The theme of this symposium “Developing student teachers’ digital competence” relates to concerns that are widely acknowledged in European teacher education, namely how initial teacher education prepares student teachers to manoeuvre in technology driven classrooms together with pupils who are using technology from an early age in various activities outside of school. 

This symposium brings together researchers from five teacher education institutions in Europe from four countries who will present the first findings from the Erasmus+ funded project: Developing ICT in teacher education (DICTE).

Recent research indicates that teachers’ digital competence in Europe is not up to the mark (European Commission, 2013) and that teachers need more training and support in order to use ICT in teaching and learning (Fraillon et al., 2014; OECD, 2014). Furthermore, when reviewing international literature on ICT in teacher education (Røkenes and Krumsvik, 2014), there are few studies on student teachers professional digital competence and how they develop their professional digital competence through teacher education (Tondeur et al., 2016). Therefore, it is important to strengthen the foundation of ensuring professional digital competence of teachers by targeting initial teacher education.

The collaboration within the project aims to enhance quality and relevance of students teachers’ knowledge in digital competence and cyber ethics. Our aim is that future teachers are able to address the rapid changes in technological development for the teaching profession and incorporate these in their day-to-day teaching practices. Moreover, we see initial teacher education as central when it comes to sustaining lifelong learning and supporting teachers in incorporating open and innovative practices with ICT in their teaching and learning. Reaching this aim will impact and contribute to the modernisation of initial teacher education in these European teacher education institutions. 

Additionally, one of our main concerns is that while today's pupils are frequent consumers of digital media, they often lack the skills to critically use digital technology. As such, they need digitally competent teachers to guide them. In particular the knowledge of cyber ethics and skills to integrate various aspects of cyber ethics in teaching and learning practices is seen as imperative. Cyber ethics are important in upholding values and respect for freedom of speech, critical thinking and the respect for democratic processes in society, which are aspects of growing concern.

The collaboration between the four countries has so far resulted in a pilot survey in the autumn 2017 where 1463 first-year student teachers were asked to answer the same questions, in their local language, on self-reported digital competence and more specifically questions on cyber ethics.

In the symposium we will give a short introduction to the DICTE project, our objectives and methods. This will be followed by three paper presentations which each will explore targeted areas of developing ICT in teacher education further. These are all areas of general relevance for developing ICT in teacher education throughout Europe.

The first paper is a literature review within the field which highlights some of the current debates as well as the historical roots of the concept digital competence. The second paper will explore cyber ethics through a cross-country analysis based on a pilot survey from autumn 2017 in all participating countries (Ireland, Malta, Norway and Spain). The last paper examines student teachers’ attitude towards ICT in learning. A special focus is on discussing the validity of the questions on attitude toward ICT to ensure that variation in results across countries are not due to the existence of measurement bias.

Fraillon, J., Ainley, J., Schulz, W., Friedman, T., & Gebhardt, E. (2014). Preparing for Life in a Digital Age. The IEA International Computer and Information Literacy Study International Report. Amsterdam: SpringerOpen European Commission (2013). Survey of schools: ICT in Education. Brussels, Belgium: Author. doi:10.2759/94499 OECD (2014). TALIS 2013 results: An international perspective on teaching and learning. Paris, France: OECD Publishing. Røkenes, F.M.& Krumsvik, R.J. (2014) Development of student teachers' digital competence in teacher education : a literature review. Nordic Journal of Digital Literacy, 10 (4), p. 250-280. Tondeur, J., van Braak, J., Siddiq, F., & Scherer, R. (2016). Time for a new approach to prepare future teachers for educational technology use: Its meaning and measurement. Computers & Education, 94, 134-150. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2015.11.009