Enhancing social inclusion through innovative mobile learning in Uruguay. Cristobal Cobo & Pablo Rivera

With the support of
Enhancing social inclusion through
innovative mobile learning in Uruguay
Case study by the UNESCO-Fazheng project on best practices in mobile learning
Approach: Top-down
Implementing organization:
CEIBAL
Year launched: 2007
Authors:
Cristóbal Cobo Romaní and
Pablo Rivera Vargas
Editors:
Fengchun Miao and Anett Domiter
URUGUAY

Published by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization 7, place de Fontenoy, 75352 Paris 07
SP, France  Unit for ICT in Education  Education Sector UNESCO
© UNESCO 2018
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The ideas and opinions expressed in this document are those of the authors; they are not necessarily those of UNESCO
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Cover image: ©PLAN CEIBAL
Produced by UNESCO CLD 2639_18
Education
Sector
United Nations
Cultural Organization
The Global Education 2030 Agenda
UNESCO, as the United Nations’specialized
agency for education, is entrusted to lead and
coordinate the Education 2030 Agenda, which is
part of a global movement to eradicate poverty
through 17 Sustainable Development Goals by
2030. Education, essential to achieve all of these
goals, has its own dedicated Goal 4, which aims to
“ensure inclusive and equitable quality education
and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.”
The Education 2030 Framework for Action provides
guidance for the implementation of this ambitious
goal and commitments.
UNESCO Education Sector
Education is UNESCO’s top priority because it is
a basic human right and the foundation on which
to build peace and drive sustainable development.
UNESCO is the United Nations’specialized agency
for education and the Education Sector provides
global and regional leadership in education,
strengthens national education systems and
responds to contemporary global challenges
through education with a special focus on
gender equality and Africa.
ED-2018/WS/76

Acknowledgements
1
Acknowledgements
UNESCO would like to thank the following individuals for their valuable contributions to the ‘’Best practices in
mobile learning’’project and case study series.
Fengchun Miao, Chief of Unit for ICT in Education at UNESCO Headquarters, conceptualized the study and led the
development of the criteria for the selection of best practices in cooperation with the Expert Panel of the project.
He also coordinated the drafting and production of the report and served as the principal editor.
Anett Domiter, Associate Project Officer at the Unit for ICT in Education at UNESCO, supported the selection of
initiatives through an open call for proposals and assisted the drafting and editing processes.
We acknowledge with gratitude the contribution of the two authors: Cristóbal Cobo Romaní, Director of the
Center for Research at the Ceibal Foundation in Uruguay and Pablo Rivera Vargas, Professor at the Department of
Didactics and Educational Organization of the University of Barcelona in Spain.
The Expert Panel of the project contributed to the development of the criteria for the selection of best practices,
reviewed the applications and supported the drafting and editing of case studies.
The Expert Panel is composed of:
• Alexandre Barbosa, Director, Center of Studies for Information and Communications Technologies, Brazil
• Anja Balanskat, Senior Manager, European Schoolnet
• Enrique Hinostroza, Director, Institute for ICT in Education, Universidad de La Frontera, Chile
• Cheah Horn Mun, Assistant Provost, Singapore University of Social Sciences, Singapore
• Shafika Isaacs, ICT in education advisor to the Ministry of Education in South Africa
• Cheolil Lim, Professor, Seoul National University of Education, South Korea
• Jukka Tulivuori, Counsellor, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland
• Mike Lawrence, Senior Director, PowerSchool Group, USA
• Tarek Chehidi, Program Director, Results for Development, USA
We owe special thanks to Fiorella Haim, General Manager of the Plan Ceibal Uruguay, for her valuable and relevant
contributions, which were essential for the development of this case study.
Our acknowledgment is also extended to Susan Curran for copyediting and proofreading the text.
UNESCO would like to thank the Fazheng Group for the financial support it has granted to support the research
on school-wide mobile learning initiatives through which this case study series was made possible.

Enhancing social inclusion through innovation in Uruguay - The case of the CEIBAL Plan
2
Abstract
Inspired by the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC)
international initiative, Uruguay was the first country
to implement a national-scale plan to distribute
personal computers to all students and teachers in
public education. The idea that every student has the
right to internet access is the fundamental principle
behind this initiative. For more than a decade Plan
Ceibal, which began in 2007, has installed, maintained
and expanded a computer infrastructure that reaches
all elementary and middle public schools, and ensures
access to laptops, digital contents and resources,
platforms, educational programs, training and support
for both students and teachers, as well as internet
connectivity for all classrooms countrywide. However,
Ceibal faces the important challenge of responding
to the changing needs of improving education,
training educators and ensuring digital inclusion
of the population, which in the present are not
necessarily addressed by the sole availability of digital
devices. A key factor is to promote and develop new
pedagogical approaches as well as new capacities for
a responsible and critical use of digital technologies.
This paper describes and summarizes some of the
main characteristics, innovations, lessons learned,
challenges and achievements of the implementation
of Plan Ceibal in Uruguay over more than 10 years.
Keywords:
Digital inclusion, OLPC, Ceibal, deep learning, EdTech, Uruguay, education, technology, K-12
“How can a technology-centered approach to national ICT in education programmes
catalyse the pedagogical transformation in schools and classrooms? How can
governments provide disadvantaged students with access to digital development
opportunities to prevent the emergence of a lost generation in the digital era? Reading
the case of Uruguay, you will find a policy response supported with examples of
practices and evidences of achievement.”
Fengchun Miao, UNESCO

1. Introduction
3
1. Introduction
Following the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC)
international initiative, Uruguay was the first country
to commit to and implement a plan to distribute
personal computers to all students and teachers in
the public education system. The idea that every
student has the right to access the internet is the
fundamental principle behind this initiative. For more
than a decade, Plan Ceibal, which began in 2007
and was named after the national flowering tree, has
installed and maintained a computer infrastructure
that reaches all elementary and middle public schools,
and ensures access to laptops, digital contents and
resources, platforms, educational programs, training
and support for both (6–15-year-old) students
and teachers. However, over ten years later Plan
Ceibal faces important challenges in guaranteeing
its sustainability. One is the need to promote the
meaningful use of digital technology to have a broad
and profound impact on students’learning, especially
in secondary education. Another is to respond
to the changing needs of training and for digital
inclusion of the population. These issues cannot be
addressed solely by making digital devices available.
It is necessary too to promote and develop new
pedagogical approaches, as well as new capacities for
the responsible and critical use of digital technologies.
This document describes and summarizes some of
the main characteristics, innovations, lessons learned,
limitations and achievements of the implementation
of the first attempt to adopt the 1:1 model on a
national scale and provide universal connectivity, for
public schools in Uruguay.
Plan Ceibal has been in operation for more than 10
years, and it has managed to adapt to the changing
needs of the population for digital inclusion. It has
developed an important organizational structure
and management system (Solari, 2017). From a pilot
experience in a village in the interior of the country
in 2007, it was extended geographically and covered
the entire nation by 2010. In that same year (2010),
it was extended to the first three years of secondary
education.
This document does not dive into the technological
challenges that this ambitious endeavour has faced;
the analysis is focused on a set of questions related
to the implications of this educational policy. Among
the critical questions explored are, how was this
educational policy implemented? What was the
reaction of the educational community? How has
this policy evolved during this last decade? How are
these transformations transitioning from technology-
centred to pedagogy-centred? What are the lessons
learned so far? What are the future challenges?
After this introduction, the document is structured as
follows. First there is a description of the execution
model of Plan Ceibal, with special reference to its
vision and general mission, as well as to strategic
plans, the creation of digital learning environments
and the use of digital technologies. Second, the
main challenges facing the future of Plan Ceibal
are described. Third, the process of transfer and
amplification of the impact of the implementation
of Plan Ceibal at a local and global level is analysed.
Finally, some general conclusions are presented.

4
2. The model
1 For further information on the 18.640 law‘Promoción de la salud y la educación en la niñez y la adolescencia en el ámbito de la educación
pública’visit https://legislativo.parlamento.gub.uy/temporales/leytemp1792559.htm
Ceibal Center (Centro Ceibal para el Apoyo a la
Educación de la Niñez y la Adolescencia) was
established by law 18.6401
as a non-state/non-
governmental public institution. A board of directors
oversees its activities. This consists of its president
(representing the executive) and one representative
each from the Ministry of Education and Culture
(MEC), the Ministry of Economy and Finance, and the
National Administration for Public Education (ANEP) in
Uruguay.
Figure 1: Annually held National Olympics of robotics, programming and coding.
©PLANCEIBAL

2. The model
5
While Ceibal Center was institutionalized as an
independent entity in 2010, the nationwide
programme aimed at bridging the digital divide
in Uruguay – known as Plan Ceibal – began in
March 2007. Plan Ceibal (Conectividad Educativa
de Informática Básica para el Aprendizaje en Línea)
was the ﬁrst nationwide educational computing
programme based on the 1:1 (One Laptop per Child)
model originally promoted by the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, USA. Its initial goal was to minimize
the digital divide, promoting social equity and
access to digital technologies, and gradually
advancing towards integration of information and
communications technology (ICT) into teaching and
learning practices across the educational system.
Since 2007, Plan Ceibal has reached all public schools
in the country, providing every student and teacher
in pre-schools, primary and secondary schools with a
laptop or tablet, and making internet access available
as well. To date, it has benefited over 700,000 children
and teachers (Solari, 2017).
Next, three main characteristics of the
implementation model for Plan Ceibal are presented
and described: the vision of the programme, school-
wide planning, and creation and updating of mobile
learning environments.
2.1. Vision of the programme
Plan Ceibal was launched in 2007 as both a social
equity programme and an educational one, with
the mission of promoting social inclusion, bridging
the digital divide in the country, and providing
beneficiaries with technology and the necessary tools
to use it effectively (Bianchi and Laborde, 2014). The
programme was inspired by the 1:1 model developed
by Nicholas Negroponte at MIT (Alonso et al., 2013;
Area et al., 2014).
The main goal that supported Ceibal’s entire initiative
in Uruguay was to ensure that all children aged 6 to
15 and their teachers in the public education system
had access to a digital device and to the internet.
This was a top-down policy, designed and
coordinated by high-level politicians in the country,
whose priority was to promote the integration of
technology in the service of education, with the vision
to improve quality and promote processes of social
innovation, inclusion and personal growth.
In its second stage, as reported by Michael Fullan (Fullan
et al., 2013), Plan Ceibal also offered contents, digital
resources, platforms and extensive teacher training,
which are further described in section 2.3.2. Following
Fullan’s recommendations, since 2014 Plan Ceibal and
ANEP have engaged with new pedagogical approaches,
described below.

6
In order to execute Plan Ceibal, the following objectives were defined (Solari, 2017):
to contribute to improve educational quality by integrating technology
into classrooms, schools and households
to promote equality of opportunities for all students in primary education,
providing each child and teacher with a laptop
to develop a collaborative culture along four lines: child-to-child, child-to-
teacher, teacher-to-teacher and child–family–school
to promote digital and critical literacy within the pedagogical community
in accordance with ethical principles
Adhering to these objectives, and in the same direction as the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development
(UNESCO, 2017), Ceibal works to create a sustainable, inclusive and innovative education for the future along two
central dimensions:
Institutional adoption and uptake
The case of Uruguay is not different from other public
initiatives for the implementation of large-scale
digital technologies. In this sense, it is important to
mention that the support of the community (parents,
communities and citizens in general) to Plan Ceibal
was significantly high from the beginning, since
there were great expectations of what technology
could offer to improve the national education system.
However, in the early days the Technical Assemblies of
Teachers questioned two aspects: the government’s
prioritization of this technological initiative over other
educational needs, and the limited participation of
educators in the implementation of Plan Ceibal. This
criticism, however, failed to attract significant support
and has become less prominent over time. It is likely
that the broad social and political support that the
initiative inspired was related to the fact that, by
placing technology as a new social right, it became
a concrete symbol of the moves to promote equality
that were much welcomed in the country, and thus
represented the recovery of the equalizing role of
public education (Hinostroza and Labbé, 2010).
In order to understand how society perceived this
programme, especially in the early years, it is worth
noting that these computers were the very first
electronic device used by many families. This was
especially so in the lowest socio-economic classes.
The consequent community support was important
in influencing educators to adopt and embrace the
opportunities offered by technologies and platforms.
Educators also deepened their knowledge of how
to use technologies and how they can contribute to
enriching teaching and learning experiences.
the provision of technology to the educational community
the facilitation of the development of every Uruguayan child and
adolescent’s learning potential, based on creativity and critical thinking in
the current age of knowledge

2. The model
7
Context sensitivity
Uruguay has about 3,500,000 inhabitants, and is
divided into nineteen departments and eighty-nine
municipalities. By 2015 it had one of the highest
Human Development Index scores in Latin America
(0.795). It is globally recognized as a progressive
and open country when it comes to designing and
implementing social policies.
Even so, a major initiative to deploy ICT required
considerable effort. There was no international
precedent, and the educational community
experienced both uncertainty and expectation. The
response did not reflect resistance to technology,
but it did lead to a national debate on how public
education could be part of a global technological
revolution, and how to tackle the challenges and
difficulties involved.
Researchers found that some of the most interesting
transformations took place not in classrooms or
traditional education settings, but in other locations.
Learners and teachers used these technological
tools after class, during leisure time, for online work,
when participating in community centre initiatives,
for their hobbies and other interests, and so on. In
other words, there were ample opportunities and
means for individuals to explore using the technology
by themselves, based on their interests or personal
needs. Particularly relevant aspects of this experience
are the development of digital skills, creation of new
opportunities for lifelong learning, and collaborative
knowledge-building. All these transformations made
it evident that the influence of Plan Ceibal’s initiatives
went far beyond the classroom; they generated a high
level of involvement and identification from the entire
society (Bianchi and Laborde, 2014; Cobo and Mateu,
2016).
Relevance of mobile learning to major needs
In hardware terms (specifically access to a device
and access to the network), at the end of 2017 there
were 868,454 devices (21 per cent of which were
tablets, 79 per cent laptops), reaching 97 per cent of
the students in initial education, primary and basic
public education (EMB). Almost all (99 per cent) of
educational centres (2,500) had Wi-Fi connectivity,
and 1,500 were equipped with videoconferencing
technology (Solari, 2017). After the first three years
of implementation, the digital divide between the
lowest and highest income quintiles had decreased
substantially. In 2006, only 5.7 per cent of people in
the lowest income quintile had a device at home,
while nearly 49 per cent of those in the highest
quintile did. By 2010, penetration had increased to
57.9 per cent and 65 per cent respectively. After the
initial phase aimed at addressing the digital divide
and securing ICT access, the Plan evolved towards the
effective integration of technologies in the classroom
and across the educational curricula (Cobo, 2016a).
At the beginning of this initiative considerable
attention was given to the idea of access to high-
quality or real-time online information. This was
particularly noticeable in places with little previous
access to the internet (such as rural areas, small
villages and low-income neighbourhoods), where
students could not access online libraries, remote
teaching, educational platforms and other online
resources. Today (2018) the expansion of smartphones
and other national programmes that offer low-cost
connectivity at home means that these resources
are available to most people, but in the early years of
Plan Ceibal the schools and other community spaces
offering public Wi-Fi connectivity were the only way a
large section of society could go online.
Over the last 10 years of technological evolution,
connectivity has become a critical infrastructure in
daily life. When access to technology is much more
open and universal, learning environments expanded
from formal educational tools to other types of online
resources (Angeriz et al., 2015). For instance, Dropbox,

8
Google Drive, YouTube, Wikipedia and WhatsApp are
used on a daily basis for coordination and knowledge
exchange. The learning experience has expanded to
venues, channels and contexts beyond the curriculum
and school activities. The skills developed by learners
have become more diversified and sophisticated. What
was initially conceived as a way to enrich the formal
learning experience has evolved into an opportunity
to fruitfully integrate formal and non-formal education.
The combination of face-to-face and online learning
experiences, and the integration of individual and
community-based learning, are both the causes and
consequences of this redefinition. Some of the most
critical transformations identified are not related purely
to technology, but to enabling new dynamics of
relationships, including new forms of consuming and
producing knowledge with others, and more flexibility
in what is understood as a learning experience.
These transformations of contexts offered a number
of opportunities and benefits, but brought new
challenges in school communities.
2.2. School-wide planning
Coordination and institutional support system
The Ceibal programme was designed as a multi-
system effort. Although Plan Ceibal was the agency
in charge of implementation, behind its endeavours
were the entities whose representatives comprised
its board, particularly ANEP and MEC. From the
beginning, close coordination between them was
fundamental to its effective administration and
evolution.
In the flexible institutional design led by Centro
Ceibal, ANEP participates and collaborates actively,
particularly in those dimensions aimed at promoting
the educational uses of technology, the adoption of
digital resources, training and teacher support. This
2 www.ceibal.edu.uy
3 www.uruguayeduca. edu.uy
design has enabled the development of national
capacities that make it possible to project this policy
into the future, monitor its progress, investigate its
effects and continuously adjust its strategies.
Infrastructure, development, technological
affordance and adoption of digital content
The generation and dissemination of digital content
in accordance with the needs of the Uruguayan
educational system has been a central concern of
Ceibal’s directors since the beginning. This includes
the operating systems and their interface, the general
and educational applications provided, and the digital
resources and platforms that can be accessed through
the internet. All the devices delivered by Ceibal include
tools for writing, painting, recording, programming
and calculating, among other functions. Students
are now familiar with and use these as well as games
and educational programs, which are often used
both inside and outside the classroom. Ceibal’s main
concern now is to enrich and update the range of
resources that students and teachers can access online.
Currently, two educational web portals containing
resources and support of various kinds are offered:
Plan Ceibal2
portal and ANEP3
educational portal.
These portals have been used by teachers since the
early years of implementation.
a) Ceibal Digital Library.3
This is a repository of
more than 4,000 digital resources, including
textbooks, books, didactic or multimedia
resources (videos, images, songs and so
on). Ceibal negotiated with the publishing
industry to acquire the necessary rights. The
library contains seventy-six of the 100 books
established as minimum reading for Uruguayan
children by the ProLEE programme promoted
by ANEP, twenty-five of which are preloaded on
the tablets delivered to children in Grade 1.

©PLANCEIBAL
2. The model
9
Two sections of the library offer teaching
units designed for classroom use. The first,
called CLIC, covers five subjects from the
first to third year of secondary education
(mathematics, biology, geography, history and
Spanish language), while the second, called
EDUCATION, contains downloadable units for
grades 5 and 6 in chemistry, physics, biology,
astronomy and geography. Finally, the library
also offers a repository of multimedia contents
that can be used by teachers and students,
including videos, songs, audio-stories, images
and so on.
b) CREA2.4
This is the second version of a content
management platform that Ceibal makes
available to teachers and students. The first,
called CREA, was used in 2012–13, and had the
structure of traditional learning management
environments (or LMS, by the acronym in
English for learning management system) of the
MOODLE type. This proved difficult for teachers
4 blogs.ceibal.edu.uy/plataformas/?page_id=155
5 www.ceibal.edu.uy/pam#
to manage. In 2014, a new platform acquired
from the Schoology company was adopted,
which included all the benefits of the previous
LMS and some new ones, and was much
easier for teachers. The CREA2 platform allows
teachers to plan, organize and guide sequences
of activities for their students, providing them
with content, discussion forums, videos,
evaluations and so on, within the same virtual
space.
c) PAM.5
This adaptive platform for learning
mathematics, acquired from the German
company Bettermarks, contains more than
100,000 activities covering the entire curriculum
from Grade 3 of primary school to Grade 3
of secondary education. Teachers can plan a
series of interactive exercises accompanied
by explanatory reinforcement material, and
the level of difficulty is automatically adjusted
according to the student’s performance.
Figure 2: Plan Ceibal’s digital library containing more than 4000 educational resources.

10
d) Open Educational Resources.6
This collection
of nearly 2,000 digital resources catalogued and
linked to the curriculum is freely available to be
adapted and used by students and teachers.
It covers diverse topics for primary and
secondary education. Typically, these resources
are designed to be used autonomously by
students, either as part of a task set by their
teachers or on their own initiative.
e) DOMO.7
This is a collection of educational
video games developed by Ceibal to involve
students and help them acquire different types
of skill. To promote its use, Ceibal annually
holds a National Olympics. Until 2014, learners
competed in the video game Cazaproblemas,
aimed at developing mathematical skills and
logical reasoning (in 2014 there were about
100,000 downloads of the game); since 2015,
a game oriented to developing inference has
been used.
f) Uruguay Educa.8
This portal developed by CEIP
(Council of Initial and Primary Education) offers
lesson plans and digital resources (images,
games, programs, videos and so on), organized
according to the different levels and subjects of
the Uruguayan curriculum.
2.3 School-wide mobile learning practice
2.3.1. The introduction of the ‘Ceibal en Inglés’
programme
‘Ceibal en Inglés’9
is one of Plan Ceibal’s initiatives that
supports the teaching of English. In primary schools,
it was developed as a solution to the problem of a
lack of English teachers, while in secondary schools
where there are English teachers in the classrooms,
6 www.ceibal.edu.uy/es/rea
7 domo.ceibal.edu.uy/home
8 www.uruguayeduca.edu.uy/
9 www.ceibal.edu.uy/es/ceibal-en-ingles
10 www.ceibal.edu.uy/es/red-global-de-aprendizajes
the focus is put on speaking skills. A Conversation
Class program puts students in contact with a native
speaker of English through videoconferencing (De los
Santos, 2015; Madera, 2017).
Both programs propose a methodology that integrates
technologies and the work of teaching teams. In
primary schools, Ceibal English classes are held three
days a week. Once a week, students take classes with
an English teacher through the video conference
equipment installed in their school by Plan Ceibal.
The remote teachers can be located in Uruguay or
abroad, and they use videoconferencing equipment
in the schools. The other two weekly classes are led
by classroom teachers. Since 2015, English has been
taught in almost all urban public schools thanks to
the combined efforts of‘Ceibal en Inglés’and the
Department of Second and Foreign Languages of
Preschool and Primary Education Council (CEIP in
Spanish), which runs an on-site English language
teaching programme. Currently, Ceibal en Inglés serves
around 80,000 children, while 32,000 are learning in a
traditional way.
In secondary schools, all the remote teachers are
native speakers of English, thus the project covers
speaking skills while providing cultural enrichment
and intercultural experiences.
2.3.2. The introduction of the programme New
Pedagogies for Deep Learning focused on twenty-
first-century skills
Since 2014, Uruguay has been one of the seven
countries participating in the Global Learning Network,
an initiative promoted by Michael Fullan within
the framework of a project called New Pedagogies
for Deep Learning10
(NPDL). NPDL aims to explore
applicable answers to the most complex problems of
contemporary education. Its premise is that education

2. The model
11
needs to be more connected to students’lives outside
school, and the academic contents should be more
relevant and meaningful. In this network, teachers,
managers and decision-makers are encouraged
to exchange ideas, experiences and education
innovations in technology-enriched contexts (Fullan et
al., 2017). Uruguay plays a strategic role in the Global
Learning Network by collaboratively exploring the
new teaching and learning methods that Plan Ceibal
intends to foster throughout the entire education
system (Cobo, 2016b; Cobo et al., 2016).
The network comprises schools in Australia, Canada,
Finland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the United
States and Uruguay, and consists of over 500
schools. In Uruguay, where the initiative is known
as Red Global de Aprendizaje, ANEP and Plan Ceibal
implement the project in close collaboration. The
overall goal is to promote a learner-centred vision.
NPDL seeks to forge competencies that are relevant
to life in the contemporary world, such as creativity,
collaborative work and critical thinking.
2.3.3. The implementation of computational
thinking initiatives
To be not only consumers of technology but creators
of the gadgets: this is one of the premises behind
the introduction of Computational Thinking into
schools. It is a system of thought that emerged from
computing, but has crossed its borders, and aims to
provide students with new skills that will help them
understand the dizzying digital world they will inhabit
in future.
Computational Thinking can be understood as a
way of thinking that is not restricted to coding,
programming and the computer. Students learn
logical reasoning, algorithmic thinking and problem-
solving techniques, all valuable concepts and skills
which can be used widely. In addition, they learn to
11 www.ceibal.edu.uy/es/articulo/que-aporta-al-aula-el-pensamiento-computacional
12 www.anep.edu.uy/sea/
express their ideas, and develop their creativity and
design skills. The proposal also integrates the STEM
(science, technology, engineering and mathematics)
areas, Project-Based Learning and work with concrete
material. Plan Ceibal’s Computational Thinking
project11
promotes the development of the basic skills
needed to identify a problem, understand it and come
up with innovative solutions. In 2018 a pilot project
was running in over 150 full-time schools.
Teacher training is the result of a blended model
intervention. The teachers receive face-to-face
training (in a specialized lab) where they learn how
to develop and use a number of tools, resources and
materials (such as coding, several boards, robotic kits,
lab sensor kits and 3D printers). They also have access
to a number of massive open online courses (MOOCs),
plus additional documentation provided in CREA2.
The whole training aims to develop new capacities in
educators and to ensure the adoption of innovative
methodologies and constructionist pedagogical
approaches. As with Ceibal en Inglés, Computational
Thinking lessons include remote teaching via video
conferencing, virtual coordination and work-based
projects in the classroom with teachers.
• Feasibility, monitoring and evaluation
Although innovation in the pedagogical approaches
and tools for learning have been increasingly adopted,
new questions regarding how to rethink assessment
have also emerged. In Uruguay, both the tools and the
emphasis on what needs to be assessed have evolved
during the years of the project. SEA (the national
system of learning evaluation)12
can be highlighted.
SEA is a formative assessment platform which
provides critical information to teachers on the stage
their learners have reached at the student, classroom
and school levels. This platform is open and free for
educators, as well as principals and other decision-
makers, who can monitor the evaluation over time.

12
This platform has been used for almost ten years for
nearly 900,000 students at primary and secondary
levels (INEED, 2016).
The Adaptive Mathematics Platform (PAM) is an adaptive
platform developed for teaching and learning maths
skills.The teacher can use this platform in class, or can ask
students to do homework using it.The platform assigns
activities and tasks to students according to their level of
performance, and these gradually evolve as they improve.
Plan Ceibal worked on the integration of PAM and
SEA. The aim was to improve the teaching and
learning process by automatically generating maths
exercises in PAM to address the main learning gaps
detected in the SEA evaluation.
The strategies adopted to measure learning vary
according to the objective and the specificity of each
project in Plan Ceibal. Impact-based assessment usually
measures performance before and after an intervention
in order to evaluate the benefit of the intervention,
which might be the use of a platform or a method
of teaching. This has been used at a national scale to
measure improvements in English and maths. Other
assessments use adaptive tools to evaluate or monitor
the learners’performance level or their progression.
Two large-scale evaluations were designed to
assess the socio-economic impact of Plan Ceibal’s
educational initiatives:
Ceibal en Inglés: The results from the national
adaptive English evaluations (made between 2014 and
2017 on over 70,000 primary and secondary students)
highlight‘significant inter-annual improvement in all
sociocultural contexts’(Plan Ceibal et al., 2016, p. 8;
Kaiser, 2017). The right guidelines and teacher support
become critical factors when thinking about the value
that digital technologies can add to the learning
experience.
Figure 3: Show held at the National Olympics of robotics, programming and coding.
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2. The model
13
PAM: This maths digital platform has shown the value
that ICT can add for students from lower socio-economic
classes. A study by Perera and Aboal (2018) established
that PAM has aided the development of maths skills. It
was a longitudinal study of students who were in Grade
3 of primary education in 2013, and were re-evaluated
in 2016, when most were in their sixth year of formal
education. A total of 2,143 students attending 237 public
or private schools all over the country were evaluated
longitudinally in mathematics. This study describes the
impact of the math platform. This longitudinal study
showed a positive effect (of 0.20 standard deviations) in
the gain of mathematics learning in those children who
had used PAM compared with students who had not
used it. Noteworthy, the study also indicated that the
major effects were observed in students of lower socio-
economic status.
Plan Ceibal is also participating in international
comparative studies to evaluate the ICT competencies
of students and educators. For example, the
International Computer and Information Literacy
Study (ICILS) is a computer-based international
assessment of eighth-grade students led by the
International Association for the Evaluation of
Educational Achievement (IEA). The results will be
made available during 2019. This is considered a
remarkable opportunity to assess the impact of
the education and technology programme at a
national and international level. Other tests have
used psychometric instruments to measure the
development of learners’soft skills.
• Learning analytics – Big Data
Plan Ceibal has reached approximately 700.000
beneficiaries and delivered 1.681.830 devices among
tablets and laptops to students (from pre-school level
to secondary school) and teachers. Moreover, close
to 28.000 teachers have participated in capacity-
building and training programmes organized and
conducted by specific programmes of Plan Ceibal on
a yearly basis. Since 2011, it has focused on providing
the learning community with a wide range of digital
content to enhance the teaching and learning process,
most notably LMS, PAM, remote English teaching
and an online library. Today, Plan Ceibal operates and
integrates a large set of databases fed by a number of
management and educational activities. This abundance
of data presents a great challenge and a large
opportunity to exploit and transform a wealth of data
into rich information (Cobo et al., 2017).
Efforts are under way to consolidate learning analytics
that may provide strategic information on the impact
of teaching and learning using technology. Examples
include the analysis of information regarding online
behaviour, people with learning disabilities, school
retention, personalized learning, students’enhanced
records, their contexts and consequent interactions.
The objective is to expand current understanding of
learning as well as to provide relevant information
that can be used to monitor and optimize learning
environments. In this way, learning analytics can be
used strategically to adjust contents and support
levels, and to customize services (processes and tools)
to improve both learning and teaching. Learning
analytics can be very helpful to make sense of the
interactions and actions taking place in different
learning environments (Cobo et al., 2017).
Till 2015 this information was collected and processed
just for management and operational purposes,
without analysing user behaviour. In order to expand
these experiences and to conduct advanced analytics
that could provide critical information to serve the
educational system, a Big Data Centre for Learning
Analytics is being developed. This should transform a
significant stream of data into critical information that
can support decision-making at the policy-maker level,
and also guide and support the work of educators.
One of the goals is to build a comprehensive
360-degree online user profile. Combined with
statistical modelling techniques it should help to
identify online patterns on aspects such as learning
styles, content creation pathways and adaptive
contents services; predict learning behaviours; and
measure students’engagement or retention (Cobo et
al., 2017). This meta-index should also provide useful
information on the school system as a whole.

14
2.4. Mobile learning environment
Mobility and ubiquity
On a global scale, a large number of technology
and education programmes provide access to
computers, many of which can only be accessed
when learners are at school. Consequently, in these
cases educational technology is exclusively used
during lessons, and students are expected to use the
digital device following the instructions given by their
teachers (Bianchi and Laborde, 2014). This has been
the reality in a large number of schools where there
is a room designated for computers and there are
specific rules on how to use these technological tools.
This model of using technology is known as one-to-
many.
In the case of Uruguay, the state provides one laptop
or tablet (depending on the individual’s age) to
each learner, not to the school administration.13
The
learners own the device and are encouraged to use
it whenever they want, in a flexible and personalized
fashion. That flexibility is also applicable to teachers.
Educators are not obliged to use technology, they
decide whether to use it. This level of flexibility is
particularly relevant because teachers are encouraged
to use technology when they consider it suitable
for learning purposes. However, this can mean that
the technology is not used in the classroom on a
regular basis. The key aspect is that regardless of the
frequency of use of computers in the classroom, what
is prioritized is suitability for the learning context.
Learners and teachers use technologies systematically
and regularly in different environments, including
public spaces, but also in their homes. This on-
demand form of using technology is not only more
natural and fluid, it is considered an opportunity to
support the needs of the user. This vision provides a
different perspective from those who only consider
education as a tool for facilitating formal learning (or
mastering the subjects covered in the curriculum).
13 This might be different in preschool.
It understands digital tools as a ‘bike for the brain’
instead, creating opportunities for boosting people’s
capacities and their interest in learning (Mateu et al.,
2018). Learners also have access to a set of platforms
and digital resources to support their own learning
interests.
This reality allows for a variety of learning experiences
to take place at home and during personal or leisure
activities, based on the interests or needs of the
learner. Here the connection between formal and
informal learning is regular and permanent. While
this is a valuable opportunity, it is important to
highlight that the benefits of using technology tend
to be associated with students’social and economic
context. In other words, when learners are raised in
environments that stimulate their active exploration,
critical thinking and pursuing their own interests, the
influence of technology seems to be much stronger.
Accessibility
Plan Ceibal has implemented different strategies to
include children and adolescents with a disability
(visual, auditory, motor, developmental disorder,
and so on) to ensure ‘equality of opportunities’,
democratization of knowledge and learning in the
school as well as in other contexts. Plan Ceibal’s
accessibility approach can be summarized as follows:
• recognizes the particularities of each
disability.
• incorporates the beneficiaries and their
communities into the work processes
(including educational institutions,
representative civil society organizations and
families).
• understands that accessibility is a critical and
central aspect of educational technology
projects.

2. The model
15
To support students with special needs, those who
have some degree of disability can request special
devices or resources. A communication is established
with the educational institution as well as with a
civil society/non-governmental organization that
works with groups of people with disabilities. Close
collaboration between institutions and beneficiaries is
needed to determine the most suitable equipment or
solution depending on the pathology of the student.
That includes accessibility solutions: for instance,
special hardware, software or adapted contents or
learning materials. Additionally, resources to increase
awareness regarding people with special capacities
are available. Some of these accessibility options are:
• Adapted computers with operating systems
and software (such as a nonvisual desktop
access (NVDA) screen reader, or a special
desktop) or contents adapted for students
with different forms of disability.
• Plan Ceibal in association with Teletón
Foundation created hardware to facilitate
navigation or interaction when children with
motor disabilities use laptops.
• A Digital and Accessible Library, which
provides digitized textbooks for children
who are blind, visually impaired or have
other disabilities (such as audiobooks, and
adapted books for children with autism). The
library offers tools and educational resources
which can be used by children or young
people with special needs.
• Installation of video conferencing in schools
as well as adjustment of multimedia
educational materials adapted for hearing-
impaired students.
• Plan Ceibal developed the Ceibal-LSU app
which teaches sign language to those with
hearing. Users (students or teachers) can
14 The number of teachers in Uruguay including both primary and secondary education in 2008 was close to 50,000 (Instituto Nacional De
Evaluación Educativa).
15 This figure does not include Montevideo.
watch videos and learn how words are
translated into sign language.
2.5 Capacity-building
Plan Ceibal offers a variety of training instances in
order to ensure that educators and staff can find the
flexibility and the resources they need to take the
right courses or upskilling opportunities. For instance,
capacity-building is offered in modalities including
virtual courses, face-to-face workshops, support to
teachers in the local schools throughout the territory,
and a variety of training on experimental projects.
The introduction of laptops in the formal education
system revealed new training needs. So far, over
28,000 enrolments to training courses in educational
technologies have been offered by Ceibal. As an
example, between March and September 2018, more
than 7,500 teachers completed virtual or face-to-face
courses coordinated by Ceibal’s Educational Training
Department.14
Also, in 2018, and within the activities developed by
the New Pedagogies, 5,884 teachers enrolled in virtual
courses (New Pedagogies, Designs of Deep Learning
Activities, Assessment by Competences, Educational
Leadership, Moderation of Activities and Production
of Academic Articles), and 2,350 teachers participated
in face-to-face training sessions (called ENLACEs).
These summits focused on education communities
such as classroom teachers, Ceibal support teachers,
principals and supervisors.
In addition, within the period 2012–18, Plan Ceibal
has offered over 4,000 training sessions to the future
teachers (pre-service) who are studying and working
as practitioners in the schools. Including the national
number of future teachers who are completing their
last year of professional training, up to 95 per cent15
of

©PLANCEIBAL
16
them took the training offered by Plan Ceibal. These are
basically blended programmes, which involves a face-
to-face course at the beginning of the year, and during
the rest of the period they receive guidance while they
are working as practitioners in schools. The training
includes areas such as how to integrate technology
in the classrooms, project-based learning, school
planning, and how to integrate families into the digital
education experiences.
It is important to add that the training offered varies
according to the needs of the beneficiaries and
depending on the profile of participants. While some
training is offered in fields such as ‘digital citizenship’,
in other cases the support is in the area of innovative
pedagogies to enrich the learning experiences. As
mentioned, the Plan Ceibal team also involves parents,
family and communities in order to offer them tools
and competences that are relevant to learn how to
support and provide guidance when students use the
technology at home or in other informal settings.
Figure 4: Children doing mathematics exercises in PAM, the maths digital platform.

3. Challenges
17
3. Challenges
Since its inception, Plan Ceibal has encountered
diverse challenges that affect its continuing
development. They can be classified as follows
(Angeriz et al., 2015; Solari, 2017): (a) technical and
logistical; (b) organizational issues regarding the
development of suitable internal processes for
delivering quality services; (c) the development of
external accountability and transparency strategies;
(d) coordination with and relation to the education
system (at a macro level with educational institutions
and at a micro level with teachers); and (e) expansion
toward new areas and fields of knowledge,
responding to societal needs and demands, and the
adoption of new projects and programmes.
Perhaps one of the most disruptive/innovative
approaches taken by Plan Ceibal was to use the
deployed technology and the ‘innovation ecosystem’
built during the last ten years to embrace and support
a pedagogical transformation which goes far beyond
the adoption of educational technology. In other
words, the technology is used as a key enabler that
facilitates new forms of experimentation which can
be adopted and developed within the whole school
system to push and promote a systemic educational
innovation approach. This pedagogical transformation
is known in Uruguay as Red Global de Aprendizaje
(as previously described when referring to the New
Pedagogies for Deep Learning).
4. Transferability
Each country and education context is unique. Although
no educational experience is 100 per cent transferable
from one context to another, here we describe some
of the key decisions and lessons learned which could
be helpful for other countries or systems who are
undertaking similar digital education endeavours.
a) Focusing on the pedagogy not only on
the technology: Since its inception Plan
Ceibal’s activities have been inspired by
‘constructionism’, emphasizing the idea of
learning as an active, contextualized process
of constructing knowledge rather than only
valuing the acquisition of external knowledge.
Here technological tools can help and enrich
learning, but they need to be integrated with
the idea of ‘learning by doing’, where the active
and meaningful engagement of the community
is also considered critical.
It has created specific initiatives whose goals
include documenting and systematizing
the implemented innovation experiences.
Red Global de Aprendizaje is one example.
This initiative is a dynamic and inclusive
opportunity to monitor and highlight
innovative pedagogical practices which can
be replicated within the national system
among the participating schools. Since they
are also part of an international network, the
scheme also creates opportunities for sharing
and exchanging good practices between all
participant member countries (Jara, 2016; Solari,
2017).

18
b) Facilitating community building,
communities of practice and networking:
Plan Ceibal facilitates and promotes the
existence of multiple spaces to socialize
and disseminate knowledge accumulated
throughout its 10 years of implementation in
two dimensions (Cobo, 2016a; Jara, 2016; Solari,
2017).
At the institutional level, Plan Ceibal facilitates
and promotes regular meetings and gatherings
of educators. Regional and national summits
are organized to facilitate peer-based
exchanges. These are considered very effective
and influential opportunities to facilitate and
promote learning exchanges and sharing of
good practices, and are also opportunities
for building trust and consolidating the
community of actors who support the adoption
of technologies in the learning environment.
Teachers meet to take part in training and
development events as well as to share their
experiences. In virtual or face-to-face contexts
educators also find opportunities to share their
concerns or let others know what approaches
have not worked as planned (Jara, 2016; Solari,
2017).
At student level, learners also find opportunities
for meeting and connecting with others, either
face-to-face or online. This social experience
is considered critical to promote the sharing
of good practices, project-based learning and
bottom-up innovations, among other issues.
These forms of student collaboration not only
enable the transformation of their role from less
active learners into knowledge producers and
exchangers, they also leverage the possibility of
their gaining recognition among their peers.
An important part of the cultural transformation
within the educational system is grounded on
having different contexts and spaces (physical
and virtual) for sharing and transferring good
practices and positive experiences that can
enrich the work of others. This vision has been
nurtured for years by systematically organizing
annual gatherings (including a national contest
on robotics, design meetings and national
teacher development events) where the
most remarkable experiences are shared or
communicated on a national scale.
c) Developing a culture of accountability,
diversifying the means of evaluation and
monitoring: The creation of an independent
study centre in 2015, the Center for Research –
Ceibal Foundation, is another example of the
new steps taken towards mediating between
learning and technology inside and outside
the formal education system. The generation
and promotion of independent and excellent
research is considered a unique opportunity for
analysis, discussion and knowledge transfer that
can support decision-making by the various
stakeholders in the education system, and help
understand the use of digital technologies
in training and the promotion of better
opportunities.
The Ceibal Foundation has defined priority research
areas for projects and agreements (Jara, 2016; Cobo,
2016b):
• social use of ICT and digital culture – use
practices and knowledge generation;
literacy, digital fluency and maturity;
individuals, citizenship and digital identity;
communities and social networks; changes
in schooling culture.
• resources and platforms – production and
appropriation of educational resources;
accessibility, usability and inclusion; mobile
devices and bring your own device (BYOD);
do it yourself (DIY) technologies.
• new ways of knowing, learning, teaching
and assessing – new pedagogies and
technologies; cognition and meta-cognition;
new syllabus approaches; multiple

4. Transferability
19
learning environments; formal, informal
and non-formal learning; self-learning and
personalization.
• extended learning achievements –
performance and efficiency; evaluation of
achievements in both formal and informal
learning; effects on school learning; new
headings, metrics and indicators.
• teachers in the digital age – basic training
and use of technology; innovation in
teacher professionalization; the teacher
as a knowledge worker: motivation
and recognition; teacher profiles in the
twenty-first century; new ways to boost
performance.
Since 2015, the Ceibal Foundation and the National
Agency for Research and Innovation (ANII) have
offered international funds for the development
of research at the intersection between education,
new technologies and innovation. This is a unique
financing mechanism of its kind. The fund has
financed twenty-eight projects led by national
and foreign research groups. The majority of the
universities and research centres are national; some
are Spanish, Argentinian, North American and Chilean.
Research has also been conducted in Australia, France,
New Zealand, Ecuador and Mexico (Fundación Centro
Ceibal, 2018).
4.1 Main achievements of the Plan Ceibal
Perhaps one of the most significant achievements
of Plan Ceibal is its consistency and sustainability
through the years. In other countries similar initiatives
have been cancelled or discontinued (Alonso et al.,
2013; Area et al., 2014; Alonso et al., 2014).
Since its inception Plan Ceibal has been an initiative
aimed at reducing the digital divide and favouring
social inclusion (Vaillant, 2013), but at the same
time with a strong emphasis on socio-educational
dimensions. So here we discuss its achievements in
two key dimensions: the consolidated social impact,
and the growing educational impact.
Social inclusion
Substantive advances have been made in inclusion
and social equity. The average budget for distributing
digital devices of US$56.2 million per year between
2007 and 2017 (nearly 5 per cent of the total budget
for primary and secondary public education) has
reduced Uruguay’s digital divide. For example, by
2015, over 60 per cent of primary and secondary
school students from lower-income families had
access to a personal computer or tablet from Plan
Ceibal (Melo et al., 2017). In addition, by 2017, 11 per
cent of households in Uruguay had access to a
computer only through Plan Ceibal (Caballero, 2018).
As explained earlier, the goal was to provide laptops
to all students and teachers in primary public
education (85 per cent of school enrolment in the
country). This objective was fully achieved in primary
public education in 2009 and in secondary education
by 2013 (Cobo, 2016a).
Public infrastructure has also seen significant
achievements. In 2006, 25 per cent of households
had a computer and only 14 per cent had an internet
connection, while only 25 per cent of schools had
internet access (Vaillant, 2013). In 2013, 67 per cent
of households had a computer, 53 per cent had an
internet connection, and 96 per cent of schools had
internet access (Cobo, 2016a). In addition, in 2016, the
availability of connectivity in the urban sector reached
95 per cent (Melo et al., 2017).
Finally, since 2010, all students and teachers in
primary and secondary education have received
digital devices, 100 per cent of schools have Wi-Fi
connectivity and internet access, and 92.9 per cent of
urban public schools have access to the internet with
a fibre optic connection (Plan Ceibal, 2018).

20
Educational context
Although Plan Ceibal was created as a policy
focused on social inclusion, over time the support
of educational objectives has become an important
aspect of the project. There are some current
challenges to the educational programme16
(Ferrando
et al., 2011, De Melo et al., 2013, Ceretta and Canzani,
2016), but there have been significant achievements
and milestones in this area (Plan Ceibal, 2018).
Since 2007 Plan Ceibal has created a department
responsible for monitoring and evaluating the
impact and outcomes of this digital education policy.
Additionally, since 2014 the already mentioned Ceibal
Foundation has provided a growing set of studies
and evidences to assess the learning outcomes
achieved so far.17
Given the nature of this educational
digital policy (where nearly 99 per cent of students
in Uruguay have access to a laptop or tablet) non-
comparative studies between the technology have
and have-nots can be conducted. However, currently
new studies are being developed to understand to
what extent the adoption of technology over time
can have an impact on the learning experience of
educators and students. There follows a synthesis of
some of these results of the educational policies.
Ceibal en Inglés:
• 95 per cent of children in Grades 4, 5 and
6 in urban primary schools participate in
English classes (70 per cent of them with
Ceibal en Inglés and 30 per cent who receive
traditional face-to-face English classes).
• 80 per cent of students graduate from
primary school with at least level A2 of the
Common European Framework of Reference
for Languages.
16 Particularly in the field of reading comprehension.
17 Full documentation is available on the following sites: https://digital.fundacionceibal.edu.uy and https://ingles.ceibal.edu.uy/biblioteca
In relation to the Adaptive Mathematics Platform
(PAM):
• 41 per cent of students from primary
education Grade 3 to secondary education
Grade 3 used PAM in 2016.
• 41 million activities were carried out on PAM
in 2016.
In relation to the Digital Technologies Laboratory
programme, and its robotics, programming and 3D
modelling initiatives:
• Up to 2016, 352 educational centres
participated (including secondary
institutions and technical professional
education institutions).
• A Robotics, Programming and Video Games
Olympics has been held annually since 2014,
with 1,500 students participating from all
over the country.
• 86 3D printers have been delivered to
secondary education centres that presented
a project.
In relation to the virtual learning environment
promoted by Ceibal (CREA2):
• 69 per cent of primary school students from
Grades 3 to 6 and their teachers used the
CREA2 platform during 2016.
• In 2017, there were over 230,000 users of
CREA2.
In relation to the new needs for teacher training:
• One verified impact of the Plan Ceibal might
be unexpected: instead of diminishing
the role of teachers and educators, the
introduction of digital technologies in the
classroom has reinforced their relevance.

4. Transferability
21
The evidence is that children in the formal
education system need a guide to help
them evaluate the information they find
on the internet (Ceretta and Picco, 2013),
because they have not yet developed their
critical skills sufficiently to do so themselves.
Continuous support to teacher training is
needed not only to further develop teachers’
skills but also to prepare them to face the
new challenges of a more global and digital
education.
Last but not least, work is being done to consolidate
learning analytics that can offer strategic information
on teaching and learning with technology. For
example, they could provide information about
online activities, learning patterns, completion rates,
personalized learning, students’backgrounds, their
contexts and the interactions that are generated. The
objective is to broaden the understanding of learning,
and also provide relevant information that can be
used to enrich the learning experience.
©PLANCEIBAL
Figure 5: Remote English lesson using video conference equipment.

22
5. Conclusions and recommendations
Plan Ceibal has significantly evolved and consolidated
since its creation in 2007. It has implemented, over a
decade, different strategies to promote and achieve
the four goals of this policy: improve educational
quality, promote equality of opportunities, develop
a collaborative culture, and promote digital and
critical literacy within the educational system. In short,
Plan Ceibal is the result of continuous monitoring,
negotiating and improving technology to enhance
educators’and students’experiences.
In addition to permanent coordination with different
institutions and actors, other factors that have been
identified as critical are consistency and coherence
in the implementation of public education policies.
This means that it is important not to deviate
from the original goals while understanding that
digital inclusion is a moving target, and permanent
revisions of the plan are needed. Time-wise,
technological deployment can be less demanding
than the generation of the cultural transformations
(including different dynamics, diverse pedagogies,
language changes, and redefinition of authority) that
appropriate implementation of digital technology can
drive in the educational system.
It is important to consider that the technological
transformations and institutional changes are unlikely
to develop at the same speed. Their interdependence
is evident, but it can take considerably more time to
develop educators’digital capacities and identify clear
evidence of deeper transformation in the dynamics of
teaching and learning.
With this in mind, these are among the most relevant
challenges and opportunities that are considered
critical for the future of Plan Ceibal.
5.1. Technology-enhanced learning
Access to digital technologies alone is not an essential
condition in achieving better learning outcomes.
However, when well implemented, technologies
can be powerful drivers of specific forms of social
learning such as project (or problem)-based learning,
do-it-yourself learning, collaborative problem-solving,
positive feedback and development of social skills.
Second, ICT is helpful not just in the classroom
but in other learning contexts. This represents an
opportunity, but also a challenge for traditional
education settings.
5.2. Digital citizenship
Four aspects of ‘digital citizenship’are relevant here.
First, the transformation of contexts (or hyper-
connection) offers opportunities and benefits, but
has also brought new problems. Second, the unclear
distinction between online and offline contexts is
posing new challenges. It is critical to understand the
complex effect of digital technologies on classical
distinctions such as formal and informal, individual
and collective, private and public. Third, emerging
challenges include regulating screen time, online
privacy and security, and the digital footprint. Fourth,
it is important to develop users’skills in handling
cyberbullying, online security and promoting cyber
wellness. What is needed is a new culture of civic,
social and democratic participation, including face-to-
face, virtual and blended environments.

5. Conclusions and recommendations
23
5.3. Innovation at a scale
Four prominent aspects of implementation can be
highlighted here. First, the investment cannot be only
in technology infrastructure. It is critical to design
and to implement comprehensive digital education
policies, to ensure efficient and clear division of
labour with responsible teams for technical support,
permanent updating of the devices, connectivity
monitoring, teacher training, updated production
of education contents and learning platforms,
online and offline support, among other issues.
Second, new technologies define new boundaries,
so implementing them will create tensions and a
need for negotiation. To ensure smooth integration,
all participants’visions must be considered. Third, it
is important to continue developing and facilitating
a culture of accountability, measurement and
monitoring. Likewise, it is paramount to sustain
efforts to identify the most effective strategies
to support student learning. And fourth, close
coordination between all the member institutions
is critical to ensure an appropriate balance between
the integration of educational technologies and the
embracing of new pedagogical models.
5.4. Educators in the digital era
Four points can also be made about teachers. First,
the unprecedented access to knowledge does
not mean the role of the educator is redundant.
Teachers’contributions are even more critical, but
different. Likewise, the relationship with knowledge
is continuously evolving. Second, permanent teacher
development is a key factor for success when
integrating technology into learning environments.
It is important to design and implement continuous
training for in-service teachers, but a critical aspect
is to ensure that high-quality pre-service training
includes working with technology. Third, technology
can be used meaningfully throughout the learning
process, but this does not mean digital devices
suit all purposes. Clear rules, strategic guidelines
or negotiated protocols need to be adopted when
integrating technology. Fourth, learning how to
use technology is not the same as learning how to
teach with technology. A meaningful integration of
technology requires teachers not just to understand
how to use the technology but to redefine their
pedagogical strategies.
Finally, technological change is not limited to the
world of education, and transforming education is
not limited to technology. New forms of teaching,
learning and evaluating will be the result of
adopting flexible organizational dynamics. There
are a large number of aspects considered critical for
the successful implementation of a national digital
education policy. A socio-technical perspective is
essential for understanding the interacting dynamics
involved in large-scale changes, like those attempted
in Uruguay.
Real change happens not when technology is
introduced but when the actors transform their
practices. The value of a digital educational policy
does not lie in the introduction of novel gadgets
but in its capacity to offer new possibilities and
affordances for different forms of learning, which
enable exploration, curiosity and creativity. The
changing boundaries of education demand that we
keep these redefinitions open and subject them to
permanent revisions.
In the context of public policy for digital education,
innovation is relevant only when it can be scaled
up to the whole education system. That is why after
ten years Plan Ceibal has enabled an innovation
ecosystem that brings equity and new opportunities
for the current and coming generations of learners
and educators.

24
References
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––––. 2016b. Ceibal Plan: new technologies, pedagogies, ways of teaching, learning and assessing. Assessment
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26
Ceibal en Inglés: a winwin situation that favours inclusion and equality. Proceedings of the 7th Conference
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Sustainable
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Stay in touch
https://on.unesco.org/fazheng
fazhengproject@unesco.org
www.facebook.com/UNESCOICTinEducation
@UNESCOICTs
Education
Sector
United Nations
Cultural Organization
The Global Education 2030 Agenda
UNESCO, as the United Nations’specialized
agency for education, is entrusted to lead and
coordinate the Education 2030 Agenda, which is
part of a global movement to eradicate poverty
through 17 Sustainable Development Goals by
2030. Education, essential to achieve all of these
goals, has its own dedicated Goal 4, which aims to
“ensure inclusive and equitable quality education
and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.”
The Education 2030 Framework for Action provides
guidance for the implementation of this ambitious
goal and commitments.
UNESCO Education Sector
Education is UNESCO’s top priority because it is
a basic human right and the foundation on which
to build peace and drive sustainable development.
UNESCO is the United Nations’specialized agency
for education and the Education Sector provides
global and regional leadership in education,
strengthens national education systems and
responds to contemporary global challenges
through education with a special focus on
gender equality and Africa.
About the Fazheng Group
The Fazheng Group is a multi-business organization in
China, which covers a wide range of interests including
education. It has established a global school network
providing comprehensive coverage of K-12 education.
The project Best practices in mobile learning
Funded by the Fazheng Group, the project aims to
guide the planning and implementation of school-
wide mobile learning practices. The case study series
consists of more than 15 initiatives including both
top-down cases driven by governments and
bottom-up cases initiated in individual schools,
selected through desk research and a competitive call
for proposals process.

Enhancing social inclusion through innovative mobile learning in Uruguay. Cristobal Cobo & Pablo Rivera

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