The workshop on Teacher’s ICT-Competency: Developing the Knowledge Deepening Strand is taking place this week at
UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, France. International experts in the field of ICT in education gathered to develop syllabus and assessment benchmarks for UNESCO’s ICT-Competency Framework for Teachers project.
Today’s classroom teachers need to be
prepared to provide technology-supported learning opportunities for
their students. UNESCO’s ICT Competency Framework for Teachers is an
important guideline towards that goal. The objectives of this project
are:
to constitute a common core syllabus (defining various ICT
competency skills for teachers), which can be used to develop learning
materials;
to provide a basic set of qualifications that allows teachers to integrate ICT into their teaching and learning;
to extend teachers’ professional development so as to advance
their skills in pedagogy, collaboration and school innovation using ICT;
to harmonize different views and vocabulary regarding the uses of ICT in teacher education.
In a five-day workshop, international
experts gathered to further develop the ICT modules to move on from the
Phase I version to a more detailed syllabus, including assessment
benchmarks. The meeting was opened by UNESCO’s Assistant
Director-General for Communication and Information, Jānis Kārkliņš, and
the Assistant Director-General for Education, Qian Tang, who stated:
“This programme is very important for UNESCO, because teachers are our
priority and they are key for reaching the Education for All (EFA)
goals. Teachers’ ICT competency becomes an important element of teaching
and learning in the 21st century.Discussions during the workshop reflected
the diverse backgrounds and experiences of the international experts,
coming from all regions and from countries with different levels of
economic development and ICT-readiness.
Jānis Kārkliņš stressed that “ICT-CFT has
already become an international reference document - the work of the
international experts will ensure ICT-CFT continues to be a valuable
resource to Member States.” The syllabus will undergo a broad online
peer review by some 150 additional international experts, plus another
UNESCO-financed review meeting.
The ICT-CFT project has been developed in
partnership with Cisco, Intel, ISTE and Microsoft. Its Phase I produced a
Policy Framework, Competency Standards Module and Implementation
Guidelines, which included syllabus approaches for the three main areas:
Technology Literacy, Knowledge Deepening and Knowledge Creation. Phase
II began in April 2010 to develop the next versions of the syllabi,
starting with the Technology Literacy strand and now the Knowledge
Deepening strand. The final workshop is expected to take place in spring
2011, to further develop the Knowledge Creation strand to provide a
complete international reference for teacher education.
The three booklets produced by Phase I of the project are available online:
Source:
UNESCOFurther Details