Teachers 4.0 Digital - Teachers 4.0 Digital Age: Tackling Disinformation and Promoting Digital Literacy through Education and Training in European Classrooms
Listen
 |
Local coordinator(s) and contacts: Prof.ssa Gianna Cappello, email: gianna.cappello@unipa.it |
The Teachers 4.0 Digital Age project aims to provide the context, tools and means to ensure that teachers and educators across Europe are adequately supported in their effort to address the pressing societal issues of tackling disinformation and promoting digital literacy.
This project constitutes a large-scale capacity-building intervention at a systemic level for the elaboration and implementation of a comprehensive solution. It operates at three (3) levels:
- initial teacher training, through the involvement in the partnership of the Pedagogy Departments of six (6) major European Universities,
- continuous professional development, through the involvement in the partnership of relevant adult education providers;
- policy-making, with the involvement of the Ministries of Education and relevant public or regional authorities in all of the involved countries.
Teachers and educators play a vital role in shaping the digital skills and competencies of young people. At the European level, there is a strong belief that education and training are key instruments in the development of digital skills and competences for being a citizen in the 21st century. The Digital Education Action Plan - the main policy strategy at a European level when it comes to the digital transformation of our education and training systems and the promotion of digital skills and competencies – underlines the crucial role “education and training have […] to play in equipping citizens with the critical thinking skills required to exercise judgment in the online world, taking into consideration its particular phenomena, related to the presence of algorithms, “information bubbles” and “echo chambers". But are teachers and trainers adequately equipped to deal with the needs of the classroom in the Digital Age? In order to ensure the effective development of digital literacy and the ability to tackle disinformation through the education and training process, teachers and educators need to be further supported with guidance and hands-on examples. In the words of Mariya Gabriel, the Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, “there is […] a clear demand for strengthening the role of education and training when it comes to promoting digital literacy and tackling disinformation”.
These two documents are the two pillars upon which the Teachers 4.0 the Digital Age project is based:
-
the “Guidelines for Teachers and Educators on Tackling Disinformation and Promoting Digital Literacy through Education and Training” (there of “the Guidelines”), which were published in October 2022, and
-
the Final report of the Commission expert group on tackling disinformation and promoting digital literacy through education and training.
The Teachers 4.0 Digital Age project aims to provide the context, the tools and the means to ensure that teachers and educators across Europe are adequately supported in their effort to address the pressing societal issues of tackling disinformation and promoting digital literacy. The Teachers 4.0 Digital Age project constitutes a large-scale effort at a systemic level for the elaboration and implementation of a comprehensive solution aimed at the effective and structured support of teachers and educators in their effort to guide children and young people to think critically, make informed choices, stay safe and build resilience in the online world. The Teachers 4.0 Digital Age project is a large-scale capacity-building intervention that operates at two (2) levels:
- at the level of initial teacher training, through the involvement in the partnership of the Pedagogy Departments of six (6) major European Universities,
- at the level of continuous professional development, through the involvement in the partnership of the relevant public authorities in five (5) EU Member States. The purpose of this project is to provide a major upskilling opportunity to a total of two thousand one hundred (2.100) teachers and educators throughout Europe to improve their capacity to deal with issues of disinformation in European classrooms and to collectively contribute to helping young people to be able to think critically, make informed choices online and stay safe whilst continuously building their resilience.
This series of interrelated activities and tasks involves:
[a]. the development of a comprehensive curriculum that will guide teachers and educators in the ways they may cultivate in their students the necessary skills to thrive in the Digital Age. The Teachers 4.0 Digital Age project does not intend to develop the relevant curriculum from scratch. Instead, it intends to capitalise on the two (2) main products of the European Commission Expert Group on tackling disinformation and promoting digital literacy
- the “Guidelines for Teachers and Educators on Tackling Disinformation and Promoting Digital Literacy through Education and Training” and
- the final report of the Commission expert group on tackling disinformation and promoting digital literacy through education and training.
The Teachers 4.0 Digital Age curriculum will correspond to a total of sixty (60) training hours and - inspired by the contents of the above-mentioned documents – it will be comprised of the following ten (10) 6-hour modules:
-
Introduction to the “Teachers 4.0 Digital Age” course
-
Disinformation: What are we talking about?
-
More key terms and definitions
-
Setting the Scene: Teaching and learning in the digital school environment
-
Assessing and evaluating digital literacy in schools
-
Explore the key media practices of children and students
-
Teaching digital literacy and disinformation
-
Building digital literacy competences in the classroom and school: becoming digital citizens
-
Students in all their diversity
-
Practical examples of lesson plans
[b]. the design of a University course on the topic of combating disinformation and digital literacy: presently, initial teacher education courses focusing on digital literacy are often optional, if not non-existent. Given the critical role that digital literacy plays in contemporary learning, it is important that digital literacy courses become more prominently integrated into initial teacher education.
In addition to integrating elements of digital literacy into all initial teacher education courses, a specific course on combating disinformation, building resilience, as well as digital and information literacy will be developed as a separate course in all six (6) Pedagogy Departments of the Universities participating in the project.
Ultimately, the aim is that these courses become a compulsory part of all teacher education programmes (work package 5). A total of one thousand fifty (1.050) teachers-to-be are expected to improve their capacity in acquainting children and youth with the dynamic and the manifestations of disinformation and improve their digital literacy in Cyprus, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Poland and Italy (work package 4).
[c]. the development of an eLearning platform: initial teacher training is not the only focus of this project; the upskilling of the thousands of primary and secondary school education teachers and educators in Cyprus, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Poland and Italy is also a primary target of the project. The TEACHERS 4.0 DIGITAL AGE project intends the development of an eLearning platform that will provide in a blended learning format the TEACHERS 4.0 DIGITAL AGE course which will be made available in six (6) European languages: English, Greek, Italian, Polish, Romanian and Bulgarian.
[d]. the delivery of a large-scale upskilling activity in six (6) EU Member States – There is a clear need for pre- and in-service teacher training to better equip educators for the challenges associated with combating disinformation and promoting digital literacy in the 21st century. This can help prepare educators to better support today’s youth – at all ages - both within and outside formal educational contexts. This need for further training of educators, relates not only to raising awareness, but also to help them gain the competences needed to engage their students in creative ways.
