UNESCO ICT Competency Framework for Teachers ... - unesco iite

UNESCO ICT Competency Framework for Teachers
8
As pointed out in the UNESCO report, Capacity Building of Teacher-Training Institutions in Sub- Saharan Africa 5
( TTISSA), UNESCO’s aim is to bring teacher education into alignment with national development goals. These
three approaches enable education to help develop a country’s economy and society, from one which uses
new technology, to one which also has a high-performance workforce, and fi nally to one which is a knowledge
economy and information society. Through these approaches, a country’s students, and ultimately its citizens
and workforce, acquire increasingly sophisticated
THE SIX ASPECTS
OF A TEACHER’S WORK
UNDERSTANDING ICT IN EDUCATION
CURRICULUM AND ASSESSMENT
Education reform
PEDAGOGY
ICT
ORGANISATION AND ADMINISTRATION
TEACHER PROFESSIONAL LEARNING
skills needed to support economic, social, cultural and
environmental development, as well as an improved
standard of living.
The ICT-CFT focuses on teachers in primary and
secondary schools. However, these approaches
generally apply to all levels of education: primary,
secondary, vocational and tertiary education, as well
as to on-the-job learning and continuing education.
They also have implications for diff erent educational
stakeholders: not just teachers but also students,
principals, ICT co-ordinators, curriculum leaders,
administrators, professional learning coaches and
teacher-educators. Because the ICT-CFT is based
on theories of economic growth, it may also inform
policies and programmes in government ministries
which deal with economic and social development.
The use of new technologies in education implies new teacher roles, new pedagogies and new approaches to
teacher education 6 . The successful integration of ICT into the classroom will depend on the ability of teachers to
structure the learning environment in new ways, to merge new technology with a new pedagogy, to develop
socially active classrooms, encouraging co-operative interaction, collaborative learning and group work. This
requires a diff erent set of classroom management skills. The teaching skills of the future will include the ability
to develop innovative ways of using technology to enhance the learning environment, and to encourage
technology literacy, knowledge deepening and knowledge creation. Teacher professional learning will be a
crucial component of this educational improvement. However, professional learning has an impact only if it is
focused on specifi c changes in teaching.
The Framework therefore specifi es the competencies which teachers need in all aspects of their work.
5 UNESCO. 2005. Capacity Building of Teacher-Training Institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa. Paris, UNESCO.
6 Makrakis, V. 2005. Training teachers for new roles in the new era: experiences from the United Arab Emirates ICT programme.
Proceedings of the 3rd Pan-Hellenic Conference on Didactics of Informatics. Korinthos, Greece.