Today’s digital world is creating new opportunities for teaching, learning and assessment and thus is placing new demands on teachers, at all levels, in our education system to embed digital technologies appropriately in their practices. We know from over 30 years of research that the presence of technology alone is not enough to transform teaching, learning and assessment practices. Teachers are the ones who will design and create the learning environments where learners can learn using digital technologies. There is a need to equip teachers with the knowledge, skills and confidence to use digital technologies in meaningful ways and to avoid using them as expensive pencils, as has happened in the past. Thus, there have been a number of frameworks, such as the UNESCO ICT CF for Teachers and TPACK, developed in recent years to help teacher develop their digital competence.
The European Commission has been busy in recent years developing a range of digital competency frameworks. They initially built the DigComp Framework for citizens and then developed the DigCompOrg framework for educational institutions.
They now have built on this work by developing a digital competency framework for educators, working at all levels across Europe, the DigCompEdu Framework. This is a very comprehensive framework, that has been built on existing frameworks and on widespread consultation. The Draft Framework covers six areas as outlined in the graphic below.
The key areas are as follows:
- Digital Resources
- Digital Pedagogy
- Digital Assessment
- Empowering Learners
These are supported by Professional Engagement and Facilitating Learners’ Digital Competence, which is closely aligned to DigComp.
Each of the competences in the Framework consist of a set of practice statements and these capture practices at six levels of difficulty from Newcomer to Pioneer.
The Framework is still being finalised but when complete with provide schools and teachers with a valuable tool to help them reflect on how they are embedding digital technology into their practice.