Page 31 - International Perspectives on Effective Teaching and Learning in Digital Education

The Panorama of Digital Education in the XXI Century

system could break geographical barriers, turning education more accessible
to all. The MOOCs, on the other hand, were offering free, and high-quality,
courses from a wide range of known universities worldwide. These types of
platforms have democratised education by enabling anyone with a moder-
ate internet connection to access courses from some of the world's best insti-
tutions (Bates, 15). So, a proliferation of online courses and digital resources
in Higher Education Institutions (HEI) reshaped the educational ecosystem.
The start of digital education has seen a significant expansion in the online
offerings of many of the world's largest universities. They quickly embrace
this opportunity, offering various online courses and degree programs (Hol-
lands & Tirthali, 14). Institutions like Harvard, MIT, and Stanford have been
leading this process of online education revolution, proposing courses and
programs to students globally (Christensen et al., 13).
Besides the universities, there were also new companies that start to pro-
viding online courses to the general public, they also have marked the digi-
tal education system. Companies like Coursera, Udacity, and Khan Academy
have made high-quality educational content accessible to millions worldwide
(Shah, ), and these, often called ed-tech startups, have stated a democra-
tised access to education. These platforms offer a wide range of courses, from
K-1 to higher education and professional development, most of the times
they have partnerships with top universities to ensure the quality of what
they are offering to the public (Sharma, 4). The rise of these companies
represents a significant shift in the education sector, with online learning
becoming an increasingly mainstream option for a very large percentage of
people (eSchool News Staff, ).
So, integrating digital technologies into education has revealed new op-
portunities, such as the fact that education can reach a wider audience, pro-
vide flexible learning options, and offer a diverse range of educational re-
sources (Brown, ).
In one hand, the rise of digital education has taken numerous opportu-
nities to the education panorama, but also had introduced new challenges.
Issues related to digital literacy have become increasingly important, essen-
tialy because not all learners possess the necessary skills to surf and learn
from online platforms effectively (Van Deursen & Van Dijk, 19). Other very
important issue is the data privacy that has shaken the world (not only that
time but even more nowadays). Since almost all the online learning platforms
often collect a significant amount of personal data from the users, this start
to raise questions about how this information is stored, used, and protected
(Sullivan & Egelman, ).

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