Digital identity of researchers and their personal learning network

Paper produzido no âmbito da Tese de Doutoramento em Educação, especialidade de Educação a Distância e eLearning (EDeL), Universidade Aberta.In a networked society, everyday experience is shared in networks at a personal, professional and academic level. Thus, there is a need to have digital literacy skills to obtain and produce contents in a collaborative way, sharing the knowledge acquired in the personal learning network. This paper is a reflection of literature revision in the PhD project of Online Distance Education and e-learning, concerning themes such as digital identity and personal learning networks. In this way we aim to make a literature analysis about the necessity of digital literacy so that we may obtain competencies for a personal learning network.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Preparing isiXhosa home language teachers for the 21st century classroom: Student teachers' experiences, challenges and reflections

The aim of the article is to identify the gaps between theory and practice in pre-service teacher training with special reference to the teaching of isiXhosa as a home language in the Further Education and Training (FET) phase (Grades 10–12) in some Western Cape high schools. The article is based on data that was collected from Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) students taking isiXhosa (home language) as one of their teaching method subjects as part of their pre-service training. The data were collected by means of an open-ended questionnaire, semi-structured interviews and an analysis of student teachers’ reflective journals. The article provides an analysis of PGCE students’ experiences and reflections on the teaching of isiXhosa as a home language in schools. It argues that if there is a gap between theory underpinning initial pre-service training and actual practice in schools, there will be no significant improvement in the teaching of isiXhosa as a home language. It concludes by proposing ways of improving both pre-service and in-service teacher education practice to develop African languages as academic or intellectual languages at school level

Supporting Literacy and Digital Literacy Development in Early Childhood Education Using Storytelling Activities

Educators have increasingly adopted formalized approaches for teaching literacy skills in early childhood education. In line with an emergent critique of this approach, the present study investigated the design and effectiveness of a literacy intervention that blended Gagné’s nine events of instructional design with storytelling. Three classes in a public preschool in Indonesia participated in an experimental study involving 45 children, aged 5–6 years. Across 3 weeks, one experimental condition received storytelling activities and a second experimental condition received digital storytelling activities. The control condition received regular literacy classroom activities. Before, and after, the 3-week storytelling intervention, measures of literacy and digital literacy skills were administered to all groups. In the digital storytelling condition, children’s literacy skills increased significantly compared to children in the control condition. Other exploratory data analyses suggested that both types of storytelling activities enhanced digital literacy skills. The findings need to be replicated with an extended series of storytelling activities that involve larger groups of participants

The role of digital competencies and creativity for job crafting in public administration

Over recent years, the way public workers perform and interpret the own work has radically changed. Among these changes,what seems to have had a decisive impact is the advent of information and communication technologies. The informatization, digitalization, and computerization of procedures and jobs has made learning and the use of digital competencies necessary to face constant change and to take advantage of it. Digital competencies consist in knowing how to use the information society technologies for work, leisure, and communication with confidence and a critical spirit. So, those who manage to develop basic skills in information and communication technologies can juggle in this changing scenario. In this ongoing study, we hypothesize a relationship between digital competencies and job crafting. We hypothesize that civil servants developing this type of competencies can act proactively on their work by modifying its contents, relationships, and cognitive perception if they are creative. Implications are discussed