Let's start.
Good afternoon from Spain.
Good morning. Latin America and the Caribbean.
It is a pleasure meeting you with these divan.
They had a very intense morning.
It was interesting that the last last contribution is.
It the contributions from the different
co-chairs were very interesting and it made up
a very interesting roundtable that was so.
Hip and someone was.
So relevant, so interesting that it took longer
to finish it than expected.
We are also going to have a very international afternoon
and we're going to start with a Countess, Pedro Pinto.
Thank you again for being here with, as it is your third time with us.
And we believe that it was very important.
We had Keith Holmes this morning welcoming us and we wanted to have
a lot of a lot of participation this afternoon.
We are doing our best and.
We thought that Spero from the USA,
LC is the director of this institute.
He is studying in university out in Barcelona
and he is a professor and a study
to be to be so in the unit.
It's a post the
comparative literatures in
London, United Kingdom.
Political leaders set up on behalf of the Barcelona musical direction.
This is a program that it is.
Here is the rector. Mr. S When I look at it, it was.
I rector of research and investigation from the
University of Catalonia.
Even when I dance,
he was a leader of the counseling group of
and educational policies, and he participated in
comparative projects in the ESCO in Paris since 2010.
He worked in the
Research and Innovation Center for Education of the City.
He was the head of many projects
and currently he moved to Caracas.
Although I believe that he never stops
moving around the world, connecting that higher education.
That is not only the responsibility of the superior
Institute of Education for America, Latin America and the Caribbean.
He does.
A lot of initiatives and surveys are being carried out to.
Evaluate.
All of these documents that we need in all these research,
which is what we are going
to talk about and hear from you this afternoon.
Thank you so much.
Again for being here in these events.
The UNESCO's chair related to
online and connected education.
And because we believe this is the first step to keep
our connections
and also to
move forward working hand in hand.
Of these 40 or 40 want UNESCO's chairs because
we share the same objectives to to achieve
this universal education through modalities that help us break
borders and limits and barriers that extend.
So thank you very much, Francis.
And the floor is yours.
Thank you very much.
It is always a pleasure
being here, even if it is online during
something or in a place that
used to be my academic house for so long, especially
because I was invited by I selected all my team
from my university course.
We are entering. A.
Season or a period of time
at which you tanesco is going to work and support all. The.
Work from the UNESCO's chairs.
All your work has a big impact on the work
related to inclusion and to quality of higher education.
If you allow me.
To say about my activity.
In order to make my presentation more agile,
I would like to share a brief presentation.
Of and then.
Because I
fundamentally want to highlight three or four ideas.
The first idea is very simple.
I would like to start by
introducing a person that we can see here
in the day of his involvement
in the French Language Academy.
The youth philosopher and poet
that in 1931
started his
enrollment speech with a phrase
that had a lot of meaning at the time, but also nowadays
the main problem of our time is that the future is not what it used
to be before.
This is a way of saying that we are starting a new phase
in the humankind history where
we unfortunately cannot predict anymore
what is going to happen in the next five years
if in just five years ahead of us in this country.
In this context, I would like to remind that
when we currently talk about artificial intelligence, what we are,
what has truly fostered the boom of our discussions
in this field was the launching of a product that only a year ago
didn't exist, which is changeability and all the constellation
surrounding it that I'm going to talk about later.
A year ago, no one could predict what was going to happen.
And within this dynamic, it is difficult to imagine
what is going to happen in the next five years.
Generally, we come from a history
in which we
have always been a certain and this attachment
between our societies and our economies and the impact
of the different revolution adds
up to the point that, as this graphic suggests,
there is always a this is a judgment point
in which the balance of the relationships that we know of
economic or social relations can break due
to the appearance of our technological development.
And we require a judgment time
that is not a matter of weeks or months, but probably decades.
And in the meantime, we have
a period that we can call
a suffering period, let's say, as
we incorporate these new developments to a new balance
within our economic, social and also educational relationships.
In our case,
AI has come to stay
and our institutions
are still trying to find the right path
to develop themselves in these unpredictable future.
I'm sorry that I almost forgot to say.
That we ready to consider our precedents.
It is
important to recall that I.
Would like to
remind you that now we talk about AI.
As in the past we were talking about the impact of the blockchain
and many other things, and we may get the idea of the feeling
that higher education is not adapting to these opportunities, these
the opportunity Windows that are being created by the rapid
technological transformation.
But the truth is that we have many data that supported
the fact that this universal ease, even before the pandemic,
as these graphic shows, both in Europe and Latin America,
have already adapt adapted platforms to manage
themselves
strategically and but also the spaces,
the different classrooms and in the teaching field, the trend
was not as acute, but it existed.
And nowadays we can say, at least from my limited
knowledge, that I don't know any university
or higher education, space or body that doesn't
have a plus for their own platform, an online platform.
We have published in many locations data that are a bit lacking, but the
opportunities are there so.
For them in their medium, which.
The starting point
has a space for improvement, imagine for example,
which one is is this is
is the system that is one of the most developed
in teaching development that would probably be
the country of the United States.
We have data from it.
And it is interesting to see in these research
that I am sharing with you how the teaching methodologies
have evolved
in the colleges of the United States only on the span of 20 years.
It is important to realize that
the truth is in the economic field.
In-person teaching is a
the main methodology.
So when we talk about how quickly
higher education is evolving,
we see flowers sprouting
and unexpected areas.
But it is important.
Well, it is true that there are important and
new things
such as, for example, the idea of being in. A.
In a classroom that doesn't use PowerPoint.
For. Every classroom uses.
U.S..
And then we see also the progress of initiatives of platforms
that foster the discussions and collaborative learning between
students.
But the data is still far from the figures
that we would like to have.
There are teachers that
that that do these very correctly.
So this is the starting point.
There is still a long way to go.
In classes.
When we respond to the students needs, both in-person or online.
From what I can.
We don't want to see a boring faces
such as these ones, so there is a long way to go.
It is true that the pandemic accelerate.
Did our processes, all of our processes
and we may ask ourselves so after everything that we have learned and
how much we have.
To. Struggle and all the efforts we have made,
how have universities improved and changed
these is data from our own institute, and we could say that
the opinions from the students are divided into big groups.
Almost half of eight consider that due to the impact of the pandemic
and everything that entailed in terms of researching new
learning and teaching methodologies, they have improved.
But there is also half of it that consider that
we are at the same stage, or even worse, that before
these shows that when we talk about the higher
education systems of the institution,
the reality is that in the majority of the country,
especially in the global South, we are talking about that.
I was talking about two different realities universities
where these opportunity windows have been used.
That.
At the other half.
That.
Hasn't used these opportunities
or that have experienced a worsening of their situations.
It is worth remembering some of the things that we have lived
that I want to mention the case of pardon Panama, for example,
where a private university after recording during the pandemic,
their teachers classes decided to cancel the contracts
that these teachers had or these professors had,
and offered an image that is similar to these.
What?
These is a fake image, of course, but they provided the opportunity
for these students to go to prerecorded classes.
This is an extreme situation
and one asks oneself
what is the added value of going to class or
in a different way, What is the added value
where you don't have space for social interaction
between the students or between the students and the professors? And
recently we have known more details
about an assessment carried out in the Spanish universities
and clearly as many other countries that use data
shows that the desire for students to go back to traditional
classrooms have decreased
in a great way because they find
that the prototypical function of data
transmission is already available in platforms in the platform.
So if they go to class and find the same information
explained in the same way as the information or the data,
the documents that they can access on online platforms,
what is the point for them to go there?
So we have a challenge there in this context.
They thought that.
Some years ago, decades ago we were talking about A.I.
already but were too broke.
Are models or silos where the narrative A.I.,
which has
unsettled the foundations
of our practices,
I believe that is.
I. Have to be I shall be.
A. Quote, regular professor, but even myself,
I don't know, investigate
how to do my work
regarding publishing or writing without using tools
such as these words.
You may use the same ones or different ones, but in a way
or another in the research
field, most of us.
It must incorporate.
We have included
these A.I.
supported tools that facilitate in a great way our path,
and that is places
in an ethical situation that is very hard because
there are questions that link to plagiarism
or questions or matters linked to the veracity
and truthfulness of the data that we share.
But as we have been experience, these for just one year,
so we still have to see what comes with the future.
But in the field of research, we have advanced in a very quick way.
We have incorporated these tools in a natural way.
And the more
you watched all of us, the better and we are going to incorporate them.
But when we talk about teaching and learning processes,
our data show that 82% of our students of higher education
have already used or are
they are aware of having used
a power tools
compared to 80% of professors
or teaching staff?
Yes, there a few on that of a few.
Of these 18%.
Of are.
Probably from the from i.t sections of fields.
In broadband.
And other and in other areas.
The percentage
maybe even lower.
You know, people let's say,
are more risky.
So we do part partially because of our function.
We are conservative people and we are not as willing
to know more about new challenges.
So maybe one of the tools and they may remember these
because these are transparency that I use
many times, and then the next time I send
something similar to these, I
probably will use this.
We were talking about inverted classrooms.
Going off in the loggia for the most appropriate time.
We simply have to recognize that due to the analogy, we.
To. Use the interaction of spaces in a different way.
But more interaction is imminent.
View to 12.
But most of the.
Both in an in-person classroom or in an online classroom.
But we have to leave behind the function of sharing
content
with the support of platforms such as the ones that we have,
both textual platforms and video classroom.
We have to rethink.
We have to think on a re-engineering
of these spaces and of these function.
What can we do in the instruction space
that we can do things,
things to add certain application?
I think that is very important and indeed inverted
classrooms are a good way
to continue moving forward.
I also want to share that.
That we love.
Everyone.
That I'm interested.
Myself included.
We share the idea that professors
are teaching the stuff in general, always go
behind their times.
But the reality is, oh, start to see a bit of that with you.
That all these new trends and tools.
For us
over time.
As I try to showed these professors
are already using in their favor these new tools.
These is a positive thing for them.
We have to identify
the needs that I have very clearly and go
search for the solutions that may exist.
I want to highlight two specific cases,
such as the one in the University of Toronto.
And. Most of these is focus on the role
that the institution itself has.
As of in this.
To develop the capabilities, the skills of its professors,
because this is how we can develop a conversation regarding the limits
and the opportunities in terms of education,
educational transformation that I offer sized.
First of all, we have to have a certain level of knowledge
about these.
We can go to the Hong Kong University now. In.
And. Really say.
As you can imagine, most off the menu,
all of these dishes that the university operates has to do with a.
Deposit
guarantee, mortgage delivery.
It take order universities
to showcase this idea.
Of a like for like.
Maybe the idea I would like to use to finish my presentation with this.
Fourth reflection is a hard one, and I don't know if hopeful once
we have an image.
Here.
Of Arthur Clarke,
which was to.
Do. Science fiction
author that
created 2001 A Space Odyssey,
and he is known
for the many aphorisms that he created,
and he was the one
who was that these phrase, if a teacher
can be substituted
by well, in this case
we should say instead of machine artificial intelligence,
they should be
there is an ambivalence in this phrase
because it suggests that somehow there is a real risk of understanding
the teacher role as a role that a machine
or a set of algorithms can develop.
But on the other hand, if you as a teacher, as a professor,
are not able to do something
different and that a machine cannot do it,
you are unworthy of your role of your position.
I think this is a very interesting phrase
for reflection, and I want to finish with my last idea,
which is that simply there is a need
in this field as many, many times
before for the institutions to have a specific strategy.
In fact, AI is having an impact
in a lot of universities that I know in the
more developed world.
Also in terms of governance.
In what you know.
In which elements as
in as it happens
in companies or other bodies.
Of it, I think it goes.
For resource management exist.
I don't know up to what point.
You, you.
Use tools that allow you to have, for example, a summary
of a meeting that you have just had.
Is doing in the event or a solo.
And if you do that it.
Is just an example.
But to do that, it.
Is administration tools.
That.
Allow us to connect our performance,
our actions to a level of performance.
Offering in this industry that is so not professional
is that administration.
And the staff members of universities
are under the highest risk
of losing their job positions are on the administrative staff
we have
here all the everything related to the personalized
learning ecosystem.
And I think this is the future that these new platforms
are creating for us.
They are greatly helping us
teachers, I mean, for us to take
to make decisions based on.
Facts instead.
Professors should be able to read
these evidence and have.
This.
Job or contract conditions that
allows them allow them to digest these data.
Because specifically in the global South, the contracts
of professors are measured
by hours of in-person teaching.
That is much more.
We saw the tobacco parable that is just so so.
There is as there is an extra space to manage
these broad set of opportunities
that these new tools and platforms are already providing us.
To see that this technology does.
So. In this sense, I would like to highlight. Two.
Creations that we have worked on from our institute.
We drafted and published a introductory guide
on Tragic beauty for higher education,
and more recently we have created a, let's say, a madam
about the risks and opportunities
that 80%.
For. Higher education, they are available free.
You can download them from our Web or the UNESCO's Web page,
and I think this is material for reflection.
Each of us will have to find
their own path because there is nothing written or preset.
We also provide specific resources for. The.
University managers or university
administrative staff and professors.
What we want to do is to break these initial,
almost
like these initial barriers that comes from a lack of knowledge.
I think know if.
It is also available for you.
This kind of discourse.
Maybe I would like to highlight two things.
The first one is that.
It's someone how to do that for a few days.
And even. Though. These.
College and opportunities are shared by all universities
to have access to this technology, the first question that we should ask
is should all the institutions
have the same important role?
And these.
Mutuality. In the field of technology?
We frequently talk about makers.
In our case, we're talking about higher education institutions,
that is, universities that can create language systems
that are at the base of a AI or the development of applications.
I don't believe that all the institutions are
situated in these starting point.
They are very few and are very orientated to research.
Then we have
the ones that adopt these solutions,
solutions created by other universities and they have a minimum
of capabilities to adapt them to their own contexts and needs.
We are talking about assets of
a broader set of institutions
and then we have the biggest
number of institutions
that truly observe
what their contexts provides them
and apply them based on their needs. So
we should ask ourselves,
should we all participate in all these studies?
And we are.
In the majority or at the
complete length of this process?
What I want is.
The ones that are able to developed by themselves.
Let's do that.
Not much. Because.
It is.
A maximization of our capabilities and our teams are waiting for us.
I think we should this
wish to differentiate our institutions
between these three
ideas.
And the Secretary's idea
is that in this context of
let's each take this,
let's each take whatever they need.
To what degree. We should.
Scaffold institution.
Train each higher education institution should have
a personal, specific training
system for their staff to guarantee a.
Level.
At least a minimum of knowledge about these new technology.
First of all.
And then establish alliances or go in-depth
into specific characteristics of that university to develop
these skills
in an equal way.
Then, once we can establish a dialog because we have broken
the barrier of the lack of knowledge, we should boost
these needs, these concerns and our availability.
We should know what our availability of resources is,
is to design a horizon
towards the exploitation of these skills.
The third element, which is also very important, is to demonstrate
knowledge in the way I am doing right now by giving examples,
demonstrating with prototypes the extent once
we can reach the point we can reach with our work.
This is the most necessary that I know.
That our universities that already have prototypes developed at the.
We should also assess these
the impact that these
prototypes will have.
We should conduct more research on these.
From a more empirical point of view.
It is also necessary, so they must.
Train the boost this needs
and concerns time straight what we are able to do.
And lastly, we will have to regulate.
From this.
Because there are
some ethical barriers that
we have to bear in mind to respect.
We have to also establish a common language
to really know why plagiarism is considered to be
what is allowed it, what it is not allowed.
Go out
and leave the havoc that we see
present in
in the world as of now,
especially the political
environment where the
policymakers believe that they should regulate
to the fullest the role of universities.
I am not talking about that.
But should a study.
To look.
The ways we can harness a right
to be able to have a more inclusive
education.
And that is everything that I had to say. Thank you very much.
I hope that any some at least
some of these reflections were of interest of you.
Thank you very much.
Again for your reflections,
Mr. Pedro,
because they contribute a lot
for these go.
We don't have much time for questions, but if any of you
in the audience or online
has any questions.
When we call up the risk, it is yours that is going on.
All I want to say that if you
stop to think about it,
we are living or we have left.
Those moments.
To disruptive total, totally disruptive moments.
The first one was COVID 19,
very disruptive for education, but generative A.I.
is the second
disruptive factor, and I
think it is even bigger than the first one that
has made us
struggle a lot.
It was on all.
And it's link to that is that
we have to solve the existing gaps.
The first challenge COVID 19
showed us the training gaps that already existed and some other gaps.
And the second one is showing us how we have to have
the necessary resources, tools, but systems.
We are experiencing very disruptive times, but
these times, these innovation and if there is a sense that necessary.
Quality but ultimately.
A shared quality for the recognition of degrees of credits.
It does not cause.
And we are also talking about that when we talk
about microcredit, that is completely essential.
Yes. If you would allow me.
But this is something that. The.
Gap. Topic is a strictly important topic,
especially
in terms of technology
supported education, because
these gaps, our presence in more.
Countries is a la pandemia. Yes.
Subtle recolonization, a multitude.
The opportunities for some of those means most.
Actions in education.
And climate.
We see gaps when
using accessing these new technologies
in terms of gender and other field.
Where we have to work a lot is that we have. Our.
Women demand in our classrooms.
But the truth is that where we pay attention on.
You know what.
Fields related to technology that is not the case.
Is that it's that serious.
And it is true that there are exceptions in some places.
But these new applications
pose the risk of
opening this new gap.
We talked about credits and microcredit,
and I totally agree with you, but I think that the starting point
for that that is is built around
such as this one that you have organized, this is the existence
of a common understanding of a shared understanding.
We have quality assurance agencies
in some countries that have been created as a result
of a comparative effort between institutions.
And I believe that
knowing the reality of higher education in other countries
know and being aware of the worry and networks, collaboration networks
that exist in other places and ensure a shared
starting point for the recognition of these degrees and credits.
And that is essential for the 21st century.
We are.
Moving.
Towards a higher degree,
higher education
that asks for these
global recognition, and that is going to be supported
by technology and I thank you again.
Thank you very much.