14 countries originally take part in this group, Austria (joint in January 2011), Belgium (Flemish Community), Czech Republic, Cyprus, Finland, Italy (chairing), Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland and United Kingdom. The group has held 3 meetings in April 2009, May and October 2010. The initial remit of the group as defined in May 2009: “A review of national curricula and assessment models to identify how digital competence development for pupils and teachers is addressed based on a questionnaire”, was finalised in November 2010.

European Schoolnet in collaboration with the Swiss education server carried out the survey which was addressed to all 13 Ministries of Education being members of the Digital Skills Working Group. Altogether 7 countries provided input to the questionnaire: Czech Republic, Finland, Lithuania, Norway, Portugal, Slovakia, and Switzerland.

The curricula and assessment review is further complemented by 5 case studies to illustrate one aspect of digital competence development as decided by the group in its working group meeting on 27 May 2010. The case studies focus on:

• Analysing Research on the role of ICT in Teacher Training in Switzerland
• ICT in initial teacher training within the faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Informatics, Comenius University, Bratislava.
• An innovative national in-service teacher training programme for informatics teachers in primary and secondary schools in Slovakia.
• ICT based tests to assess Digital Competence in Norway- A powerful tool to determine classroom practice.
• ICT and in service teacher training- Blended elearning provided by Punto Edu for teachers in Italy.

Digital Competence Working Group: a new remit for 2011 and beyond

The group renamed itself to Digital Competence Working Group in January 2011. The rationale for doing so resulted from discussions within the working group, the curricular review report, outlining a working definition of Digital Competence, and insights from other projects dealing with the same topic (e.g. the Linked project), recognising that this is the more comprehensive and therefore more suitable term including knowledge, skills and attitudes needed to use ICT adequately in a specific context, such as education, work, personal or professional development.

The following 3 main activities were proposed by the members of the Digital Skills Working group after its first phase of activities in 2009 and 2010 and were accepted by the Steering Committee of European Schoolnet in December 2010.

1. The Digital Competence Group should act as a forum of knowledge exchange and monitoring of recent innovations and latest research in the area of digital skills.
2. The Digital Competence Working Group will collect and provide evidence on defined areas of digital competence with a priority on teacher training.
3. Activity 1 and 2 will enable the Digital Competence Working Group to further act as an advisory body to European Schoolnet including strategic advice to the Steering Committee, policy makers as well as to EUN projects or studies related to the development of digital competences.

The working group already established links with EUN projects in the area of digital skills, e.g. the LINKED project- an EC funded project, which focuses on brokering knowledge in the area of digital skills and games in schools for policy makers and practitioners. EUN successfully submitted the SMART proposal - Survey of ICT in schools, which will survey the access, use and impact of ICT in education in 27 EU member states plus Norway, Iceland, Croatia and Turkey between January 2011 and March 2012. The DCWG could support and advise the SMART study in various ways e.g. to guide the survey design, implementation and discuss the follow up analysis. Preferably, and to serve the geographical scope of the survey, the group will be enlarged to as many members as possible.

Dowload the full remit (pdf)