Antonio Cartelli

Models and Instruments for assessing Digital Competence at School

How digital competence can be defi ned and assessed? One of the most known instruments to certifi cate IT skills is the European Computer Driving License (ECDL), but it focuses on the mastery of specifi c technical skills while neglecting dimensions which are pedagogically signifi cant. In such a context, our research group developed a conceptual model for the notion of digital competence based on three dimensions: technological, cognitive and ethical. Grounding on this model, we worked out and tested an instrument (Instant DCA) to assess digital competence in students aged 15/16 years.

ICT and Knowledge Construction: Towards New Features for the Socio-Technical Approach

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide an analysis and review of the sociotechnical approach as a result of analysis of experiences with the introduction of ICT in higher educationDesign/methodology/approach – The experiences of the author with the creation of special web sites in palaeography are analysed paying special attention to knowledge construction and development at three different levels: individual, community, and organisation (society). The results are compared with those from the concept of communities of practice.Findings – There is a need for the introduction of a new element in the SECI cycle and the introduction of a new element in the scheme for a sociotechnical approach.Research limitations/implications – The findings need further experimentation in order to discover any validity for the knowledge management field in relation to the concept of communities of practice.Practical implications – The use of the scheme for the sociotechnical approach could help in the planning and ...

Bebras Contest and Digital Competence Assessment: Analysis of Frameworks

The article is made of two parts. The first part discusses the importance of informal education environments supported by IT/ICT in students’ learning, followed by reports of some international competitions and the role they have in improving students’ interest and use of Informatics and related disciplines. At the end of the section, it describes the Bebras contest, an international competition supporting students’ Information and Communication Technology competences with emphasis on cross discipline competences, which are useful to solve real life problems. In the second part of the article, the outcomes of a research study on the features of a framework for digital competence assessment are reported. Based on this, some criticisms emerging from the analysis of the answers that students gave to a questionnaire built on the guidelines of the mentioned framework are analysed. They are integrated by the comments that teachers, colleagues and researchers made on the structure of the hypothesized framework. At last, a new model for digital literacy assessment is proposed. In the conclusion, the necessary elements for making the last framework effective are outlined and its suitability for the construction of the yearly questionnaire of the Bebras contest is discussed.

Frameworks for Digital Competence Assessment: Proposals, Instruments, and Evaluation

After a short introduction on the need for a new literacy, coming from the work of many organizations and institutions during last twenty years, the approach adopted by an Italian research group for the planning and development of a framework for digital competence assessment is discussed. This model, the first built until now, has been used to create a questionnaire experimented with High School students and has been discussed with colleagues in conferences and meetings. The criticisms and amendments which have been proposed led to a new framework, which has the main feature of being centred on the subject while focussing the analysis of the digital competence, more than adopting a discipline (IT/ICT) centred approach for its assessment, like in the first framework. In the next section of the paper the different dimensions of the framework are discussed. First the cognitive dimension is analyzed and the questionnaire developed by the organizing committee of the “Beaver” international competition to assess IT/ICT knowledge and skills in students, is proposed for the assessment of the cognitive dimension of digital competence. The discussion of the answers that two groups of students of different ages (i.e., Benjamin and Junior) gave to this questionnaire follow, and the differences in the two age groups are reported. Furthermore the answers to the questions for the assessment of the affective dimension of the framework are discussed. In the conclusion it is shown how and why the main features of the new framework can be considered to fit the required assessment of digital competence and some hints for the direction of future studies and research are given.

New Technologies and New Paradigms in Historical Research

Introduction During this last century mass-media and multi-media communications underwent progressive growth and evolution, so that, today, they are pre-eminent with respect to printed matter, not only in broadcasting news but also in propagating more structured and organized information. While many authors are still persuaded that meaningful knowledge comes off only from personal reading of printed materials, today researches in education (at least most of them) show a revolution in didactic activities, where cooperative and constructive experiences make extensive use of multimedia and computers. Good examples in this field are the materials used in distance learning courses. They were originally made by printed matter sent by mail to the students. Pictures, movies and multimedia information replaced the previous materials when television and computer networks became easily available. They changed the way people could learn and interact with scientific and disciplinary knowledge. Many scholars attribute the reasons for such a revolution to the structural characteristics of the new media and specifically to electronic media (i.e. every kind of analogical and digital communication media using electronics to spread information), with respect to printed texts, because of their directness, effectiveness and immediateness, while transmitting all kinds of information, or, to repeat the same words used by D. de Kerckhove (de Kerckhove 1995)--these media talk to the body more than to the mind--, they wrap up information addressees with their messages. The great changes in human behaviour induced by new media forced many researchers to carry out deep studies to analyze their influence on human history and evolution. Its important to remember here, for the implications they have in what follows, M. McLuhans and D. de Kerckhoves contributions. McLuhan is famous for at least two symbolic assertions characterizing his work: first of all he says that every instrument mankind created in the history can be thought of as a prosthesis, i.e. a tool to improve human abilities and to multiply the ways of understanding phenomena; second, he asserts that the medium is the message, thus carrying to the extremes the influence communication media can have on people, much more than the contents of the messages themselves. As a pupil and heir of McLuhan, de Kerckhove continued his research and enriched his assertions with new contents. A common opinion concerning the characteristics of the phase todays mankind (or at least a part of it) lies in seems to join many scholars (including the above). They point out the presence of media extending in space and time individual capabilities and skills, so annulling the answering time to external stimulation. In other words we can say today human beings, while using communication media, have acquired at least two new senses: distance seeing, letting them see distant events just when they happen, and distance acting, letting them modify events in the same manner. If this is the end act of the human evolution it is perhaps too early to say but its undoubtedly a step of the human evolutionary route having no comparison with any other event until now. The importance of finding a key to understand this phenomenon lies in the following reasons: 1) the overcoming of the optimist-pessimist dualism (the former one supporting a total democracy governed by media, the latter one persuaded that new media will delete the ego and homologate the masses); 2) the influence of hyper-sensitization and over-exposition to new media on future scenarios mankind will deal with. In any case, the roots of today events are very deep: they start from language invention, pass through alphabet discovery and printing invention and arrive to todays new media. Language is for de Kerkchove the first example of human software and the first tool human beings used to create, model and dominate matter, to share their experiences and to build more and more complex social structures (Calvani, 1997). …

Theory and Practice in Digital Competence Assessment

Today, life is more complex and difficult due to uncertainties in society. Liquid life (Bauman, 2006) is frenetic, rapidly changing and highly influenced from information and communication technologies, and forces subjects to adapt to group behavior avoiding exclusion. Human beings are experimenting with the digital age and the pervasiveness of computers and IT/ICT equipment, which are influencing learning and knowledge construction. This raises questions in regard to a privileged role for digital competences in the knowledge society, whether or not there is a framework for digital competence assessment, and possible hints, suggestions, experiments, protocols, or curricula helping teachers in hitting this target with students. This paper answers these questions, describing the evolution of psycho-pedagogical paradigms and their comparisons. A framework for digital competence assessment is proposed and teaching activities are suggested. A proposal of a teaching-learning process called OTS (Open Teaching Process) is also presented.

Misinforming, Misunderstanding Misconceptions: What Informing Science Can Do

First of all a survey of the most relevant definitions and hypotheses concerning data, information, communication and knowledge is proposed. Main aim of this introduction is to give to the reader a reference frame for the analysis of the students’ learning and for their knowledge construction works. Soon after some wrong ideas are analyzed with respect to the above conceptual frame, i.e. with respect to didactic communication, to human knowledge construction and to individual cleverness in the use of the concepts pertaining to specific disciplinary fields. At last some considerations on the above results are reported and some hints and suggestions for a revision of the Informing Science definition are proposed; all is done in a perspective that assigns to Informing Science a trans-disciplinary function tha t helps well-established disciplines like Didactics, Psycho logy, Philosophy etc. to find new strategies for the analysis of the teachinglearning process.

From Smart Cities to Smart Environment: Hints and Suggestions for an Ecology of the Internet

After a short introduction on the evolution of ICT influence on mankind and on the meaning and functions of smart cities, the Me.Dig.Eco. project Eco-Sustainable Digital Mediterranean Sea is discussed and it is especially showed how it can contribute in the construction of a virtual environment, having the following main features: a aiming at helping people to have instantaneously at hand any information on the places in that environment and safely navigating from place to place, b creating a smart and easy communication channel with the population of the coasts and the islands in that sea, to be fully immersed in those communities and living a full immersion experience in those natural environments.

Computer science education in Italy: a survey

This paper discusses a brief overview of the Italian school system and the different ways it introduces computer science and information technology in the various schools. Included is a section on high school computing education and its evolution during the past decades as well as a review of the initiatives being undertaken by compulsory schools and professional associations.

Web Technologies and the Integration of Different E-Learning Strategies in Education

The article aims at presenting some experiences concerning new ways of introducing ICT in teaching and especially the use of Web technologies in education. It starts with the analysis of the results that the author obtained with little groups of students, while using special Web sites (i.e., online information systems) for the collection of bibliographies and for the management of data on ancient manuscripts. The observation of the features of the communities (both of learners and of practice) for those classes, led him to hypothesize that information systems could induce the creation of communities where never seen before and new ways of teaching could be introduced in education. Subsequently, the structure of the information system TETIS and its use in a master course for teachers are reported. It is evidenced, among other things, how that system (born for making transparent teaching processes and implementing teachers’ practices) was used together with a traditional e-learning platform for the management of the master course.At last, some introductory results obtained from the use of the TETIS platform are discussed.