Lean digital education to resolve the paradox of the illusion of digital prosperity

Digital education, including digitally supported education, is loaded with biases. Most participants are blinded by the abundance of digital devices and misled by the hardware and software providers who try to convince and force education systems to keep track of untraceable developments. However, recent studies have revealed that the productivity of the participants and the sustainability of their digital artifacts generate a huge but silent waste, both in terms of human and machine resources. This contradiction generates a paradox in which the illusion of digital prosperity does not allow us to clearly see the ineffectiveness of digital processes and artifacts and the losses piling up. Our research revealed that the methodology of Lean Thinking allows us to find the root causes of the problems and the revolutionary changes which must be applied to eliminate the waste generated by the participants in the digital era. It was also found that the adaptation of the lean philosophy, proven effective in production, services, and administration, can be a solution in resolving the paradox of digital education, which leads us to Lean Digital Education (LDE). Within this framework – instead of the widely accepted tool-centered ideas – we offer a human-centered, long-term thinking philosophy focusing on respect for participants, on their development, tasks, and problems, while at the same time eliminating and reducing waste. The present paper details the strength of this innovative approach which is based on (1) a solid theoretical background (2) a reliable measuring system for calculating the waste of digital activities and artifacts, (3) approaches proven to be effective and efficient in end-user data management, and (4) examples of the learning-teaching materials which support the philosophy adapted.