Energy consumption of digital tools and materials in learning and training sectors

Although the question ‘What kind of a world do we want to live in?’ has not been replaced by the question ‘What kind of a digital world do we want to live in?’, it has derived the question ‘What kind of a digital world do we want?’. The answer to this question began to be discussed a few years ago. FING was one of the organisations that pondered this question and set its demands around 7 characteristics in the issue of ‘Digital Questions 2018-2019: #Reset "What digital do we want for tomorrow?"’.

One of these characteristics is Frugal, energy and material efficient digital technology that promotes ecological transition rather than increasing emissions and depleting resources. In this article, we will be focusing on a smaller area, the impact of digitisation on the education sector and how stakeholders should educate themselves in this regard.

‍The stakeholders of adult education can be categorised as the primary persons providing education and the institutions and their employees. The first group consists of trainers and pedagogical engineers, while the second group includes IT engineers and purchasers, staff of training centres.Whilst each of these stakeholders have different roles and therefore different needs when creating or using energy and material efficient digital technology, it is essential for both groups to firstly be aware of the issue and to identify where they are in their own practice.

STEP 1
To become aware of the importance of the topic, take a look at the training course ‘Introduction to sustainable IT for digital education’ in My Green Training Box, one of the free resources. Its objectives are understand the basics of Sustainable IT for digital education, learning about the lifecycle of a digital course, develop an understanding of how to integrate Sustainable IT into the education and training sector. Its duration is around 1,5 hour (especially if you like to take notes ;)). However, if you would like a quicker overview of the subject, with a comparison of different scenarios, you can start by consulting this infographic poster, which includes many of the actions needed to reduce environmental impacts.

STEP 2
Good practices booklet created under the project of In-DigiT gives a lot of ideas in the actions can be taken by all the stakeholders and also beyond frugal, including other 6 qualities to have an inclusive and responsible digitalisation in training. You can have a look on different level practices to be inspired. You should be warned it’s an extended booklet including 50 examples. If you find this overwhelming, a solution can be found in the next step.

STEP 3 (or STEP 2, for some)
Using the self-assessment tool, you can assess the social, environmental and ethical responsibility of your current digital practices. At the end of this assessment, you will receive a report, which will be generated for you each time you take the test and will allow you to compare it with your previous results.For some, this can also be used as a guide to read the good practice booklet. This is because according to your overall score in your report, good practice suggestions from the booklet that may be of interest and useful will be presented to you, separately for all 7 characters, for you to access at the click of a button.

CONCLUSION
As you take part in the digital education of tomorrow, you know that it is possible to contribute to education by knowing your responsibilities and improving your work day by day, and the tools suggested above will help you to do this.