The power of teachers in transferring digital skills

Mmaki Jantjies
Sep 4, 2018 · 2 min read

The UNESCO teachers Information and Communication Technology (ICT) competency framework (2011) outlines key critical factors that can enable teachers to transfer these skills to future generational human resources. Of particular interest in the framework, is teachers being able to have a basic understanding and awareness of policies of ICT in education, knowledge and awareness of curriculum and assessment, basic tools and classrooms to support this and digital literacy skills which learners can draw from and emulate. These factors provide an ideal which schools across the African continent could strive to have with the pragmatic view that digitally literate teachers can transfer this much needed skill to our learners. This considering that ICT literacy skills are a need across the teaching sector and should not be left as the responsibility of Computing/Computer science teachers in schools.

In understanding the power that teachers have in ensuring digital literacy among young learners, do solutions of digital literacy and ensuring community inclusion always have to come from the top?

In understanding the many challenges that face schools, we began to run technology clubs in schools in partnership with the University of the Western Cape, Mozilla Foundation and Peo Ya Phetogo (PYP). The clubs were created to introduce technology in schools as an extra curricula activity which learners could sign up for. The clubs are run by graduate technology students with knowledge of digital skills.

As more and more learners gained an interest in ICT we found that while we were trying to ensure digital inclusion by educating the learners, the digital exclusion gap was widening between the learners and the teachers. Digitally savy learners continued to question and request resources which teachers could not provide.

Through PYP we later introduced a teacher’s programme supported by Google, to provide basic literacy skills to teachers in the same schools. The enthusiasm of teachers with no computing qualifications and experience to be able to learn basic digital skills was phenomenal. The programme also enabled us to see just how significant the digital knowledge gap was between teachers and digital native school learners. The journey of the programme has also been captivating to see how teachers respond to the potential of using Virtual Reality in classroom learning.Initiatives to curb a growing digital divide in the community will not and do not always have to come from the top. Communities, Non Profit Organizations, private sector organizations and Higher learning institutions have a key role to play in ensuring that digital literacy becomes a second language. While industrialization continues to demand skills sets that will ensure competencies relevant for new innovations in our workplace and organizations, new open, localized and adaptive ways of ensuring digital skills gain will continue to be a priority particularly in developing countries.

Mmaki Jantjies

Written by

Mom| Academic | Ed-tech Researcher| loves myAfrica | Has a passion for #mobile learning #VR and AR #data ethics #womeninSTEM www.mmakij.co.za

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