COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE COUNCIL, THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COMMITTEE AND THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS - LEARNING IN THE INFORMATION SOCIETY - Action plan for a European education initiative - (1996-98)
COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES Brussels, 02. 10. 1996 C< >M(%) 471 final COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE COUNCIL, THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COMMITTEE AND THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS LEARNING IN THE INFORMATION SOCIETY Action plan for a European education initiative (1996-98) 5 6 7 8 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION I THE RATIONALE BEHIND A EUROPEAN INITIATIVE II ACTION PLAN FOR THE EUROPEAN INITIATIVE 11. 1 11. 2 11. 3 11. 4 Action lineN°l: Encourage the interconnection of school networks at a Community level Action line N°2: Stimulate the development and dissemination of contents of European interest which can be used for educational purposes 11 Action lineN°3: Promote training and support for teachers and trainers in the use of new technology in teaching methods 12 Action line N°4: Inform players about the educational opportunities afforded by 14 multimedia HI MOBILISING RESOURCES AND PROMOTING PRIVATE/PUBLIC PARTNERSHIPS III. 1 Making use of Community resources 111. 2 Promoting public/private partnerships 111. 3 Encouraging the involvement of citizen and the emergence of talent CONCLUSION APPENDICES: 15 15 16 17 18 Recent national and European public initiatives for multimedia education in schools 19 Proposed Timetable 1996-1998 21 ? - ?~ 4 INTRODUCTION trade globalisation, technological innovation and economic Against a background of upheaval, every society is confronted with profound changes. Europeans must be prepared to cope with this situation and their education systems must help them to do so. With the emergence of the information society, everyone must upgrade their skills constantly and obtain new qualifications. Tomorrow, jobs are at stake, therefore it is why it is important for the tools of the information society to be deployed in new learning methods. These priorities were restated by the Commission in the White Paper on Teaching and learning: towards the knowledge-based society and the European confidence pact for employment presented to the European Council in Florence in June 1996. Political leaders at both Community and national level now realise how much of an educational and cultural challenge the the Research-Industry Task Force on "Educational Software and Commission Multimedia" has set about analysing educational multimedia and their market and uses. information society presents. Within the Its work has given rise to a set of recommendations aimed at reinforcing research activities in this field and facilitating the distribution of educational multimedia whilst taking into account the needs of users, by mobilising and coordinating the use of the numerous instruments at its disposal. The European Education Ministers meeting in the Council on 6 May 1996 gave a clear political signal to the Commission and the Member States by adopting a Resolution encouraging the use of educational technology in partnership with the private sector. In Europe and throughout the world many countries, such as the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, the Nordic countries and also the United Sates and Japan, have recently launched initiatives to connect schools to communication networks, train teachers and develop software to meet pedagogical needs (cf. Appendix). The private sector is also gearing up to equip and network schools in partnership with the authorities. Considerable technological advances have been made with regard to their user- friendliness, the pedagogical requirements are clearer and are better understood. Many See document produced by the Round Table of Industrialists on "Education for Europeans : Towards the Learning Society" See the following documents: White Paper "Growth, competitiveness and employment" (1993); "Towards the information society in Europe: an action plan" COM(94) 347; Green Paper on innovation (1996); Green Paper "People first: living and working in the information society" (1996). Final report of July 1996 SEC(96)1426/final. On this basis, the Commission will launch a call for joint proposals on 15 December 1996 for all programmes involving educational multimedia. Such as Deutsche Telekom and Bertelsmann as part of the German initiative, the association of cable operators in the UK and Apple, which is setting up pilot classes in five European countries. 5 teachers are ready to experiment with the new educational tools. The stage is set for widespread use of technology in education and training and we now need to create an environment conducive to its being disseminated through a range of concrete actions at European level to support national and local initiatives. It is with this in mind that the European Council in Florence supported this initiative and asked the Commission to draw up a plan of action as soon as possible. I THE RATIONALE BEHIND A EUROPEAN INITIATIVE A variety of research and pilot experiments have shown the value of information society technologies and multimedia for teaching. As long as they are geared to people's needs, these tools help them to acquire new knowledge and help to develop new, flexible customised and interactive learning methods. They increase the range of education and training facilities and offer more widespread access to them. They can also encourage personal and pedagogical exchanges and, indeed by encouraging intercultural and multilingual communication between 72 million pupils society and students and 4. 5 million technologies and multimedia are likely to enhance the European dimension in education and European integration through teaching and learning exchanges. throughout Europe, information teachers there are still many obstacles to the widespread use of these tools. However, Educational establishments do not have enough equipment of sufficient quality. Multimedia "content" available on the market often fails to cater for the pedagogical needs. The establishments' capacity for funding equipment is restricted by severe budgetary constraints. Finally, the new tools cannot be integrated into teaching practices until the teachers have been trained and teaching methods and systems have been adjusted, which is often a delicate exercise. It is the duty of education and training establishments to help young people to find a place in the information society by avoiding a situation where only the children of the most privileged families and schools will reap the benefits of educational multimedia. Education and training establishments and, in the longer term, employment and social cohesion in Europe will pay a high price for increasingly inequitable access to these new practices. The European multimedia industry could be severely affected if the number of users and producers is too small. After all, this is a sector which has considerable potential in terms of the development of new products and services, rapid growth, and employment creation. Europe counts among its many assets, its cultural heritage, major intellectual and financial resources and considerable technical expertise which should be exploited by multimedia companies in the European market. If this opportunity is missed, our increased dependence on pedagogical and cultural content originating from its main competitors outside Europe would be particularly damaging for the cultural identity and linguistic diversity of the Community. The European initiative will reinforce the concerted efforts that have already begun in several regions and countries of the Community, thus following the guidelines laid down by the Council Resolution on educational multimedia software. It aims to strengthen the impetus of the often fragmented activities at national level by coordinating them and by focusing on those actions which present the greatest benefits for the Community as a whole and, in full respect of the principle of subsidiarity, take into account the different levels of development between the regions. The initiative will help to mobilise a large enough number of users more rapidly, reinforce the European dimension of pedagogical exchanges and create a genuine European educational multimedia market. In this field, a well-targeted approach to Community actions is vital to achieve maximum effect given the limited financial resources. The current Action Plan focuses on primary and secondary schools (including vocational schools), the weak links in the educational chain in terms of the use of these practices since they are far less widespread than in higher education or vocational training. Nonetheless, it is important to underline the need to give a life-long perspective to education, from the school to vocational training. The use of new technologies in vocational training, however, involves other actors and other responsibilities. This issue will be dealt with in a further Communication which will soon be presented by the Commission in the light of comments received in the course of the debate launched by the publication of the Green Paper "Living and Working in the Information Society: People First". II. PLAN OF ACTION FOR THE EUROPEAN INITIATIVE The initiative has 3 main objectives: -» To accelerate schools' entry into the information society by giving them new means of access to the world. •* To encourage widespread application of multimedia pedagogical practices and the forming of a critical mass of users, products and educational multimedia services •* To reinforce the European dimension of education and training with the tools of the information society whilst enhancing cultural and linguistic diversity In order to achieve these general aims the initiative will pursue four additional action lines to support local and national initiatives. The initiative will come under the European Commission's responsibilities laid down by the Treaty on European Union in the fields of education and training, regional cohesion, industry, technological research and development and trans-European communications networks. 7 T HE COURSES OF ACTION 1. Encourage the interconnection of school networks at a Community level 2. Stimulate the development and dissemination of content 3. Promote training and support for teachers and trainers 4. Informing all the parties involved about the pedagogical opportunities afforded by multimedia The Initiative could be supported by a small group of high level figures, chosen on the basis of their vision and conviction, whose role, as the "champions" of the Initiative, would be to give it extra momentum. II. 1 Action line N°T. Encourage the interconnection of school networks at a Community level (i) Context Experimental electronic schools networks have been set up at regional or local level but are fragmented in their distribution here and there experimentally. These enable electronic mail to be transmitted, cooperation (on producing thematic databases, practical comparative work and joint products incorporating text and images) to be learned andyôra to be organised for both pupils and teachers to exchange information, advice and practices. The experiments under way clearly show the educational potential which can be expected: users' access to the outside world, more freedom to search for information, writing is more rewarding (by writing for somebody), there is a sense of collective effort in work on subjects of common interest, such as the environment, society, art and current affairs, and users become familiar with cultural and linguistic differences, be they regional (such as the differences between rural and urban life) or national (linguistic exchanges and questions and answers on social and political life, etc. ). The interconnection of regional and national school networks could make a significant contribution to the teaching of subjects such as languages, science, history, or art, which would most benefit from a European approach. As they develop, these networks should allow schools to use electronic information produced by museums and other cultural and educational institutions. The number of schools in existing networks is still small - less than 5% of European schools had access to an electronic schools network or to the Internet in mid-1996. Moreover, there is still very little European-wide communication, partly because there are technical or language problems but mainly because they do not know enough about the experiments conducted in other Member States. 6 The situation varies greatly from one country to another: two-thirds of schools are connected to networks in Finland and in Sweden but only 15% in the United Kingdom and less than 2% in France or Germany. 8 The current wave of connecting schools to the Internet, which has come about spontaneously or has been encouraged by the authorities, could soon subside rapidly due to technical problems caused by short-term saturation of the Internet network or because of a lack of awareness on the part of educationalists of the pedagogical benefit of the new techniques. Furthermore, the Commission supports the extension of "public access" to the Information Society. This includes especially the connection of schools, universities and libraries. Preparatory work is already underway, both at Community and national levels, with the aim of promoting access to communications and information services in the field of education7. The interconnection of schools networks will enable innovatory teaching practices to be exchanged between European classes. This process will enable cultural and linguistic diversity to be expressed and will integrate pilot projects aimed at creating a pedagogical environment which is conducive to innovation, be it local, European or international. languages should neither be Difficulties arising from communication in different ignored nor overestimated: indeed, schools benefit from a privileged environment for the learning of languages, and multimedia provides a versatile means of communication using sound and image which can greatly facilitate mutual understanding. This approach will go hand-in-hand with the development of local schools networks and will be a gradual process, the aim being to connect all schools in Europe, including those in the most disadvantaged areas. (ii) Implementation Projects aimed at interconnecting schools networks will be launched in the aftermath of the "European Year of Lifelong Learning". The initiative will be based on the networks which are already well-established at local and regional level and establish contact between them. This "network of networks" will progressively be extended to all school networks, either existing or in the pipeline, and to geographically isolated or socially disadvantaged schools, thus supporting the "twinning" activities between towns and regions of Europe. The initiative will be underpinned by the policies conducted by local, regional and national authorities, which have the final say in equipping schools and which can apply for aid from the Structural Funds in the eligible regions. The initiative will also build on experimental projects under Community technological research and development, education and training programmes. "Universal service for telecommunications in perspective of a fully liberalised environment" COM(96) 73 final, cf also the initiative of the British telecommunications office Oftel to create a Task Force on Education in the process of consultation on the universal service. Examples of these are the projects resulting from Community programmes or the "Cross-cultural education and training" project launched at the G7 Summit in Brussels on the information society. 9 The "network of schools networks" will be open to experiments conducted in Third countries, in particular the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Several types of activities are necessary: • The Commission will also promote experimental educational environments involving a limited number of establishments to explore further research on the interaction between technology and teaching, mainly for developing cooperative working tools in networks. • The Commission will encourage the creation and interconnection of multimedia discovery classes, like those which have already been set up and networked in some countries , and enable teachers and pupils to devise teaching projects using multimedia and to familiarise themselves with the use of new technology at specially equipped sites. These sites could also offer remote counselling services for teachers. • A conference will be organised before the end of 1996 to take stock of developments in national schools networks, as well as the needs, practices and difficulties encountered (technological, legal, financial, etc. ). The conference will be attended by people involved in local, regional and national initiatives (teachers, computer companies, network operators, on-line service providers head teachers and associations). One workshop will examine questions linked to the copyrights of multimedia products to promote their pedagogical utilisation as well as security questions regarding the use of the Internet by school networks (e. g. violent, racial or pornographic contents, paedophilia). • Technical scenarios for the interconnection of schools networks at Community level (the infrastructures used could be the automatic telephone network, integrated service digital network or broadband research networks providing access to Internet), the costs involved and suitable financing mechanisms will be identified in a feasibility study, on the basis of the results of the conference. The management of the project to interconnect regional and national schools networks at Community level could be entrusted to a consortia, bringing together Education Ministries as well as local and regional authorities and companies concerned. Furthermore, the Commission will examine experiments in progress in the countries of the Community and its main partners to extend the field of application for the training universal establishments. The results will be used to formulate proposals in a report which the linking education and telecommunications service for An example of this in France is the "Mmultimedia interactive teaching" project of the Ligue Française de l'Enseignement et de l'Education Permanente. The regions are particularly involved in information society activities. For example, six regions committed themselves in 1994 to develop telematics applications (The IRIS initiative) 10 Commission will present before the end of 1997 on the level, quality and extent of the universal telecommunications service. II. 2 Action line N°2: Stimulate the development and dissemination of content of European interest which can be used for educational purposes (i) Context Existing schools' networks can enhance educational exchanges within groups of pupils, between pupils and teachers and between teachers. They also enable teaching resources for conducting these exchanges to be transferred. It is therefore important to encourage the development and dissemination of "contents" which lend themselves to these. Each medium still has its own creation, production and distribution methods. However, with the development of digital technologies, audiovisual or paper products can easily be transferred to electronic media (CD-Rom, CD-I or on-line service). All the same, the content and narrative structure of the products often has to be considerably re-organised for multimedia production. It is vital for audiovisual, multimedia production and education professionals to cooperate to take full advantage of these capacities. Opportunities for developing content will multiply with the arrival of large numbers of digital television channels. Educational and cultural broadcasts ought to be highly successful, given the public's expectations and demands. As the use of television is widespread, audiovisual products could constitute the ideal vehicle for educational multimedia in schools and homes. Such audiovisual products could be either educational broadcasts designed to meet specific training aims, or high-level information or quality broadcasts for the general public which teachers feel can be incorporated in their teaching syllabus. Many broadcasters have already integrated "continuity of use" in their strategy by adopting a multi-product approach, like educational television in Sweden or the BBC, which regularly distributes video cassettes made from its broadcasts. This approach is now being extended to take advantage of digital technology. The BBC is producing CD- ROMs on Shakespearean theatre from its audiovisual productions. In France, Channel 5 is digitalizing many of the programmes which it broadcasts in order to build up a repertoire. This will be available for consultation by institutional users depending on their specific needs. The technical issues have virtually all been settled now but legal problems remain. Several broadcasters favour the inclusion of a European dimension in their commercial strategy. Indeed, fourteen public members of the European Broadcasting Union have decided to promote the exchange of European cultural programmes by sharing 11 programming through common broadcasting pool. Plans by a number of European broadcasters for a European education channel are also on the drawing board11. (ii) Implementation The following actions are envisaged: • There are many ways of both producing and disseminating audiovisual and multimedia contents. In order to examine these, a working group made up of high- level representatives of producers and distributors of educational programmes and multimedia productions will be formed by the end of 1996. Its mission will be to explore opportunities for cooperation in the production of general educational content (learning of languages, science, culture and European civilisation, arts, music, etc. ) which caters for the needs of European education and training. It will have to lay down the general principles governing the quality and exchange of educational products and examine the technical and legal conditions for their use by schools or other educational and cultural institutions in order to promote the dissemination of such content. • The Commission will provide support for an inventory of European multimedia products which can be used for teaching through various media (educational broadcasts, CD-ROM, CD-I and on-line services). Results of this survey will be widely distributed. • Finally, the Commission through its support for concrete projects will promote the development and electronic networking of multimedia resource centres (such as multimedia libraries, teacher training centres and on-line "digital libraries") with which users can gain access to a wide range of European multimedia and audiovisual products and services. II. 3 Action line N°3: Promote training and support for teachers and trainers in the use of new technology in their teaching methods (i) Context Teaching methods are always evolving. What are known as "active" teaching methods are already widely used in language teaching, which has long used audiovisual media. Many teachers are open to innovation but do not always get sufficient encouragement or institutional support is compounded by confusion as to how the new tools are to be used. Simply to get them to work, newcomers often have to invest more time than the majority of teachers are able to do on their own. to experiment and validate new teaching methods. This Many educational audiovisual experiments are being carried out in other countries. In Israel, time slots for educational purposes are allocated on all channels, including commercial channels, rather than an educational channel proper being created. In Canada, public television channels are obliged to broadcast at least one programme a week for reuse for teaching purposes. 12 Where the technologies have been introduced success fully they have been used to support new teaching methods which largely leave the initiative in the hands of pupils and teams. The teachers' role is thus slightly different. They have to learn to supervise and organise groups of pupils whilst monitoring and assessing individual progress. One of the key factors in successful integration and dissemination of multimedia in teaching methods is to prepare the teaching staff properly and to ensure that technical support is available when new tools are being used. Such training is one of the priorities in the Member States' initiatives (such as in "Multimedia in teacher training" in the Netherlands and the work carried out by the National Council for Educational Technology in the United Kingdom. Many experimental projects have already been launched and the results and methods used should now be promoted at a Community level. (ii) Implementation Practical, on-the-job experimentation appears to be the most promising way of training teachers. Training activities have to accompany the development of schools networks and, in the long term, must be aimed at a large number of teachers, and trainers, and thus take advantage of the similarity between different methods. Training covers the use of tools (equipment, services and software), searching for and structuring information from the networks, and design and distribution of multimedia teaching materials. It is underpinned by educational and technical support services to help teachers use multimedia in the classroom once they have been trained. It concerns the following: • To step up training activities under the Community programmes. The Commission will encourage exchanges of teachers between European schools in order to enable them to compare notes and, for less experienced teachers, to familiarise themselves with using multimedia in a classroom situation. In order to involve as many teachers as possible, the project will also encourage the development of distance learning courses to enable teachers to gain such experience without having to travel to the course. • To ensure that the results of discussion and experiments conducted at national level can be of benefit to the whole teaching profession. A network of training centres for teachers and trainers will build on local and national initiatives and current Community projects to enable good practice to be disseminated at European level. 12 12 Such as the "Trends" (Telematic applications programme), "Fetiche" (Socrates programme) and "Web for Schools" (information technologies programme) projects. 13 II. 4 Action line N°4: Inform those concerned about the educational opportunities afforded by new technologies (i) Context Networking schools and encouraging the development of educational content are important but are not in themselves sufficient. For the use of educational multimedia to become more widespread, they are responsible for the evolution of their teaching methods, along with head teachers and policy-makers. The latter must be particularly aware of the need to create an environment which is conducive to multimedia learning. informed, since teachers need to be better Sources of information on the use of multimedia and educational audiovisual products are few and far between. They are difficult to access at Community level and often at national level too. However, in Europe, many sites have been created on the Internet presenting teaching projects using new technics. Databases on educational technologies, software, multimedia services and audiovisual products also exist and are being created in several Member States and at the Commission. By simplifying access to this information, the education sector can be kept better informed giving teachers and administrators the opportunity to discuss the situation and to draw up some practical guidelines. (ii) Implementation The linking of various Internet sites and databases created in the Member States will help improve access to information on ongoing projects and on educational multimedia and audiovisual resources in Europe. That means: • The Commission will, with the support of the Member States, help to create a platform for the exchange of information accessible on the Internet. This platform will offer a guide to the various sites on the Internet presenting projects in progress in the Community and databases in the Member States for the special attention of players in education and training sector and the multimedia and audiovisual industries. This guide will make it easier to obtain precise information on, for example, the creation of schools' networks, software, reviews of tools and practices testing and purchasing in the Member States equipment and software at preferential rates. and procedures for 13 The platform will also provide a site for discussions between teachers, educationalists and managers of educational establishments. 13 See, for example, the experiments conducted in Germany with the SOD1S database, in the United Kingdom at the National Council for Educational Technology and the French National Educational Ministry's project to produce a catalogue of digital resources. 14 A feasibility study will be carried out to establish the technical specifications for the networking of existing databases and servers and creating a multilingual platform on the Internet. Teachers and administrators who have not yet used telematic networks also need to be informed. The Community will use traditional media (leaflets, radio and television broadcasts, and conferences) to inform about ongoing experiments, exhibitions, meetings and useful contacts. III. MOBILISING RESOURCES AND PROMOTING PRIVATE/PUBLIC PARTNERSHIPS The success of the Initiative depends on the large-scale involvement of public and private agents of the educational multimedia sector in partnerships at a European, national or regional level or in awareness-raising activities aimed at spreading the message as widely as possible and to encourage the participation of citizens and the emergence of talent. The Commission will support activities conducted in the Member States whilst respecting the principle of subsidiarity and the different stages of development between the regions. It will promote interaction between the various actions and their mutual enhancement through the four courses of action outlined above. III. l Making use of Community resources The Initiative will take advantage of the complementarity both between Community instruments and with national actions which it will coordinate through joint calls for proposals following the recommendations of the Task Force "Educational Software and Multimedia", each instrument being used in accordance with its own rules. The first call for proposals of this type should be launched on 15 December 1996 and will cover the following programmes: • telematics applications, information technologies, targeted socio-economic research, through experimental projects or accompanying measures • MEDIA II and INFO 2000 for development of multimedia content, • Socrates and Leonardo da Vinci for education and training. • funds allocated to trans-European networks for the deployment of multimedia applications for education and training purposes The Initiative will also encourage the full utilisation of the funding opportunities afforded by: • the Structural Funds in the education and training sector (including the equipment of education and training establishments in eligible regions14. This can be done to the extent Spain is currently preparing regional plans for equipping schools. 15 that Member States programming documents cover the objectives of this initiative and once the procedures set out in the Structural Fund Regulations have been followed. funds intended for the promotion of the information society. III. 2 Promoting public/private partnerships Equipping schools with multimedia and audiovisual teaching resources and providing training and logistic support for teachers will require a solid collective effort. In some countries of the Community and in the United States, partnerships between the private and public sectors are already in place to develop the use of new technologies in education and vocational training. These provide schools with the opportunity to benefit from opening up more to the business community. tools, developing These actions will aim to: Encourage the dissemination of best practices in terms of the launching of projects (mechanisms and management) based on; Facilitate the forging of permanent partnerships between the public and private sectors. They will be responsible for adopting suitable means of financing equipment, services and software tailored to the needs and financial constraints of education and training establishments, whilst meeting the partners' needs. A workshop on public-private partnership will be organised at the beginning of 1997. This will be attended by representatives of associations, public authorities and enterprises and will encourage them to sign "Memoranda of Understanding" to join forces on the basis of common principles for cooperation. In order to put these "Memoranda of Understanding" into practice, the workshop will also examine the possibility of the public and private players in the educational multimedia sector and network operators forming a non-profit European body, such as a private Foundation, whose legal structure is yet to be determined. This body would act as a point of reference and of dialogue between actors at a European level. Its task would be to encourage the setting up of new partnerships in Member States and in the regions and to bring together existing federations. The Commission could support contacts between those concerned to coordinate their activities with the help of the Member States. Associations such as Campo in Italy, Schulen ans Netz in Germany, Forum in France and Fimmbo in the Netherlands have been created for vocational training in Europe. Initiatives of this type have also been launched for schools in the United States. 16 III. 3 Encouraging the involvement of citizen and the emergence of talent The Commission will launch information and communication events and campaigns with a view to raising awareness of the benefits of educational multimedia in the education sector in collaboration with all the actors in the sector, multimedia enterprises and network operators. Higher education establishments could also be associated. Two types of events will be organised every year: • "Action Days or Week-Ends for school networking" will highlight activities and the state of play with regard to the electronic networking of schools. Enterprises and organisations will be asked to sponsor schools in various ways and to provide the logistic support required to put new schools on-line. The European Action Days will provide a framework for an "Open Days" events inviting schools to highlight their multimedia activities and inform parents, pupils, school heads and local authorities. The events will take place on the week-end following the European day (9 May). • A European award scheme for the best educational multimedia products (with the attribution of a European label) created in partnership between young people and teachers will be organised regularly with the support of the Commission, following on from the experiences of the "European Year of Lifelong Learning". The aim is to encourage schools to produce and disseminate multimedia "content" on-line and to introduce talented young people to producers. 17 CONCLUSION Europeans will have to learn to use the new information and communication tools from an early age if they are to find a place for themselves in an increasingly knowledge- based society. Upon this will depend their employment prospects and their future as indicated in the European confidence pact for employment. The European Council has acknowledged the need to act without delay in order to ensure that schools are not left out of the information society. Further to its request, this 2-year Action Plan will focus the use of different Community instruments on a limited number of actions to provide the added benefits of a Europe-wide approach and contribute a European dimension to initiatives at local, regional, and national levels. Linking schools using information society tools, promoting the production and exchange of European content and stimulating the diffusion of "best practices" in multimedia teaching methods, will help bring different cultures together, strengthen the European identity and reinforce European integration. In order to succeed, the implementation of the Action Plan should go hand-in-hand with a firm commitment from the Member States, the regions and the private sector. The Community, along with the Member States, should ensure that all schools, universities, and libraries are connected to the knowledge networks by the year 2000 in order that all young Europeans can benefit fully from the multimedia revolution. 18 APPENDICES Recent public initiatives for multimedia education in schools 1. Europe Germany The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, with the support of Deutsche Telekom, has launched a three-year initiative called "Schulen Ans Netz" to connect 10 ©00 schools to on-line information services. Denmark Under its general action plan "INFO 2000 TF&TAction Plan", which was introduced in 1994, the government has made provision for connecting all primary and secondary schools to tfee national and mternational network by the year 2000. Finland In 1995, nie Ministry of Echtcation introduced a five-year plan entitled "Education, Training and Research in the Information Society: a national strategy" mainly designed to connect all schools and teaching institutions to information networks by the year 2000. France In 1995, the government identified 244 projects as being "in the public interest", some of which cover the fields of education. The Ministry of Education draws up a catalogue of digital resources and set up services in partnership with content and on-line service providers. Schools belonging to 13 Académies will be connected using the RENATER research network. Italy In October 1995, a decree from the Ministry of Education set up a task force to develop the use of technology in the education system and introduced an action plan to fit out 20% of primary schools and 30% of secondary schools with multimedia equipment and software by the year 2005. United Kingdom In November 1995 the government launched an initiative entitled "Superhighways in Education - The Way Forward' to connect schools and colleges to the information networks. This is the final step in a broad consultation process which commenced in April and has involved 400 organisations. 23 pilot projects will be allocated 12 million ECU. Sweden A national school network, Skoldatanatet, has been operational since 1994 using the Internet. Since 1995, every municipality has been obliged to prepare measures for the introduction and use of new technologies in the classroom. A bill has been debated in Parliament which would make the use of new technologies compulsory in the basic training of teachers. Teachers' continuous training in this field will also be reinforced. 19 European Community Numerous programmes such as the Telematic Applications programme (1994-1998), Media II and Info 2000 (1996-1999), Socrates and Leonardo (1995-1999) give their support to research activities in the field of educational multimedia production and distribution, and in the training of teachers in this domain. 2. United States In February 1996, President Clinton launched a national initiative "The Technology Literacy Challenge" to connect all American schools to the information highways by the year 2000. A "Technology Literacy Challenge Fund" of 1. 6 billion ECU established for a five-year period will encourage partnerships on an equal footing between the states and private enterprises. A "Local Innovation Fund" with a budget of 39 million ECU a year will finance local initiatives under the same public/private partnership conditions. 3. Japan In 1990, the Ministry of Education introduced a nine-year action plan to familiarise pupils with the use of the multimedia, equip all schools with multimedia hardware and software, train teachers to use multimedia in teaching and support the use of advanced technology. The MITI launched a " Programme for Info-Communications" in May 1994 with the main emphasis on developing multimedia applications in teaching (cf. the "100 schools network project"). 20 "LEARNING IN THE INFORMATION SOCIETY" PROPOSED TIMETABLE 1996-1998 The Action Plan "Learning in the Information Society" will be based on the close coordination of existing Community financial instruments (programmes and budget lines) managed by the Commission, in full respect of their rules and specific characteristics. No extra budgetary appropriations are required. The aim is to combine these different instruments, as well as other European and national instruments, both public and private, in order to take advantage of their complementarity, in keeping with the recommendations of the Task Force on "Educational Software and Multimedia". Action Line N°l Encourage the interconnection of regional and national school networks at a Community level Timetable Inventory of local, national and international school networks (working October 1996 document) European conference Techno-Economic Feasibility Study for the European interconnection of March 1997 networks Preparation and follow up of the networking of schools Pilot project for the implementation of a network of experimental multimedia classes 1997-1998 1997-1998 December 1996 Action Line N°2 Stimulate the development and dissemination of content Workshops on the Image and Scientific Education in Europe Preparation and coordination of the workshop with the participation of representatives from the educational multimedia and audiovisual products sector Inventory of content and survey of practices (study results) Stimulation and follow up of the co-production of European educational products Inventory of multimedia resource centres Feasibility study and preparation of their connection to a network Timetable October 1996 January 1997 June 1997 1997-1998 December 1996 March 1997-1998 21 Action Line N°3 Training and support for teachers and trainers Management of training projects Management of teaching and technology research using existing networked experimental multimedia classes Management of network projects between training centres Timetable 1996-1998 1997-1998 1997-1998 Action Line N°4 Inform players of the educational opportunities afforded by multimedia Timetable Inventory of educational sites and services supplied on-line Feasibility study for the creation of an information exchange platform on the Internet Creation and coordination of the Internet platform project Information exchange and contacts with the public authorities concerned 1996-1998 1996-1998 General information using traditional media December 1996 March 1997 September 1997 General Accompanying Measures Make use of Community resources and encourage Public/Private partnerships Preparation of memoranda of understanding on public- private partnerships and preparatory work for the establishment of a European association Workshop on public-private partnerships and encouragement of project start-ups Timetable December 1996 1997-1998 in association with the Bangemann sub-group Encourage the participation of citizens and the emergence of creative talent Timetable European Multimedia School Days European Award for the Best Multimedia Products May 1997 and 1998 December 1997 and 1998 22 ISSN 0254-1475 COM(96) 471 final DOCUMENTS EN 16 15 04 Catalogue number : CB-CO-96-492-EN-C ISBN 92-78-09750-0 Office for Official Publications of the European Communities L-2985 Luxembourg