Skip to main content

Digital Competence Framework - September 2016 Announcement

Yesterday the education minister, Huw Lewis, announced that a new digital competence framework for schools in Wales would be available from September 2016. This announcement comes off the back of the Prof. Donaldson report, Successful Futures, and although he hasn't formally responded to the recommendations in the report, the Welsh Government obviously feel that this is a priority and would like to have it implemented as soon as possible. Traditionally the Welsh Government have implemented curriculum changes or frameworks, 'top down'. That is, subject experts writing the new document, then having it piloted by schools, before being pushed out to all schools. However, the development of this new digital competence framework will be developed locally, as suggested in the Donaldson report.
“I will therefore be asking our regional consortia to identify a small group of those schools and practitioners already leading the way on the digital agenda so they can help us to design and develop our new Digital Competence Framework, both by drawing on their own experiences and on international best practice. 
Through partnership working we have a real opportunity to build a world class approach to digital competence here in Wales and I will be asking these Digital Pioneer schools to work alongside businesses and educational leaders, including our National Digital Learning Council and employers such Microsoft.“
It will be very interesting to see over the next 12 months how this is going to work in practice as it's certainly a new way of working for the Welsh Government. Also intrigued by the reference to Microsoft, I'm sure the Welsh Government wouldn't have mentioned Microsoft in their announcement without a good idea of what they want from them. Perhaps it's something to do with their Digital Literacy curriculum?? The Microsoft resource is just one of many resources and frameworks that are available for the Digital Pioneer schools to make reference to when creating the framework. I don't believe we have to reinvent the wheel in Wales, there is good 'stuff' out there. Here's a list of existing frameworks and resources that I'd certainly be referencing if I was creating a digital competence framework:


These frameworks in my opinion, should help to guide the Digital Pioneer schools into the appropriate areas. Lots of commonalties across them i.e. communication and collaboration, creativity, problem solving, e-safety / digital citizenship, basic ICT skills.

It's good to see that the Welsh Government also recognises the challenges to a successful implementation of the framework:
“Our new Digital Competence Framework will be very exciting but it will require us to think carefully about how we support our professionals to deliver in the classroom."
In my opinion support will certainly be needed for professionals if they are to successfully deliver a new framework in the classroom. I feel that there could be several areas of any new framework where teachers will need a lot of CPD. It maybe helpful if there was also a digital competence framework aimed specifically at them. Have a look at the work done in Leicester on a framework to support secondary school staff. It could be argued that this is equally as important as a digital competence framework for pupils. Can a teacher support the development of the pupils' competences if they are not skilled or confident in using technologies themselves? When the literacy and numeracy frameworks were introduced in Wales we could probably guarantee that teachers were literate and numerate enough to successfully deliver it. Can the same be said with them all being digitally competent?

The other area that needs thinking about, if this is to be delivered successfully in the classroom, are the digital technologies available to the teacher. As it says in the NAACE ICT self review framework are the "ICT resources sufficient in quality,quantity, range, suitability, curriculum choices and are readily available to support learning within and beyond the school." If a secondary school history teacher can only get access to ICT equipment for their classes a couple of times term; or a primary school teacher gets the laptop trolley once a week; or it takes a class 20 minutes to get all the pupils logged onto their devices; or the WiFi connection is unreliable; or the LA is blocking access to certain resources;  are the teachers going to be able to successfully deliver the framework?  Lots for everyone to think about over the next 12 months. 

I'm really looking forward to seeing what's produced.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

Defining Digital Competence

In a couple of previous posts I looked at what was meant by the term digital literacy and what this could mean in the Welsh education context. These were written in response to a recommendation from the ICT Steering Group report , proposing a new statutory Digital Literacy Framework for schools. I attempted to define what digital literacy meant using definitions from groups such as The Royal Society, Becta, Futurelab , Jisc and Common Sense Media. It was very difficult to pin down exactly what it meant but there were certainly commonalities between all of them. This week however, Prof. Graham Donaldson published his report on the curriculum and assessment in Wales, "Successful Futures" , and in it referred not to digital literacy , but to digital competence (which is a term I'm far happier using).  I therefore feel it's important for me to try in this post to understand what is meant by this term, look at some definitions and find out if there are any differences ...
2 comments
Read more

Digital Literacy: The Context for Wales & Definitions

At a time when England have introduced digital literacy elements to their new Computing PoS, and with the recommendations from the ICT Steering Group report for a digital literacy framework alongside the new subject of Computing, I’ve been attempting to look closely into what exactly is meant by the term ‘digital literacy’, and ultimately what this could mean for primary and secondary schools in Wales. I intend to put together a series of blogs on the topic, mainly as a way to help me with my understanding around some of the current thinking in this field, but hopefully it will still be of interest to teachers and others. I'd welcome any of your thoughts or comments on this topic. The Context In June 2012, Leighton Andrews, the then Minister for Education and Skills, announced “an additional £3m of funding over the next three years to support a range of measures to improve computer science, digital literacy and ICT in schools and colleges across Wales.” This announcement came ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Digital Learning Den

Gareth Morgan Consultancy has now been going for nearly 7 years, providing advice, support and training to primary schools across Wales. Where did that time go? Throughout those years, I've always had an ICT skills ladder that I've offered to schools. It's been updated continually throughout those years with quite a change in focus when the Digital Competence Framework (DCF) was introduced and with the ubiquitous use of Hwb and its related cloud based applications and digital resources. Initially this skills ladder was paper based and at one stage I had four versions of it as the example activities were focused around specific applications e.g., Google for Education / Purple Mash or Microsoft 365 / Just2easy. The problem I found was keeping these documents up to date. Applications would change or I would have new ideas or web-links would die or change.  So a couple years ago I moved everything online and created The Digital Den. Schools could buy into the platform for a ye...
Post a Comment
Read more