement and creativity and empower them to be responsible, active citizens in a complex, rapidly evolving society.  As I said before, previous actions by the Council of Europe and other bodies with regard to children and digital life, it has aimed mainly at safety and protection in the Digital Environment and not so much empowerment to education or the acquisition of competencies for learning and active participation in the digital society.  The education sector is now connected to two major strategies of the Council of Europe, one on the Internet Governance and another one on Children Rights.  The objectives of both strategies are to secure their right to privacy of citizen, including children in the new media environment, creating ways for children and families to identify suitable online content, protecting children from violence, violence in schools, cyberbullying, sexual violence, et cetera, and sharing Best Practices.

We are ‑‑ based on the strategy, on both strategies and achievements we had in the past, we have developed the concept of digital citizenship education.  In a conference this year in September we shared our initial work related to the definition of the concept and the ten main digital domains with a larger community of researchers, practitioners, et cetera.  We're right now finalizing the first handbook on digital domains and the implications that the ten digital domains have for the education sector in terms of curriculum development and also as Frank underlined the preparation of teachers, but also school organizations, et cetera.

We are convinced that such policies should first reshape the responsibilities for the education sector and all of the education actors around the school, should also redefine the concept of citizenship itself and what does that mean in terms of curriculum development and then organization of the school institution and then competencies for teachers and then role of families and the community, et cetera.  Also the same time, should contribute at a sustainable integration of the digital citizenship in the education system because for the time being they are mainly initiatives around school or outside of the schools that are working or developing such competencies with children and their people and in that area, so the sector of non‑formal, informal education has up until now a very important role without talking about influence and the role of the private corporations and private sector.  Our work will be focused on the years to come in three main areas, of the digital engagement, which is about participation and confident use of technology, digital responsibility, which is very much connected to values and attitudes necessary to engage in active participation and the digital participation itself.  For us, it is vital that education accompany the technical ‑‑ the technology changes that are taking places in society and wider reaching consequences that they will have on everyday life.  We strongly believe that a new balance must be found between fundamental values and this transformative change and this is at the core of our discussion in the Council of Europe and it is also our ambition to have the regulation authorities and the Member States achieve this new balance.  This would be my primary remarks and we will talk later in a specific session on the work of the Council with regard to competencies.

>> DIVINA FRAU-MEIGS: Thank you.  We have a challenge from UNESCO, we have an idea of finding a balance and it is true that the idea of the session came with a feeling that the arrival of data and big data was disruptive of balance because the conversation veered towards coding algorithms and employment and an alliance was immediately created, STEM, the science, technology, engineering and math alliance, translating into clubs at schools where kids play with robots, et cetera, et cetera, we had a feeling that suddenly there was a disbalance, an unbalance because of the voice of the other dimension of school, not just employment, but citizenship at‑large was not being heard.  I think here we'll try to see how to reestablish this balance so that when you go to school, and you become an adult as well, it is all lifelong, we have balance, personalities, people who know how to evolve in their work, but also who can evolve in their society and their culture.

Maybe I would like for us to think in terms of an alliance that counter balances STEM, I would love it to be around this but maybe you'll come up from your ideas from your entities.  The floor is yours.  We'll assess  what this big data disruption is about. 

I'm giving the floor to Jasmina Byrne from UNICEF.

>> JASMINA BYRNE: Good afternoon, everyone. 

Thank you to Divina and Council of Europe to invite me to Chair this exciting panel.  I work with the UNICEF Office of Research based in Florence, and lately have been doing conducting studies around children use of Internet in many countries where UNICEF works. 

Just to mention, a few days ago, we launched a flagship report, State of Development of Children.  For all of you who have heard about it, you probably see that a big part of the report is focusing on digital literacies and skills of young people and recommendations that come out of the report, they're also about strengthening literacies skills and particularly media literacy.  I'm pleased to Chair this panel.  I want to introduce my panelists, Divina, who was here before, she is not now but may come back.  Then to my right, we have Carl Gahnberg, a policy adviser with the Internet Society and he leads a global policy team where he's focusing on issues related to Internet Governance.  He contributes to the organization's global policy development and most recently he has been involved in the organization's work on Internet and education and the future of the Internet in Artificial Intelligence.

Jelena Mocevic is on my further right.  She's working on heritage innovation and education as an adviser working with European heritage days program and is a community management for world Forum of democracy.

Also with me is Ruxa Pandea, an educational adviser with the Youth of Council of Europe, and is our respondent telling us a bit about what she actually hears in her capacity as a youth adviser from youth and how they see these issues.

Before we give the floor to Carl, I think Divina wanted to tell us a bit about the title of the session, it is Big Data in Education and For Education.  When talking about big data we always have these fears of how it is used, misused, abused, but also when it comes to education in particular, there are a lot of instances and big data can be used positively to enhance learning and individual tailoring for education for specific groups of students and their needs.  Maybe Divina, you can tell us about it, what are the positives of big data?

>> DIVINA FRAU-MEIGS: Thank you, Jasmine.  I was hoping to project some pictures, but it seems we can't because of the transcription.  I have to call on your imagination.  Are you game?

You have to imagine the teachers being able to follow as they speak, the reactions and emotions of all of their students.  It is tricky.  For a teacher, it means he sees directly that whatever he says is not working or that maybe four students who are always the same ones and who are already trained and already know anyways are in the class and that they're not reaching out to the others or that they have to change their strategy in mid class because of the exercise they're doing is totally boring and even the good ones are quitting.  For a teacher, it can be a valuable information, we're trained as teachers to try to see that and usually it doesn't require immediate response or any response at all or we have the day after to come back, redo a different kind of exercise.  Big data allows you to do that as a teacher.  As a result, if you're not trained, it can be very disruptive in your class, in your attitude as a person, in how you sense the mood, are able to be extremely agile in the way that you're informing, the way you're carrying taskers, breaking up the moments, breaking up the groups of students, et cetera, et cetera, if you're trained, it is very empowering.

This is what we have done by creating a whole portal of massive online courses to teach students to use digital competences by giving them access to the Office of Big data, the possibility of seeing online what was happening in the MOOK.  The MOOKS could have between 1,000 and 4,000 participants.  The big data allows you to see what exercises work, the time spent on each exercise and achieving or not the exercise, et cetera.  We trained the teachers to think of that as a positive and we also trained them in delaying strategies to catch up with exercises that fail, not do it on the day but wait several sessions before coming back.  What was another thing that we did, I think that's part of what the digital revolution is about, in that echo project, it is that we give same vision to the students.  The learners were also seeing at the same time as the teachers what they were performing and how the others were performing.  They could also act on how they were learning and interact with a teacher on some aspects, but they could also see for themselves ‑‑ I haven't succeeded in that one, I need more, I need to ask for more or this is really not interesting, I have to go and tell them this is not interesting or ‑‑ okay.  This dialogue, which for me is really about participatory education, it is only possible in fact with about the when we transform them as we did as small data.  People were using them for their own good so it was not this big overwhelming idea, all anonymous, massive, I'm out balls I'm not part of the majority, et cetera, et cetera.  It was about dialoguing between big and small data and I think fear of big data when we teach others to use big data as small data or as we call it sometimes as a self-data, data to be as self.  That's what I wanted to add to the discussion.

As we don't know anything, we don't have a lot of practice, teachers, of course, as Frank said earlier, when in doubt, they would rather stop than expose themselves and expose young people to strategies that they don't have control over.  It is about getting cell over in my opinion when it is well done.

>> JASMINA BYRNE: What can you tell us, Carl, you heard from Divina positive aspects and the importance of building the capacity among teachers and among young people to make the best use of data and how can young people be involved in the governance of data?

>> CARL GAHNBERG: Thank you very much for the invitation to join the panel today.

As you mentioned at the beginning, we have been working at ISOC about Internet and education and that work has been focused on the first part of the equation, mainly the extending Internet access to that you can actually have it in support of education.  The other part we have been working on this year is the future of the Internet, I think that's really where this connects because digital literacies can be absolutely critical if you have a trusted, prosperous Internet in the future.  I think the starting point of the discussion, a little bit about how students can be involved in the role and kind of holding the data governance structures accountable, I think the first point has to be a little bit of a change of a mindset to how we think about digital literacy.  I think the old version of it has been that digital literacy, the skill set that you use for ‑‑ that tool over there, the Internet, but in reality, the digital literacy is really skills that you have in everyday life.  I think this also points to the need to have young people involved in this discussion because young people kind of have been signaling this alarm bell for a number of years saying my life online is as real as the life that we live offline and obviously we have the very positive side of that where you have friendships, you have love relationships online, but unfortunately some of the negative sites are equally real if we think about sexual harassments, cyberbullying, hate speech, it is equally real on life.  I think that's the first starting point to address the digital literacy aspect, to change the mindset, that it is not the skill set for tools but really life skill, it is something that you're going to use in all of your capacity as a community member, as a citizen, et cetera.  As it relates to education, I think if we want to talk about digital literacy in education, we have to think of it as vocational, civic education in the 21st Century.  To civic education, if you want to be kind of a citizen, a member of the community that can really take responsibility online and also protects your Rights online, you need to have the basic skills of being able to search for information, evaluate information, criticize the information and you also need to have a fairly basic ‑‑ it doesn't have to be super advanced but you need to have a basic understanding of how the Internet works, the data of how it is used online, how certain algorithms are out there making decisions about you or on your behalf.  I think there is a need to have a basic understanding of how the Internet works taken relates to basic vocational education.  You mentioned earlier, Divina about the STEM approach to all of this.  I don't see it as a need to counter balance but more of a need of finding a complimentary approach between the two.  Understanding how the Internet works, even if it is basic programming will help you being able to criticize the algorithm decisions out there for example and doesn't mean that everyone has to be a programmer, far from t I did wood shop when I was in high school and I didn't become a carpenter but it is useful to know how to use a hammer, I think that's the comparison here.

If we connect it back to the data governance aspect, I think there is an opportunity here to kind of catch many birds with one stone because if we're talking about using big data in education, for example, I think it is very important to have the students involved in discussing what data about them is actually being used in education, how it is being used and in that sense it is almost fostering them into a culture where they are holding to account those that have data about them.  Having students directly involved or if it is student representatives involved in discussions on how big data is used in education, I think it is first step and also very practically kind of fostering digital literacy in education.

Thank you very much.

>> JASMINA BYRNE: Thank you, Carl.  We'll.

Could back to you with some questions later on.

Now let's hear from Jelena Mocevic.  You were telling me before that you want to talk about the missing link to Generation Z, exactly what Carl talked about a bit from the perspective of your work.

>> DIVINA FRAU MEIGS:  Thank you for the opportunity to speak, and including the innovative words in the title not only about digital literacy, but also addressing generations with and beyond education.  This is something when it is in the title, it is alternative dispute resolution in the education of an open debate which we require.  .

Before I start with my own intervention, I'm going to mention two of the recommendations because this is also a cohosted event with the Council of Europe.  The Council of Europe provided two recommendations that I use heavily in my work:  The first being the big data for culture, literacy and democracy, that was adopted in 2017 in September of this year, and it carries in my opinion many possible answers of what we're going to discuss today, especially when it comes to multistakeholder approach.  It outlines how we have to focus on the dialogue and action.  It mentions among others cultural institutions, governments, intergovernmental organizations, private sector as well and non‑governmental organizations.

The second publication that I also use is the recommendation of the Internet of citizens, publication which is a reference of the Internet of Citizens versus Internet of Things debate which is very popular these days, and it also setup the stage for discussion of digital literacy and education in both of these, and we can go into them later on if there are questions.

Today, however, I'll start my intervention with a personal story, if you'll allow me: 

Two years ago, I invited my youngest cousin to visit me in France.  It was supposed to be her first international traveling experience at the age of 15.  For me, it turned out to be the first cultural shock that come  from an intergenerational divide.  I won't go into the fact that she was in the "whatever" stage, which most teens are, or in the fact that all of our common experiences were basically through the screen of her phone, but I'll tell you something that was the cultural shock for me. 

The third day, last day she was there, we actually went to a pool.  We had a lovely time.  And at the end of the swimming experience, she asked me to take a photo of her.  There were a bunch of kids behind her.  I refused.  I explained to her that there are very strict rules in France of photographing other people's children in your photographs.

And she asked a question, how will my friends know that I went swimming? 

So naively I said you will tell them, right? 

She looked at me without any question of doubt and just told me but they will not believe me.  I have to document it.

Now, there is a reason why I'm telling this.  Because if you're talking about addressing Generation Z, you have to understand the culture that they're living in.  This is exactly the world where Generation Z lives.  There is a specific reason why I use cultural shock and culture to describe this experience.  From our point of view ‑‑ especially if you're an expert, an enthusiast in this area ‑‑ we sometimes have a knack of speaking of millennials that live in a kind of negative consequence of this process of technology.  In some actor aspects it definitely is, don't get me wrong.  From the point of the view from the younger millennials and the Generation Z definitely, this is also just part of their culture.  It is not a negative consequence of anything.  It is part of the culture they were born into and they're developing.  It is also they will do anything to defend their culture, and this is not a rebellious act, something that's biologic in our nature, the way we rebel against our parents they'll rebel against us.  We have to keep this in mind if we're going to address and meaningfully engage with them.

Through my professional work, I get to work with young people, and I get to see their perspectives on the innovation of learning and democracy today.  Apart from managing the European Heritage Days Program which has its elements of heritage education and digital creativity, in the past four years I have been lucky to act as a social media manager for the World Forum of Democracy in the Council of Europe.  Over 2,000 young people every year come together to discuss the future of democracy, and over 95% of them come with ready‑made solutions that they're working on in their countries.  Out of those 95%, 99 are related to the digital sphere and competencies. 

Today I would like us all to stress this perspective:  From the point of Civil Society and governments and intergovernmental organizations, also as motivated individuals that we all are, we have the beauty to stand up for our Human Rights approach to big data or harnessing big data and data flows.  If we do not address the main participants in the current system in a meaningful way, then all of our efforts will be seen as frivolous like the ones we're trying to protect in the first place.

When we speak about digital literacy in education, we know now that the idea of education system is to prepare children and young people not only for jobs that have not yet been invented, but also for social structures that have not yet been invented.  We have to ask ourselves how do we educate children for something that's not been invented yet?  In my personal and professional capacity, I came to a realization that two crucial elements have to be taken in account: 

The first one is the one we're discussing also today, working together in a multistakeholder alliance to make sure that there is an environment where they can develop critical thinking skills and focus on the so‑called soft skills.  We all know that today's education has been developed in the 19th Century to accommodate the needs of the industrial society, not technological society, and even today, in the vast majority of official education institutions the focus is on what to learn, not how to learn.  So we learn math, like chemistry, biology, history, that's all important for the general education, but we do not focus on how to learn.  This is where for me the big danger of misinterpretation of big data comes in. 

If we raise the potential of big data, the definition of big data, we need to enable children and young people to easily learn how to learn and to develop critical thinking.  Among the soft skills, the most important one, it is cultivating passion for learning.  This is the one that will not go out of fashion five years when there are new skills in the market.

The second important element, the crucial element, is the element of trust.  We need to look at the children and young people not only as the users of technology, but also as meaningful stakeholders and for that we also need to speak their language. 

Third element that we also need to take into account, it is this growth curve.  Robin Chase, the founder of one of the vehicle higher platforms today said in one of her books, said my father had one job in his lifetime, I will have six jobs in my lifetime and my children will have six jobs at the same time.  This is something that we have to take into account.  How do we do it?  How do we engage children in a meaningful way?  How do we instill with them the elements of trust and cultivate the passion for learning?

First of all, we need to learn to share the same language with them.  This is where technology is crucial.  We need to know which platforms our children and young people are using and psychologically, what is the underlying need for why they're using them?  Only then can we start on improving existing solutions or creating new solutions.

Second, the element of ‑‑ not competition, but the driving force in my generation, but unification.  Giving part of the educational floor back to the students and enabling them to have fun by exploring some of the elements of the big data as mentioned by Carl and Divina and other speaker also not over simplify the knowledge which is expressed by the worry of the experts today.

Finally, focus on creativity, one of my favorite reviews of the European Heritage Days Program that I manage is ‑‑ was in Poland in 2014, a young girl of about 9, 10 years, she came to me and said she loves Heritage Days because you never forget what you learn by doing.  So coming from cultural heritage sector as well, creativity, it is our game, or at least it could be, and I might sound overly enthusiastic or even overly optimistic, I'm not forgetting the challenges that we have with big data and digital literacy, but this is where I urge you to remember the second element or the element of trust. 

If you do not believe me, you may believe the global statistics.  For example, in 2016 Pokémon Go was the most popular game.  And I'm aware of the challenges and danger that  comes with enabling location, copyright and privacy, but it is prove that people want this interactive element if coupled with game‑ification, it is not an either and/or approach, but an and approach and utilizing heritage in every aspect in the approach to big data is the potential next step, not only from the perspective of the Civil Society but also from the perspective of technology.

Within the next 50 years, just in time to see the Generation Z fully grownup, Artificial Intelligence will inevitably replace many mid‑level jobs.  That means that millions of people working as drivers, accountants, travel agents, even nurses and other professions, they'll lose their jobs.  Even if we can imagine the ideal scenario of having basic income for all, as human beings we have to be productive, it is in our DNA.  Creativity together with the soft skills and the passion for learning, it might be the only way to reinvent yourself in this ever‑changing world.  For that, we have to start now.  We have to start instilling the values in the children today.

Finally, when it comes to cultural fields, we have to define Internet as the new form of culture.  Not only as a tool to represent existing culture, or exchange cultural competences, but talking about recognizing the digital currency of creativity that's being developed online.  There is still this gap of heritage, speaking about the digital ‑‑ the role of digital competences and they talk about digitalization, taking an existing cultural, heritage good and digitalizing it for an online sphere.  We have to recognize there is an overwhelming proof of a whole new culture being created on the Internet and this is where Generation Z lives.

So the focus on soft skills and the developing passion for learning may also be the most democratic approach because educating children on how to learn can be innovative and can use as little resources or as much resources as you have because we don't have all of the same opportunity.

We can also speak of investing additional resources, the ideal world of schools and universities where there are enough resources to individually cater to the needs of every child but in the world where there is a third of them that have basic access to the digital world, this might be futuristic if not wishful thinking for the moment.  We should also keep in mind that the Generation Z that may be more willing than our generations to give up let's say parts of their privacy to ensure transparency and access for all.  The question of the challenges that we are portraying may not be the same challenges for them by is why it is important to engage in a meaningful discussion.

Finally, when we identify the Human Rights approach to these outlying needs that we'll have when we interact with the participants or the users of the technology, I can guarantee you that someone will come up with a way to make it profitable and sustainable.  The environment of experts, there is often a perspective that we know best and the word should follow us now and the service, it is not opportunistic if we just continue to place the blame on the business sector.  The moment that we look at the Human Rights approach to the underlying needs, they'll find a way to make business out of that in a meaningful way for us.  Again, for me, it is not an either/or approach but an and approach.  Finally, I would like to leave us all with a key question, the key question for me would be are we ready, is Civil Society, governments, intergovernmental organizations, media, individuals to create an open space where we can truly harness big data with inclusion of all relevant stakeholders?  Are we prepared to listen and create a space with a counter narrative and alternative narratives can coexist until we create this better world for everyone?  If the answer to this question is yes, then the questions that are outlined today which is how much control over data, critical thinking versus magical thinking, what is the responsibility for platform and media responsibility and activity, those are just technical questions for which we cannot come up with creative solutions.

Thank you.

>> JASMINA BYRNE: Thank you so much.

A lot of   food for thought, the challenge, privacy, what he is it mean for them, what's meaningful participation, we talk about it a lot, but how do we interpret that in the digital age and the passion for learning.

Ruxa, you work with young people.  Tell us a little bit, did we capture what they really think about.

>> RUXA PANDEA: Thank you to the speakers before thank you for summarizing.

I don't know if I can capture what all young people think.  I will not it make such a claim.  I only meet a tiny fraction of them, a minority and I think nobody in the world knows what all young people think.  I think we need to keep it contained there.

Based on my work, I would like to ‑‑ I have a couple of points to raise from what you raised as well.  One thing that struck me, generally when we talk about the Internet, we speak about Generation Z, millennials, this seems to mystify a whole generation of young people ‑‑ not so young people anymore ‑‑ and I think it is important when looking at young people not to label them.  I know it is easy and nice to talk about the different generations but to remember that they are very diverse.  This is not a compact group.  If we look globally or Europe wide or country wide or city wide, you will see also in the ways that they engage with the Internet and in the ways that they learn and that they face different challenges.  I think there are questions of discrimination of power and privilege, they'll need to be taken into account while not trying to create one‑size‑fits‑all policy.  That's one.

I think a very important point that was raised is the question of participation, which I find essential and I think big data, not big data, Internet, so I think we have a really tremendous opportunity here.  We look at participation in a structured manner and I have seen other ways of dealing with participation such as open foras, several think tanks that brought people together.  I think it depends ‑‑ we have to think on what participation is for.  If it is participation in decision making to make sure that all young people can be included, this does not mean only creating a space, so saying, okay, here you are, participate, but also supporting them with the necessary skills for participation which I find essential.  Otherwise, it would be more abuse at times.  I think here is where we need to see, you know, the differences and to be mindful of them.

I also think things like data and how we govern data, think of the school level work that was brought up, it is an interesting moment, if I'm thinking of the school level, to actually learn together and to make decisions together so by making decisions together, we learn what kind of data is flowing through the school and so on, so forth, this equalizes the power relations that are quite ‑‑ I don't call them natural, but are somewhat involved in our educational system, formal or non‑formal, one is the learner, the other is the provider.

I think this is a wonderful opportunity.  I also think that the Internet ‑‑ and we have seen especially the no hate speech movement campaign, it brought us an unbelievable opportunity to go back to more inquisitive education where also teachers and students learn together, we were training online activists to combat ‑‑ to provide alternative narratives to hate speech.  We have discovered that we actually as a sector didn't have capacity, we didn't know how to do it.  We actually had to sit with the activist, with the young people, with the computer, and learn altogether how to do it.  That proved to be a very engaging, meaningful process and I think from that kind of experience, and it is not the only one, we can also look on how to disrupt maybe certain patterns in our further education systems.

I think there is a lot we can learn from analytics, from data analysis.  I was reflecting, we do a lot of eLearning most of it is blended learning, so we would blend it with residential seminars in our work.

There is meaning into how people behave online and take certain tests to come back to what we were thinking but I think we must not forget that when we are talking about MOOKS, eLearning, that the learning context is not within our reach and we should not judge only on the basis of what people do online but also keep a broader context in which that learner learns.

The issue of platforms was brought.  Speaking the same language with young people, I think ‑‑ most of the cases, I think addressing young people and ‑‑ it works generally, trying to explain things also works.  We had also a lot of these discussions in the sector because we want to be present where the young people are present.  This is a normal drive that you don't expect them to come to you as an institution, you would rather go to them.  I have also learned working with several organizations, we're trying to do the same, children, younger people, they want their own spaces where the others, the authorities are not mingling and I think this is very ‑‑ it is part of being young as well and something to be respected.  There is a sort of intrusion that we have in the aim to reach out, sometimes we're very intrusive and we create rejection with that.

I was reflecting about questions of trust.  There was something in what Frank La Rue said and in your story, and I was thinking trust is essential for our culture of democracy.  The fact that my peers would not believe that I was in a swimming pool and the fact that I cannot trust any of the news in the media without checking them five times and wondering if I can trust, I think it speaks not only of the Internet as such but speaks about our democracies.  I think part of actually the way we would work with young people and with children in citizenship, in Human Rights education, it would be expressed in the community.  I think that goes beyond the Internet, that goes more into what's actually quite needed nowadays.

All right.

Let's see.

I think these are the main points I wanted to raise.  You yes.  One more point.

There was also in this opening speech an example where suddenly the world comes in the school, the cyberbullying, the hate speech, this and that.  I think it is actually good it comes.  It is part of the reality where we are.  I think that the mission of education in a way is to prepare young people, children, for the world as it is so that they can engage with it and that they can actually disrupt it.

I think disrupt in this way, in digital areas can support us, it is also disrupting patterns of kiss discrimination, patterns of abuse, so on.  It is learning how to engage with this.

>> JASMINA BYRNE: Thank you.

I think talking about trust, critical thinking tall thinking as Frank mentioned earlier, there are some connections there as well.  I mean, maybe this is the times where we are also developing critical thinking skills because we're losing trust.  I open up the floor to you, we have young people in the audience, anyone with questions, comments for our panelists.

We have a few minutes.  Yes.  Please, introduce yourself.

>> ANDREW BRIDGES:  I'm a lawyer in Silicon Valley.  This is a marvelous panel, very stimulating across the board.  Thank you for it. 

I have a couple of observations and a couple of questions.  Yes, there is way too much focus on STEM, I suggest that STEM needs HELLP, that stands for History, Literacy, Languages and Philosophy, because STEM helps to tell us how to do things and HELLP helps us to understand what is worth doing.

And what is the point of STEM?  I think the critical thinking is a problem that we're hearing from the panel in this respect, and the problem with STEM is that oftentimes people forget the S.  They focus on technology and engineering and mathematics, and they forget that the there is such a thing as scientific method and that's important to learn, not just the formulas, not what the constants are, but what is that method. 

Similarly, on the humanistic side, real history, the learning of history is the learning of how to identify, select and evaluate sources of information.  It is not being able to recite dates and events. 

Now, the concern I have here with big data is we have talked about questions of authority, questions of trust.  I like to think about the slow food movement.  I think that we should be thinking about maybe the slow thought movement that critical thinking ‑‑ I majored in Greek and Latin, that's my base for this. 

I remember once complaining to a teacher teaching me Latin that I felt bad because I was reading only four pages per hour of the Latin text, and the teacher's response was so what's wrong with that?  The slower we think about things, sometimes the better.

What we need to do is to cultivate a degree of patience.  When we start talking about big data and when we start talking about a lot of digital solutions, you tend to be mass approaching things and the ways to crunch a lot of information in a very, very short period of time, and I don't know if that's helpful to what really needs to be learned here.  That the things we're trying to teach, they're actually some of the more inefficient things to teach and the inefficient things to learn. 

The authority of a teacher comes ‑‑ it can be used well or badly ‑‑ the authority of the teacher is to say to students I don't need to hear from you, you need to hear from me, you need to tell me on the test what I have told you.  That's not critical thinking.  So we need to figure out what ‑‑ how we effect that teaching process, how the teacher models humility and patience and where the authority of the teacher is subject to challenge by the students in to the classroom as reflected in the grading process that doesn't reward regurgitation of answers, and I don't know how we accomplish this when our focus tends to be in the digital realm exclusively. 

I don't like talking about digital literacy.  I think we're talking about literacy.  I like the information part of it.  I was wondering if you could reflect on an inherent conflict between our trying to have a mass approach to this, and the fundamental requirement that true learning on the part of the student may be slower and more personalized than any big data approach might allow.

Thank you.

>> JASMINA BYRNE: Thank you so much, Andrew.

Any other questions, comments before we turn to panelists?  I'm aware that we have two more panels.

From the audience?  No? 

Yes, over there.  Sorry.  Yes.  Please?

 

>> AUDIENCE: A really rich topic.  I like the approach on how data is being used in creative ways to engage with young people. 

Perhaps it was mentioned earlier and I was not here to hear it, what about the institutions in which students are learning in which we are doing our teaching and research that are ill‑equipped to deal with the volume of circumstance or circumstantial data that comes through the emails, through the automated, all of the letters around mitigating circumstances, all of those sorts of things?  What about institution context most of the learning is taking place, whereas the private institutions now, if not the State‑funded institutions that could take an eConnections, that would be hit with a real reality check starting next year about taking the data, storing data and also being required to so‑called protect the data.  I don't think any teacher or student has much to say about this.  To me, this is about power at a very granular daily level, going to how we even use our emails as much as I want to be empowered.

I would love you to briefly tell me how to contextualize the context in which we're working, and we do not own or have access practically to the very data we wish to empower our students with. 

Also, I get my students to turn off their phones, it makes an enormous difference at least until break.

>> JASMINA BYRNE: Thank you so much.

Shall we have some answers from here?  Divina first and then we have maybe 5, 6 minutes to address together.

>> DIVINA FRAU-MEIGS: I will be short.  I think it is a collective, trying to grasp for answers.

The universities is not ready, the school system is not ready either.  Here we are, trying to alert them, but what I notice is that in fact the reaction at the moment is closure and rejection. 

In France, as of the start of next September the students will not be allowed smartphones anymore.  My university who embraced MOOCs, embraced them from the beginning is now refusing, and MOOCs are failing at university but thriving everywhere else.  Myself, I have digital literacy, we are a talking about, media information literacy, it will happen somewhere else. 

What I would like to discuss with you is what is this somewhere else because we need spaces for juvenile discussion and young people among themselves.  We need places where if they're not in schools, they are still recognized or legitimate reasons for looking and caring for children and validating the content of what we're transmitting to them.  Is it libraries, maybe, but it is not happening in schools and it is not happening at universities at least in some of the places I know.  I'm hoping that other places will do it, some people point to China, some people point to Singapore.  I'm looking for democracy there.

>> AUDIENCE:  What about ‑‑ can you tell us a bit about the slow thinking and how do we exercise both critical thinking and taking time to really understand, comprehend, think about consequences, think about what we're learning?

>> Thank you for the intervention, Andrew, I think it is crucial for what you said.  I like the slow thought movement that you compared to the slow food movement.  I have a lot of things doing different start‑ups and are working in the outside of the education that now are saying that educational institutions in the future might become obsolete.  I heavily disagree with that. 

The reason why I disagree is connecting to both of your questions.  Basically, first of all, the time that the children spend in school.  You were talking about having to know basic facts ‑‑ and this is true.  When I was in elementary and high school we were required to learn by the book, which means that you just had to recite everything that the teacher said and we got punished if you missed a word.  It came to that. 

History, for many years, it was one of my most‑hated subjects, because it was so many dates and so many numbers and I had to know every, each individual one.  It was only decades later, when I had time and freedom to actually go into history and recognize the patterns of behavior that I started to enjoy and really love history. 

I believe that we still need a structural response from the educational institutions.  I agree with Divina, we may not be ready yet.  At the same time, we don't have a choice.  It is not like we can find this solution anywhere else for this particular reason. 

The first one is, just the time that children spend in school, compared to any kind of sport activity or the private life, there is not much scope for them to find this digital literacy anywhere else.  It has to happen in schools. 

The second part also that relates to your question is how do we contextualize it?  Even when you have the most dedicated, compassionate and passionate teachers you have the problem of the production norm ‑‑ what I call it, the production norm ‑‑ of education which means that they have a certain number of hours that they have to dedicate to this program and there is no scope to go around it. 

For example, in the education we work with different teachers, they have to manipulate the way that the classes are structured to find somewhere to place the importance of the heritage and education.  This is something that why should teachers who are passionate, already doing enough in their own context, need to manipulate in order to put in education and literacy and information literacy inside of the curriculum.  It is also tiring even for the most passionate teachers.

I sound a bit critical because it is the reality of the world.  I do not see an alternative of not using educational institutions.  I also believe that there is a scope if we bring them from a different point of view. 

Educational institutions are required by the government rules, which is one scope, and the other one by the production rate.  They get different finances, especially outside of Europe, based on the scores the children get on the different tests.

>> JASMINA BYRNE: Thank you.  It seems like you and I went to the same school, we'll have to compare notes afterwards.

Carl, last word, what do you think about the comments?

>> CARL GAHNBERG: Well, thank you very much.

I'm going to take the opportunity since I have the final word as well to send us away with a little bit of a message.  The thing ‑‑ I really liked the comment here about complementing STEM would help.  I think that's a creative way of kind of addressing the problem that we need more acronyms, or we need to at least make them compatible with each other. 

A challenge, you mentioned massive adversity solution to the problem, something to keep in mind, this is something repeated all week, half of the global population is not online.  The people coming online will face a different Internet.  The last billion coming online will face a different digital experience than the first billion did, and the challenges may be even greater then.  They may be ‑‑ the fact that the Internet will be even further integrated in our lives and social processes, to have those billions coming online being able to rapidly obtain digital literacy or a digital competence to strive in that environment will be critical not only for the communities, but for the Internet itself I think.

>> JASMINA BYRNE: Thank you.

I work for UNICEF, with the countries where the Internet is just coming.

Thank you to all the panelists.  It was wonderful.  Thank you.

Now we ask you to take us to the second step of our thinking.

Thank you.

>> VILLANO QIRIAZI: We'll start the second session on enabling young people in formal and informal education, competencies and values.  I would like to first introduce the speakers for the second session.

On my left, Janice Richardson, she is a senior consultant of Children Rights, Education and Awareness.  She was cofounder and coordinator of the European Safer Internet Network and an expert of the current project of the Council of Europe on Digital Citizenship, Education, and also she's heavily contributing to the Children Rights Implementation Strategy of the Council of Europe.

Larry Magid, a technology journalist and Internet safety advocate.  He's the cofounder of Connect Safely, an on‑air analysis for CBS news.

Further left, Anca Sandescu, my colleague on hate speech related issues.

On my right side, Stephen Wyber, a policy, research officer for the International Federation of Library Associations.

And then Elisabeth Milovidov, a lawyer from California, a law professor in Paris and an eSafety consultant and independent expert on digital parenting and Children Rights.  She's also a member of the Council of Europe Group on Digital Citizenship Education mandate also contributing as an expert for the Children Rights strategy of the Council of Europe.

Our debate is around competencies and values.  I have prepared several questions that are mainly about four elements, first one regarding the definition of digital competencies, in the council of Europe.  We have decided to group all of the competencies under the concept of digital citizen education; then some questions around the school resources and infrastructure that will enable the acquisition of such competencies; then the stakeholders’ involvement.  We have been discussing within our current work on the multistakeholder approach, and it would be interesting to see the interaction of different stakeholders through the acquisition of development of competencies and then as it was also underlined during the opening session, the preparation of teachers for development of such competencies.

I'll start with the first one:  How do we ‑‑ do we have a shared definition or understanding of eCitizenship or digital citizenship?

>> LARRY MAGID: First of all, on the question of digital citizenship ‑‑ am I on?  There we go ‑‑ in trying to define digital citizenship.  I turned to the dictionary to look up the word citizenship.  The particular dictionary I looked at, it said not just responsibility but rights.  I think it is very important that when we talk about digital citizenship we include rights. When we talk about rights, we have to talk about not only the right to be safe, right to be protected, but the right to participate, the right to have free speech, the right to really be a part of the community.  That's very important for young people especially light of ‑‑ I can't remember the exact Article ‑‑ but certainly the U.N. Convention on the Right of the Child makes it clear that children have rights to all media.  They used the word all, and I think they meant including media that didn't exist at the time.  I think that's very important.

I also want to help the gentleman ‑‑ thank the gentleman in the back for suggesting the word HELLP because I have struggled for years to think of another word besides STEM and STEAM, but I would like to enhance what you said.  I believe if I heard you right you were missing an E.  I would add emotional literacy.  I would suggest that it is History, Emotional, Literacy, Language, Philosophy, now you have the E. 

The reason I added the emotional literacy ‑‑ because we recently did a booklet on media literacy and fake news ‑‑ I have a great deal to say about fake news, more than anyone here wants to hear probably.  We have a section in there about emotional literacy.  If you look at fake news, and if you look for example at the rise of any leader that's managed to somehow get elected to his or her position ‑‑ usually his ‑‑ you will find that emotional incitement played a major role and we can only look at an example as I had an unfortunate part to have to have suffered from last November in the United States and see the extent that emotion played a very, very significant role.  If I may mention that.

I do think ‑‑ I also want to respond, if I may very briefly ‑‑ to the remarks made by our opening speaker, Frank La Rue, which I thought were brilliant, but for one area I may disagree.  I think one of the things that really concerns me in my own country is how our President is managing to destroy confidence in every institution that in any way ever challenges him.  He's gone after the judiciary, he's currently going after the FBI, and he has consistently gone after the media.  While I agree that we all need to have critical thinking skills about everything, nobody should believe anything that anyone tells them, including myself, without thinking critically without them, I also think that when we reach a level of dismissing what authorities and people that ought to know better and who in fact have a track record of being accurate and just dismiss it because it doesn't confirm the biases, that that's one of the things that it is leading to, the autocratic situation we're in in the United States and I think most of the world.

I'm a journalist, as well as a safety advocate.  I have made a mistake.  I recently just two weeks ago in a printed column, printed on trees, made a mistake.  I was trying to say federal communication.  I typed federal trade association.  It was a simple typo.  I was horrified, embarrassed.  I insisted I had a correction, even though it was a minor typo of issue.  That's the way that most good journalists think about their credibility.  It is horrifying to even make a mistake, let alone be allowed to deliberately lie. 

I think it is important that we teach children that there are institutions that while you cannot completely disregard and trust them 100%, they by and large usually get it right.  When they get it right, they by and large usually print.  When they get it wrong, they by and large usually print a correction.  I really think that without that trust in media, with some media, without that trust in some law enforcement, government, we're in very serious trouble.  I think that's an important part of critical thinking.

>> VILLANO QIRIAZI: That was the competencies that are required for living in a digital world.

>> I will go back to the Council of Europe competencies.  I think if we don't have values, if we don't have the right attitudes.  And what are the right attitudes?  The attitudes, the well‑being of the people around us, if we don't have the skills to ‑‑ I would rather just stick with the word literacy because that means to express ourselves with the tools of today and to understand how other people express themselves, and finally if we don't have the critical understanding and the knowledge we're lost without it. 

Let me take us back 20 years ‑‑ okay, I'm old.  As someone said earlier, that gives us great freedom.  We can say what we think.  We've got nothing to lose.

In 1996 Jacques Delors wrote a publication with UNESCO Education, A Treasure Within, and I think we absolutely can't forget that.  He said we have to build education, all education, informal, formal education on four pillars:  To know, to do, to be and to live together.  For me, I think that this is precisely what the competences, the model that we're working on, defines.  To know, it is knowledge and critical understanding.  To do, it is skill.  To be is values, and to learn to live together is also our attitudes towards each other. 

What really concerns me is when I see very young children, even younger than one year old using Internet, using video, because I believe that for children under 5 watching videos on a mobile phone or tablet is the second preferred activity.  That's what really concerns me because they're arriving at school with such biases, with no real clear development of these attitudes and values, and if they don't have them by age 7, if we believe the old philosopher St. Gregory, show me the child at 7 and I'll tell you the man and so this is my very grave concern.  We can trust teachers if we give them the right training, but how do we make sure that we get the parents on board so that children really are learning the four areas of competence at the beginning and they don't have to unlearn, relearn if we don't trust the educational establishments to trust them.

>> VILLANO QIRIAZI: We are moving to the second set of questions with the involvement of stakeholders, it is the development of competencies, but the education, and the schools, they cannot alone do everything.  That's why a multistakeholder approach is needed. 

So Stephen, who should be involved in the process of acquisition of competencies, and can you comment on the necessity of developing the holistic and persistent approach to bring all stakeholders together?

>> STEPHEN WYBER: Thank you for the opportunity to talk.

As you can imagine, I'm going to make a small plug for the role of libraries.  And we know that education, we know that influences on children's behavior comes from all sides.  Clearly in the classroom, but outside.  I think we have already seen the discussions that we have had today, the boundary between the formal and the informal, it is extremely flexible. 

We have some school systems that are rigid, very well defined.  You sit at the desks, listen to what you're told and simply regurgitate at the end.  Others look to Finnish system, others in the world, they're more free, they're learning to be a much more informal process.  In to the less strict communities, having families that will help develop the right tools.  It is particularly important, in the U.S. 

For example, in Australia we have seen good examples of teachers working with school librarians, local librarians, other community actors to make sure that we really incorporate and have a consistent curriculum, a consistent approach throughout the child's experience.

>> VILLANO QIRIAZI: When talking about other stakeholders, the first group of actors that come immediately, it is about parents and family.  So Elizabeth, could you tell us more on the involvement of parents and families?

>> ELISABETH MILOVIDOV: Yes.  Thank you.

For me, parents, it is such a difficult topic because they want to help.  They want to know, but they just are afraid.  They really are just afraid.  With the bombardment of different things that are happening technology and Internet and social media, they have no idea where to get the resources.  I'm in France, based in France, I ask them all the time, do you know about this, that, they have no idea of the resources available, they don't even know to ask the Internet service provider about parental controls.

What goes beyond this, they don't even ask their children they don't talk to their children, they don't ask them what they're doing, what games they play, who they're playing with.  It is this kind of hands‑off approach.  And at the same time they're concerned because they do ask me to do workshops, and one of the first things I do when speaking with the students or the parents, the students, I tell them when you go home, you have homework to do, that's show your parents what you're doing.  Play with them, show them Minecraft, show them Roblox and get them engaged. 

And I tell the parents to do the same thing.  Of course, we always laugh and I say grab a glass of wine before you sit down and play Minecraft because you'll need it.  Any awareness campaign that we do, we find a way to reach the parents. 

Before you switch topics, a thing you asked was about digital citizenship.  Quickly, a year and a half ago when we started to do the research behind what is digital citizenship, looking for definitions, we looked everywhere, Australia, Canada, Europe, Asia.  We had really different definitions, and still we were able to distill, in my opinion, the basics, and that's what you see in the digital citizenship handbook, that's what you see that's coming out.  That's what you see on the website talking about the ten digital domains.  We really picked the best from the best. 

The publicity moment.  There you go!  It is coming! 

You will see the ten digital domains picked from, we pulled from media smarts, we really went around the world to find the best definition because there wasn't just one.

>> VILLANO QIRIAZI: Thank you. 

When it comes to stakeholders, we discussed in a conference that we had in September, and it was underlined that after so many years of digital developments and co‑existence of both lives online, offline, et cetera, still, there are three digital mindsets that are prominent for almost all key actors without exception.  How do you explain this, how do we have the predigital mind set.

>> LARRY MAGID: I think, you know, people really, educators especially, most are getting it now.  One of the nice things is, that we're 20 years in the digital revolution, you can be a parent or a teacher today and actually be a digital native.  We're beginning to see that.

What I think is more critical, people that grew up digital natives, they're consumers, not creators, and somebody ‑‑ we talked earlier on the panel about that whole issue of what it means, and so everybody I think virtually everyone under 40 knows how to use a smartphone, but do people have a clue as to what's inside that box?  The other part of that, it gets back to the STEM issue versus HELLP issue, I think of plumbers, they're really good at fixing toilets and sinks and showers and maybe even building toilets and sinks and showers, somebody has to think about water policy, somebody has to think about the quality of the water that's going through, somebody needs to think about waste management, somebody has to think about what does it mean to have a plumbing system that's connected to a water system, connected to a sewage system connected to oceans and rivers, that's why we have people ‑‑ we have plumbers and if God knows we need them, therapy very expensive by the way, we also have to have planners and thinkers and critical thinkers.

I would say as part of the predigital, post digital, trans digital, whatever you want to call it transformation, we need to be thinking about the holistic approach to solving problems.  I think one of the things that the digital world had brought us is ‑‑ it is surprising, instead of breaking down silos, it has created more silos.  That's something I never expected.  I myself, I kind of think of myself as a digital pioneer because I was old and I was around back then, and I wrote and thought a lot about these things, I wrote the first book on digital ‑‑ on the Internet back in the 80s, early 80s, '83  , there is a lot I didn't think about or anticipate and one of the many things I didn't anticipate was how it would increase separation rather than create more cohesion.

That's probably a roundabout way of getting to the question.  I think in this trans digital society that we're living in, we're kind of going through this transformation.  We need to go back and start rethinking a lot of the values that were just presumed to have come.  I mean, I remember the naivety and the enthusiasm in the '80s, '90s, the 2000s of what the Internet would bring.  Boy, some came true, and some is coming true, a lot of it didn't quite happen the way we thought it would. 

>> STEPHEN WYBER:  When I mentioned the predigital mindset, it was in the mind of the attitude to two groups of actors, on one side we have responsibility for public education system, and on the other side we have the private corporations, et cetera. 

In the public education system we have schools that often they stay in the traditional form and for the private corporation we have all the private learning platforms.  How do you see the influence of the intra framework structure, but also in parallel resources and do you see any kind of collaboration between the two big ‑‑

>> LARRY MAGID: I see the silo.  The private sector is doing a better job of the digital transportation than the public, but the private sector has a vested interest that may or may not be in line of what the goal of public education should be.  In the United States we have a Secretary of Education whose stated goal is to privatize public education and turn it into a business as opposed to a public service.  That is probably not the way we want to go, even though it may be true that the private sector is doing a better job on the digital aspect of it.

The other thing that we're seeing ‑‑ in fact, I had a conversation last night about this ‑‑ in the U.K., these dinosaur educational ‑‑ education companies that made their fortune in the era of print are trying to figure out how to remain relevant in a digital world but also in a world of Open Source where it really is not necessary to go to a McGraw Hill or a Pearson to get a textbook, you can go to any smart professor in that field and have them write one and distribute it or even avoid that and have the kids go off to YouTube.  There is a tremendous pressure between the educational establishment, like the military educational establishment, it is a collaboration between educators and private sector people that seem to be in lockstep ,and somehow are able to control things which I still don't understand and the reality is that in a digital society we don't need some of these established institutions, we can transcend them.  There are billions of dollars at stake.  They won't lay down easily.

>> VILLANO QIRIAZI: What do you think of the school organization as of today?  You did also ‑‑ you have a lot of experience, but also with the project, you have a general overview of how the education ‑‑ the public education sector, how schools are organized.  Are they doing enough?  What's missing?

>> JANICE RICHARDSON: They aren't certainly doing enough ‑‑ well, some countries are, I'll give you an example later on.

First of all, this predigital mindset, in fact, why is it that the old generation, the Baby Boomers, the ones that are spending the most money online, booking the most holidays, using the most services and actually the most present on social media because we know kids are no longer interested in Facebook, for example, there is a missing link, and this is what seems very important to me. 

Now I'll give you my example:  In Australia, at least in Western Australia, on the curriculum committee ‑‑ the curriculum committee, it is the board that decides what the curriculum should be in schools in the State.  They don't just have educators, they don't just have academics, they also have industry, and the latest that I have heard, they also had pupils.  I think that's a great model.  I very recently seen an example of this.

My 10‑year‑old grandson wants to be a commercial airline pilot.  He went to school and he mentioned this ambition.  Other children, they were very interested.  This is a public school ran by the State.  It doesn't have great finances.  It set up a flight school for its pupils to go not only to do flight simulation at the airport with the real pilots, but actually also to go out and fly planes ‑‑ to sit in the plane while it is being flown.  I think that's an absolutely perfect example.  If we do have young people sitting around the table with industry and with the academics, perhaps we can move forward much further. 

There is one thing I want to come back on.

We talked about Generation Z and Generation X and Y, and I have heard all of these ‑‑ I don't know if any of you know the social theory where it was pointed out about 20 years ago what a great mistake we're doing by dividing people into generation.  Everybody has something to bring.  In a class where there is mixed ages, the progress, it is always much more rapid because we have stopped categorizing people and started to categorize learning and maybe schools are not doing enough in this level.  Also a great philosopher Illich wrote 50 years ago school is ‑‑ correct me if I'm wrong ‑‑ he said that situations like what we have here today where we're sitting around in a room, listening to experts and then I hope we're having a say later on, you can learn so much.  So why is it that school has one teacher talk and talk still and is not giving the opportunity to young people to have expert groups where they can link up all the things that really enthralled them because you can teach mathematics and you can teach language, you can teach everything that way. 

We do need maybe not a revolution, but a very fast evolution.  Let's hope the Council of Europe can do something.

>> VILLANO QIRIAZI: A lot of this has to do with the training of teachers.  How do we train digital competence and when to teach, is it possible or not?

>> ELISABETH MILOVIDOV: First of all, parents.  That's okay.

Only from my experience, of speaking with parents, that's going into the schools, I'm talking again for France, I have seen a huge preparation of teachers in private schools where they have digital citizenship trainings, where they have iPad trollies, they have called people technology integrationists.  They're in the school, part of the staff, they're people that bring in the technology into a subject.  If it is history, they'll bring it in, they'll bring in the iPad trollies and make everything blend. 

I have not seen that as much in the public schools in France.  That doesn't say that it doesn't exist, just saying from my own experience.  In Paris, the majority of the private schools I have gone into or have seen they're just out‑distancing the public school children.  Those children are prepared.  I don't know where they're getting the training from, a lot of them.  I have seen some of them, there is a forum every year for English as a second language, there is a digital device in the public schools and private schools.  The School of Janice, notwithstanding, that takes kids on planes.

>> VILLANO QIRIAZI: We talked in the previous session about the influence of Internet of Things, Internet of Everything, then the role that big data can play, et cetera.  If we compare the school, public school, the school system, the learning platforms, so the influence of big data is coming more from the learning platforms, and the learning platforms are also kind of going beyond boundaries and beyond age level and beyond subjects, et cetera.

Do you think that children or young people can decide by themselves on their learning without parents’ guidance?

>> ELISABETH MILOVIDOV: You're giving me the hard questions.  I'm shaking my head. 

My boys are 8 and 10.  I'll answer only for myself.  No.  They cannot.  They need some parental guidance.  I'm not saying dictatorship.  They need some guidance.  I have seen some different social media platforms that are lowering the age limits for children.  My children cannot go on the platforms because they don't have the critical thinking to do the things on their own.  They need to play.  They don't need to go in other ways.  They do need my guidance.  They need mom.

>> VILLANO QIRIAZI: Your comments?

>> STEPHEN WYBER: On this subject of learning platforms brought up, it applies in schools increasingly and in universities as well, academic resources, journals, et cetera access to online, you can actually follow what the children, what the students are doing, I know this freaks a lot of people out, a problem with big data is built on spot and correlation, spotting trends, and it is a trend that when Nicholas Cage appears in more films more people die from drowning.  There is no link between the two things, it happens to be a trend that correlates.  There is a real concern that putting too much faith in big data approaches and handing over all of this, you have the personal data of people's habits and behavior that maybe used to set, to stream, to put it to people's behavior, it is for the time being a little bit suspicion for people.  We have breached the age regulation that in Europe will give people the right to have data about themselves deleted or, more interestingly, take the data collected about them and decide what they want to do with it. 

I think there is a lot of potential there.  We need to work at how to use it.  I don't know what proportion of the population knows what they would do with all of the data that's out there about them.  It will be fascinating to see how that plays out next May in Europe. 

I think for the time being there is a lot of concern about this approach in the sense that the development of learning platforms, the development of data gathering in this way is highly speculative, and we really want to know what's going to happen because there are companies making huge profits not paying much tax beforehand and others are continuing on that line.

>> ELISABETH MILOVIDOV: I would throw in the race card, if I may. 

I'm a Black American, my husband is white and a Russian, and we live in France.  I don't want that big data out there.  You won't see pictures of my children on any social media site and it is our private information.  I'm telling you all now.  Now you know.

As far as ‑‑ it is written there now!  For all of prosperity!  I'll start speaking in Russian. 

That's too soon take into consideration whether there is a slower learner, a child, my niece has Down's Syndrome.  How much of that information do I want them to know?  It is treated differently here than in the United States. I think we have to be a bit more careful, and that's where parents do come in.  They have the ability to protect children.  The data is there and the private sector is using all of this ‑‑

>> JANICE RICHARDSON: With consent?

>> STEPHEN WYBER: Not legally, if I may.

>> JANICE RICHARDSON: Yeah.  Yeah.

>> VILLANO QIRIAZI: My last question is to each of you the kind of concluding comment on ‑‑ regarding the future of the acquisition of competencies.

>> LARRY MAGID:  We're the same age.  I won't say what that is.

Back in the '70s, it was interesting, there was an entire movement on educational reform and ‑‑ not as in now in the United States, which means privatization, but in the student empowerment.  It is ranging from kindergarten through graduate schools.  There was huge movements to try to make things more student‑centered, more practical, get away from the chalk and talk, and that all went away in the '80s.  Ironically it is all coming back.  It is so important, and the technology actually makes it much easier to implement than it was back then, and now all we need is the political will to do so.  I think to your question, to the future, less about technology, that will happen, it will just march on, and most of us in the room have very little control over what it is going to be.  More about the governance of technology.  I don't mean with the capital G, but small g.  How do we use the technologies?  How do we apply them?  What are the basic kind of social political constructs, what are the balances of power?  Those are the important questions.

The technology, they're tools, they're things that will be used to implement whatever we decide to do.  We can't let the technology drive us.  We have to drive the technology.  I think there needs to be around the world a complete rethinking of how we educate people, and I think we can go back and look at the work of people like John Holton, John Dewey, so many people in the past for inspiration, but we could also look to young people and the fact that ‑‑ for example, formal education:  I wouldn't say it is obsolete, but I will say it is disrupted, and it is further disruptable that learning needs to be looked at from no matter where it comes from, even if it is all by itself, that we need to really rethink assessment programs in the future.  We have to get away from standardized testing. 

I don't know how much of an issue that is in Europe or the rest of the world.  In the United States it drives education from kindergarten on up.  It is almost impossible to do anything innovative in school unless you can prove that it improves test scores, and the only thing that test scores seem to correlate with is how well you do on tests.  We need to really take some control over that.  I think young people can drive it.  We adult authorities have to support it.

That's my optimistic view of the future.

>> JANICE RICHARDSON: Certainly optimistic, but at the very beginning, Frank La Rue ‑‑ I think that's his name ‑‑ he mentioned it was very important to know who governs social standards and ethical standards, but in fact we can't confuse them.  No.  I think we have to confuse them.  I think every child needs to learn social literacy from the very moment that they begin interacting ‑‑ from the very moment that they're born.  I think we all need to understand ethical standards.  I happen to be on the ethical board of a university in Brussels looking at robotics and machine learning.  Some of the things that I see with the technical on one side and then we soft skillers on the other, it is quite frightening.

If we're really moving down this lane where technology is going to be integrated everywhere, then how are we really going to develop the social standards, you don't develop neurons, for example, through a computer, how will we develop the values?  These are really, really big concerns I have. 

I have another really big concern because free flow of ideas and knowledge to build peace, yes, I really believe that.  When I look at the world as it is right now, there were two, three months ago a study that came out taken across many countries in the world and they discovered that they have moved into an area of authoritarian government and governance, and no one seems to be doing much about it.  That young people don't actually have much trust in government anymore.  Although I'm optimistic, I think that there are many issues here that we really need to look at, and we need to look at with depth because it is not good enough to change as we do now.

We read one way, and then we learn the global method of learning and then we switch back to something else.  We need a really in‑depth policy so that the competences can be taught and will be learned in a bottom‑up way.

>> VILLANO QIRIAZI: Your final comment?  There is applause in the next room.

>> STEPHEN WYBER:  There is lots of things that's been said, and a lot of things that could be said.  Three positives I think that come out of this: 

The first, this comes out of the discussions at the UNESCO meeting back in October, and the shift towards digital is a help in that media literacy and information literacy which coexists as ships in the night for a long time, media literacy focusing on story, newspapers, people trying to tell us the truth, information literacy starting with the user and looking at how the user can find information for themselves thanks to the Internet these are coming together.  The fact of looking for information, seeking information, the same portal, we have the opportunity to bring the two communities together.

And secondly, I think to a large extent actually there is always a big tendency to say that digital is different, let's rip up everything.  Digital has also helped underline some of those things like critical thinking and we used to call it histeorography which is how people write about history, the study of it, it is critical thinking, we don't call it that anymore. 

Daniel Kahneman worked on this for years.  He won a Noble Prize for thinking fast and slow.  None of these ideas are new.  They have existed for a long time.  Actually right now we're suddenly seeing how applicable and how relevant they are.  Just saying everything is new, we can do it with a MOOC, sort it with an app, not necessarily true.  A lot of the times we have the ideas, we have the objectives, it is really just the case of taking out what we have, using it, finally a positive is another notice, it is quoted.

And one of the points here, it is making it to another session this morning, it was that when the Internet first came out downloads, the speeds were okay, upload speeds were slow.  So the Internet was very much you consume stuff, but all you can produce is chat rooms, emails.  We're getting to the point where we're actually ‑‑ it is becoming easier for people to produce and share their own material as it is to consume other peoples.  The best way to see how you can screw around with information and media and what's on the Internet is by doing it yourself.  We're entering into a time where it is more possible for people to play with things, to become their own journalist, create their own materials and actually learning by doing.  We have talked about this.  We're at a time where it is more possible than it has been before to create and to learn by doing.

>> VILLANO QIRIAZI: You are the moderator of the next session.  You should be quick.

>> ELISABETH MILOVIDOV: I will be very quick. 

I will say inspire parents.  Larry mentioned that technology is going to happen.  I say yes, it is. 

My little boy is in private school.  They came home, talked to me about porn because an older child showed them something on the smartphone.  You have to be a parent and willing to get into that conversation, you have to be inspired.  Doesn't matter about parental controls, other children will show it to them on the bus.

Janice said government, children are distrustful of governments.  After the last election, my 7‑year‑old says do all the brown people have to leave the United States?  I had to answer him, get in there and, you know, roll up my sleeves and talk to my child.

Lastly as it just said, the digital is different.  Yeah.  It is different.  Again, I say inspire parents.  Really, they are there.  I'm not saying put all of the responsibility on them.  Help them.  Inspire parents.

>> VILLANO QIRIAZI: Thank you.

The last words.

>> RUXA PANDEA:  I'm supposed to represent the voice of the young people.  I'm not here on that behalf, but I will share a few points on the Human Rights educator perspective on enabling the young people particularly in non‑education sectors and accessing, becoming not only consumers but creators and meaningful actors into the discussion about the digital literacy in the future of the Internet, so on, so forth.

A main concern of the young people, it is about the participation and it is about how they are not only given the competencies of being actors at the table, but also access and space for being actors in this very important discussion we're having.

I also want to bring in the Human Rights standards.  Every time when we're discussing about ‑‑ again, I'm going to Frank La Rue who was saying that social and ethical standards, but also Human Rights standards that apply no matter what if we're talking offline or online and life happens.

I also would like to emphasize on the point of actually creativity and becoming empowered, and the joy of being part and having a voice and being a part of constructing the future of tomorrow because as my colleague was pointing out in the no hate speech campaign, when activists were given the space of actually contributing, participating, they were teaching us back the institution of actually how to be relevant and how to be actually at the forefront of bringing this discussion on the table of decision makers.

Sorry.  I could continue, but I think I'm out of time.

>> VILLANO QIRIAZI: I would like to thank you all for your contributions.

I'm afraid we don't have time to ask for or have some questions.  The following moderators, they talked a lot in my session!  They could give the floor to the participants in the next session!

Thank you.  You have now the floor.

>> JANICE RICHARDSON: Precisely what we're planning to do.  Don't run away.  You're going to work now!

So we talked about the competencies, but he really underlined the importance of participation, engagement, responsibility and this is precisely how the domains ‑‑ and if you look at the brochure ‑‑ you will see the domains that are here.  We'll ask you to pick up the brochure.  Take a good look.  When you look at being online, they're we're talking about ‑‑ thank you ‑‑ we're talking about participation.  Actually being able to be a participant in today's world.

When talking about well‑being online.  That's engagement.  You are confident enough to actually take part in what's happening.  You have the ethics, empathy, health and well‑being and ePresence and communication, all of the things you need for well‑being online and, thirdly, when we come to ‑‑ there are always people that run away when they think they have to do something!

Finally, we have responsibilities which are rights online, what we're asking you to do is to work in groups of five and to give us three key objectives for the areas.  So you have to choose one, or we'll help you.  You have to be either participation, engagement, or responsibility.  There we want you to choose three key goals and to choose three means of living digital citizenship, of really being able to put this into practice.

Is the request clear?

>> ELISABETH MILOVIDOV: Let me also explain we have a ‑‑ I would call it the second draft of the digital citizen handbook that covers the ten domains with the definition of digital citizenship and a wonderful section of living digital citizenship, we're really looking ‑‑ you're all from different countries, sectors, places, we're looking for your Best Practices, your ideas to include them in the handbook if possible.  Really, you only have a few minutes to give some of your best ideas for the living digital citizenship or two or three goals, three things that just come top of the head that you think are really important in these three areas.

>> JANICE RICHARDSON: So you can begin.

So move yourself, just turn around, work with someone, choose who will report back to us.  We want three goals.

We're going to start this third of the room ‑‑ this third, we're going to do participation, being online.

In the middle here, we want to have a couple of groups be working about well‑being online, engagement.  Yes.  That's you.

Over here, bottom corner, we want responsibility, rights online.  Three goals and three ways to live digital citizenship.

(Breakout session).

>> JANICE RICHARDSON: We have 6 minutes left for the three goals and the three living digital citizenship.

>> JANICE RICHARDSON: Time is up, unfortunately.

We really, really ask you to write those ideas down so that we can integrate them in the handbook as it is building.

Can we ask you to turn around and the small group in the back, can you put on your microphone and tell us your three goals and the three ideas?  Here we're going to hear the voice of youth.

Quick.

Do you know how to switch on the microphone?

>> AUDIENCE: We're not ready.

>> JANICE RICHARDSON: Bad luck.  Time is time.

>> ELISABETH MILOVIDOV: Stress, stress, stress.

>> AUDIENCE: Yes.  We were doing the well‑being section and our three goals centered around fostering engagement and susceptibility amongst the uses of the Internet and the first goal was fostering emotional literacy and the second goal, it was merging both the online and not letting people forget while using the Internet you're still living in reality.

Our second goal is pretty much interweaving the use of Internet, not to forget that they're still living in reality so to approach the Internet and the way they use Internet in a way that also benefits their health.

The third goal, essentially just ensuring that they have engagement with Internet and adapt to it in a way that they're able to use it effectively as it changes and evolves.

>> JANICE RICHARDSON: That's really helpful.

If you could please also write to us how you think you live digital citizenship and leave us with the paper at the end, it would be really helpful, and your names if you want to be referenced.

Please, youth, what are you up to?  Quick, your response, the three goals.

>> I'm not a spokesperson.

As my colleague said, 6 minutes for discussing participation, is really going through the report for participation, it is that we actually start discussing what the participation is and how we understand the participation and how actually providing not only the competences, but the space and also the access of actually being a part and not just in the decision‑making, but this is ‑‑ we haven't arrived to discuss about the goals and the ways to live digital citizenship because the way we were discussing how can we discuss about participation in 6 minutes.

>> We talked earlier about how people were reacting globally to Donald Trump, the fact that there is hope, the media movement, there are role models emerging, people being courage us and participating and making a difference.  .

>> JANICE RICHARDSON: Thank you.  You can keep working and submit it to us.  We would be only too happy.

There is a group up there, quickly.

>> So we have a similar challenge of getting to the three goals.  We have two.  We were focusing on the first ‑‑ the first domain of privacy and security, and in that one the goal would be to find the balance between the right to privacy and the right of expression because these are sometimes quite dynamically on the opposite side.  For that, some of the means, we didn't go into much details, it would be multistakeholder dialogue, creating open space for culture and alternative narratives and both online and in real‑life participation of different stakeholders because both of them are relevant.

The second question, the rights and responsibilities, and we were happy to see that ethics and empathy was in this domain because this is something that we have to focus on, but here also the goal would be to contextualize the individuality and community engagement because again these can be quite diverse, what I mean.

We came to the first means which would be basically to redefine the community so that it actually has this individual needs inside of the community.

Thank you.

>> JANICE RICHARDSON: The last group.  Then you two will comment on this in terms of your own ideas.

Yes.

>> As a group we chose well‑being online and engagement and thought the three goals would be just to take care about the three aspects of life of individuals, second, the community, third, the society level engagement.

>> We decided to focus on three subjects, happiness on the individual level, on trust in your community, on influence as a society, whether people feel that they're important.  To achieve this, we would potentially measure or encourage people to have healthy interactions with people online with online communities even, encourage them to develop the skills necessary to have an influence as a society and to better accomplish what they want to do in life, and generally to avoid the pitfalls of unhealthy relationships or interactions online.

>> JANICE RICHARDSON: I would really like to thank you.  I think you have done a fantastic job in a very short time and filled us with lots of ideas!

Can I ask Marilia Maciel to tell us what you think about this but also in terms of how to scale citizens and working adults, how this all fits together?

>> MARILIA MACIEL: Thank you.  I had a whole thing prepared that I'll throw away at this moment.

I'll just share a little bit of our experience in my organization, it is called Diplo Foundation, we're a think tank in Geneva, we work with fields related to diplomacy and digital policies.  We offer online courses and we also have face‑to‑face training.  The way we approach the online courses first of all is that we believe that peer to peer learning is the best way of learning.  In our course, differently from MOOCs, you just don't have a fixed text that you will read on your own pace and do whatever you want with the text.  We do have a text that we provide online to our students, but the actual value of the course for us is not the text that's been provided as an entry point, the platform we developed ourselves allows participants to add comments on top of the text through hypertext and it is like when reading a book, you start it o note on the side of the book, making your own comments or sharing your own thoughts, having your insights, you can do that on the platform.  The differences that you're not alone, your peers, classmates are reading the comments on the side of the book and they're ‑‑ they can ‑‑ they're allowed and are encouraged to answer your comments.  Actually a conversation starts to take place on top of the text.  That is very interesting for us as Facilitators, I finished an online course, and when you're sometimes writing a text, you think that the particular point would be the ones that the students would find super interesting and you're excited about it yourself as a writer, hoping that ‑‑ looking forward to the moment in which we engage in conversation on that, and they just oh, okay, whatever.  They choose another point.  they start to look at the other points.  Actually it is a real‑life experience of peer to peer learning and in the end, the course is not about the text that's been provided, but it was about the text and the layer of knowledge that was added on top of the text by the students themselves.  This is ‑‑ I think it links to the point of first group with regard to participation.  Sometimes we need to develop the architecture of the meetings that are taking place, the architecture influences the way that we interact with each other, giving your backs to each other, maybe it would be much better if we were sitting around the table that would encourage more interaction, online learning is the same.  Sometimes you need to ensure that the architecture of your platform will encourage people to actually not be bystanders and readers of the text that's coming from this illuminated source and actually participate.  The other thing that we as an organization find to be important is to have facilitated learning.  All of our courses have tutors, Facilitators, they have a faculty that's extremely present.  We ask our faculty not to leave a comment or question without an answer for more than 24 hours.  You need to ‑‑ within 24 hours so that the student feels that you're actively engaging with them and that has a very clear impact on the rate of success and completion of the course.  I just finished an online course with 42 participants.  We usually have small classes but digital commerce is blasting everyone, when you take this course, you had had a huge class with 42 participants and 40 finished the course, for online learning, that's extremely impressive.  We credit that to this presence of tutors and facilitators that have this approach to all students.

>> JANICE RICHARDSON: Sorry.  I really need to pass the floor.

Finish the last thought.  We're going to have to deliver ‑‑ not yet.  Okay.

Sorry.  Go ahead.  Last thought, and then over to Yves.

>> MARILIA MACIEL: On the importance of capacity building for policymakers.  This is something that as an organization we pay attention to since we're based in Geneva, we have this access to diplomats with policymakers that work in the missions and these are people that are going to develop the policies of tomorrow.  When we talk about complementing technology with humanities approach and to having people capable of developing policies and regulation in the complex world that we're living, we provide capacity development to policymakers because we believe that it is extremely important.  This is a group of people that sometimes we forget when we think about life‑long learning and we're talking about workers, but we're also talking about those that already have ‑‑

>> JANICE RICHARDSON: Can we hear from you, please?

>> MENNO ETTEMA: There are good things from the room raised.  I'll pick up on that and move on.

Participation, it is really a major question that needs to be addressed.

I think the question of the issue also raised, the space needs to be private and access needs to be given to the discussions.

I think this is still very much lacking.  This comes, we had a seminar on youth participation in governance last October and we'll have a session on that in the 20th, in the morning.  It is clear that we need digital literacy and training, things like that, we need to understand how it works.  Beyond that, we really need space to get that, and to get that access.

I think the challenge here is at the Council of Europe, we have a system of comanagement, we'll address that later also, where young people and government partners have equal say on the issues that are being taken.  I think this is quite an important process.  If we're looking at Internet Governance to be multistakeholder, then is there also equal say for the different parties and final decisions on how we regulate that and how it is done.  I think there are challenges to still be done.

Going from there, for example, going concretely to the freedom speech movement campaign that I have been involved with, we notice young people are very concerned on social issues, hate speech is one of them that's really motivated and strengthened participation.  The challenge that they have, is that when they're identified on issues, it is not being heard, not taken up, not followed up, so reporting mechanisms, stuff that needs to be addressed.  When we address it as a social media company, there is no go and when we address it, there is no feedback and when we address it with governments, it goes to anti-terrorism which is a limit the perspective on what the threats of hate speech are in fake news.  I think young people have been trying to open it and get in that discussion.  Governments are interested to work with young people, but specifically on the issues of antiterrorism, counterterrorism, you see that money going in that direction, you look at how man rights education as a broader tool, that's really important and a broader tool to work on what was mentioned here, literacy training, emotional literacy, et cetera, it is entry points and people, youth workers learned that this is a great moment to actually stand and reintroduce Human Rights education and challenge governments on cut downs on this kind of element of Human Rights education in school curriculum and this needs to be taken up.

So the emotional literacy I think is well pointed and it is very good.

The offline and online, I think this is also a focal point that came out of the room and you can only echo that, the campaign starts on working online aspects and now we realize that we need to bring this to the offline space and we had a training course with youth workers going to lifelong learning and they learned to deal with challenging situations in face‑to‑face interactions and they're learning in Germany as a pilot program how do we follow‑up the youth after the international exchange, they keep on exchanging and interaction comes, stereotypes come and how do I follow this back in the offline space and challenge them, so offline and online needs to be connected.  This is a major challenge.

Going forward, when looking at educational settings, I think this is also where the challenge comes, that, yes, there is a lot of relines on MOOCs and other courses that are a huge movement, but we also see many people challenging, finding it difficult to engage age we have to translate this to the offline space.  Companies, businesses need to create a space not only for economical benefits, but again to work with their employees on what is proper online behavior, how do we engage, create a business culture and a community online that reflects the way that we want to be working offline as a company.

The challenges are very important.  If we talk about lifelong learning, talking about parents, talking about youth workers, but also governmental representatives.  I think that we needed to bring the two worlds again back together.  The Internet tools are more and more used as a way of training people about digital literacy and we should not forget the offline tools that with he also have especially coming back to values, this is coming back this afternoon, values, it is very much related to offline interactions and then we need to discuss with everyone how do we do this online at the same time.

I think those are some of the points clearly from the room and I can only echo that.

>> JANICE RICHARDSON: I would like to thank the Diplo Foundation and no hate speech movement.  I think you have really rounded up everything that's come from the room and I do hope that you will contribute to the digital citizenship handbook.  Just listening to what you have to say, you have so much to bring.

Elisabeth Milovidov is making sure you hand over your copy when you leave the room.  We really need that.

Did you have a last word?  I'm signing over to you and thanking everyone for participating.  Sorry we had to squeeze it so tight.  We thought we had 45 minutes.  We certainly didn't!  Then we'll hand it over to Divina.

>> ELISABETH MILOVIDOV: We didn't need it!  We're good!

I will go around and collect, I agree with Janice, both of you, I'll tell you in advance, that's interesting, those are examples of living a digital citizenship that we need to include.  Thank you.  I'm coming around.  Don't move!  I see you!  Don't move.

>> JANICE RICHARDSON: Divina is going to finish off the session with Yves.

>> DIVINA FRAU-MEIGS: Sorry for the delay.  It is your fault, you kept adding interesting things, comments.

Back to you.

Before our colleagues from the Mexican discussion takes the seat.  To conclude, one, two points to take away for us, it is the proposal that we find complementarians between STEM, HELLP and soft skills around mail, we have three   groups of notions to deal with and maybe to bring into the conversation with everybody, with our stakeholders.  I think that's something strong to take out of it, out of this meeting today.  We may ask UNESCO, others, Council of Europe maybe to help with that and always around not only the competence around participation but also the pedagogy of participation.  Around that, I wanted to introduce to you Yves Mathieu from Missions Pupliques.  He's tying in our ideas and reflection, trying to bring in a global citizens debate on the future of the Internet that implies also educating people before they actually can participate in the debate.

The floor is yours.

>> YVES MATHIEU: Thank you very much.

I am full of respect for your courage to end the session now by listening to me!

I would say that it is ‑‑ I'm from Paris, from Mission Pupliques, and 20 years ago I didn't understand how it was possible to spoil the intelligence of the policymaker in the process and I didn't understand how it was possible to limit the democracy to a vote every five years and to cut the connection between the fabric of the manufacturer of policymaking and the citizens.  I have developed with my team protocol to engage citizens in the policymaking process and progressively we're scaling with that process and two years ago, before the 21, the big negotiation on the climate, we engaged citizens from 76 countries in a global deliberation process, it was the largest global deliberation process ever done, and we brought on the table of the negotiation of this the position of the ordinary citizen and this is only something that can be done in a face‑to‑face meeting.  You can only do that with ordinary citizens in the room.  No experts.  No people knowing what is at stake in the Paris Negotiation, for instance, and we really wanted to work with the diverse, ordinary citizens who come in a room and work with their peer during a full day to talk like their Heads of States.  I got the deliberation, deliberation meaning proposition of the citizens, the arguments that showed that in fact today the citizens feel being global citizens and they're probably 20 or 30 years away from governments t it is an important source of the decision‑making process and for the future of the Internet, the idea is that before the IGF2019 such would be organized in over 100 countries at least with one of the people in over the 50 or other the 100 places, meeting in a room for at least one day and they'll talk about division on the future of Internet.  The idea is not to the only educate the citizens and create material that can be used by citizens engaged in the protocol of deliberation, but also to make the material available to everyone in 70 or 100 different languages but also to bring the decision makers and the stakeholders in a new mindset and the idea is to fuel the discussions inside of the IGF with the idea of the ordinary citizen.  I have attended 5 events today, it in each event people say we need to talk to the citizens.  It is something that's in every event inside of IGF and I'm sure that until the end of the IGF it will be said in every event.  Every discussion.

The point is, how do we do it.  It is time to do it.  Let's start talking about engaging the citizens and let's do it.  This is the proposition.  This is what we are working and I have some documents here if you're interested where we create a coalition of factors that are interested by that, the local and global level or at local level and so we need the organization in at least 100 countries to do that.  Factors that we're establishing with Geneva and working together with other stakeholders to create that coalition and to have the energy to go and to engage the ordinary citizens.  I can guarantee you that it will be a good surprise for IGF2019.  We cannot be disappointed, and what we need to have is ‑‑ we need to have in the discussion non‑connected citizen, connected citizens, literate Internet citizens, illiterate Internet citizens and we need to create a group of at least 20,000 citizens representing the diversity of the people living on the planet today and to engage them in this conversation and entering into dialogue with you as stakeholders of the Internet. 

I'm sure of one thing ‑‑ this would be my last word ‑‑ it is not only an issue about educating the ordinary people, it is also an issue of educating the stakeholders.  We need to move together citizens and stakeholders and this is how we'll live if we take the Internet, we're still at the age and we have to grow ‑‑ we're at the kid age and we have to go to teenage age go to the adult age of the Internet and we have to do together and not consider that it is only the citizens that need to be educated, everybody needs to be educated.

Thank you very much.

>> DIVINA FRAU-MEIGS: So I call the session closed.

I thank the Mexican colleagues for their patience.