Digital Education's Big Bang

Even before COVID, educators (everyone with people development on their minds) were faced with an expanding universe of digital technologies that promised to contribute to their educational projects. COVID acted as an accelerant to this explosion. At the same time, a parallel universe of vendors came into existence, each with the ultimate LMS or other solution to online digital learning. Educators feel compelled to lend them an ear; the FOMO effect (Fear Of Missing Out). I'm not an educator, but I managed educational projects for a number of years - I thought I just had to put that out there...

The truth is: Going digital and online will cost your educational project, if not in money, then surely in time. It will be time and money well spent, but what if it is not a very big project. Will you still be able to afford to go digital?

The cost of third parties should not inhibit your project.

Consultants are my best friends; in fact, I want to be one. But let us face it, they are in business to make money – yours and mine! Putting your online educational project - big or small - into the hands of consultants locks you into their business plan. If your project is massive and complicated you must use consultants, but please:

• Make sure that you and your staff get most of the skills that the consultants have. You have to manage changes and growth in your project (at least to some extent) on your own. Consultants get trained at university to milk scope-creep to the last cent.
• Make sure that you pierce the veil of obscurity caused by jargon. There will always be something in the jargon that prevents you from doing exactly what you need for your project – unless, of course, you pay gazillions.
• Make sure that you are the owner of every document, app, and line of code used in your project. (Much of the stuff that we use in online training is free and open source. There is also a worldwide movement toward Open Educational Resources – more of that in a later article.) ?

What to do if the scope of your project doesn't warrant consultants?

Do it yourself. I suggest three things:

A. Find out what you need to know?

What skills do you (and your staff - if you are the head of a learning organization) need to be part of this exponential growth in digital education? It is not too late. The European Union published a framework of digital competencies that digital educators should have (DigCompEdu). Google it. A good first step will be to know what you are already capable of, and what you need to do to get to your next level of capability. The DigCompEdu framework helps with that. The framework focuses on six areas of competence all educators should have. In total there are 22 competencies, with various levels of proficiency in each competence. Each of the six areas is described below:

1. Professional Engagement

Educators are communicators. Not only communicating to their learners but also to other educators, administrators, parents, and other interested parties. Four competencies are described in this area: Organisational communication; professional collaboration; reflective practice; and digital continuous development.

2. Digital Resources

Educators have a plethora of digital resources available that they can use in their educational projects. Identifying and choosing the right resource for the right target requires skill, but it does not end there. They should be able to add on to and modify existing material and also create new material. New material shouldn't break the bank, and it shouldn't take forever to develop. Competent digital educators can make their own teaching aids with resources that they already have at their disposal. Not necessarily at the level of glamour and glitz provided by professional graphic artists, (that will be employed by the consultants at additional costs), but at a level that is good enough to get the message across. (As evidenced by my humble attempts on this page.)

Digital content is not necessarily free - even if it is available on the internet - educators need to know how to responsibly use and curate digital content and how to safeguard sensitive data that belong to students.

3. Teaching and Learning

Teaching and learning can benefit from digital technologies. How and where to deploy the digital content is covered by the "Teaching" competence area in the framework. Competent digital educators are able to design, plan and deploy their own digital technologies in the different phases of learning.

Learner-centered approaches to teaching-learning place the learner at the center of the "messy business" of learning. It encourages deep engagement with the learning material and reflection on own learning. The guidance, collaborative learning, and self-regulated learning competencies covered in this area unpack these skills.

4. Assessment

Assessment can make or break innovative education. Existing assessment strategies shouldn't be thrown overboard. Instead, the competencies described in this area, will enhance educators' assessment skills and help them create innovative new approaches to assessment.

Digital technologies also help educators to keep track, analyze and interpret students' performance data, enabling their eventual decision-making as educators. Eventually, students benefit from this with more specific feedback and more precise planning of further interventions.

5. Empowering learners

Not all learners are the same. All competent educators know that. Competent digital educators make use of digital affordances to promote learner-centeredness, active learning, and engagement. This area of competence talks to educators that are exploring and implementing these technologies. For example, digital teaching-learning allows learners to explore different options for a dilemma posed by the educator, or create their own digital artifacts.

Competent digital educators can more easily tailor their instruction to cater to differences in the level of competence, interests, and needs of learners. They should, however, do so, without amplifying inequalities; e.g. access to data and connectivity.

6. Facilitating Learners' Digital Competence

Digital competence is a key for everybody to information, learning, and growth. Digital competence also helps all of us guard against situations where data and information are weaponized against truth and freedom. Competent digital educators are placing the education profession in a unique position where it can help shape a future where truth and freedom are cherished.

The competencies in this area speak for themselves: Information and media literacy; Digital communication and collaboration; Digital content creation; Responsible use; Digital problem-solving.

B. Grow

Next, you need to find resources to grow your digital competencies as an educator. I created a free and open online DigCompEdu Collaborative Laboratory to be one such resource. It is still very much a start-up, but please take a look at it and see it grow; participation is free and will always be free.

What is the DigCompEdu Collaborative Laboratory?

It is a digital environment (in the form of seven Moodle courses - one for each of the DigCompEdu areas plus an Orientation course) where:

• Participants can see how digital technologies have been implemented to express the competencies described in DigCompEdu;
• Participants can implement some of the technologies themselves to practice and gain experience in expressing their own DigCompEdu competencies.
• Participants can share experiences and knowledge with other participants that are already using these competencies at various levels.
• It is still a work in progress and requires much development, but it is open, free, and already accessible. Please join by going to the DigCompEdu Collaborative Lab.

This is where you can find the Lab: Collaborative Laboratory for Digital Educators

This PDF document gives some guidance on how to access and use the Lab. The rest of the content in the lab is fairly self-explanatory. Remember to also read up about the European Union’s DigCompEdu framework: Read more about it here.

C. Just do it!

Next, I will share some of the methods and practices of teaching online. How different is it from the traditional pedagogies? Spoiler alert: There are differences, but mostly strong similarities.

Disclaimer: This work is derived from a work that was first published, in English, in 2017, as "European Framework for the Digital Competence of Educators: DigCompEdu" by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre.?https://europa.eu/!gt63ch This re-work is the responsibility of Johan Venter (2022). E-mail him at [email protected]. The European Commission is not responsible for this re-work and cannot be held liable for any consequence stemming from its use.