The landscape of digital technology education in Brazil’s municipal schools is challenging and falls far short of reflecting the provisions of the National Common Core Curriculum (BNCC). This is the conclusion drawn by the study “Digital Technologies in Municipal Schools in Brazil: Landscape and Recommendations,” released this Wednesday (10) exclusively for Bett Brasil, Latin America’s largest education and technology conference. 

The survey revealed that 37% of municipal school districts do not include technology and computer science in their early childhood education curriculum; in elementary school, the figures were 21% and 17% for the upper and lower grades, respectively. The study was conducted in partnership with the Center for Innovation in Brazilian Education (CIEB), the Telefônica Vivo Foundation, and the National Union of Municipal Education Directors (Undime), with technical support from Interdisciplinarity and Evidence in the Educational Debate (Iede). The survey was conducted in 1,065 municipal school systems across the country’s five regions. 

“We must encourage the sharing of expertise and experiences between state capital municipalities and smaller cities. The study revealed a gap between school systems located in state capitals and those in smaller municipalities. I believe this study will serve as a national guide to bring this issue to the forefront and assist in the implementation of digital technology education in schools, in line with the BNCC,” explains Undime President Luiz Miguel Garcia. 

With regard to the budgets and support structures of the Department of Education for the use of digital technologies in schools, the survey found that 73% of municipal school systems do not have a specific department and/or team dedicated to planning and implementing digital technologies in schools. 

CIEB Executive Director Julia Sant’Anna noted that the study should help drive the ongoing transformation of public policies in the field of education. She also highlighted the importance of state and municipal secretaries taking a proactive approach in implementing measures such as identifying talent within their own teams and planning targeted actions based on a comprehensive assessment of each school’s needs, ranked by priority. 

For Lia Glaz, CEO of the Telefônica Vivo Foundation, one of the key findings of the study is the need to train teachers to develop these digital skills in the classroom. The study shows that 39% of municipal school districts do not offer continuing education for teachers on this topic. Among state capitals, all reported offering this type of training. “It is essential that the teaching of digital technologies be designed for implementation starting in early childhood education because, if this does not happen, those with lower socioeconomic status will be left behind,” she said. Another point raised by Glaz concerns the training of teachers who are qualified to develop these digital skills in the classroom.  

Release of a new Minecraft map 

Bett Brasil served as the venue for the launch of a new map for Minecraft Educational, Microsoft’s gamified platform. “The Non-Mineable Earth,” as its name suggests, makes it impossible for players to mine the ground, thereby subverting the logic of the game. According to the company, no matter how hard players try, they will not be able to mine the ground. Instead, they can recreate the Amazon’s flora and fauna within the game, creating a learning experience through a journey through the forest—featuring indigenous peoples, rivers, trees, birds, campfires, and other elements.

The entire project was developed by educational consultant Francisco Tupy, a teacher, geographer, specialist in virtual educational environments, and the first #MieexpertFellow in Latin America. “It was a challenge to create something completely new—solutions based on the language of Minecraft—which is a highly educational and dynamic process. This is the first time in the world that mining isn’t possible in the game; if a student tries to dig, they won’t be able to form a block. The goal is for it to fulfill its educational and awareness-raising role regarding an issue of extreme urgency for humanity,” said Tupy.

Managers' Forum

Bett Brasil 2023 will host the Administrators’ Forum, an event geared toward administrators and leaders of private K-12 educational institutions. The Forum’s panels focus on strategic issues in Brazilian education, such as political, economic, and financial aspects; human resources management; finance; continuing education for teachers; the digitization of schools; marketing; technological innovations; the digital transformation of institutions; and adapting teaching and learning to the world of today and the future. This Wednesday (the 10th), the importance of digital transformation for educational management was one of the topics presented through two case studies. 

With a technological transformation that began 10 years ago, Colégio Bandeirantes is now working toward what is known as “digital efficiency.” With unified systems and well-structured policies, the school embraced technology integrated into the school environment from the very beginning. “We have experienced every stage of this digital transformation, from the first smartphones to today, with the widespread use of Wi-Fi, the Internet of Things (IoT), and digital literacy. Back then, we chose not to ban cell phones in the classroom but rather to adapt teachers’ behavior to this new era of technology. Today, we see that we made the right decision,” says Emerson Bento, Director of Technology Education at Colégio Bandeirantes. 

Bento explains that one of the major steps the school took was to consolidate all its systems into a single database with information stored in the cloud. The school also implemented dedicated apps for parents and teachers, which help monitor and improve school management. 

At Colégio Pentágono, the latest development is the creation of its own Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). Since 2016, the school has adopted the Google system, and its management has also focused on cloud storage and the sharing of single documents. “Centralizing information on Google Drive was very important for the school, as was document sharing. Before, we had a lot of problems with different versions of documents that were passed around among various people and generated countless files, which was easily resolved by using Drive,” explains Bruno Alvarez, vice principal for Technological Innovations at Colégio Pentágono.

Alvarez also mentioned other initiatives that help improve the school's administrative management, such as the use of institutional email addresses, the formalization of communication channels to avoid contact via messaging apps, and the use of Google Classroom. 

As a word of caution, the expert highlighted the need to pay attention to the number of platforms that tend to accumulate over time. “We still have too many platforms, and this is something managers need to keep in mind. We’re working to improve this, as well as to make smarter use of data, shifting the focus away from just the student’s grade,” he notes.  

Family and School: A Healthy Relationship

One of the topics discussed at the Bett Brasil Conference was the challenge of fostering healthy relationships between schools and students’ families. Tom Ferreira, educational manager at Faz Educação & Tecnologia; Renata Trefilio, Whole Child Development coordinator at Camino School; and Stella Azulay, founder of Juntos Educação Parental, discussed the importance of involving families in the daily school routine to create a collaborative foundation for students’ development.
 
For Renata, one of the reasons students struggle to achieve full learning and emotional maturity is that families are not involved or are only included during times of difficulty—whether related to the student’s academic performance or behavior. 

“Most of the time, families are only contacted for negative feedback, memos, and periodic meetings. If everything is going well with the student, parents aren’t reached out to and remain on the outside looking in when it comes to their child’s day-to-day life. It’s strategic for administrators to involve the student’s family in the student’s school experience, even just to understand the student in different contexts. “The school is an ecosystem that needs to operate with clarity, established processes, and standardized procedures in crisis management,” he explains. 

Stella pointed out that administrators need to get to know the students’ parents better in order to determine how to communicate with them more effectively. “Let’s remember that communication always has a purpose that must be clear to administrators. Furthermore, it is essential to maintain regular communication,” she added.

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