We already have valuable digital education services. The challenge is to network them intelligently.

BIRD is a project funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research to develop a prototype for a digital networking infrastructure for education, which already exists as a beta version with Mein Bildungsraum.
Within the funding framework, in which around 60 other projects are being funded, BIRD is taking on the role of a test field.

The Corona pandemic has forced Germany to find pragmatic, digital solutions to everyday challenges in many areas of society. Working from home, video conferences and digital collaboration tools have since become part of everyday life for many.
Schools have also had to act, identify needs and implement solutions. This has resulted in a fragmented ad-hoc landscape of digital solutions that are siloed, always have their own logins and often interrupt users in their teaching and learning processes when they navigate between applications.

There are already a large number of digital education providers that are generally separate from one another and not available nationwide. For this reason, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) presented the Digital Education Initiative in January 2021 with the project of a digital networking infrastructure for education (now called Mein Bildungsraum). The vision of this digital networking infrastructure is to enable users to embark on self-determined, seamless and lifelong educational journeys.

Such a comprehensive project can only succeed if the numerous stakeholders affected by such a platform are involved and by choosing a project approach that, on the one hand, responds to different demands in an agile way and, on the other hand, invites participants to explore scenarios and learn from both successes and failures.

 

BIRD serves as a prototypical learning environment for a nationally networked education federalism.

A digitally networked infrastructure for education is both a necessary and challenging step for education in Germany: digital networking should fully exploit the potential of digital technologies so that education stakeholders - not only students and teachers but also publishers, school boards, parents and many more - are supported and motivated by technology rather than disrupted and burdened. This means that the path to an optimal networked infrastructure can only lead through exchange and shared learning with the various stakeholders, so that it is accepted by its users in later operation.

BIRD is therefore developing a prototype of the digital networking infrastructure on a trial basis, to which other funding projects will be linked. In this way, an experimental field is being developed in which the BMBF can gather reliable experience in order to be able to define optimal requirements and needs.

 

BIRD provides concrete requirements in order to move from the status quo to a specification of Mein Bildungsraum.

BIRD supports the BMBF in exploring, in collaboration with the educational landscape, how educational offers in Germany need to be networked, which development steps are necessary for this and which actions are to be recommended. In this prototypical approach, an ecosystem of independent educational offerings is being created that invites people to explore the possibilities of a future digital networking infrastructure for education.

On a technical level, BIRD is based on three key components that network the educational space:

• A login for lifelong education through single sign-on (SSO)
• Self-sovereign data storage and use through a data wallet
• Centralised metadata management to find all content via a search

 

Vision

The development follows three principles:

Linking content

Create cross-system and contextual access to learning resources to promote accessible integration of content into learning processes.

Linking tools

Draw from a diversity of tools to enable users to create their own personal working environment. As a result, work processes, exchange of knowledge and the collaboration with other teachers and learners can be digitally organised in the best possible way.

Linking people

Learning can be more successful through context-related networking and exchange with other interested people as well as through seamless use of further offers.