Enhancing teachers’ digital skills through best practices and the online academy

The “ICT in education” survey found that it was only in seven countries that 30 to 50% of students at grade 4 and/or grade 8 were taught by digitally confident and supportive teachers with high access to ICT and who face low obstacles to use of these tools at school.

The DigiSkills project, funded by the EU’s Lifelong Learning Programme, focuses on the development of digital competence for teachers and trainers. The project provides a platform for sharing best practices in ICT use, as well as an online open course centre, the Digital Competence Academy, where teachers can update their digital skills. Over 1000 teachers are currently participating in DigiSkills activities in different European countries. 

Sharing best practice

At the heart of the project is the best practice directory, where teachers can upload their own educational scenarios using ICT, as tested in their classrooms. The best practices shared in the directory address a range of subjects and all levels of education, and they are freely available for anyone to use.

According to the interim evaluation, 78% of 600 directory users agreed that the proposed best practices had had a significant impact on their professional development. Furthermore, 82% said they would recommend the platform to their colleagues. The sharing of best practices is reinforced with community building, which provides mentoring and encouragement, and fosters group dialogue and peer learning.

“We have great educators across Europe but a fragmented situation as far as collaboration between teachers is concerned. At DigiSkills, I can locate content that I find suitable for my work on a single platform. In addition, I can work with colleagues who can help me implement the best practices by providing guidance and support. We can also collaborate in communities to develop content together”, says George Papadopoulos, a teacher from the Ellinogermaniki Agogi School in Greece, speaking of his experience with the DigiSkills best practices.

Digital Competence Academy

To support a larger number of teachers, the project has set up the Digital Competence Academy, which will deliver large-scale online professional development courses for teachers in specific areas such as maths, science, technology, rural education, environmental education, and the use of mobile devices in school practices.

The academy’s modules are organized according to teachers’ competence levels, based on the UNESCO ICT Competency Framework for Teachers: basic ICT skills (level 1), skills required for effective introduction of technology enhanced activities in the classroom (level 2), and skills required for the development of technology enhanced learning activities (level 3).

Participating teachers are asked to use the framework to assess their competences, after which specific modules or courses are proposed to them according to their competence level. These modules include a series of practical strategies (identified as the ‘DigiSkills Best Practices’) that have proven their efficiency in developing teachers’ digital competencies and, more specifically, in supporting teachers to reach ICT competency level 3, thus becoming developers of educational content and authors of their own technology-enhanced educational scenarios.

Project details:

• Funded by: EU Lifelong Learning Programme
• Duration: 1 December 2012 – 30 November 2015
• Pilot countries: Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Greece, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, and the UK
• Coordinator: Ellinogermaniki Agogi, Greece   |   Partners
• Contact: Sofoklis Sotiriou, project coordinator, sotiriou@ea.gr
• Website: www.digiskills-project.eu   |   DigiSkills on Facebook