In the perspective of the Etats Généraux du Numérique pour l'éducation, the Direction du numérique pour l'éducation (DNE) of the French Ministry of Education publishes the work of the digital thematic groups (#Gtnum).

These thematic groups groups, nine in number, were set up this summer with the aim of

• To take stock of the state of research
• To identify elements of strategic orientation and action levers to support digital practices in the field in the academy;
• To propose prospective scenarios and concrete actions to exploit digital technologies for educational and pedagogical purposes

New learning spaces, connected objects, robotics (GTnum 1)

Scientific works as well as the opinions of practitioners converge today on the idea that the school form has remained globally very fixed in France since the 19th century. There have been attempts to modernize the building since the 1980s and 1990s, with sometimes daring architectural gestures. But this building approach has essentially concerned the envelope of the establishment and very little the classroom and the other functional spaces of the establishment. A reflection is however in strong development, notably during the last three years, on the necessary transformation of the building and the installations of the schools, in connection with the development of the equipment and digital uses and with a certain number of pedagogical evolutions at work.

The use of the "robot" object at school appears explicitly in the programs as early as cycle 2. At this stage, the robot is cited as an example of a resource contributing to the development of the mathematical skills necessary to locate and move in space. But it is well beyond these relatively modest and circumscribed pedagogical objectives that we must look for the origins of the recent development of meetings and other robotics competitions in schools. Thus, the robot, as a member of the large family of "technical objects", naturally finds its place in the framework of the first science and technology lessons from cycle 3, contributing to the development of the computational thinking of the pupils through problem solving situations by computer programming, which is a pedagogical context naturally favourable to exchanges in the classroom and thus finds its extension through events gathering different school audiences from kindergarten to higher education. Let's add to this a significant dimension linked to the design of recent programmable robots which, often associated with ergonomic and accessible visual interfaces, make their use from the youngest age much easier, more playful and mobilizing than before. The competitive form of certain initiatives offers an additional motivational lever for participants and undoubtedly a visibility event considered relevant by the organizers, just like traditional sports meetings. Experts and stakeholders agree that this is a strong global trend that is becoming increasingly popular in Europe, Asia and America, and that has been gradually taking root in France in recent years, thanks to academic, regional and association-based initiatives.

Références : 1 2 3

Learning analytics (GTnum 2)

With the shift of learning activities towards digital devices, these traces change status: in real time or deferred, at a distance or in a classroom, they have never informed, in such a fine and massive way, the gap between saying and doing. Digital boards, computers, tablets, e-readers, smartphones are likely to capture more and more data on what is being played out, on a verbal and behavioral level, in a learning process. Producing, collecting, analyzing and reinvesting these digital traces would help the actors of the educational community - learners, parents, educational staff, teachers, managers and administrators - in the challenges they must respectively face, in the perspective of the Common Base of Knowledge, Skills and Culture, which now requires to evaluate in equal parts the mastery of language, disciplinary knowledge and the capacities of autonomy and initiative. (...)

The transition from experimentation to industrialization of these technologies has been disrupted by the sudden arrival of the giants of the digital economy.

As it stands, experimental research is tinged with a certain amount of scepticism. Safeguards are more necessary than ever, since we are dealing with a public that is in part minor and with sensitive cognitive data. The multidisciplinary teams of public research advocate responsible, transparent, sober, confidential and accessible devices.

The future of digital learning analytics is an equation with three unknowns: first, will policy makers (governments, institutions, firms) take the measure of the funding and projects still needed to adapt research to field practices and to disseminate a culture of data analytics among faculty?

Second, will these decision-makers succeed in developing a viable, flexible but fair legislative framework that respects the right of users to suspend data collection and that preserves their confidentiality? Finally, will these decision-makers manage to go beyond a mercantile logic and proprietary technologies to promote standards and open projects?

Educational and research institutions, politicians and researchers have a hand in the future of data analytics resulting from digital learning: the face of the digital school will depend on the knowledge of this field and the awareness of its societal impacts and challenges.

Références : 4 5

Digital practices and uses of young people (GTnum 4)

While the creative and educational potential of technologies has been highlighted on many occasions, the practices of young people, which are sometimes seen as having "specific characteristics", are often evoked through the prism of the dangers incurred.

Faced with the risks of addiction, de-socialization inherent to "screens" or harassment, and potential bad encounters, children and young people can be considered as a population at risk. Some psychiatrists, psychologists, experts and scientists, coming from various disciplinary fields, call in their publications for an action of vigilance and protection, individual and collective, on behalf of all the family, education and care actors. Evocative titles, such as Children and adolescents facing the digital (...)

The examination of the possible dangers and risks linked to digital practices among young people, especially when connected, is very often based on social representations, which are not without techno-centric and techno-determinist elements.

When research questions digital tools from the point of view of their effects and impacts, it focuses on technical objects, on what they do to users, and most often assumes that users are affected by the technical objects used. Other works, more in line with a research perspective in human and social sciences rather than expertise, invite the description and the analysis of the diversity of the ways in which the users deal with the technical objects, with regard to the environments and the social times in which they can be formed, deformed, reformed.

(...)

Although this review is far from having evoked all the questions that run through the work of the field, we can nevertheless identify specific avenues of reflection which, in the wake of the elements discussed here, could feed the next exchanges of WG4.

In particular, it would be possible to deepen the analysis of the forms of (dis)continuity between personal digital practices and school digital practices, from the following entries:

the diversity of uses by very young children with regard to the social, cultural and educational conditions that give them form and the way in which domestic contexts and family mediations contribute to early digital learning (ordinary and school). the role of the social, educational and digital territory in the way in which digital practices and uses take shape, particularly in the school environment. Indeed, if statistical surveys show a continuous growth of individual and collective technical equipment levels over the last fifteen years, we can observe a still fragmented diffusion of equipment according to socio-cultural spaces and territorial anchors (...)

In addition to these technical disparities, there are also disparities in terms of pedagogical possibilities. Indeed, from one school to another, there are clear differences in the way principals grasp the potential of technology for teaching, integrate it into school projects and support teaching teams in the development of digital teaching methods. Thus, depending on the region, access to digital resources (whether they be network, media or software) and the way in which these resources are mobilized vary.

Références : 6 7

Digital cultures in schools (GTnum 5)

A few salient points stand out.

• Digital culture, which is only our culture in the digital age, is a total social and cultural fact that goes beyond the school and that the school cannot ignore.
• Schools have a considerable responsibility to ensure that students' digital education is equitable, whether it involves developing their skills in the use of digital techniques or understanding the ethical, social and political issues at stake in the context of personal, civic and professional development.
• The digital acculturation of the school does not imply the abandonment of its educational goals, but a transformation of its organization, its functioning, the means it uses, the formats of its action and its relations with all the other actors in education. It is indeed the question of the transformation of the school form that is at stake.
• Taking digital cultures into account in schools calls for a positive consideration of the way in which they have transformed the representations, values and behaviors of all members of the educational community, starting with students.
• The heritage dimension of digital cultures must also be considered. Thus, the skills related to digital technology but also all the practices and achievements related to these techniques and in particular digital arts must have their place at school.

Références : 8 9

Digital and educational resources (GTnum 6)

• Digital textbooks: resources related to academic or school teaching covering the notion of a textbook, integrating several disciplines or focused on a single subject, over one or several years.
• Multimodal resources: used at different levels in a relatively independent way. They can be tools associated with a particular discipline, collections of tools, e-books or resources, or portals giving access to a plurality of resources: videos, infographics, animations, podcasts (audio), websites, blogs, wikis, games, slide shows, augmented reality applications, virtual reality,
• Learning platforms (spaces for teacher-student interaction): resources used via a platform that may offer additional services such as discussion forums, management of students' test results and achievements, offering new exercises or resources, a dashboard for teachers, etc. This includes MOOCs, social media and learning management systems.

• Digital tools for teachers, such as lesson plans, assessment and certification tools...
• Resources by opportunity, not initially designed to be used in a teaching context (Eduthèque, for example), and open data for education.

Education has a long history of using a variety of media, tools, and resources (...)

The multiplication of platforms - of content and scenario creation, of databases (with a question about the place of potentially exploitable and reusable public data in a pedagogical context if an organization envisages structuring them as such), etc. - as well as technological and technical changes concerning the modes of resource management invite us to (re)question teaching practices, especially if the processes and daily tasks around resources become more complex (rapidly changing environments, overabundance of information, training and transliterative skills...).

We can then ask ourselves the question of the degree of autonomy of teachers, especially if they become dependent on a certain type of infrastructure (especially freemium models) or specific services associated with the resources (storage, cloud, management, scripting of pedagogical grains, distribution and validation...).

(...) Elements observed in practices indicate important changes, such as the massive use of videos on YouTube in English, flipped classroom practices, the implementation of practical work around documentary research, the use of projection systems multiplying the visualization of video documents...

What we should now look at in order to continue our reflection on teacher practices around resources is their organizational processes, that is, the way they manage their resources.

A focus could thus be made on the life cycle of resources produced by teachers, both at the individual level - how the teacher himself manages his own collection(s) - and at the collective level - when there is mutualization between peers, either at the level of the school or within a network (social or professional networks, teacher collectives)

What needs to be understood is the inter-relationship between the different levels (individual work, collective tasks, school establishment, collectives or networks, national offers and prescriptions of the Ministry of National Education) which can reinforce the dependence on the environment and the infrastructures proposed or developed by this environment. It is a question here of the teacher's autonomy and mastery of technical tools (forms of research and access to resources).

Références : 10 11 12