VAKIF k12 2030
The Vakıf K12 initiative completes its 12th year. When we set out, the developing digital tools and sharing networks excited us greatly. Time- and location-independent learning, individual access to information and resources, and constantly multiplying and developing digital learning materials encouraged us to work and produce in this field, and to prepare platforms to offer to the learning community. Without receiving any financial support, entirely through our own resources and wonderful project stakeholders, we have completed 7 digital platforms and 1 application to date, as well as producing a reading series of 350 books. From our series named Okuma Ağacı (Reading Tree), we distributed over 1 million books to various provinces and districts of Turkey. By undertaking school transformation projects in important educational institutions—projects that are each approaching their 4th year—we have carried out the necessary process and infrastructure work with great self-sacrifice, faith, and dedication so that these institutions can reach their goals.As we reach today, we observe that the conditions that led us to work on these projects have changed significantly. While talking about applications, platforms, and digital learning materials, we witness that the entire structure of the education ecosystem has changed and is continuing to change with the entry of artificial intelligence into our lives. With the advancement of artificial intelligence every passing day, its areas of application and capabilities are also developing, and in connection with this, educational processes—research, planning, implementation, evaluation, reporting—are being redefined. Naturally, the functions, impacts, and existence of learning platforms, learning materials, and applications also take their share from this change.What does this mean for us? Trying to understand and adapt to this change is not even an optional choice. However, unknown aspects of change such as its speed, depth, and scope often lead us down paths we choose through well-intentioned educated guesses. We will preserve what we have built. However, we are aware that beyond this point, we must support learning processes with other tools and processes. For this reason, we have dedicated the next two years to thoroughly understanding artificial intelligence and its use cases, testing them in multiple pilot applications, and developing guides and suggestions for our stakeholders. Alongside these efforts, while continuing school transformation, European Union projects, and book distribution projects in requesting districts, we aim to expand our impact into new project areas by implementing sports support and individual scholarship programs for the first time.We would like to thank all our stakeholders who believed in us and contributed to this journey.
Kerim Gürçay