The ethical dimension of digital competence in teacher training.

Abstract

Communication technologies should be considered as a means available for people to pursue the objectives of supporting the development of equality, freedom, solidarity and socialisation. In this case, Infant and Primary Education teachers play an important role in the acquisition of digital competences by their students. In this article we ask to what extent the university degrees of Early Childhood and Primary Education Teachers in Spain, where students are trained in subjects related to the use and learning of ICT applied to Education, address digital competences from the ethical dimension. We present here some of the results of a research project carried out in Spain, using the method of content analysis, in which a total of 118 study plans for the 2019–20 university degrees were reviewed. The research results indicated that, although digital competences were present in most of the assessed plans (78%), through a subject related to the learning and use of ICT in education, only 26.1% of the teaching guides incorporated the ethical dimension of this subject. This leads us to conclude that future teachers currently receive little training in ethics regarding the development of digital competences.