Digitization in Education: Risks, Values and Opportunities

In an open letter published on March 22, 2023^[1], one of the most influential figures on the planet, Elon Musk, along with a group of artificial intelligence (AI) experts, called for a six-month suspension of research into systems more powerful than ChatGpt 4, citing potential social and human risks (Future of Life, 2023, Piquard, 2023). In the field of education, as in other areas, there are indeed numerous concerns about the use of this technology. Among the questions raised by AI is, for example, the issue of citizen inclusion in an algorithmic world, prompting a need to integrate this consideration into renewed media education (Labelle, 2020).

In general, this world seems to escape the control of traditional democratic decision-making processes, coupled with a risk of screen addiction highlighted by many specialists (Desmurget, 2019) but also nuanced by others (Cordier and Erhel, 2023). A simple introspection is enough to observe the time spent by everyone on smartphones, online video platforms, connected devices, and computers, all heavily utilizing AI mechanisms.

In this context, the risk of "algocracy" is on the rise (Danaher, 2016; Bersini, 2023). Furthermore, the question of AI appears to have cross-cutting social implications: economic, industrial, legal, educational, ethical, and political (Direction du numérique pour l'éducation, 2023). As indicated in the European law on artificial intelligence (2021/0106 (COD) - 21/04/2021), "Given the speed of technological advances in the field of AI, and in a global political context where an increasing number of countries are investing heavily in AI, EU members must act together to harness the many opportunities offered by this technology and address, in a manner adapted to future developments, the challenges it poses. Since the launch of the European AI strategy in April 2018, the Commission's dual policy aims to make the EU a global AI hub while ensuring that AI is human-centric and trustworthy."^[2], However, the question is not solely reserved for the European Union and must be considered in a global and concerted manner.

The 14th edition of the international Ticemed conference thus invites researchers in information and communication sciences, education, and training to engage in a dialogue with their peers in computer science, adopting a North-South cross-cutting approach. The purpose of Ticemed^[3] is to explore the risks and opportunities in the face of increasing digitalization of educational practices from technological, ethical, and/or cultural perspectives. It will invite participants to express their views on various themes, proposing diverse epistemological and methodological approaches to current issues and questioning the relationships between technology and education from a critical perspective.Thus, various cutting-edge technologies used in education will be questioned from a perspective of virtuous and ethical development, but also critically: robotics, artificial intelligence, human-machine interaction, simulations, virtual reality, digital twins, mobile devices, and natural language processing. It is essential to determine how these tools can be introduced meaningfully into current pedagogical practices and to what extent they can promote active learning, personalized teaching, collaboration, and student engagement. They also raise questions about how assessments can be conducted and the evolving role of teachers in the pedagogical relationship. Ultimately, under what conditions is the use of these technologies relevant in an educational context? What are the limits and risks they encounter? What prospects and opportunities do they offer?These questions related to the use of technologies in an educational context invite more than ever ethical reflections, which will be at the heart of this 14th edition of the conference. The notion of responsibility needs to be qualified in pedagogical terms. In the face of developments such as the generalization of digital campuses and teaching or learning environments, teachers must also reconstruct an identity and a professional ethics specific to the use of a new framework of practices (Develay et al., 2006; Massou, 2021). These changes can lead to psychosocial risks related to loss of meaning in work or ethical conflicts (Coutrot and Perez, 2022). Therefore, they call for new support in training. Additionally, climate issues also put education actors under pressure, caught between incentives for digitalization and calls for digital sobriety (Boboc and Metzger, 2023). Moving towards a more responsible, resilient, open, low-tech, and controlled digital environment also requires technical, organizational, and cultural transformation. The necessary social and civic emancipation to accompany these changes cannot reasonably be considered without the participation of the education and vocational training system, under institutional and political supervision. It is also necessary to analyze these learning practices with digital tools inside and outside of school time and their impact on the potential evolution of the school or university form (Peltier et al., 2022). Finally, we can hypothesize that, despite its growing carbon footprint, the idea of pedagogical innovation through digital technology can give meaning to eco-citizenship and contribute to digital emancipation of citizens by enhancing their capacity for action (Céci et al., 2023), while promoting an ethical stance among all the actors involved in an educational situation.

Moreover, the venue of this 14th edition invites reflection on the possibilities offered by digital technology in cultural education or history teaching. Each country's heritage culture includes artworks, monuments, books, libraries, and ancient manuscripts. All of these objects must be preserved against natural disasters, wars, artistic vandalism, climate change, and religious ignorance. For these reasons, governments and international organizations such as UNESCO support digital heritage, as evidenced, for example, by the Charter on the Conservation of Digital Heritage^[4]. Furthermore, digital heritage enables virtual accessibility to unavailable archaeological sites. How do digital technologies serve educational interests and pedagogical purposes when it comes to understanding heritage in a school context? Three major thematic axes are proposed for contributions to the upcoming Ticemed conference, which will be held in Cairo, Université Française d’Egypte, from October 15th to October 17th, 2024:

The integration of technologies in education; 

1.      1.         The ethical use of digital technology in education; 
2.      2.         Digital, heritage, and cultural mediations in the school context.

All of these themes (detailed below) aim to question potentially innovative pedagogical practices while seeking to resolve the tensions induced by these new uses. It may involve developing a reflection on the digital (with a heuristic purpose), for the digital (with a transformative purpose), by and with the digital (by enhancing the power of action). Ticemed 14 will specifically seek to contribute to discussions on a critical use of digital technology in education, with an emancipatory purpose.