Assessing regional digital competence: Digital futures and strategic planning implications

Understanding strategic decisions aimed at addressing regional economic issues is of increasing interest among scholars and policy makers today. Thus, studies that proffer effective strategies to address digital futures concerns from social and policy perspectives are timely. In light of this, this research uses strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis tool to frame a regional strategy for digital futures to enhance place-specific digital connectivity and socio-economic progress. Focus group discussions and a structured questionnaire were conducted to examine a SWOT for a digital economy strategy in the Southern Downs Region in Queensland, Australia. The findings show that while the proposed regional strategies for digital futures are susceptible to internal and external forces, strategic planning makes them manageable. The study’s findings also reveal that adaptive strategic planning can help regulate the effects of internal and external factors that shape individual and organisational responses to digital transformation, and that these factors promote regional competitiveness

Editorial

The EU not only provides funding, but also has launched several policy initiatives and interventions on the digitalisation of education, outlined, for instance, in “Europe 2020 Strategy,” “Digital Agenda for Europe,” “Agenda for New Skills and Jobs,” “Innovation Union,” “Opening up Education: Innovative Teaching and Learning for All through New Technologies and Open Educational Resources,” “DigComp 2.0: The Digital Competence Framework for Citizens,” “A European Framework for Digitally Competent Educational Organisations,” “A Digital Single Market Strategy for Europe,” “New Skills Agenda for Europe: Working Together to strengthen Human Capital, Employability and Competitiveness,” Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition, and “Strategic Framework – Education and Training 2020.” Furthermore, contests such as European Digital Skills Awards for outstanding projects contributing to digital skills development have been launched. The authors from ten countries try to consider and analyse the contemporary topics and modern trends in the fields of internationalisation of higher education, IT competence, and intercultural competences development in conditions of the digital world

The MUPPLE competence continuum

The idea of Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) seems to polarise the educational sphere into supporters and opponents. Both groups relate their enthusiasm or criticism to underlying competences motivated by or needed for building up, running, and maintaining a PLE. Within the following article, results of a qualitative study with multiple cases will be presented to shed light onto which competence and which of its building blocks are involved in running a (mash-up) PLE. Data about the involved skills, abilities, habits, attitudes and knowledge will be presented in a raster of the five dimensions 'plan', 'reflect', 'monitor', 'act', and 'interact' against the three stages 'start', 'trigger', and 'outcome'. The findings indicate that there is a continuum ranging from the ones needed right ahead to the ones ultimately sought

Beyond competence: digital literacies as knowledge practices, and implications for learner development

Our interest in studying digital literacies arises from what we perceive as a failure to develop students' capacities to learn deeply in a technology-rich environment. The trends towards networked communities and digital citizenship, as well as workplace changes including distributed/collaborative work patterns and an (arguably) higher value being placed on 'knowledge' work, all make digital capabilities central to what higher education can offer. While we see efforts being made to support learners’ ICT skills – or at least bring these up to a minimum standard of competence – these are rarely integrated with the development of other capabilities critical to higher learning. E-learning is often celebrated for its potential to extend participation. As we are increasingly saturated in opportunities for acquiring knowledge (Downes 2005, Walton et al. 2007, Anderson 2008), informal networked learning has achieved a new prominence in educational discourse, to the extent that it has almost become the measure by which formal learning is judged. In practice, however, we see digital opportunities being disproportionately taken up, and benefited from, by those with existing educational capital (see for example NIACE 2008). Too often, also, e-learning is used as a shorthand for the management of learning by digital means, rather than the exploration of disciplinary knowledge and knowledge practices in a new digital context. A more competence-based curriculum is becoming the norm, a development which has arguably been accelerated by the standardisation of qualifications in a global (digital) learning market. And yet, we see evidence that effective learners in digital – as in other – contexts have not been motivated by competence-based approaches to learning. We are excited by the current theoretical interest in digital literacies, and yet our motivation remains a pragmatic one: to investigate how learners are developing literacies for learning and meeting their learning goals, at a time when valued knowledge is predominantly communicated in digital forms. We continue to be involved in translating relevant research into effective interventions at curriculum and institutional levels

Musselman Library Updated Strategic Priorities 2016-2018

This document updates Musselman Library’s 2013 Strategic Plan, retaining the strategic directions that still require attention and adding new priority areas. This update grew out of an all-staff discussion on November 3, 2016, in which library employees identified areas of success/completion and pinpointed unfinished business from the 2013-2016 plan. The staff also suggested other areas to develop. In response to these suggestions, department heads updated the 2013-2016 plan. In this update we have: Retained three strategic directions from the original plan with some changes and additions: Lifelong Learning, Sustainability, and Assessment. Reframed the Leadership plank in the context of Scholarly Communications priorities. Added a fifth strategic priority: Diversity and Inclusion

The development of the digital teaching competence from a sociocultural approach

En la actualidad, la competencia digital docente trasciende de la formación individual del profesorado en materia TIC. El marco europeo DigCompEdu incide en que el profesorado tiene que capacitar al alumnado en la aplicación de las tecnologías digitales de forma crítica y responsable en cuanto a información, comunicación, generación de contenido, bienestar y resolución de problemas. Pese a las buenas intenciones para sistematizar un modelo común de desarrollo de la competencia digital, se detecta que las propuestas carecen de un enfoque pedagógico que sirva de base teórica de los mismos. Este trabajo propone un modelo de desarrollo de la competencia digital docente basado en el enfoque sociocultural mediante cuatro constructos: Dominio, Preferencia, Reintegración y Apropiación. Para ello, se elaboró una escala ad hoc para registrar la competencia digital docente a través del desarrollo de esta en sus estudiantes, aportando evidencias empíricas. Se plantea un diseño de tipo cuestionario. La muestra se compone de 1.881 estudiantes de educación obligatoria de Andalucía. Para el análisis de datos se utilizó SPSS. Los resultados promedios generales por cada una de las dimensiones estudiadas revelan un nivel medio de desarrollo de la competencia digital. Se concluye que aún existe mucho por hacer en cuanto a la formación del profesorado en materia TIC, siendo necesario facilitarles estrategias para el desarrollo de esta en sus estudiantes.Abstract Many Nowadays, digital teaching competence transcends the individual training of teachers in ICT. The European framework DigCompEdu, highlights that teachers must train students in the application of digital technologies in a critical and responsible way, in terms of information, communication, content generation, wellbeing and problem solving. Despite the good intentions to systematize a common model of development of digital competence, it is detected that the proposals lack a pedagogical approach that serves as a theoretical © COMUNICAR, 61 (2019-4); e-ISSN: 1988-3293; Preprint DOI: 10.3916/C61-2019-02 framework for them. This paper proposes a development model of the digital teaching competence based on the sociocultural approach through four constructs: Command, Preference, Reintegration and Appropriation. For this study, an ad hoc scale is created to record the digital teaching competence through the development of this in their students and empirical evidences are provided. A survey type design is proposed. The sample consists of 1,881 students of compulsory education in Andalusia (Spain). SPSS is used to analyse data. The average general results for each of the dimensions studied reveal a medium level of development of digital competence. It is concluded that there is still too much to be done in terms of teacher training in ICT, being necessary to provide them strategies for the development of this in their students

Service-learning @ Lingnan : facts & figures

This booklet summarizes the results and findings from the ongoing research and evaluation studies of Service-Learning. It provides supporting evidence that Service-Learning enhances students’ development in seven learning outcomes: Subject-Related Knowledge, Communication Skills, Social Competence, Problem- Solving Skills, Research Skills, Organization Skills and Civic Orientation.https://commons.ln.edu.hk/osl_book/1011/thumbnail.jp

The Framework Catalogue of Digital Competences

The Framework Catalogue of Digital Competences Justyna Jasiewicz, Mirosław Filiciak, Anna Mierzecka, Kamil Śliwowski, Andrzej Klimczuk, Małgorzata Kisilowska, Alek Tarkowski & Jacek Zadrożny Centrum Cyfrowe Projekt: Polska (2015

Values-Based Network Leadership in an Interconnected World

This paper describes values-based network leadership conceptually aligned to systems science, principles of networks, moral and ethical development, and connectivism. Values-based network leadership places importance on a leader\u27s repertoire of skills for stewarding a culture of purpose and calling among distributed teams in a globally interconnected world. Values-based network leadership is applicable for any leader needing to align interdependent effort by networks of teams operating across virtual and physical environments to achieve a collective purpose. An open-learning ecosystem is also described to help leaders address the development of strengths associated with building trust and relationships across networks of teams, aligned under a higher purpose and calling, possessing moral fiber, resilient in the face of complexity, reflectively competent to adapt as interconnected efforts evolve and change within multicultural environments, and able to figure out new ways to do something never done before