Today’s children and teenagers need digital literacy to equip them for the challenges of their future professional and personal lives. They thus need to be taught digital skills as well as developing a critical awareness in regard to their interaction with digital media.

With this in mind, the City of Vienna is investing 40 million euro in its Digital School project to pave the way towards the digital classroom of the future.  The project will reach over 51,000 school pupils and more than 4,500 teachers in some 150 primary and lower secondary schools in the City of Vienna.

Wireless schools

In summer 2019, work began on the expansion and optimisation of the city-wide school wifi network. Wifi coverage is already standard in new schools and school extensions across the city. A major effort is now under way to roll out seamless wifi coverage to all the city’s vocational colleges, pre-vocational schools and middle schools by 2022, with 64 sites already fully equipped by the end of 2020.  “Excellent education requires excellent infrastructure. 51,000 school pupils will soon be reaping the benefits of the city’s high-speed school wifi network. With this investment we are fostering digital literacy for every single schoolchild,” says Ulli Sima, Executive City Councillor for Innovation.

The wifi infrastructure is being installed by Wien Energie, the City of Vienna’s energy and telecom provider, with the fibre-optic cable network for Vienna’s schools already in place.  When complete, the network will be equipped with 29,000 switch ports providing wireless high-speed internet access.

Digital tools

The Digital School project actually consists of two sub-projects: as well as providing seamless Internet access for schools, the City of Vienna is also developing digital learning tools for the classroom of the future. As of summer 2020 the City of Vienna had purchased 5,000 laptops for Vienna’s primary and lower secondary schools, nearly all of which are already in use – either for pupils to borrow for home use or for digital learning on the school premises.

Besides putting the necessary infrastructure in place and providing appropriate training for teachers, the focus is also on establishing certain standards, with individual work e-mail addresses for teachers and Office 365 licences for all City of Vienna schools to set the ball rolling. “Ultimately we want to see every school deciding on a specific learning platform, as this facilitates learning and brings clarity for parents,” says Director of Education Heinrich Himmer.

The Digital School project is part of the comprehensive digitalisation strategy for the City of Vienna instigated by Mayor Michael Ludwig.

Contact

E-Mail: schuledigital@ma01.wien.gv.at

The Digital School newsletter provides regular updates and news about the project.