Curriculum%20Development%20and%20Teacher%20Education

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Curriculum Development and Teacher Education
The pursuit of Digital Literacy and e-Inclusion
in Schools

• Lampros K. Stergioulas
• Brunel University, UK

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e-START Network

• Project Co-ordinator Dr Lampros Stergioulas,
• BRUNEL University, UK
• Partners
• HUT Finland
• MII Lithuania
• MENON Belgium
• AUTH Greece
• NCSR Greece
• ITN France
• CSI Austria
• ITD Italy
• Tikkurila Finland
• e-START Project is funded by the European
  Commission, as a part of the e-LEARNING
  programme.

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Project fundamentalsThe e-START Premise

• Common basis with respect to
• (1) The concept of digital literacy in schools
• (2) The development of a democratic and
  participatory curriculum framework for digital
  literacy in schools

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Cross-country Networks

• Vertical areas of interest
• Educational Frameworks Curricula for compulsory
  education
• Teacher Education
• Horizontal thematic areas of study
• Conceptualizations of digital literacy
  Theoretical Frameworks - National Curricula
• The pursuit of digital literacy Quantitative
  indicators and qualitative factors affecting it
• Acquiring digital literacy Action roadmaps and
  didactical scenarios
• Digital Literacy and Social inclusion Processes
  of participatory and re-constructionist framework
  development

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A Common Framework?

• What does digital literacy mean?
• What is the relationship between digital literacy
  and other forms of information and communication
  literacies?
• What is the relationship between digital literacy
  and the digital divide?
• Through what kind of actions and strategies could
  we foster the development of a common European
  rationale for the pursuit of digital literacy in
  compulsory education?

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Digital Literacy The history

• 1990s The ability to comprehend hypertext
  structure and understand multimedia texts.
• 1997 Digital Literacy by Paul Gilster
• Digital Literacy is the ability to understand
  and use information in multiple formats from a
  wide variety of sources when it is presented via
  computers

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Digital Literacy The history

• Late 1990s The multi-literacies period

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Digital Literacy The history

• OECD/CERI, 2001 Digital Literacy is used
  interchangeably with ICT Literacy.
• OECD/CERI, 2003 Programme for International
  Student Assessment Feasibility Study for the
  PISA ICT Literacy Assessment
• ICT literacy is the interest, attitude, and
  ability of individuals to appropriately use
  digital technology and communication tools to
  access, manage, integrate, and evaluate
  information, construct new knowledge, and
  communicate with others in order to participate
  effectively in society

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Digital Literacy The history

• EU, 2004 Promoting Digital Literacy Final
  Report, EAC/76/03
• Digital literacy is treated as synonymous to
  media literacy
• Project DigEuLit, 2005 The development of a
  European Framework for Digital Literacy
• Digital Literacy is the awareness, attitude and
  ability of individuals to appropriately use
  digital tools and facilities to identify, access,
  manage, integrate, evaluate, analyse and
  synthesize digital resources, construct new
  knowledge, create media expressions, and
  communicate with others, in the context of
  specific life situations, in order to enable
  constructive social action and to reflect upon
  this process.

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Digital Literacy Basic characteristics

• Refers not only to the skills of operating and
  using a wide range of information and
  communication technological environments
  (hardware devices and software platforms), but
  also to the processes of reading and
  understanding the contents of these
  technological environments, as well as the
  processes of creating and writing such
  contents (information, services, resources, etc)
• Even though is often described in comparison to
  the umbrella term ICT literacy, which is
  broader than both computer and network literacy,
  it appears to contain it.

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Digital Literacy Basic characteristics

• DL is indisputably related to media literacy,
  because it addresses social, cultural, human and
  ethical issues related to digital citizenship,
  emphasizes the influential role of digital mass
  media of expression and considers their
  attributes, merits and limitations.
• The contemporary endorsement of digital literacy
  is perceived as an act in response to the
  emergence and broadening of the digital divide,
  a complex phenomenon involving a web of
  inter-related cultural and socio-economic
  factors.

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Digital Divide a concept in permanent flux

• Disparities in technology access between
  developed and developing nations
• Disparities in technology access within
  individual countries
• Perceived as a dichotomous gap between the
  haves and the have nots, that could be
  counteracted through the provision of universal
  access to technology for all.

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Digital Divide a concept in permanent flux

• Contemporary notions suggest that
• Emphasis on the access factor alone is rather
  deterministic
• Both the digital divide and access to
  technology are hierarchical and not dichotomous
  concepts
• The digital divide is simultaneously a
  projection and an extension of the social
  exclusion phenomenon
• Quality of use of digital technology is dependent
  on the economic, cultural and social
  capital that individuals possess and project in
  their engagement with technology

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Digital literacy Digital divide

• Digital literacy is a hierarchical concept,
  existing in a continuum
• Digital literacy is relative (may take different
  meanings in different cultural and socio-economic
  contexts)
• Digital literacy development targets contemporary
  socio-economic problems and prevailing
  educational conditions involving notions of
  power, dominant ideology and hegemonic culture.

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Factors and Indicators of Digital Literacy in
Schools

• ACCESS (and USE)
• - access to computers at school
• - Ownership of digital equipment and resources at
  home
• - .
• Digital Divide in EU is often perceived in
  terms of Access and Use (see i2010 report of EC)

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Factors and Indicators of Digital Literacy in
Schools

• RELEVANCE
• - digital incentives for life after schooling
• - childrens lifestyle choices
• - motivation, interest and attitude towards
  digital culture
• - perceptions of usefulness and value of digital
  technology in everyday life

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Factors and Indicators of Digital Literacy in
Schools

• SOCIAL RESOURCE NETWORKS
• - pupils and teachers membership in different
  social communities
• - differentiated forms of culture

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Factors and Indicators Some pertinent questions

• Could the school as a significant socialization
  and enculturation agent address effectively
  factors related to issues of relevance and social
  networks and empower pupils and teachers to
  participate in digital practice, not only as
  consumers of digital dominant culture but also as
  producers and communicators of their own culture?
• What may be the institutional, organizational and
  educational changes that would enable schools to
  play such a socially responsible and significant
  role and help us all in keeping warm the hope of
  an inclusive society?

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A Pan-European Digital Literacy Framework?

• Should address aspects of relevance and
  relativity, by
• Being flexible enough and adaptive to the
  differentiated conditions of the community in
  which it is to be implemented.
• Being unified and unifying, but only in terms of
  a central core of methodologies and values
• Investing on project-based, child-centered,
  inclusive, experiential, thematic and integrated
  approaches to teaching and learning
• Should address established socio-economic and
  cultural problems and foster the empowerment of
  social resource networks by
• Participatory/bottomup approaches to curriculum
  development
• Being re-constructionist, in the sense that it
  should educate by fostering exploration,
  understanding, reflection and analysis of social
  problems, events and issues, and by stressing
  social responsibility and action-praxis towards
  changing the conditions that create
  antidemocratic and inhuman practices in school
  and in society.

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A Framework development process

• The creation and development of a EU-wide
  network of networks of academics, researchers
  and educational representatives.
• Collect, review and analyze the contents of
  established and implemented educational
  frameworks and/or curricula related to digital
  literacy
• Collect, review and analyze the contextual and
  content characteristics of national teacher
  training and teacher education actions related to
  the development of digital literacy
• Identify critical factors, indicators and
  conditions that may promote or hinder the pursuit
  of digital literacy in compulsory education
• On the basis of the previous knowledge, start
  building consensus around a central core of
  methodologies and values

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National Networks

• Main aim The analysis of the status of digital
  literacy in individual EU member countries and
  the development of educational policy
  recommendations
• Synthesis/composition (a) Academic community
  members, (b) Teaching community members, (c)
  Parent and pupil community members, and (d)
  educational authority representatives
• Activities (a) Collection and analysis of
  national primary data and information, (b) Review
  and analysis of the national theoretical and
  research educational literature, and (c)
  Development and then negotiation, modification
  and validation of a national report on digital
  literacy

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Cross-country Networks

• Main Aim The identification of generalizable
  definitional aspects and generalizable goals and
  contents for digital literacy development in
  compulsory education, as well as the development
  and establishment of cross-country educational
  policy recommendations at EU level
• Synthesis/Composition (a) Participants of
  national networks, and (b) Representatives of
  other cross-country networks, European and/or
  international organizations activated in the area
  of digital literacy
• Activities (a) Comparative analysis of
  individual country national reports, (ß) Review
  and analysis of research and educational
  literature of an international status, and (c)
  Development and then negotiation, modification
  and validation of cross-country
• Organization of activities Two vertical axes,
  four horizontal thematic agendas

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Cross-country Networks

• Vertical areas of interest
• Educational Frameworks Curricula for compulsory
  education
• Teacher Training initiatives and Teacher
  Education programmes of study
• Horizontal thematic areas of study
• Conceptualizations of digital literacy
  Theoretical Frameworks - National Curricula
• The pursuit of digital literacy Quantitative
  indicators and qualitative factors affecting it
• Acquiring digital literacy Action roadmaps and
  didactical scenarios
• Digital Literacy and Social inclusion Processes
  of participatory and re-constructionist framework
  development

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Barriers to overcome

• Differences in the way digital literacy is
  being defined, interpreted and understood
• The multiple cultural, social and economical gaps
  and divides existing between countries and within
  countries
• The difficulty in cooperating and communicating
  in the context of cross-national and
  cross-cultural networks (heterogeneous landscape
  of regulation, legacy/tradition and
  language/semantics)
• The difficult issue of achieving access to
  primary-source data and, in particular comparable
  data
• The unavoidable obstacles of establishing and
  implementing framework building processes of a
  participatory nature and a bottom-up direction

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and most importantly

• The promotion of a new ethos towards the
  process of designing and implementing educational
  policy and the endorsement of the idea of
  syn-praxis and unity within divergence, which
• Requires transformative changes in the processes
  of designing and developing the aims, the
  contents and the organization of education
• Disputes the structures, the regulatory settings,
  and the contents of a centralized education

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Achievements in the first year

• Launched the e-START portal
• www.estart-net.org
• Observatory Service offered through the portal
  (repositories of papers, books, projects, etc.)
• EU-wide network of 119 members from 21 different
  countries (and rapidly growing)
• Collected 19 National ICT curricula from EU
  countries, 9 translated in English

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Achievements in the first year

• Organised four International Workshops and
  Symposia on Digital Literacy
• Approved for continuation of funding from the EC

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Planned activities in 2008

• e-START membership to exceed 300
• A number of services offered via the e-START
  portal
• Active online participation of the community
  (e-START services, forum, local communities etc.)
• Support service for lesson plan development for
  school teachers
• Closer collaboration with IFIP TC3

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Events in 2008

• e-START Workshop on Digital Literacy Curricula,
  in iSSEP 2008, Torun, Poland, 1-4 July 2008.
• Panel on Digital Literacy, in WCC2008, Milan,
  September 2008.
• e-START Conference (London, 17-18 Nov 2008)

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How to get involved
Member registration (free)
Digital Literacy Networkwww.estart-net.org
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How to get involved
Participate in the new Special Interest
Group SIG 3.9 (IFIP TC3) Digital Literacy -
Chaired by Bernard Cornu See SIG 3.9 at
www.ifip-tc3.net/
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Digital Literacy Network forPrimary Lower
Secondary (K-9) Education
TKK Dipoli
Tilu

• BRUN

MII
MENON
CSI
INT
AUTH
ITD
NCSR
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e-START Conference

• (2 days, London, 17-18 Nov 2008)
• Free registration and proceedings
• Register at www.estart-net.org

Digital Literacy Network