Hege Nilssen, president of the CIDREE board
The topic for this year’s CIDREE YEARBOOK is curriculum development and implementation in European countries focusing on digital literacy in schools. I have been looking forward to the yearbook, as the topic is relevant and exciting for
many reasons.
Hege Nilssen, president of the CIDREE board
The topic for this year’s CIDREE YEARBOOK is curriculum development and implementation in European countries focusing on digital literacy in schools. I have been looking forward to the yearbook, as the topic is relevant and exciting for many reasons.
The daily lives of children and adolescents are more digitalised than ever before, therefore it is crucial for schools to meet the pupils at the point where they are in their digital lives.
Digital literacy is a complex term. The CIDREE Yearbook defines digital literacy as encompassing skills that relate to using ICT effectively, efficiently and responsibly, combining basic ICT skills, computational thinking, media literacy and information literacy.
I believe that such broad access to digital competence in schools is necessary in order to meet current and future challenges. With an ever-increasing digitalised life, it becomes more important for children and adolescents to develop digital judgement, and to learn how to cope with digital challenges in a good and safe way.
Digital development in today’s society is fast-paced. To take advantage of the possibilities within digitalisation, there is a continuous need for specialised digital competence and a high level of general digital competence in society.
The labour market relies on the education system educating employees with advanced digital knowledge, skills and competence needed to work in different occupations. At the same time, all citizens need general digital competence to use the developed services, to perform duties using ICT, to make sound choices in their digital lives and to secure privacy.
I believe that such broad access to digital competence in schools is necessary in order to meet current and future challenges.
Competence in using tools and to communicate via digital media are important areas within the digital competence that schools must offer.
Other important areas within digital literacy are digital judgement and reflection on our technological society. I believe it will be important in the future to be aware of how social media, and continuously new media technologies, influence and change our daily lives. Similarly, an important question to ask in schools is how we can influence new technology through our own usage.
The creation of technology is also an important competence, as this helps to ensure welfare and solve common problems in the world today. To ensure digital value creation in the future, I am convinced that we need new generations that are not only capable of consuming, but also capable of creating.
Competence in using tools and to communicate via digital media are important areas within the digital competence that schools must offer.
Other important areas within digital literacy are digital judgement and reflection on our technological society. I believe it will be important in the future to be aware of how social media, and continuously new media technologies, influence and change our daily lives. Similarly, an important question to ask in schools is how we can influence new technology through our own usage.
The creation of technology is also an important competence, as this helps to ensure welfare and solve common problems in the world today. To ensure digital value creation in the future, I am convinced that we need new generations that are not only capable of consuming, but also capable of creating.
Several of the contributions to the yearbook address professional questions. In order to utilise the digital possibilities, I believe it is essential for school staff to work together with a common understanding of the type of digital competence the pupils shall develop. I also believe it is crucial for teachers and school management to cooperate on the type of digital competence the teachers need.
Professional digital competence can be linked to the teachers’ own professional practice and knowledge enhancement. At the same time, this means that teachers must also have the competence to support pupils in their development of competence in using digital technologies in self-learning.
There are many development needs in connection with learning and didactics.
I do believe that a large challenge in digitalised schools is to create enough situations where teachers actually teach useful ways of working with subjects digitally. I believe that digital tools should be used in a pedagogically sound manner, namely, to create teaching situations where digital tools are used to exploit the best possible potential for learning.
Several of the contributions to the yearbook address professional questions. In order to utilise the digital possibilities, I believe it is essential for school staff to work together with a common understanding of the type of digital competence the pupils shall develop. I also believe it is crucial for teachers and school management to cooperate on the type of digital competence the teachers need.
Professional digital competence can be linked to the teachers’ own professional practice and knowledge enhancement. At the same time, this means that teachers must also have the competence to support pupils in their development of competence in using digital technologies in self-learning.
There are many development needs in connection with learning and didactics. I do believe that a large challenge in digitalised schools is to create enough situations where teachers actually teach useful ways of working with subjects digitally. I believe that digital tools should be used in a pedagogically sound manner, namely, to create teaching situations where digital tools are used to exploit the best possible potential for learning.
Many schools and teachers work diligently on the academic and pedagogical possibilities that lie within digital technologies. At the same time, I believe that adequate adaptation to enable the pupils to develop their digital competence requires systematic professional cooperation between the teachers.
In conjunction with this, productive questions such as how digital practices can be integrated into the subjects and how common practices can be created in schools can be asked. To develop good digital practices, it is crucial that digital technology does not only turn into what each teacher wants to do – it should become a joint project.
I have noted that several of the contributions point out the responsibility and role of teacher training programmes.
I believe that teacher training institutions must be aware of their responsibility for contributing to the digital competence of teachers.
Even though we have had computers and digital literacy in schools for a while now, we can say that we still have the potential to develop and improve. This applies to work related to the competence the pupils shall acquire, pedagogical use of ICT and, not least, the competence of teachers at the crossroad between subject, didactics and technology.
The yearbook sheds lights on our current situation, and I hope it contributes to good discussions and reflection on the best way forward.
Happy reading!
Google+