On August 20, 2020 (GMT+8), 2020 Global Smart Education Conference witnessed a successful opening in Beijing, focusing on the implications and challenges that artificial intelligence (AI) will bring to the futures of education, as well as other emerging topics.

The Guests in the Opening Ceremony of 2020 Global Smart Education Conference

Hosted by Beijing Normal University (BNU), this conference is co-organized by the Smart Learning Institute of Beijing Normal University (SLIBNU), China Institute of Education and Social Development (CIESD), Collaborative Innovation Center of Assessment for Basic Education Quality, as well as National Engineering Laboratory for Cyberlearning and Intelligent Technology (CITlab). On August 20, several experts in education and science technology from China, the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, Japan, Singapore, Serbia and Ghana attended the Opening Ceremony and the following forums, including Mr. Qinping Zhao, Academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering; Mr. Hequan Wu, Academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering; Mr. Jun Zhang, Academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering; Mr. Liqun Wei, Former Director of the Research Office of the State Council; Qi Dong, President of Beijing Normal University; Mr. Changwei Qin, Secretary-General of National Commission of the People’s Republic of China for UNESCO; Mr. Jianxiang Yuan, Deputy Director of High Tech Research and Development Center, Ministry of Science and Technology of the People’s Republic of China; Dr. Getachew Engida, Former Deputy Director-General of UNESCO; Dr. Sobhi Tawil, Director of the Future of Learning and Innovation Team at UNESCO; Dr. Tao Zhan, Director of Institute for Information Technologies in Education (UNESCO IITE), UNESCO, and Dr. Yumiko Yokozeki, Director of UNESCO International Institute for Capacity Building in Africa (UNESCO IICBA). This conference was held at Changping Campus, Beijing Normal University with live streaming via Xinhuanet and XuetangX, attracting over 1 million online audiences worldwide on the first day.

At the opening ceremony, President Qi Dong pointed out that the new generation of information technology (IT) represented by AI is redefining the value of human knowledge and capacity. In the future, with the support of IT, such as AI, smart education will enter into a brand new stage. BNU is carrying out the “Discussion on Education and Teaching”, trying to explore the development path of “Internet + education”, create a new mode of teacher education, build faculty team in the intelligence age, so as to promote the systematic transformation of education.

Mr. Qinping Zhao, Academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering

Mr. Qinping Zhao, Academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering, gave a live video speech where he mentioned that virtual reality (VR), featured by immersion, interaction, imagination and intelligence, has become an important technology for smart education. With the potential to subvert the existing technology, VR will give birth to new methods and modes of teaching and learning. VR + AI may become the ultimate educational technology, which can have a profound implication on the futures of education. He hoped that the scientific and technological academia could join hands to explore a new research direction of “VR + education”, promote the development of smart education, as well as cultivate creative talents ready for the future.

Mr. Changwei Qin, Secretary-General of National Commission of the People’s Republic of China for UNESCO

Mr. Changwei Qin pointed out that the online education integrated with AI has considerably reduced the loss of education during COVID-19 outbreak. The innovative cases of the unprecedented massive online teaching and learning have opened a door for the futures of education. The application of network and AI in education has made it possible to share quality education resources globally, and created new solutions for global educational problems.

Academician’s Opinion: Intelligent Technology will Forster New Ecology of Education

Mr. Hequan Wu, Academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering

At the Forum of “AI and the Futures of Education”, Mr. Hequan Wu gave a keynote speech entitled “Promoting Education Innovation with 5G Technology and Cloud”. He emphasized that basic network, data center, cloud computing, payment platform, industrial Internet and other information technologies have shifted the current educational methods and approaches. Besides, 5G technology promoted the technical upgrading of high-definition video and VR/AR/MR. It has realized real-time interactive classroom live steaming, virtual teacher, teacher assistant and other functions, making it possible for students’ home study and highly customized learning content during COVID-19 outbreak. Moreover, it has also promoted the innovation of talent training mode.

Mr. Jun Zhang, Academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering

Mr. Jun Zhang mentioned in his keynote speech “Five-Dimensional Education: from Smart Classroom to Intelligent Classroom” that smart education is a key component of smart society. The relationship between “man, machine, object and environment” will be reshaped based on the concept of intelligence and Internet, as well as the framework of intelligent network technology. The construction of “intelligent classroom” will remove the barriers caused by space, time and knowledge, creating “five-dimensional education” which consists of three-dimensional space, time and knowledge. The “five-dimensional education” will promote the construction of human-centered educational production relations and the reform of educational productivity in the new age. It will unleash the potential of education and facilitate the “valuable growth” of students and teachers, ultimately contributing to the construction of a powerful socialist country in education with Chinese characteristics.

At the forum of “Governance and Social Perspective For AI” on August 21, Mr. Yaonan Wang, Academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering gave a report entitled “Intelligent Technology Enables Intelligent Society” on the situation and trends of intelligent robots applied in education, medical care, pension and other fields.

Perspective in Education: AI Opens the New Stage of Smart Education

Prof. Qi Dong, President of Beijing Normal University

Prof. Qi Dong, President of Beijing Normal University, gave a keynote speech entitled “Intelligent Education Evaluation: Promoting the Reform and Development of Basic Education”. He mentioned that the traditional evaluation system in education cannot meet the demands of educational development in the age of intelligence. AI, brain science, VR and 5G have created unprecedented opportunities for the establishment of scientific evaluation system in education, which will have an important implication on basic education and promote the educational equity as well as personalized development of students. According to the report, the intelligent evaluation in education is faced with quite a few challenges ranging from improving the understanding of human brain and learning capacity, to properly dealing with the ethical issues in data collection and application, research and development of fusion algorithm of massive and multi-scale data to realize restructuring of the entire ecology. To tackle these challenges, five suggestions are given in the report, namely: firstly, implementing intelligent evaluation systems in education and making them a national strategy; secondly, further exploring brain cognition in students’ learning and development to empower intelligent evaluation system in education; thirdly, stepping up the collaboration among Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs) and between HEIs and research institutes so as to push forward the innovation of evaluation methods; fourthly, promoting cooperation between HEIs and enterprises to endure timely application of research outcomes in education and fifthly, establishing national intelligent evaluation platforms in education for openness and sharing.

Dr. Sobhi Tawil, Director of the Future of Learning and Innovation Team at UNESCO

Dr. Sobhi Tawil expressed his opinion that the uncertainty and complexity of the world are increasing with the development of Internet, AI and other emerging technologies. AI may replace the jobs of human to some extent, and change the profession of many people. UNESCO has issued the initiative “Futures of Education” to promote the improvement of learners’ self-directed learning ability and self-construction ability, which has reminded us to rethink the purpose of education so as to shape the future of humanity.

Dr. Isak Froumin, Dean of Institute of Education, National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE)

Dr. Isak Froumin summarized five lessons for policy of educational technologies after the pandemic. He pointed out that family education would play an important part in the future. For many years, the digital infrastructure of schools has not been effectively utilized, and digitalization has exacerbated educational inequality. Therefore, students’ self-regulation and self-organization are the key factors for success, and interpersonal communication is irreplaceable in education

National Smart Education Strategy

released by BNU and international organizations

At the opening ceremony, the National Smart Education Strategy was released. The project is launched by UNESCO IITE, Commonwealth of Learning (COL), International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE) and Beijing Normal University BNU. Dr. Ronghuai Huang, Co-Dean of the Smart Learning Institute of BNU, Director of CITlab, pointed out that the project aims at studying the major problems and trends of the futures of education and explore the solutions for the integration of IT and education, so as to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education, benefiting everyone with the opportunities of lifelong learning.

Dr. Ronghuai Huang, Co-Dean of SLIBNU, Director of CITlab

Prof. Ronghuai Huang briefed the National Smart Education Strategy. The project will last for at least five years, and the Secretariat is located at SLIBNU. The research for the first two years includes five programs: evaluation for ICT policy in education in the future, develop a framework of smart educational technology at national level, national smart education index (evaluation and supervision), national public service system of smart learning, as well as the technologies and standards of smart campus. Each program will be presided over by at least two organizers. Also, more partners will be organized to participate in the collaborative research, and the countries with typical situations will be chosen for case analysis. Dr. Asha S. Kanwar, President of COL; Dr. Joseph South, Chief Learning Officer of ISTE; Dr. Isak Froumin, Dean of Institute of Education, HSE and Dr. Tao Zhan, Director of IITE commended that the project would facilitate the realization of SDG4 and Education 2030 proposed by UNESCO, hoping the project could contribute to the construction of inclusive and equitable quality education and social development.

Prof. Zuoyu Zhou and Prof. Li Chen, Vice Presidents of BNU, served respectively as chairs of the opening ceremony and the forum of “AI and the Futures of Education”.

Prof. Zuoyu Zhou, Vice President of BNU

Prof. Li Chen, Vice President of BNU

At the forum of “The Futures of Education and Teachers’ Capacity Building” in the evening of August 20, Dr. Getachew Engida, Former Deputy Director-General of UNESCO and Mr. Xudong Zhu, Dean of Faculty of Education, BNU addressed the opening. Dr. Yumiko Yokozeki, Director of UNESCO IICBA; Dr. Joseph South, Chief Learning Officer at ISTE and Mr. Li Xiong, CEO of NetDragon Websoft gave keynote speeches. Also, National Training Plan for Informatization Capacity of Teachers in Serbia was released at the forum. Dr. Xiaodong Zeng, Executive Director of UNESCO INRULED chaired the forum.

There are 12 forums in total in the conference. The themes of the forums include AI and the Futures of Education, The Futures of Education and Teachers’ Capacity Building, Smart Education in 5G Era, Governance and Social Perspective for AI, AI and Big Data in Education, K12 Education in the Age of Intelligence, Open Educational Resources for Inclusive Education, The New Ecology of Regional Smart Education, Smart Village and Smart Social Development, International Science Education, ICT Promoting the Innovation and Development of Higher Education, as well as Smart Learning and the Futures of Education.

The conference was co-organized by UNESCO IITE, UNESCO IICBA, UNESCO INRULED, ASLECSO, Cardiff University, the United Kingdom, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Russia, Centre for Research and Development in Learning at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, ISTE, COL, International Association of Smart Learning Environments (IASLE), State Key Laboratory of Virtual Reality Technology and Systems, China, National Engineering Laboratory for Educational Big Data, China, as well as National and Local Joint Engineering Laboratory for Learning Analysis Technology of Cyberlearning Data.

Support enterprises include China Mobile Limited, Elernity, iFlytek Co. Ltd., Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., Tencent Holdings Ltd, Baidu, Inc., Lenovo Group Limited, Toutiao, XuetangX and DingTalk. The conference will last until August 22 and be open to the public. (The official site of 2020 Global Smart Education Conference: https://gse.bnu.edu.cn/)