How do educators decide whether digital learning materials are appropriate, accessible and genuinely useful? With the growing availability of online resources and AI-generated content, the question goes well beyond choosing an attractive platform or an engaging activity.
The European Commission’s Making informed choices on digital education content: EU guidelines for teachers and educators offers practical guidance on selecting, creating, accessing, using, adapting and evaluating digital education content. Developed as part of the EU Digital Education Action Plan, the resource is intended to support teachers, school leaders and other education professionals as they make decisions about digital materials.
I was pleased to contribute as a member of the Expert Group on Digital Education Content, whose collective work supported the development of these guidelines. My contribution is acknowledged in the publication. This is a European Commission publication, rather than an individually authored paper.
Looking beyond the technology
A particularly useful feature of the guidance is its attention to educational quality. Choosing a digital resource involves considering its relevance to learning objectives, accessibility and inclusion, reliability, impact on learning, legal requirements, technical interoperability and the full costs of adoption. A digital resource should add educational value, not merely introduce technology into a lesson.
These considerations also matter at institutional level. Schools need coherent approaches to evaluating digital content, supporting teachers’ professional judgement, and reviewing whether the resources in use are having the intended effect on learners.
Read the 2026 European Commission publication and the full guidelines released in December 2025. The Commission formally introduced the guidance in March 2026; the 2026 edition linked here was released on the EU Publications Office website on 4 June 2026.
For more of my published research and professional contributions, see the Publications page.
Editorial note (October 2026): This entry was added retrospectively to the blog archive and dated July 2026 to accompany the 2026 publication.
