Education Systems in the Digital Age: The Need for Alignment

The focus of Thematic Working Group 1 at EDUsummIT 2017 centred on the need for alignment in education systems and was driven by two key questions relating to (a) if and how all the parts of an education system work together to support the type of learning envisioned in the twenty-first century, and (b) if there is alignment, what is the purpose/vision of that education system and does it meet the needs of its learners. Arising from the discussions held, the group advocated the use of a tool such as the UNESCO framework (ICT competency standards for teachers: competency standards modules, UNESCO, Paris, 2008a; ICT competency standards for teachers: policy framework, UNESCO, Paris, 2011) as a way to conceptualize a systemic approach to reform and to enable policy makers and stakeholders in a system to think about ways in which they can align changes with the goals of any proposed reform. Taking the Irish Education system as an example, this paper illustrates how the UNESCO framework has enabled policy makers in Ireland to adopt a systemic approach to policy formulation which aligns educational strategies across a range of elements “to leverage strengths, coordinate investments, consolidate gains, and advance national development goals and visions” (Kozma in Hum Technol Interdiscip J Hum ICT Environ 1(2):117–156, 2005). To counter the potential danger of a top-down imposition of the UNESCO framework, the group also proposed the Educational Vision and Mission Framework (EVMF) as a tool to support system wide (both top-down and bottom-up) reflection on the purposes of schooling in a rapidly changing world. The group concluded that what is defined as the purpose of education should inform alignment and suggest that application of the UNESCO framework and EVMF could enable the necessary alignment to support the educational, social, and economic transformation necessary for the complex connected global world of today and tomorrow

A Comprehensive Survey on TinyML

Recent spectacular progress in computational technologies has led to an unprecedented boom in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI). AI is now used in a plethora of research areas and has demonstrated its capability to bring new approaches and solutions to various research problems. However, the extensive computation required to train AI algorithms comes with a cost. Driven by the need to reduce the energy consumption, the carbon footprint and the cost of computers running machine learning algorithms, TinyML is nowadays considered as a promising AI alternative focusing on technologies and applications for extremely low-profile devices. This paper presents the results of a literature survey of all TinyML applications and related research efforts. Our survey builds a taxonomy of TinyML techniques that have been used so far to bring new solutions to various domains, such as healthcare, smart farming, environment, and anomaly detection. Finally, this survey highlights the remaining challenges and points out possible future research directions. We anticipate that this survey will motivate further discussions on the various fields of applications of TinyML and the synergy of resource-constrained devices and edge intelligence

Use of precision farming practices and crop modelling for enhancing water and phosphorus efficiency

In a context of climate change, African agriculture aims at developing new approaches to face multiple constraints related to water scarcity, soil degradation or nutrients depletion. Nonrenewable resources such as phosphorus are of concern. Precision farming, as a new alternative to conventional agriculture, aims to improve crop productivity through the optimization of water and nutrients use efficiency. It considers the spatiotemporal variability of fields related to soil heterogeneity, plant nutrient needs and meteorological conditions through the growing season. For an effective management of soil and crop system, several new technologies have emerged, including soil-plant sensing, innovative crop management practices, and crop growth simulation and yield forecasting models. Regarding phosphorus management, use efficiency can be improved through the accurate assessment of phosphorus status in soil and plant. Proximal sensing based on visible near-infrared spectroscopy seems to be a promising alternative to manage soil fertility, understand phosphorus dynamics and enhance crop productivity. These aims can be also achieved by adopting hyper-frequent drip fertigation as an efficient agricultural practice, combined to hydrogeophysics to monitor water and nutrient fluxes in the soil-plant continuum. In addition, based on the interactions between meteorological conditions, soil properties and crop management, the use of agrometeorological models in simulation of crop growth parameters and forecasting crop production levels may allow assessing soil fertility and potential, ensuring an optimal future exploitation of farmland through the improvement of fertilization practices in an integrated management cropping system.SoilPhorLif

Computer science in the school curriculum:Issues and challenges

This paper is based on analysis and discussion undertaken over several years by researchers, policymakers and practitioners from a range of countries which vary in their approaches to the curriculum for Computer Science. The discussions, undertaken predominantly within the International Federation of Information Processing (IFIP) and EDUsummIT communities were motivated by a need to examine the rationale, issues and challenges following some concerns across the globe about the position and nature of Computer Science in the school curriculum. We summarise our findings and focus specifically on challenges for the computer science education community in communicating, clarifying needs and promoting curriculum change in order to encourage Computer Science in the curriculum both theoretically and practically.No Full Tex