What’s the Good Practice about?
The objective of the practice is to improve the digital skills of teachers and knowledge in new digital technologies, cloud, artificial intelligence, big data, cybersecurity, etc. Groups of expert teachers are created who motivate their peers to adopt these technologies. Main activities are online courses, motivational webinars and coworking sessions (duration: appr. 45 days). We made online courses and webinars with teachers of our region together with the Valencian education government, helping us to define each formation and the technologies we are going to teach. As for organizational aspects, we designed three levels of knowledge, defined the minimum level we want to have, selected the more accurate technologies to teach, designed the structure of the courses (videos, format, levels, etc.) and gave correct feedback.
Why implementing the Good Practice? What are the special features of the Good Practice?
There is a need to improve digital skills within the educational world to minimize the digital divide between schools and companies. The objectives are that all teachers acquire basic digital skills, that many teachers know the new technologies that are being used in the labor market, that little by little teachers introduce these technologies in the day-to-day of their subjects. The structure of the plan can be applied to any region, what should be adapted are the contents and the technologies that are to be reinforced based on the type of companies and most important sectors in the region.
More than 5,500 teachers have completed some type of training. They all did basic courses; 60% took intermediate level courses, 20% took an advanced level course. They have created working groups involving more than 10,000 teachers. It has also served to introduce teachers who were not interested in improving these skills into the world of digitization.
What are the challenges in implementing the Good Practice? What’s the key to success?
The main problem is to get people involved and motivated so that they feel motivated to do the training. The most effective thing is to have real examples, practical cases and motivational talks since motivation is the strongest reason to learn. It is also important to include participants with a lower level, to use own teachers and introduce attractive and useful technologies in the region.