No. 4 – Do we develop digital competences or digital skills? – DigCompEdu to balance your way through the storm Time for Action in Shaping HE 4.0

7 June 2021, 17:00 CEST

EDEN webinar

Watch the recording

Description

When all education organizations moved online in Spring, 2020, many of them had no time at all to think about consistent development of digital competences and existing frameworks, but took rapid actions to find most suitable technological solutions to ensure teaching and learning and filled in the skill – gaps of their educators to apply technologies to transfer information in the smooth and inclusive way.

However, by the pandemic year, several important instruments describing digital competences of educators already exited, namely, competence metaframeworks, covering knowledge, skill and attitude/ responsibility level, as well as digital competence framework for educators – DigCompEdu – and many others. When the storm surpassed, we have to look around us to reflect on our practices and the way how digital competence development is addressed in education organizations and how this is in line with the competence definition in the broad sense.

Moreover, several important initiatives in the European projects among academics and professionals prepared suggestions on how to address DigCompEdu competence groups and how to match DigCompEdu framework with the competence maturity model. Others raised important questions if digital competence framework is important for educators only, and how student digital competences are to be considered in this perspective.

The webinar dedicated to address these issues will address the challenges and needs that education institutions experience in digital competence development, will look at the proposal of new meta competences as suggestions for DigCompEdu, the maturity model proposal, and will discuss how the pandemic highlighted the need for development of digital competences.

Moderator

Airina Volungevičienė
EDEN Digital Learning Europe,
Vytautas Magnus University

Prof. dr. Airina Volungevičienė has been working among leading researchers, methodology specialists and education policy makers in the area of technology enhanced learning (TEL) development in Europe and Lithuania since 1997. Having established Lithuanian Association of Distance and eLearning Association (LieDM association) in (2010), she continued as a leader in research and project work to promote the development of TEL in Lithuania and Europe, introducing many innovations in different education organizations from school, VET, adult learning and higher education sectors. Her main responsibilities at Vytautas Magnus University is to direct the Institute for Study Innovations activities to implement its mission: to advise University teachers to design online study curriculum, to ensure online learning and teaching, as well as curriculum quality, and to experiment with the innovations in education before mainstreaming them in university studies. Airina is involved in EDEN Governance since 2009, as the Board member, Vice President for Research (2016 – 2019) and the President (2016 – 2019).

Speakers

Nicole Johnson
Research Director at the Canadian Digital Learning Research Association

Dr. Nicole Johnson is the Research Director of the Canadian Digital Learning Research Association (CDLRA) (the mission of the CDLRA is to measure the evolution of digital learning at publicly funded post-secondary institutions in Canada and to assess its impact on employment, skills development and digital competencies across the country). Outside of her role with the CDLRA, Nicole is also involved in research studies through Bay View Analytics investigating faculty experiences with digital technology and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on online learning in the United States. Additionally, Nicole is part of a research team at Royal Roads University that is exploring the future of higher education. She has experience researching changes in academics’ online participation over time and informal learning experiences among adults in digital contexts related to competency development.


Jochen Ehrenreich
Senior researcher at DHBW,
Cooperative State University of Baden – Württemberg

Jochen Ehrenreich’s research focuses on HE strategy adaptation to micro-credentials and online learning. At DHBW, he coordinates the work on the Erasmus+ projects EdDiCo, OEPass and MicroHE, with the Learning Passport, the MicroHE meta-data standard, the Credentials Clearinghouse and a Self-Assessment and Recommendation Tool for Educators’ Digital Competences as major outputs. Before joining DHBW, he developed new approaches to technology transfer and lifelong learning at the University of Freiburg, and he was responsible for all study programme accreditation and quality assurance processes at Esslingen University. He holds a master’s degree of Economics and Business Administration from the University of Witten/Herdecke.


Yasmin Djabarian
Program manager at Stifterverband in Berlin

Dr. Yasmin Djabarian is a program manager for Hochschulforum Digitalisierung (HFD) at Stifterverband in Berlin. Here, her work focuses on digitally supported teaching, student participation, and innovation processes at universities. She coordinates HFD’s nationwide student future working group DigitalChangeMaker. Before joining Stifterverband, Yasmin was as a research fellow at the Center for Quality Assurance and Development at the University of Mainz, focusing on educational and academic staff development in higher education and digitalization in higher education didactics. She studied American Studies and Communication in Mainz, Washington, DC, and Atlanta, and holds a PhD in American Studies.


Anastasia Economou
Joint Research Centre, European Commission

Anastasia Economou works at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission since February 2020. She is leading SELFIE for Teachers, the self-reflection tool based on the European Framework for the Digital Competence of Educators and the DigCompEdu project. In her previous position at the Cyprus Pedagogical Institute, she led a number of projects on teachers’ professional development and digital technologies for teaching and learning. She received her BSc in Education from Boston University in 1993, her Master´s degree in Educational Technology from Arizona State University and her MBA degree from the University of Cyprus in 2008.


Stefano Menon
Project manager at Fondazione Politecnico di Milano

Stefano Menon’s focus is on innovation of didactics, working transversally with different target groups: from Kindergarten to HE and Lifelong Learning. Graduated in 2000 in Psychology, he has soon started working in the training and educational sector. Since 2004 he has been involved in projects supporting innovation of didactics. He has been working in the academic framework, since 2001. From 2005 to 2012 he worked in METID- Politecnico on elearning and ecollaboration. Since 2012 he has been engaged in Fondazione Politecnico di Milano to design and promote the use of innovative teaching and learning methodologies as a sustainable and effective opportunity, at any level: from kindergarten to vocational and adult lifelong learning. He has a long experience in international projects, starting in 2004 with Life Long Program and being involved currently in many Erasmus+. Project manager, program manager and head of a unit dedicated to digital learning and innovation are some of the roles managed in the years. Strongly interested in the progressive matching between learning needs transformation and competences evolution. Teachers’ trainer on digital learning. He is a member of the Open Education Italia national workgroup.