On the afternoon of November 28, the Shanghai Regional Contribution Seminar on the Construction of the UN Public Digital Learning Portal was successfully held at the UNESCO Teacher Education Centre. The seminar brought together educational department leaders, experts, and representatives from some primary and secondary schools in Baoshan, Minhang, and Changning Districts of Shanghai to discuss the practical experience and international significance of Shanghai's digital transformation in education.
The seminar began with an address by Han Chonghu, Director of the Informatization Division of the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission. He reviewed the relevant arrangements of China’s Ministry of Education in promoting the digital transformation of education in recent years, particularly the remarkable achievements made by Shanghai in the field of educational digitalization, and expressed gratitude for the long-term support of the UNESCO Teacher Education Centre. He emphasized that Shanghai should continue to deepen the international promotion of educational digitalization in the future, explore more experiences with global promotion value, and provide Chinese wisdom for global educational development. Subsequently, Dr. Sun Yang from the Centre’s project team briefly introduced the overall situation of the Public Digital Learning Portal project.
Professor Zhang Minxuan further pointed out that the portal project has now entered a stage of in-depth advancement, which urgently requires exploring typical regional cases of China in the field of digital education and promoting the high-quality development of public digital educational resources. He stressed that Shanghai’s successful practices in educational digitalization have important global demonstration significance, and called on all institutions to work together to promote Shanghai’s experience to the rest of the world.
During the seminar, heads of educational departments from Baoshan, Minhang, and Changning Districts shared their highlights in regional digital education development:
Zhang Zhi, Director of the Baoshan District Education Bureau, introduced Baoshan’s exploration in digital educational governance. By building an inclusive digital education service system with low cost and high coverage, Baoshan has initially achieved the development and application of intelligent educational resources, while advancing the digital transformation of teaching organization methods.
Yun Minxia, Secretary of the Party Working Committee of Minhang District Education Bureau, summarized the coverage of information technology in all fields of education in Minhang, including teaching research support, teacher development, student evaluation, and the construction of the Minhang Knowledge School Repository. She focused on introducing Minhang’s cutting-edge practices in educational data collection and analysis.
Xiong Qiuju, Director of the Changning District Education Bureau, explained Changning’s strategy of district-wide promotion and systematic reform for digital transformation. By integrating educational data standardization with personalized needs, Changning has built a comprehensive digital education infrastructure, forming a sustainable and low-energy digital governance model. It highlighted the reform outcomes in five key dimensions: resource sharing, teacher development, and teaching innovation.
In the latter part of the seminar, teacher representatives from Songyi Experimental School in Baoshan District and the Shanghai Tao Xingzhi Memorial Hall shared innovative cases of using public digital educational resources. Songyi Experimental School presented cases of the development and application of the open digital educational resource GeoGebra in STEM education, emphasizing the role of open digital teaching resources in promoting in-depth subject teaching. The Tao Xingzhi Memorial Hall shared practices in developing after-school educational resources based on artificial intelligence technology, which meet students’ diverse learning needs through open educational resources.
In the expert exchange session, Professor Wang Gong, Director of the Analysis, Testing and Supercomputing Centre of Shanghai Normal University, introduced a teacher education large model developed based on artificial intelligence technology. This model can simulate real teaching scenarios and student behaviors, and is used for precise training of normal students’ teaching skills, providing an innovative tool for enhancing teachers’ digital teaching capabilities.
Through in-depth exchanges and case sharing, this seminar summarized the practical experience of Shanghai’s digital transformation in education, providing strong support for promoting the UN Public Digital Learning Portal project. It further clarified Shanghai’s mission and direction in the international promotion of educational digitalization, and contributed practical solutions to global educational equity and quality improvement. In the future, the Centre will continue to work closely with regional educational departments, using digitalization as a bridge to share Chinese experience with more countries and regions, injecting new impetus into building a global community with a shared future in education.
