Digital competence in teacher education: comparing national policies in Norway, Ireland and Spain

Abstract

This paper explores the development of policies dealing with teachers' digital competence in Norway, Ireland and Spain. Using a documentary research approach, the study analysed relevant policy documents from each country over a thirty-year period to the present day. Analysis of the documents highlights historical differences and similarities in how technology in education policies developed during that period and differences in how teacher education was addressed. Despite these differences, the analysis indicates a convergence in recent years towards a common understanding and the importance of teachers' digital competence influenced by supranational frameworks. The paper discusses the potential influence of these supranational frameworks and examines the opportunities and challenges of this policy convergence.

Modern Teacher Education in Ukraine and EU Countries: Transformation, Vectors of Development

“…Informatization of education, creating the basis for the transition to a new level, solves the problems of training specialists who are guaranteed to be able to find a decent place in the labor market, easily and fluently use mobile and Internet technologies, as well as focused on continuous learning, professional development (lifelong learning). The solution to this problem can be achieved through the environment of information interaction between the subjects of the educational process -the information and educational environment of the university, which is not only a tool but also the environment of existence (McGarr, Mifsud, 2021). The vector of development on informatization of the educational process of pedagogical universities is typical for both Ukrainian and European education.…”

Digital competences in Nordic teacher education

“…The countries are listed by level of regulation from the most detailed national regulations (Norway) to the highest level of autonomy (Finland). Concerning Norway the regulations, guidelines, and framework used in the analysis all operationalise the White Papers (McGarr et al, 2021), which themselves are not included in the analysis.…”

Teacher digital competence development in higher education: Overview of systematic reviews

“…Developing the set of skills and knowledge required by educators to enable student learning in diverse digital environments has been an important and consistent debate within educational technology (EdTech) and higher education (HE) research (McGarr et al, 2021;Zhao et al, 2021). In the past decade, the construct of teacher digital competence (TDC) has emerged, defined as the set of skills, attitudes and knowledge required by educators to function productively, safely and ethically in diverse and digitally mediated environments (Esteve-Mon et al, 2020;Falloon, 2020).…”

“…Recent research has examined integrating DC into curricula (Sánchez-Caballé et al, 2021), defined a new dimension of pedagogical DC which intersects values, knowledge and skills (From, 2017), and examined the role of DC in enabling teaching innovation through teacher training (Garzón Artacho et al, 2020). Recently, supranational frameworks related to TDC have had increasing influence on national policies (McGarr et al, 2021), most notably with the common European framework for the DC of educators (DigCompEdu), aimed at guiding policy and implementing regional and national training programs (Redecker & Punie, 2017). Specifically, the DigCompEdu framework has influenced the expansion of research which develops scales and self-assessment instruments for measuring TDC (Cabero-Almenara, Barroso-Osuna, et al, 2021;Ghomi & Redecker, 2019).…”