Promoting the Digital Revolution in Primary School Education by Overcoming the Digital Divide and the Crisis of Platform Imperialism

Abstract

The digital divide and platform imperialism mentioned in the report "Reimagining Our Future Together: Creating a New Social Contract for Education" present challenges to the smooth transformation of primary education in the digital age. The report analyzes and defines these concepts, and proposes adhering to the dominant position of basic education, promoting a change in the digital education concept of educational subjects. It also advocates for promoting the digital revolution of primary school education and the reform of the modern curriculum theory and structure system. Additionally, the report suggests building up digital thinking, cultivating digital literacy, and promoting the digital enlightenment of primary school education. It calls for accelerating the construction of a digital public platform for the basic education network and a virtual learning cultural environment. Furthermore, it recommends establishing a digital system and standard for basic education, and building a comprehensive and scientific digital education evaluation system to effectively overcome the digital divide in primary education. Addressing the crisis of platform imperialism is essential to achieve the digital revolution.

Headnote

Abstract

The digital divide and platform imperialism mentioned in the report "Reimagining Our Future Together: Creating a New Social Contract for Education" present challenges to the smooth transformation of primary education in the digital age. The report analyzes and defines these concepts, and proposes adhering to the dominant position of basic education, promoting a change in the digital education concept of educational subjects. It also advocates for promoting the digital revolution of primary school education and the reform of the modern curriculum theory and structure system. Additionally, the report suggests building up digital thinking, cultivating digital literacy, and promoting the digital enlightenment of primary school education. It calls for accelerating the construction of a digital public platform for the basic education network and a virtual learning cultural environment. Furthermore, it recommends establishing a digital system and standard for basic education, and building a comprehensive and scientific digital education evaluation system to effectively overcome the digital divide in primary education. Addressing the crisis of platform imperialism is essential to achieve the digital revolution.

Keywords

Digital divide, platform imperialism, digital revolution, primary education

On November 10, 2021, the United Nations educational, scientific and cultural organization experts issued "Together to imagine our future: for education to create new social contract" (hereinafter referred to as the "report") report, report calls for reform of curriculum and teaching methods, in response to social three big changes in recent years: globalization, climate challenges and digital revolution and related changes. In particular, the report notes that the digital revolution has brought both convenience and challenges to education. The report highlights two important changes and impacts of the digital revolution: the digital divide (Digital Divide) and platform imperialism (Platform Imperialism). As a basic link in the education system, primary education is also facing the task of how to successfully realize the digital revolution. Under the wave of digitalization, primary education can only face the challenges brought by the digital revolution, overcome the digital divide and strive to overcome the crisis of platform imperialism.

1. Concept definition

The digital revolution: also known as intelligent revolution, refers to the revolutionary revolution (Bao Jianyun, 2022) of technology, industry and society along with the development of big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, high- speed communication, Internet, Internet of Things, and industrial Internet and blockchain. Digital divide: refers to the information gap and the trend of further polarization between the rich, poor, and communities due to the degree of information, regions, industries, applications, and innovation ability in the process of global digitization. Platform imperialism: on the one hand, the digital age users are trapped in communication media and application software; on the other hand, it refers to the asymmetric interdependence between Western countries based on platform technology and developing countries, including independent sovereign states and multinational groups. For primary school education in this topic, platform imperialism specifically refers to the former definition.

2. Specific countermeasures

First, adhere to the leading position of basic education, and promote the change of digital education concept of education subjects. The rapid application of educational informatization makes the construction and application of network learning space rapidly popularized and promotes the comprehensive interaction between teaching and learning, teaching and teaching, learning and learning. For example, the realization of teaching interaction, including resource sharing, quality evaluation, online tutoring, home-school communication, etc. In the process of digitization, a gap in digital access is gradually narrowed, but the gap in the skill mastery level of information technology is gradually emerging. This gap at the level of skill mastery in information technology is called the literacy gap. Reducing the digital divide is not only to improve students' digital viability but also to promote educational equity. To clarify the relationship between schools and digital technology, namely Digital technologies should aim to support- and not replace-and not replace-schools, being aware of the problem of "digital offside". At present, some advanced areas use iPads for teaching, but there is also the phenomenon of teaching form above the teaching content, teaching activities as a platform, or APP trapped, which is the danger of Platform Imperialism at the technical level. The acceptance and utilization of the digital revolution in schools is also an important indicator to evaluate the modernization of educators. The primary school system and technology in the digital age should be endowed with a modem psychological basis ("Human Modernization - Psychology, Thought, Attitude, Behavior") to promote the transformation of relevant educational subject values, talents, knowledge, teaching, teachers and students to the era of digital revolution (Gu Mingyuan, 2022).

Second, promote the digital revolution of primary school education and the reform of modem curriculum theory and structure system. Before the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020, the digital revolution in primary education was only seen as a way to assist learning, and some educators saw it as part of the picture of the future. However, the current digital revolution has become an inevitable trend in the development of education. It is generally believed by education policymakers that the Internet cannot completely replace the social function of school education and the role of teachers, and students can not only benefit from technology, but the development of technology is still an important driving force for the reform of modern curriculum theory structure system. With the purpose of cultivating students' spirit of exploration and innovative consciousness, we are committed to "cultivating complete people and future-oriented people", and making use of the technological advantages of the digital revolution to build a theory and teaching system of network education and distance education beyond the traditional educational concepts of time and space (Editorial, 2000). The goal of the course should shift from the cultivation of knowledge acceptance to the development of appreciation and judgment in the inquiry situation, and the course implementation should shift from the preposition of knowledge to the dynamic generation in teaching activities (Jiang Ping, 2018). The construction of primary school education curriculum to children's physical and mental development characteristics, follows the principle of active construction, through multiple content design, visual processing of text information, avoiding simple textbook content copied to the Internet, turning text reading for a multimedia dynamic display, help students to master the interdisciplinary thinking mode, promote students' knowledge of different disciplines can do mutual accommodation, to cross-border communication in the network community learning (Liu Zenghui, 2022). Subject leaders can show the latest teaching trends, achievements, and ideas on the online teaching platform, and share the latest subject database with all teachers of the discipline, to help them carry out subject research, collective lesson preparation, case analysis, discussion, and exchange, so as to truly realize resource sharing, mutual promotion and common improvement.

Third, establish digital thinking, cultivate digital literacy, and promote digital enlightenment in primary school education." The Report" and "Key Points of Improving National Digital Literacy and Skills in 2022" both point out that digital literacy education is the main content of modern education, but also an important way to cultivate learners' digital viability, bridge the digital divide of citizens, and shape new people in line with the development of The Times (Zhao Lei & Shan Mengyue, 2022). The digital era has its own unique content organization logic. In the process of digital teaching, teachers should have interactive motivation, virtualization ability, discrimination ability, and so on. To transform digital thinking, we should also guide students to form digital thinking and cultivate digital learning and creative ability in digital enlightenment (Klaus Schwab, 2018). Schools should examine the importance of programming courses from the perspective of compulsory courses, organize students to contact the unique language system and communication logic of the digital era in programming, exercise digital thinking and digital ability, and lay a foundation for future students to use their own strength to bridge the social fault caused by the digital divide (He Lei, 2018). In the process of learning, students can not only consolidate and expand the course knowledge learned in the classroom but also find useful learning materials through the network to realize independent learning. In this way, learning is no longer limited to fixed areas and fixed objects.

Fourth, we will accelerate the construction of a digital public platform for basic education networks and a virtual learning cultural environment. Schools need to understand the economic and social development benefits of integrating digital technology into education. At the same time, the government should also establish a feedback mechanism for students to share their views, needs, and opinions, and build a public digital platform for basic education network and a virtual learning cultural environment to improve students' digital capabilities. The foundation and comprehensiveness of primary education determine the importance and vastness of the digital education space. Virtual environment construction is an important indicator of the degree of school digital construction (Li Huineng, 2022). Through the construction of an intelligent campus, education informatization can be promoted to a new level (Zhang Wang, 2022). It is necessary to build an integrated intelligent teaching, management, and service platform, create a campus digital culture, and form a strong atmosphere to encourage participation in digital learning, digital exploration, and innovative digital development. The physical and mental development characteristics of children should be fully considered. For example, children cannot resist the temptation of the Internet, without reasonable guidance and allowing development, which may lead to the paradoxical phenomenon of platform imperialism of "connecting the network and closing themselves". For this point, Dal Yong Jinz quotes Anderson's famous line "We are on the internet, but not on the web." to explain. It is necessary to develop a national public online learning platform for primary school education in a planned way (Liu Yunhua & Ma Jiansheng, 2022), establish a co-construction and sharing mechanism of digital education resources, and continuously realize the full coverage of virtual learning environment to basic education, so as to effectively eliminate the digital divide. The emergence of teaching platforms has broken through the limitations of traditional education mode and learning modes. Students can use the network platform to realize personalized learning, group cooperative learning, remote and real-time interactive multimedia learning, etc., and they have the right to choose teachers. Students can also make use of the highquality resources of the platform to create an efficient virtual learning space.

Fifth, establish a digital system of basic education norms and build a comprehensive and scientific digital education evaluation system. The book, Education: The Journey of the Digital Revolution, published by Oxford University, addresses future policy development and the direction of curriculum development, stressing that as the combination of digitization and education deepens, benefits must be seen as part of education policy, including support for teachers and parents. Similarly, we should also establish primary school education system norms, guide school administrators, teachers, students, and parents to establish a clear view of the use of digital technology, help students to accept and take the initiative to carry out digital learning and promote students to master the knowledge view of the digital age. According to the requirements of the Overall Plan for Deepening the Reform of Education Evaluation in the New Era, it is necessary to strengthen the thinking of data governance, enhance the sense of urgency of big data to help education evaluation transformation, and promote the development of education evaluation towards an objective, accurate and intelligent direction, so as to realize the grasp of the digital revolution and integrate into in the continuous adjustments (Zhihua, Wang Li, & Ji Kai, 2022). For example, the use of intelligent technology to improve the test, practical operation, interview defense, and optimize the examination process, in order to achieve the overall improvement of educational evaluation level (Zhu Ling, 2020).

3. Conclusion

In short, it is of great significance to promote the digital revolution in primary school education. Overcoming the digital divide helps to ensure equal access to digital education resources and narrow educational inequality (Luo Dongxu, 2021). Digital technology can enrich the content and methods of education and improve the quality of primary school education. The digital revolution supports personalized learning and provides customized educational experiences according to students' needs (Xu Fang, 2022). Students can access educational resources from around the world to foster global awareness. Students learn to use digital tools effectively to improve their future competitiveness. Students who develop digital skills are expected to stand out in the job market and promote economic competitiveness. The digital revolution will help to promote the development of sustainable education and reduce the waste of resources. This will have a profound impact on the education system and the future of the students. However, achieving the success of the digital revolution in primary education requires addressing issues such as the digital divide, teacher training, and data privacy. This will provide students with better education and future opportunities and promote social development.

Sidebar

How to cite this paper: Teng Yan, Weiwei Wang. (2023). Promoting the Digital Revolution in Primary School Education by Overcoming the Digital Divide and the Crisis of Platform Imperialism. The Educational Review, USA, 7(11), 1813-1816.

DOI: 10.26855/er.2023.11.033

Received: October 25,2023

Accepted: November 23,2023

Published: December 20, 2023

Corresponding author: Teng Yan, Department of Youth Work, China Youth University for Political Sciences, Beijing, China.

References

References

[De] Klaus Schwab, [Australia] Nicholas Davis. The fourth Industrial Revolution-Action Roadmap: Building an innovative society [M]. Translation by the Beijing Representative Office of the World Economic Forum. Beijing: CITIC Publishing Group, 2018:5.

Bao Jianyun. Yuanuniverse, Digital Revolution and Innovative development of China's Digital Economy-Based on the perspective of the resolution of the sixth Plenary Session of the 19th CPC Central Committee [J]. Journal of Qujing Normal University, 2022 (02): 1-9.

Editorial. Digital culture revolution and education modernization [J]. Physical Bulletin, 2000 (05): 1-3.

Gu Mingyuan. National cultural tradition and education modernization [M]. Beijing: Education Science Press, 2022:25.

He Lei. Analysis and Enlightenment of ITU Digital Literacy Declaration [J]. Library construction, 2018 (06): 44-48.

Jiang Ping. Analysis of post-modern knowledge-based characteristics of online curriculum development in American Universities [J]. Comparative Education Research, 2018 (08): 106-112.

Li Huineng. The status quo, promotion path and enlightenment of basic education informatization in the five Nordic countries [J]. China Education Informatization, 2022 (02): 67-76.

Liu Yunhua, Ma Jiansheng. Strategic initiatives and Challenges of Basic Education in Germany [J]. Comparative Education Research, 2022 (03): 19-27.

Liu Zenghui. How the digital course is "refined" [J]. Online learning, 2022 (Zl): 82-84.

Luo Dongxu. Research on the teaching status and problems in rural primary schools under the background of "Internet + Education" [J]. Education in Ningxia, 2021 (Z2): 72-73.

Xu Fang. Analysis on the construction of primary school teaching database based on the financial media platform [J]. News communication, 2022 (04): 70-72.

Zhang Wang. Education modernization: concept, system, system, content, method and governance-Based on the objectives and tasks of "China Education Modernization 2035" [J]. Journal of Jilin Normal University (Humanities and Social Sciences Edition), 2022 (01): 51-58.

Zhao Lei, Shan Mengyue. Research progress and trend outlook of International Digital Literacy Education [J]. Medical Education Technology in China, 2022 (03): 251-258.

Zhihua, Wang Li, Ji Kai. Big data enables the evaluation and transformation of education in the new era: technical logic, realistic dilemma and implementation path [J]. Research on audio-visual Education, 2022 (05): 33-39.

Zhu Ling. Analysis of English classroom Teaching in Primary Schools under the digital context [J]. Journal of Yanbian Institute of Education, 2020 (05): 86-87.