Strategic Framework for Teacher Development

The National Institute of Educational Technology and Teacher Education (INTEF) has identified three areas of work that will structure the new Strategic Framework for Teacher Development, in line with EU policies on education and training which have resulted the "program Education and Training 2020 "and the proposals announced in the new strategy" Rethinking Education ".

Strategic Framework for Teacher Development

The main objectives are:

• guide the initial and continuing teacher education to a new competency model for the teaching profession in the twenty-first century,
• explore new forms of training to facilitate professional collaboration (learning in communities of practice, massive open courses ...)
• establish a common regulatory framework that allows the accreditation of skills for the practice of the profession and recognition of activities that show verifiable evidence of effective professional development pathways that encourage educational leadership.

With these objectives, it is currently working on three projects in collaboration with the Autonomous Communities and groups of experts and teachers:

1. Professional Skills Teachers

To meet the needs of teacher education that society demands we need to redefine the profession. And for this it is necessary to establish a framework of professional teaching skills to help a methodological change in the school and enable teachers to develop and evaluate the core competencies of the students. The new competency model as a basis for training plans and other policies in the entire education system, which requires the cooperation of educators at all levels and is a reflection of the current social demands and the latest educational developments and technology.

2. New Methods of Training

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) and social learning activities in virtual communities of practice are new forms of network formation that have emerged in recent years and are spreading to various proposals. The Ministry can join this innovative movement within a strategic plan defining the objectives and means of these new modalities, offering new opportunities for training, collaboration and professional development related to the sharing of experiences and educational resources through the use of digital platforms that facilitate this.

3. Regulation of Training

This project focuses on the study of a new regulatory framework for recognition and accreditation of teacher education, which is oriented to the accreditation of skills and includes new training methods.

The guidelines of the Strategic Framework for Teacher Development orient new plans for teacher training of INTEF for next school year, including a series of training activities aimed at developing teaching skills and an experimental pilot massive open online course (MOOC ), which will have as its main objective the improvement of the digital competence of teachers.

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European survey of schools: ICT in Education

The National Institute of Educational Technology and Teacher Education (INTEF) presents an analysis, the results and conclusions of large-scale survey entitled " Survey of Schools: ICT in education "promoted by the European Union and integrated into a set of data collection activities that compare national progress and objectives of the i2010 and EU2020 initiatives.

The results of this large survey configure a report to be published on 18 April 2013. This is the first Europe-wide survey on ICT in schools since the reports "eEurope 2002" will be held and " eEurope 2005 ". It also is the first online survey on information technology and communication in schools and the first to include the students directly.

With this initiative the European Commission intends to establish indicators that can be used to measure the progress of ICT integration in schools with a view to 2020 and thus to compare the performance of each country in relation to these indicators or targets, identify strengths and weaknesses of these developments and provide information that can serve as a reference in national and European policies.

The study was conducted in 31 countries (27 EU, Iceland, Norway, Croatia and Turkey), by surveying some 190,000 people, including students, principals and teachers of primary, secondary, high school and junior vocational training centers randomly selected, representing a sample of a total of 1,200 schools by country.

European survey of schools: ICT in Education

The main fields of research are the digital competence of students and their attitudes towards ICT, the use of these by students inside and outside the classroom, professional use by teachers, also inside and outside the classroom, teacher attitudes toward educational use of these technologies, infrastructure facilities, connectivity and access to them, and the role of management teams regarding these and instructional use.

From the results of the survey showed that the levels of use of ICT and digital skills are still unequal, although faculty and European students willing to "convert to digital world", there are twice as computers in schools since 2006 and most centers are now "connected". In addition, teachers need more training and technical support.

Some of the conclusions drawn regarding the situation in Spain are:

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• Spanish schools have good levels of ICT equipment compared to the European average, especially for portable computers are concerned.
• Both the levels of provision of broadband connectivity as the centers are above the European average. The primary school students are relatively well equipped compared to European rates. It is noteworthy that a small number of students at centers equipped to very low level.
• The frequency of use of ICT in the classroom is slightly lower than the European average.
• Spain is in the first position on ICT training in the last 2 years. The professional development c o n this technology is widespread in education at all levels analyzed, and the use of online communities, and really few students are in centers teachers have received little training.
• Confidence levels of both the faculty and the students, in their ICT skills are lower than the European average in most of the levels tested.
• At all levels analyzed, a percentage higher than the European average students are in schools with the presence of ICT coordinators.

In general, Spanish students enjoy high levels of equipment and connectivity, and tend to be digitally centers and equipped teachers trained in ICT. However, it is curious that this teacher training does not result in high levels of trust in technology or greater use of these in the classroom.

The main findings of the survey at European level:

• Only one in four students in nine years is on centers digitally equipped to high standards, that is, with upgraded appliances, high-speed broadband (over 10Mbps) and high connectivity (web center, e-mail to faculty and students, local area network and virtual learning environment).
• Only half of pupils aged 16 digitally equipped centers is at high level.
• 20% of pupils in secondary education has never or rarely used a computer in the classroom.
• The frequency with which students complete activities based on ICT in the classroom is higher in schools that have adopted formal policies regarding the use of these technologies.
• There are significant differences between countries in terms of technological equipment. Schools in the Nordic and Scandinavian countries are the ones with better equipment (Sweden, Finland, Denmark), while Poland, Romania, Italy, Greece, Hungary and Slovakia the worst.
• Laptops, tablets and netbooks are replacing desktop computers in many schools.
• The lack of ICT equipment does not translate into a lack of interest in information technology and communication. In fact, some countries, such as Bulgaria, Slovakia, Cyprus and Hungary, have low rates of provision of this equipment but high levels of use.
• It is essential that students have access to ICT at home and at school.
• Most teachers believe that radical change is needed in the centers policies regarding educational technologies.
• Teachers usually have confidence in the use of ICT for learning, what is even more important than technological equipment itself.
• However, the training of teachers on this topic is rarely mandatory and therefore most teachers spend their leisure time in acquiring these skills.
• Teachers use computers to prepare lessons rather than the classroom itself.

Download Report: Survey of schools: ICT in education in Europe

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Open wide education

In the new strategy, "he Rethinking Education" ( Rethinking Education ), the European Commission presented in November 2012, the importance of training in basic and generic, especially in entrepreneurship and digital competence, skills stands out and that new technologies Information and communication are fully integrated into training centers and improved access to education through open educational resources (OER). The upcoming release of the "initiative was also announced Opening up Education , "which suggests that this openness has the potential to expand access to education and improve the efficiency and quality of teaching and learning.

Due to technological advances, knowledge is increasingly accessible to all citizens. In recent years there has been an exponential growth in the creation of open educational content and courses and other resources available through the Internet. The so-called "Open Education Movement" and other public and private initiatives are promoting the use of ICT to reduce barriers to education and facilitate forms of more flexible and creative learning characterized by collaboration and where the user He is also creator of learning content. Both REA as EPO (Open Educational Practices) have become hot topics, not only for educational researchers but also for policy makers in Europe and international organizations. However, REA are underexploited. A better understanding of their potential and what should be the goals of your promotion in educational policies.

Open wide education

The "initiative Opening Up Education "will focus on three main objectives:

• Open the contents: digitized materials offered openly to any student that are reusable and expand opportunities for informal learning. The open access to quality content, accompanied by support services and evaluation, will bring major changes in the educational paradigm by questioning of fundamental issues, such as access to education, providing content or certification of learning casual.
• Open learning pathways: the increasing use of open resources allow each person to decide their personalized learning, mixing shapes and spaces of learning (school, home, community, work, leisure, etc. ). Schools and universities need to adapt to these new requirements and environments become dynamic, creative and innovative learning. The assessment of skills acquired through REA will also have to be faced, in order to maximize their potential without compromising the absolute need to ensure the quality of assessments. This transformation is only possible if the pedagogical and assessment approaches have full regard to the possibilities offered by new technologies. This will also bring about changes in the roles of teachers and students.
• Open collaboration: through networks and communities of practice as an increasingly common means of learning. For teachers and students communities of practice can be an ideal for collaborative peer learning platform, the exchange of good practices and even joint development of teaching activities between schools.

This challenge is transverse and has important implications, first for education, educational institutions and training systems, but also in many other areas, such as technology infrastructure, intellectual property and research.

For more information, see the document "Consultation on Opening up Public Education - a Proposal for an European Initiative" . Within this framework, IPTS (JRC) has launched the project OEREU (OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES AND PRACTICES IN EUROPE) , whose main objective is to provide empirical evidence to policy makers in order to guide policy in the field of Open Education .

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7 Ideas for a discussion on "Digital Culture and Education"

The Space Foundation Telefonica hosts a series of debates organized in collaboration with élogos Foundation , dedicated to the role of ICT in today's job market in Spain. From what was stated in the roundtable meeting on April 16 on "Digital Culture and Education. ICT as a means and object of study, "7 Ideas include:

Session 3 Digital Culture and Education

1. There is a major disconnect between what the education sector provides and demanding society and business. Education authorities should make changes in order to provide more appropriate training.
2. There are not enough well-trained professionals in ICT and foreign languages.
3. New technologies have changed the way we go to the client and the internal organization of firms. We must learn to work in new virtual spaces and know how to use social media as a powerful communication tool.
4. In many cases they already have the tools but still works with traditional analog models. You do not need a technical background to be user.
5. Key is the ability to manage and exploit the abundance of information on the Internet comes continuously.
6. Instead of emphasizing regular training processes, which are becoming less formal, more diverse and global, should focus more attention on the regulation of the accreditation and certification of skills.
7. It would be desirable to have a common framework for digital competence in education and that teachers act as active agents of knowledge.   

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Would you like to make educational materials? EXe Learning meet

Methodological innovation and technology, not only is the possibility that eXeLearning offers to all users. This authoring tool, which is currently one of the most popular around the world, now has a new development that makes it easier still to teachers the creation of interactive educational materials based on the most innovative didactic methodologies, such as work for projects and tasks, or cooperative and collaborative learning methods.

eXe learning helps all those teachers interested in innovating the creation of their own materials according to their needs. It is, therefore, an easy-to-use authoring tool and with open code that allows that educational materials be adapted to the needs of teachers and students. EXe learning can be done with simple and autonomous through the manual published in exelearning.net.

This application allows you to incorporate the methodological innovation in the classroom and break constraints imposed by the traditional educational materials (digital or printed). eXe is a free, open and free application that boasts simplicity in handling among other advantages. Any teacher with some minimal computer skills can learn to create materials in just a few hours.

Guía para elaborar materiales educativos. Se abre en nueva ventana

There is already a huge Bank of educational resources created with eXe and that can be used by any teacher anywhere in the world. Among the examples we can show are those published by the National Center for curriculum development in non-proprietary systems (CeDeC) and the project Ceibal in Uruguay.

In addition to its technical advantages, eXe adapts to the new methodological trends. Created resources may serve support to work on tasks and projects. In this way, a single interactive material may include all the resources needed to raise a classroom project, in which, in addition, collected other methodologies of learning principles.

This is undoubtedly the main contribution of eXe. Give all teachers the possibility of creating content really innovative not only for its interactive character but, above all, for responding to a new approach to teaching and learning processes. At the same time, the eXe properties make it ideal to offer students a flexible, open, and easy-to-use resources.

Recently several institutions have presented the latest version of eXe, exelearning7. This new development is a very important possibilities of this authoring tool development, facilitate that it can work with it from any browser, the incorporation of new idevices, improvements in embedding resources 2.0 and export formats, spelling correction...

EXe Learning development is fundamentally based on the voluntary work of its community of users and developers. Participation in this project is open to all the forums.

Don't even know eXe? We are waiting for you.

Tags: eXeLearning, methodological innovation, open source, interactive educational materials 

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Digital culture in the school plan

At the meeting of the Working Group of ICT in education which took place on October 4, 2012 in Merida, proposed work and lines of action of the Ministry of education, culture and Sport (MECD) in the field of ICT in education for the next few years.

The meeting discussed that the MECD performances will be according to autonomous communities (regions), in a space of collaboration and joint decision, and that the projects defined must have dimension State, since only thus will have sufficient critical mass and ensure its sustainability. With this will, it was decided to draw up a Plan of Digital culture in school.

In this framework, the Ministry opened a process of shared reflection, with the participation of the autonomous communities, external experts and heads of the MECD, to define such a plan for the coming years and develop and implement, in the following school years, specific projects to the service of its users (teachers, educational managers, students, families) and citizens in general.

Specifically, the reflection process was structured into five groups of experts linked to the five priority projects of the plan:

I connectivity of schools
II. Interoperabilidad and standards
III. space "Commons" of open content
IV. general catalogue of educational resources of payment: neutral
V. teaching digital competence

In addition, two projects stand, with two additional groups, have been defined oriented to strengthen the dynamics of collaborative work between CCAA and improve channels of communication and interrelation telematics with the educational community:

VI. collaboration with autonomous spaces
VII. Web and social networks

These seven groups met for the first time in November-December, 2012, and will be maintained throughout the period of the plan as a space of encounter and reflection shared with the aim to support and assess progress in each of its priority projects:

Plan projects	Brief description
I connectivity of schools	Move towards full access of schools to Internet in coordination with the autonomous communities, improving the quality of access in a viable and sustainable way through agreements with agents of the telecommunications sector.
II. Interoperabilidad and standards	Setting standards in the field of educational ICT and promoting the regulatory development of specific interoperability standards for the educational use of ICT within the framework of the national interoperability scheme.
III. space "Commons" of open content	Design the evolution of the educational content repository adds, to become a common area of contents in open that can participate actively throughout the educational community.
IV. general catalogue of educational resources of payment: neutral	Promote agreements with the different agents involved and defining the structure of the meeting point between suppliers of digital textbooks and other educational resources and potential users of the same.
V. teaching digital competence	Establishing a model of development of digital competence of teachers in its various dimensions and levels.
VI. collaboration with autonomous spaces	To create a space that serves as a meeting point between the autonomous communities and the Ministry to work together.
VII. Web and social networks	Evolve towards the logic of single educational portal and develop a strategy of presence on social networks that promotes interaction with the educational community.

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