Digitalization in schools - Organization, collaboration and communication

Abstract

Digitalization drives information and workflows to new possibilities. The exchange of necessary information is a critical process in every organization to deliver best results. This is truth for private organizations like companies as well as public organizations like schools. State-owned institutions are in particular affected of privacy protection and judicial conditions. Thus, digitalization is the key to success and needs to fulfill diverse requirements - legal regulations, social restrictions and at least technical restrictions. Examples are the diversity of the target groups inside a school - parents, teachers, scholars with different backgrounds as well as technical skills or the diversity of existing software and data sources inside the school. In addition, the use of digital tools for communication in schools needs and teaches specific media literacy and is integrated in a system for education. At least, communication channels must be secure to keep private or personal information as a secret inside the school family. In this chapter, the authors provide an overview over possibilities and requirements of digital collaboration, communication and organization in schools with the experience of a self-developed and provided software for German schools, called "DieSchulApp".