Competence

The G8 Heads of State concur and acknowledge the role that information and communication technology (ICT) can play in supporting educational improvement. The UNESCO ICT Competency Framework for Teachers project is developed in support of these priorities.

The goal of the “ICT Competency Framework for Teachers” (ICT-CFT) project is to improve teachers’ practice. However, the Framework do not merely focus on ICT skills. By combining ICT skills with emergent views in pedagogy, curriculum, and school organization, the framework is designed for the professional development of teachers who want to use ICT skills and resources to improve their teaching, collaborate with colleagues, and perhaps ultimately become innovation leaders in their institutions. The overall objective of the project is to improve teacher practice in a way that contributes to a higher quality education system that can, in turn, produce a better informed citizenry and higher quality workforce that can, as a result, advance a country’s economic and social development.

More specifically, the objectives of the ICT-CFT project are:

• to constitute a common core syllabus (defining various ICT competency skills for teachers) that professional development providers can use to develop learning materials sharable at a global level;
• to provide a basic set of qualifications that allows teachers to integrate ICT into their teaching;
• to extend teachers’ professional development so as to advance their skills in pedagogy, collaboration, and school innovation using ICTs;
• to harmonize different views and vocabulary regarding the uses of ICTs in teacher education.

While the UNESCO ICT-CFT project specifies the competencies needed to implement these changes, it will be up to approved governmental, non-governmental, and private providers to deliver the training for these competencies. The project also includes a mechanism for reviewing and approving the curricula and course offerings of these providers.

Economists identify three factors that lead to growth based on increased productivity: capital deepening (the use of equipment that is more productive than earlier versions), higher quality labor (a more knowledgeable workforce that is more productive), and technological innovation—the creation, distribution, and use of new knowledge. These three productivity factors serve as the basis for three complementary, somewhat overlapping approaches that connect education policy with economic development:

• increase the technological uptake of the workforce by incorporating technology skills in the curriculum — or the technology literacy approach;
• increase the ability of the workforce to use knowledge to add value to economic output by applying it to solve complex, real-world problems — or the knowledge deepening approach.
• increase the ability of the workforce to innovate and produce new knowledge and of citizens to benefit from this new knowledge — or the knowledge creation approach.

These three approaches correspond to alternative policy goals and visions for the future and together they provide a developmental trajectory by which education reform supports increasingly sophisticated ways of developing a country’s economy and society: from technology uptake, to a high performance workforce, to a knowledge economy and information society. Moving across the approaches, a country’s students and ultimately its workforce and citizenry acquire increasingly sophisticated skills needed to support economic growth and an improved standard of living.

The UNESCO ICT-CFT project encompasses all three of these approaches to educational change, so as to address different policy goals and visions. But each approach has different implications for education reform and improvement. Each has different implications for components of the education system: pedagogy, teacher practice and professional development, curriculum and assessment, and school organization and administration. And ICT plays a different role in each of these approaches.

Teacher professional development has been shown to be a particularly important component of educational improvement but only if professional development is focused on specific changes in teacher classroom behaviors and particularly if it is aligned with other changes in the educational system. The UNESCO ICT Competency Framework for Teachers play out the implications that each of the three education improvement approaches have for changes in each of the components of the educational system: Policy, curriculum and assessment, pedagogy, the use of technology, school organization and administration, and teacher professional development.

The aim of the competition was to highlight successful cross-border learning projects which received support from Comenius, Erasmus, Leonardo da Vinci and Grundtvig. These programmes offer the opportunity to acquire new competencies, learn languages, exchange experience and good practices. The end result will be higher quality of education across Europe.

The laureates were selected among 134 eligible Polish projects carried out between 2008 and 2010. The jury awarded six EDUInspiration prizes evaluating candidates in terms of effectiveness of the project, efficiency, impact, sustainability of results. In addition, the experts decided to award 12 honourable distinctions for the projects which demonstrated innovative approach in dissemination of the achieved results.

The awards gala was held on 18 October 2011 during the Mobility Conference in Sopot, Poland. Each award winning project received a statuette and a diploma.

The winning projects are:

Institutional Mobility

1st Prize

Giving Heart to European Senior Citizens

Jadwiga Wolska Post-Secondary School for Medical and Social Workers in Nowy Sącz

Project coordinators: Agata Piwowar, Barbara Kafel

Leonardo da Vinci (vocational education and training) - Initial Vocational Training

2nd Prize

Amazing Europe

No.1 Integration School Compound in Łódź, No. 67 Janusz Korczak Integration Primary School in Łódź

Project coordinator: Julita Skulimowska-Wilk

Comenius (school education) - Multilateral School Partnerships

3rd Prize

Community Based Rehabilitation in Neurology - Training Programme

EU Sp. z o.o.

Project coordinator: Anna Czernuszenko

Leonardo da Vinci (vocational education and training) - Partnerships

Individual Mobility

1st Prize

Beata Stępień

Creating E-learning Courses – Hands-on Tools and Practical Tips

No 1 Primary School with Integration Forms in Racibórz

Comenius Programme (school education) - In-service Training

2nd Prize

Iwona Przemyk

ICT for Collaborative, Project-Based Teaching and Learning

School and Preschool Compound in Studzienice

Comenius (school education) - In-service Training

3rd Prize

Piotr Sikora

Triple T – Theory, Teaching, Technology: Teaching and Learning with ICT

Municipal Office in Tarnowiec

Transversal Programme – Study Visit

Here is a short story of each of the projects.

The main goal of the conference is to initiate the discussion on the role and potential of mobility in formal and non-formal education implemented as part of the LLP and Youth in Action programmes. The conference will constitute a great opportunity for exchange of views on better methods for using mobility results for social development and establishing institutional base, which will guarantee top quality mobility implemented under the next generation of EU programmes. 

Detailed Goals:  Presenting the offer and disseminating the results of education-related mobility programmes (LLP and YiA). The conference aims to present systemic and legislative solutions applied in various EU countries in order to provide conditions for mobility and recognising its results. During the meeting, diverse methods for applying mobility in the development of multicultural education programmes will be presented. Recommendations on mobility within the next generation of EU programmes in education will be drawn.

Intr-o perioada in care rolul educatiei este tot mai intens dezbatut de mediul academic si societatea civila, SIVECO Romania in parteneriat cu Unitatea de Management a Proiectelor cu Finantare Externa (MECTS) prezinta o solutie inedita menita sa dezvolte capacitatile creative ale elevilor si sa transforme actul de invatare intr-o activitate eficienta si placuta.

Ministrul Educatiei, Cercetarii, Tineretului si Sportului, domnul Petru Daniel Funeriu, a aprobat la inceputul lunii iulie 2011 Ordinul Nr. 4572/06.07.2011 prin care curriculumul integrat, inter si transdisciplinar pentru domeniile stiintific si umanist “Invatare pentru societatea cunoasterii” devine parte integranta a Curriculumului la Decizia Scolii incepand cu anul scolar 2011-2012.

Curriculumul transdisciplinar a fost realizat in cadrul proiectului „Proces educational optimizat in viziunea competentelor societatii cunoasterii” (mai cunoscut in mediul liceal ca proiectul „Multi-touch”) si se bucura de privilegiul unicitatii, fiind, de asemenea, printre primele abordari coerente ale conceptului de invatare axata pe competente si, probabil, primul curs transdisciplinar care integreaza cele doua arii de cunoastere: “Matematica si stiinte” si “Om si societate”.

„Speram ca aceasta abordare sa atraga atentia cat mai multor elevi din clasa a IX-a. Ei vor avea la dispozitie materiale de predare, invatare, si evaluare in format digital. Cursul ii va ajuta sa-si imbunatateasca abilitatile de comunicare, sa isi dezvolte capacitatea de a se adapta la situatii diferite, capacitatea de investigare si de valorizare a propriei experiente. Toate acestea ii vor face sa fie mai bine pregatiti pentru piata muncii”, declara seful echipei de proiect SIVECO, prof. Radu Jugureanu, directorul departamentului AeL eContent in cadrul SIVECO Romania.

Optionalul include 12 teme care pot fi abordate in diferite combinatii in functie de alegerea elevilor si profesorilor. Intr-o prima etapa, curriculumul integrat, inter si transdisciplinar a fost dezvoltat doar pentru clasa a XI-a, insa deschide calea pentru promovarea transdisciplinaritatii la toate nivelurile scolare.

Activitatea de conceptie a curriculumului optional s-a desfasurat cu sprijinul specialistilor SIVECO Romania. Pana in prezent, acesta a reprezentat un proiect pilot implementat in 500 de licee din toata tara, insa incepand din anul scolar 2011-2012 toate liceele din Romania, indiferent de profil vor beneficia de nou programa optionala.

Proiectul „Proces educational optimizat in viziunea competentelor societatii cunoasterii” este implementat de Unitatea de Management a Proiectelor cu Finantare Externa din Ministerul Educatiei, Cercetarii, Tineretului si Sportului in parteneriat cu SIVECO Romania si Universitatea Nationala de Aparare „Carol I” si este cofinantat din Fondul Social European prin Programul Operational Sectorial Dezvoltarea Resurselor Umane 2007-2013. Programa optionala si ghidul metodologic pot fi citite pe www.transdisciplinar.pmu.ro si pe www.siveco.ro, Fonduri structurale.