Digital education in Luxembourg - how much progress since 2004?

Last week I had the honor to represent Luxembourg in the international Digital Conference organized by the University of South Asia, located in Pakistan, and to contribute to its success, together with professionals and academics from other 40 countries. My sincere congratulations go to Mr. Aamir Abbas Chaudhry, the soul and brain of the conference, for the impressive organization. 

I was asked to talk about a topic I'm particularly interested in and passionate about: Digital education in Luxembourg.

I structured my presentation in 3 parts:
1.    Some personal experiences with digital learning
2.    A conceptual approach to digital education and some best practices
3.    Conclusions

The topic of digital education has been of a great importance in Luxembourg. My first experience with digital education took place in 2002 when I was working for the Luxembourg campus of Sacred Heart University, Jack Welsh College of Business where I also did my MBA with a double concentration in International business and Marketing. (You might want to have a look at their amazing MBA with internship programme, which very often is transformed into a working contract). As part of my marketing courses, I’ve chosen an online course on E- commerce with a focus on how the consumer behavior was changing in the online environment compared to when shopping in the shop. Even though all the interactions, assignments and communications were conducted online, we used a paper format book.
After graduating in 2003, I set up a training company first in London and then in Luxembourg. Very much motivated by my MBA studies and the amazing opportunities offered by the digital education, I created the following year the very first Luxembourgish online course. Not only did this educational programme offer our institute a great visibility and many articles in the national press, but it was also very appealing to people who did not live in Luxembourg but had Luxembourgish ancestors. Our digital solution enabled them in Shanghai, Brazil, France, UK, United States to learn some basic Luxembourgish and to acquire the Luxembourgish nationality.
In November 2017, for my 40^th birthday, I offered myself an amazing gift: a one-month executive course at INSEAD, the most international university in the world, based in Fontainebleau (30 minutes away from Paris), France. My “Advanced Management Programme” took place on campus. It was my 4^th programme at Insead and you can read here my testimonial, if you'd like to know more about this learning experience. But what was unique this time is that the Advanced Management Programme was paperless and entirely digital, one month long ... 

It was a bit surprising at that time, I must admit. I even asked myself for a few seconds if I'll feel entirely at ease... Because for about 15 years working in the field of education in Luxembourg, I have noticed a general lack of interest for digital education among the participants in our in company learning programmes.
To give you just an example, we offered during 3 years 2007-2010 to one of our customers with more than 1000 employees a free bonus: the possibility to use an online learning programme for 30 languages, in addition to their in company trainings. We monitored the use of the tool during 3 years and noticed that more than 85% of the participants didn’t even log in once, even though they were asking us very eagerly to receive their credentials. Despite a theoretical interest and obvious potential benefits… the participants were not going ahead to use the digital tool.
When in 2017 I created the mobile application called “365 days Luxembourgish” to allow anyone to teach himself/herself Luxembourgish, the situation was completely different, even though only separated by a decade.

So this leads me to my next point, namely that when we use the expression 'digital education', we need to refer to 2 fundamental dimensions, 2 different but complementary perspectives:
-          on one hand: digital competences (with the development of learners’ as well as teachers’ digital competence), and
-          on the other hand: the pedagogical use of digital technologies to support, enhance and transform learning and teaching.
 

But what is the digital competence? It is defined as the confident, critical and responsible use of and engagement with digital technologies for learning, work, and participation in society.
May I remind you that this happened until 2010 when I decided to no longer offer the free bonus but rather focus on tailormade learning programmes in company rather than digital.
It was also in 2010 that the European Commission adopted a new Digital Agenda for Europe, which reaffirmed digital and media literacy as one of the central educational challenges.
At the European level, all countries were already having in 2010 a national strategy in place to encourage the use of digital technology in different areas.
Because already in 2006 the European Parliament and the Council recommended to all state members to acknowledge as a priority in the European and national policies the need for all citizens to understand that the digital competence is a key competence that must be developed through lifelong learning.

The European framework for digital competence, also known as DigComp, first published in 2013, has since been revised several times. This framework describes in detail the digital competence that all citizens need in a rapidly evolving digital society;

And here I want to highlight all citizens, because education concerns us all.

The European framework for digital competence divides the knowledge, skills and attitudes that all citizens need into five areas:

1. Information and data literacy;

2. Communication and collaboration;

3. Digital content creation;                                               

4. Safety;                              

5. Problem solving.

The current COVID-19 pandemic has shown us how important the digital skills (both basic and advanced) have become to our economy and society, by allowing work to continue or by tracking the spread of the virus in our country.

Digital will also play a key role in the economic recovery that Luxembourg, like all the other countries is preparing. 

As you probably know, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg is located in the center of Europe and was one of the founding members of the European Union. Our neighbours are Belgium, France and Germany and about 160.000 people from these 3 countries pass the borders every day (in normal circumstances) to come to work in Luxembourg.

In addition to English, which is widely spoken, we have three official languages: Luxembourgish, French and German.

These details are important because Luxembourg's strategies in a lot of areas, including education, need to take into consideration the diversity of our work force, human resources available in the region for our labour market, the educational initiatives put into place by our neighbours, including those related to digital skills and education, data protection but also health & social security. 

In 2014, the Luxembourg government launched its flagship initiative, the ‘Digital Luxembourg’, to support the state’s transition towards a digital society and economy = a partnership between the government and more than 109 public and private actors of the digital ecosystem. 

The main focus areas of Digital Lëtzebuerg cover: 

• ICT infrastructures; 

• support for innovation and access to financing for start-ups; 

• 'FinTech'; 

• e-skills; 

• e-administration; 

• Promotion of Luxembourg. 

In the context of our presentation, we are focused on e-skills. As mentioned earlier, digital competences need to be developed throughout the entire life. In addition, unemployment among low-skilled workers is relatively high in Luxembourg, which illustrates the challenges in the education and vocational training that we still have to face.

Luxembourg is one of the 18 European education systems that have a specific strategy devoted to digital education. The Digital4Education strategy was introduced in 2015 by Luxembourg’s Minister of Education, Childhood & Youth. Its objective is to educate young people in digital media, as well as to teach them through digital media. Its mission is to prepare young people for a professional landscape of rapid & permanent change. Because indeed, in order to be fit for the 21st century, young people need to develop certain skills & know-how in line with the development of our society and economy.

The strategy is structured around 5 axes and encompasses a broad portfolio of programs reflecting the diversity of opportunities offered by the growing ICT sector in our country:
1)    Digital citizen (e-Health, unique ID, e-Banking, e-Card)
2)    Digital peer (Bee secure, Bee balanced, Bee fair, Safer internet, Cyberbully, Sexting)
The young people are prepared to use digital technologies efectively and safely – they are made aware of the risks of cyber-bullying, internet addiction or the loss of privacy, potential misuse of personal data, web-tracking, spreading of fake news.... I hope somethinh similar will be put in place for the elderly…
3)    Digital learner (EDUsphere, MathemaTIC, Digital textbook, e-library) 
4)    Digital worker (Digital classroom, Mobile learning – the tabletsclasses) and 

      5) Digital entrepreneur (Bee creative) The Bee Creative program, launched as part of this overarching strategy, specifically focuses on improving the digital skills of young people in Luxembourg & building a digital culture, including via the introduction of makerspaces within schools. This unprecedented accessibility to high-tech tools takes the notion of educational resources to a new level. 

      As you can easily notice, Luxembourg’s strategy includes quite a lot of innovative educational projects aimed at bringing the digital technology to the youth, a strategy that should inspire future ICT experts & entrepreneurs. But how to check the progress or success of its strategy implementation? How to identify the reasons for successes and failures in translating the policy into practice? For example, in my opinion, the current national strategy forgot to consider also the needs for digital skills of the senior citizens, who are struggling with the basic use of e-banking, e-card etc. 

      It is extremely important to be aware that the implementation process can take several years. If we look at Luxembourg’s strategy for digital education but also at other different European countries, we notice that many national strategies in digital education are very recent, so it is a bit too early to measure the progress towards achieving the strategic objectives. 

    

    On top of everything, in Luxembourg (+ half of the European countries) there are no monitoring or evaluation procedures in place. In Luxembourg (+ France), objectives related to digital education have to be included in the general school development plan (which is established at the national level). In this context, I’d like to mention a best practice that it’s worth learning from and get inspired by: the National Digital Strategy of Romania has a monitoring element which is the responsibility of the Ministry of Communication and Information Society. The methodology, as well as quantitative and qualitative indicators, have been specified in a Manual for Monitoring and Evaluation of the National Digital Strategy published in Jan 2016. It is a quite impressive quality management tool, I must say, especially for someone like me with a Master degree in Quality management.

 
Coming back to Luxembourg, despite the absence of regulations, indicators or monitoring methodology, all public schools are supported in developing digital education. This is done through investment in IT infrastructure, requirements for school digital plans, digital leadership in school (school heads and digital coordinators), parental involvement, availability and quality of digital learning resources.
One last relevant point I would like to mention before I conclude is the involvement of parents.
Involving and supporting parents in digital education is essential for the development of student digital competences. Because young people spend more time on internet activities outside school than in school, which means that parents have an important role in encouraging their children to become critical and confident users of technology.
Very rarely is the parental involvement featured among the main objectives of the European countries’ digital education strategies.
A best practice can be found in France where a practical guide for parents on the use of digital technologies has been developed. Guide La famille tout écran – excellent tool. 

      In Luxembourg, the parents are informed / consulted via the associations of parents and since 2019 via the newly created National association of parents, which hopefully will help in the future with the communication flow between schools and families.            

     After the general elections in October 2018, Luxembourg created a new Ministry of Digitisation. The Ministry is headed by the Prime Minister, Xavier Bettel, and is in charge of all issues linked to digitisation. The Ministry coordinates initiatives developed by other Ministries and other partners in the field of digitisation and e-Government.  

     In conclusion, the best is yet to come and Luxembourg is "making it happen". 

    According to the 2020 Digital Economy and Society Index issued by the European Commission every year since 2014, Luxembourg ranks 10th out of 28 EU Member states. 

      Luxembourg continues to implement a range of strategies and initiatives to boost the digital skills of its population and to attract and retain talent, to address the significant digital skills gap on the labour market. Relevant examples are the Digital4Education strategy, the inclusion of coding in the education curricula of cycle 4 of the fundamental education programme which has been very criticized this week by the teachers' syndicates, or the Artificial Intelligence (AI) strategy that includes measures to boost advanced digital skills. 

      To be continued...

 

 

Concurrents, confrères et ... amis?

Dans notre monde super concurrentiel, est-il vraiment possible d’être ami avec ses concurrents directs? 

A première vue, peu probable, surtout dans un petit marché comme le Luxembourg où chaque client est important. Et j’ai vu des gens qui sont tellement motivés par la concurrence et le succès commercial que parfois les décisions d’expansion qu’ils ont prises étaient uniquement pour rappeler aux concurrents qui est le plus fort. Des luttes de pouvoir et influence de plusieurs générations, des familles puissantes qui mettent tout pour être les premiers, oui, ça se passe (aussi) au Luxembourg. 

Mais peut-être chez les moins aisés et puissants (comme moi), venus sans rien au Luxembourg et ont réussi à y bâtir des petites entreprises de services dont le chiffre d’affaires annuel ne dépasse pas 1 million eur, la concurrence est moins agressive et certainement pas motivée par la concurrence depuis plusieurs générations. Certes, nous aimons tous avoir du succès dans un métier que nous aimons. Mais il est également vrai que le succès est défini de manière différente par chacun d’entre nous. Et si la clef du succès était justement d'arriver à définir “son” succès à soi? 

En ce qui me concerne, je me sens très chanceuse et privilégiée de pouvoir appeler “amis” deux confrères. 

Quand j’ai créé mon entreprise de formation “Languages.lu” en 2003 à Londres et 2004 à Luxembourg, Jean-Pierre et Guy avaient déjà installé leurs entreprises de formation respectives au Luxembourg. D’ailleurs, avant de créer mon entreprise, j’ai assuré quelques missions d’interprétariat pour mon collègue Jean-Pierre, fondateur d’Inlingua, et, en rangeant des dossiers, je suis tombée sur les deux factures que je lui ai envoyées. C’est en fait ce qui m’a fait réfléchir à notre amitié. 

C’est grâce à Jean-Pierre que j’ai fait la connaissance de Guy, le fondateur de Mastercraft Language Solutions, qui est devenu un ami avec qui je pratique régulièrement le luxembourgeois, qui me corrige (à ma demande expresse) et me donne de petits tuyaux pour me rappeler certains mots et expressions. 

Nous partageons tous les trois l’amour pour l’éducation et la formation professionnelle. Nous partageons également les défis de trouver les meilleurs collaborateurs et de les motiver régulièrement, de digitaliser nos services, entreprises et proposer des formations adaptées aux besoins du marché, de garder satisfaits nos clients, que ce soit des entreprises, des adultes ou enfants en privé. 

Aujourd’hui je souhaite rendre hommage à mes confrères et amis, Jean-Pierre et Guy, qui me font l’honneur et m’offrent la joie d’être mes amis. Il n’y a pas d’anniversaire ou d’occasion spéciale. Chaque jour qu’on est en vie est l’occasion parfaite pour dire MERCI aux gens qui rendent plus belle notre vie et sur qui on sait qu’on peut compter. 

C’est prouvé, la vie est plus belle avec des amis! Et vous, à qui avez-vous envie de dire merci aujourd’hui? 

Digital education in Luxembourg - join the conversation!

 

I’m very honored to be a keynote speaker representing Luxembourg in the framework of the Digital conference 2020 organized by the University of South Asia, based in Lahore, Pakistan.

I look forward to contributing to this conference with my presentation on the topic of "Digital education in Luxembourg" which will take place on Friday 11th September from 3.30 pm to 4.00 pm (Luxembourg time) and also to learning from the other amazing speakers.  

*JOINING INFORMATION*

Day 1: Friday, September 11, 2020

8:30 am - 8:30 pm

International Digital Conference 2020

By University of South Asia, Lahore, Pakistan

Best Practices in University Governance, Academic Leadership, Research and Quality Enhancement

*ZOOM Meeting*

Meeting ID: 831 5863 8530

Joining Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83158638530

FULL PROGRAMME available here

#digitaleducation
#nationalstrategy

#Luxembourg
#digitaleducationforall 

Networking in our post-Covid-19 reality

How will networking look like in our new reality? This was the question to which a very interesting Insead webinar tried to answer yesterday, 23rd of June, just as I was getting ready to celebrate Luxembourg's national day. First year when the public celebrations and gatherings were limited to twenty people. Or was it to hundred people? Nobody really seemed to know if I looked at the amount of people present in Kirchberg's central park. The weather was amazing so people enjoyed celebrating the national day by simply spending time together with their loved ones, friends or family. What could be more amazing that this type of celebration? For me it was perfect, with people I know, I appreciate and love spending time with.

But if you take a moment to look back at the last three months, among the three below, which best describes your approach to networking since the beginning of the pandemic?

a. focused on smaller/tighter network (people you already know)

b. about the same as before

c. engaged in growing/expanding network.

Usually in times of crisis, people tend to focus on what they know and this applies also to their relationships. I'm certainly one of those who have chosen a as an answer. I used the confinement to catch up with some old friends since more than 15 years, with some older friends aged over 65, I didn't really have much time to think about building new relationships. Because this is what networking is all about, in my opinion. 

Network: as you notice, the word "network" includes the word "work"; and because people like their zone of comfort, studies show that a surprising percentage of 90% of people don't make the effort to talk to people they don't know. Our friends are usually people we share values and interests with, and this means we also have access to similar knowledge.  

Most important things in life are unmeasurable

Would you apply ROI to running water? Or to the cooling system? Or to having WiFi in a hotel, for example? Many business people analyze investments and their returns to their extremes, but when it comes to digital transformation projects, the KPIs should no longer be the usual suspects, the digital transformation becoming essential to companies. Just like the most important things in life are unmeasurable. Because indeed, the success of the digital transformation will ultimately decide which companies will be winners and which ones will be losers, in the context of our continously increasing competitive market. If in the past our competitors were the guys across the street, whom we knew and understood, nowadays we compete in an international and digital environment.  

There were so many interesting insights in today's conversation on "Leading a data-driven transformation" with Alain Bejjani, CEO of Majid Al Futtiam Holding. I found him brilliant and very inspiring!

As much as we know about the human nature, people change only when there is a big need to change, when they're forced to do it; so any transformation is closely linked to changing the culture and the mindset of the organization. Which means it's essential to create the right context for a company's transformation. In the same time, a company also needs to right people, the best people to lead the company and keep it competitive on the long term. Therefore, helping the employees to continuously improve their skills has been a key element to the transformation in which Alain's company has successfully embarked since 2015, which included, for example, creating a training institute within the company. For your information, Majid Al Futtiam Holding builds and operates shopping malls, movie theaters and hotels. 

Then, the digital transformation should not and could not exist in absence of overall transformation. Another extremely strog point mentioned by Alain was that the most important element in any transformation process is the pace at which it happens, it has to keep moving, just like water. I absolutely loved this example because it's so powerful and easy to understand.  

Another very powerful example was the French fries when he talked about sharing the vision with the different teams in his organization; you can talk a lot about French friend and people would still not get  it. But it takes just one fry to make the difference: you taste it and then you get it. 

Being active in a brick and mortar business, Alain Bejjani mentioned how important is in the digital transformation process the ability of the executives to drive the advancement in the technology and to make it happen on the ground. In terms of data use and data protection, Alain highlighted that in most of the cases the data was already there. It used to be handwritten in the past and now is digital, therefore allowing a larger amount of people to access it, while respecting and complying with the GDPR regulations.

How can companies be a force for good and help consumers in their daily life? Alain mentioned a project in which his company's anonymized data can help governments with their policies on public health. I found fascinating the example of a project in the UAE shared by Alain. Imagine that you go to buy your groceries and upon payment you are informed of the number of calories acquired, let's say 12.000. Now imagine that you are offered the possibility to get the same type of groceries but with only 8.000 calories, by receiving recommendations for other similar products. An excellent example on how a company can focus on the customer value and have a huge impact in terms of health and well-being. 

The conclusion on today's discussion was “People first, People last!”, a great summary by professor Joerg Niessing, professor of marketing, who moderated the discussion with David Dubois, also a brilliant professor of marketing at INSEAD. 

Thank you, Insead, for such a stimulating discussion!

#lifelonglearning

#Insead

#neverstoplearning #marketing #communication

#digitaltransformation

Make love, not war!

‘What will the world look like after the pandemic?’

‘The same, but worse!’

This answer of the amazing emeritus professor Manfred Kets de Vries is probably a good introduction to the way he’s capable to say so much by saying so less. 

Today I had the great privilege to see him live in a webinar proposed by Insead. He touched a lot of subjects close to my heart, I wish the webinar could have lasted longer!

He talked about narcissistic leaders and how some can be paranoid and psychopaths, a quite high percentage of them working in the finance industry. He pointed out how a bit of narcissism is good for any leader because it gives him confidence and how women, who are generally less narcissistic than men, are also more vulnerable. 

I’ve learned a lot today and let me give you a quick challenge. Would you guess which is the closest animal to Homo sapiens?

a) dolphin 

b) gorilla

c) chimpanzee 

Did you find the correct answer among the three above?

If you’ve chosen c, you’re close to the correct answer. Because it’s actually the bonobo or Pygmy chimpanzee with whom we, humans, share 98% of our DNA. It’s super interesting that the closest animal to homo sapiens is characterized by a matriarchal society which could have as motto: ‘make love, not war’. Why is that, you might ask? Well, because sex rather than agression is used to regulate their society. Which means that the bonobos use sex to bond, to show affection, respect or submission, to make up, to barter for food or occasionally even for procreation. In addition, bonobos have constantly both heterosexual and homosexual sex and don’t form human style nuclear families.

Another question prof. Kets de Vries touched today was the impact of the pandemic on the society and on the individual. At the macro level, one could always notice that in crisis there is a societal regression. This means that people might have a feeling of helplessness and dependency or paranoid reactions, they start to look for messiahs, there is a rise of conspiracy theories and of autocratic or despotic leadership. At the individual level, the social distancing is unnatural and creates a lot of mental health issues, like frustrations related to the need of belonging or paranoid reactions such as lack of trust and violence. 

In time of crisis, even the dysfunctional leaders might have a boost. In this context, prof. Kets de Vries (who’s not only a psychoanalyst, but also an economist) mentioned the clinical paradigm which is useful for leaders with its different dimensions: complexity, care (passion), courage, critical thinking, communication and compassion. And how the lack of all these elements in a dysfunctional leader costs hundreds of thousands of lives. 

This hour spent with Manfred Kets de Vries motivates me to resume reading his book "The Leaders on teh Couch", which I started a few years ago, and also to get some of his other books, such as "The Leadership Mystique" (the title of today's webinar), "The Happiness Equation" and "Sex, Money, Happiness and Death". 

I’m very grateful for the inspiration provided today by the speaker and the excellent moderator, as well as the privilege offered to me by my university.

#insead

#inseadalumni

#inseadexecutiveeducation

#lifelonglearning

Re-Discovering an old traditional natural drink: SOCATA

Do you have any drink that reminds you of your childhood?

I grew up in Romania and during communism our shops’ shelves were pretty empty. We didn’t have Coca-Cola, thank God for this! But we’ve had a natural drink that anyone could prepare at home and which was delicious: SOCATA. I’ve never paid attention to how it was made but I remember it was our usual summer drink at home. 

Last week, my friend, Constantin, has been my guest at home. It was a beautiful sunny day so we were able to enjoy having lunch on the terrace. He suddenly told me: 

‘The flowers are ready for socata!’ 

‘Errr, socata?’, I asked as I was taken by surprise.

He then pointed to the back of my garden and I saw it: I’ve had plenty of flowers in the tree called ‘soc’ in Romanian, in English elder shrub or elderberry (while the scientific name is Sambucus nigra), which are used for my childhood’s favorite drink. 

After my friend left, I was still looking at the elder flowers,  trying to remember how the drink should be prepared. To be on the safe side, I looked on the internet and found a lot of quite similar recipes, all of them recommending as ingredients:

10-14 elder flowers

8-10 L water

sugar or honey (the quantity should be adapted to your taste: between 1-1,5 kg of sugar and 300-500 g of honey)

2-3 lemons. 

Other  recipes suggested the use of either yeast or rice grains to intensify the fermentation, while others mentioned additional spices such as saffran and ginger, mint or basil leaves, to give it a more special taste. 

So, I’ve decided to launch Operation: Socata!
Bellow you can discover the different phases I’m going through and my guests invited this Friday will get to taste this amazing traditional natural Romanian drink.

FYI, the elder flowers are highly appreciated in the traditional Romanian medicine. They are thought to have immunostimulant, detoxifying, anti-infectious properties and also great for respiratory and urinary disorders. 

I encourage you to try to prepare it as well, it’s super easy and could be of great help especially now during the Covid-19 time to stimulate and reinforce your immune system.  

The fermentation started already after a few hours

After you mixed the flowers, water, lemons and sugar or honey, we need to cover the recipient but while allowing it to breath and let it ferment for 2-4 days, depending on how acid you wish it to be.

After 2 days

Wonderful color after 4 days 

We can taste it every day and stop the fermentation when we’re happy with the taste. 

At that moment we filter the drink and transfer it to smaller bottles that we place in the fridge. We serve it cold with some mint within the next couple of days. If kept longer, a second fermentation shall start so we need to pay more attention when we open the bottles. Enjoy! 

Did you know ‘socata’? Did you ever prepare it yourself? 

Feel free to share in comments your pictures and tips. 

#wearewhatweeat 

#foodtosharewithlovedones