Appropriation of Digital Competence in Teacher Education

Elen Instefjord

doi:10.18261/issn1891-943x-2014-04-06

Abstract

Appropriation of Digital Competence in Teacher Education

Highlights

Over the last two decades, considerable time and money have been invested in integration and use of technology at all levels of education, and a number of large reforms have swept through the Norwegian education system (Lund & Hauge, 2011)
This is confirmed in a recent report from the Nordic Institute for Studies in Innovation, Research and Education, indicating that development of professional digital competence is consistently weakly rooted in the management of teacher education programmes, and that most programmes lack a coherent approach to the development of such skills (Tømte, Kårstein, & Olsen, 2013)
This study investigated opportunities for appropriation of digital competence in two different teacher education institutions

Summary

Introduction

Over the last two decades, considerable time and money have been invested in integration and use of technology at all levels of education, and a number of large reforms have swept through the Norwegian education system (Lund & Hauge, 2011). Teacher education programmes are commonly criticized for their failure to provide pre-service teachers with the necessary experiences of how to utilize educational technologies in a teaching practice (Chien, Chang, Yeh, & Chang, 2012) and for not focusing sufficiently on developing pre-service teachers’ digital competence (Wilhelmsen, Ørnes, Kristiansen, & Breivik, 2009). This is confirmed in a recent report from the Nordic Institute for Studies in Innovation, Research and Education, indicating that development of professional digital competence is consistently weakly rooted in the management of teacher education programmes, and that most programmes lack a coherent approach to the development of such skills (Tømte, Kårstein, & Olsen, 2013). The focus of this article is directed towards teacher educators’ and pre-service teachers’ perceptions and descriptions of digital competence and how technology is being used and appropriated by teacher educators and preservice teachers

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion