Pedagogical Use of ICT - Strengthening Teacher
Skills in a B-Learning Master’s Program
Ana Loureiro
Escola Superior de Educação, Politécnico de Santarém
CIAC; LE@D
Santarém, Portugal
0000-0003-1322-3070
Digital society requires mastery of certain literacies that are
not always developed in today's citizens. In this article, we
present an exploratory case study of a master's degree, with a
working methodology in blended learning. The master's degree
aims to empower educators regarding the use of digital
technologies and the creation of digital educational resources in
order to innovate pedagogical practices. In this study we sought
to assess whether the objectives of the master’s program were
met and whether the students felt that their skills in the
pedagogical use of ICT were strengthened. The analyzed data
were obtained through questionnaires and participant
observation. We were able to conclude that by attending this
master degree, students were overall satisfied with its
functioning by recognizing that their skills in media, digital and
information literacy were strengthened. Regarding the main
advantages of working in blended learning, we emphasize the
fact that it allows greater flexibility in access to content, in
managing the learning path and in the extension of the training
environment that enables collaborative and cooperative
networks. Regarding the present times we resorted to a
knowledge sharing methodology, by inviting experts to promote
thematic workshops open to the community.
keywords — media and information literacy (MIL), teacher
education, blended learning, pedagogical innovation, digital
technologies
I.
INTRODUCTION
To be effective in the twenty-first century, citizens must
carry functional and critical thinking skills related to
information, media and technology. [1].
The National Reading Plan 2027 (PNL2017-CTES) aims
to foster a national strategy for raising literacy levels, focusing
on cultural, scientific and digital literacy for children, youth
and adults, preparing the Portuguese population for the
demands of 21st century society. (eg increasing digitization of
society; renewal of learning processes and practices; new
spaces and forms of knowledge creation). [2].
UNESCO [3] states that the empowerment of citizens
through media and information literacy (MIL) is an important
prerequisite for promoting equitable access to information and
knowledge and build inclusive knowledge societies. This
training can start within the family, but also, and
fundamentally, in the school context. Today's students are
expected to have skills in Critical Thinking, Creativity, Media
Literacy, Communication, Informational Literacy and
Collaboration. These skills are largely predicated on the
profile of students leaving compulsory education. In
accordance with this principle, it is important for the school to
be able to meet this challenge and for teaching staff to be
digitally competent as defined by the European Framework
for the Digital Competence of Educators (DigCompEdu).
DigCompEdu defines twenty-two competencies organized
into six areas: professional engagement, digital resources,
teaching and learning, assessment, empowering learners and
facilitating learners’ digital competence (see Image 1). It
should be noted that the objective is not technical skills, but
how digital technologies can be used to enhance pedagogical
innovation.
Image 1 – DigCompEdu details 22 competences organised in six Areas
[19].
Indeed, in recent years, the development and
reinforcement of digital competences in the school context
has been one of the most relevant characteristics of public
policies for education, both at national and European level.
As Warschauer [5] points out, in order to achieve
significant education reform with the integration of digital
technologies, schools need to consider literacy and address
the challenges of learning in the 21st century: preparing
students for a life where the skills of Digital literacy, creative
thinking, effective communication, and high productivity are
more important than memorizing dates, names, and facts. We
define digital literacy as an individual's ability to effectively
perform tasks in digital environments - including the ability
to read and interpret media, to reproduce data and images
through digital manipulation, and to evaluate and apply new
knowledge acquired in digital environments [6].
JISC [7] refers to digital literacy as “capabilities which fit
someone for living, learning and working in a digital
society”. They describe a broad set of digital behaviors,
practices and identities, and being digitally literate changes
over time and across different contexts.
The European Commission has recently taken new
initiatives aimed at boosting key skills and digital
empowerment of European citizens. The Digital Education
Action Plan [8] describes how the European Union can help
citizens, educational institutions and education systems to
better adapt, live and work in an era of rapid and constant
digital change:
•
Through better use of digital technology for
teaching and learning;
978-1-7281-3182-5/19/$31.00 ©2019 IEEE
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•
By developing the digital competencies and skills
needed to live and work in an era of digital
transformation;
Improving education through an analysis and
forecast of more refined data.
•
Select, evaluate and sustainably and creatively use
Open Educational Resources (OER);
•
Design OER capable of meeting the needs of the
educational community;
Supporting this action plan, Navracsics [9] notes that
young European citizens “can become true digital natives,
with the ability and creativity to lead the global digital
transformation. To make this happen, we need to give them
the best chances to learn - and of course this starts in the
classroom, and specifically with teachers”.
•
Plan and implement innovative and inclusive ICT
strategies, methodologies and teaching practices;
•
Prepare and integrate development projects and
investigative practices for the construction of
inclusive and digitally literate communities;
•
Critically reflect on teaching and learning practices
with a view to improving professional action;
•
Recognize the importance of continuing and lifelong
learning in the field of educational technology.
•
In this sense, Higher Education Institutions (HEI) should
also provide training for teachers (basic, advanced,
continuous, expert) so that they can help their students
develop digital skills, which are essential to this information
and knowledge society.
II. THE MASTER DEGREE IN DIGITAL RESOURCES IN
EDUCATION
A. Reason and Emotion
As mentioned before, teacher training in the area of digital
technologies and media and information literacy (MIL) is of
major importance as a contribution to the student's profile
when compulsory education ends. The digital and network
society presupposes the mastery of certain literacies that are
not always developed in the citizens. Indeed, the importance
of access, use and production of scientific and academic
knowledge, inherent in the path of the actors involved in the
process of teaching and lifelong learning, is central to the
information and knowledge society [6].
Seeking to meet this challenge, the ESE (Higher School
of Education) of the Polytechnic of Santarém presents a
master degree in the area of Digital Resources in Education,
whose working methodology of the Courses are in blended
learning. This learning modality combines an online
approach and a face-to-face approach, where the time spent
in classroom physical space is shorter. This combines the
opportunities for classroom effectiveness and socialization
with the learning possibilities facilitated by digital
technologies and online environments [10].
In this way, this master aims to train teachers (and other
staff involved in education and training) in the use,
evaluation, design and development of digital learning
resources in a perspective of innovation and educational
research. It also intends to contribute to the promotion of the
spread of digital skills and pedagogical skills using ICT with
a view to teaching practices more innovative and inclusive,
the improvement of learning and promoting school success.
Therefore, seeks to enhance the pedagogical use of digital
technologies and equipment and active learning
methodologies, thus contributing to deepening the ICT
competences framework through the use of innovation and
inspiration in best practices.
B-learning environments develop skills not only in digital
literacy, but also in informational and scientific literacy,
which are fundamental in today's society. The master aims to:
•
Analyze and understand the problems and challenges
of the integration of Information and Communication
Technologies (ICT);
The master’s program has a total of nine courses in the first
year and two courses in the second year. Regarding its
operation, during the first year, the courses worked alternately
enabling for partnerships between different courses, leading to
the optimization of tasks by the students. Concerning the
general functioning of the program, we resorted to active
learning methodologies that combine flipped classroom
strategies, project-based learning and the use of open classes.
The master degree under analysis has defined a virtual
learning environment (VLE) that has specific characteristics
such as the fact that they are spaces for information and
socialization. Students are not only active but also actors,
integrating multiple complementary tools. Thus, it uses as a
primordial virtual space for interaction, content sharing and
information access, the Moodle learning management system
(LMS). In order to strengthen the sense of community among
the master participants, LMS is complemented with other
virtual spaces, namely: Whatsapp group and Skype group
(more
immediate
conversation),
Colibri-Zoom
videoconferencing room (synchronous sessions), Facebook
group (sharing news, events, relevant information in the field
of the master degree) and Mendeley group (content curation,
repository of scientific resources). These educational social
virtual spaces foster the ability to:
•
Collaboration
between
participants,
synchronously and asynchronously;
•
Creating a personal profile built solely around
educational and curriculum specialties and interests,
making it easier to find other people, resources, events
and discussions around the same interests;
•
Easily find, organize, manage and share information
and content.
both
In the face-to-face sessions, and in order to enrich the
master’s program and to provide students with the possibility
of contact with different realities and contexts, experts have
been invited to Seminars, Workshops and Lectures on various
core themes in the area of Digital Resources in Education.
These sessions, in open class, are intended to be interactive,
collaborative, attractive and active, where students have the
opportunity to interact with invited experts, questioning,
sharing, building knowledge from the information conveyed
and the educational resources explored. We understand that
Workshops, Seminars and Lectures are of crucial importance.
They allow students to contact with specialists from a
particular core area of the master, facilitating shared
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knowledge and the promotion of collective knowledge. Thus,
we consider that this methodology meets the assumptions of
the theoretical framework of learning networks and
connective knowledge [11]; whose assumptions are based on
the premise that the wider our network, the more information
we can access. We do not have to know everything, we just
have to know where we can find the information (which might
be centered on a repository or database or an individual, for
example). There is an expansion of connections and
relationships in our personal learning network (PLE),
facilitating the so-called collective knowledge.
We consider that the main benefits of collaborative
learning are: the development of critical thinking skills; the
co-creation of knowledge and meaning; the reflection; and
transformative learning [12].
In the academic year 2018/19 we had the following themes:
•
Active Teaching and Learning Methodologies;
•
Open Science and Open Educational Resources;
•
Digital Teaching Tools - Creating educational games
and learning design through mobile apps;
•
Digital Games, Cognition and Learning;
•
Research Methodologies: an overview;
•
Reference Management System: Mendeley;
•
An Arduino-based interactive
educational support resource;
•
Research paths: shared experiences and learning.
toy
-
STEM's
Note that face-to-face sessions are open to the community,
because we are guided by the premise that sharing is probably
the most basic characteristic of education: education is sharing
knowledge, ideas and information with others; building new
knowledge, skills, ideas and understanding. We argue that all
citizens should have access to high quality educational
experiences and resources, thus contributing to this common
good and to a more informed, knowledge-based society.
B. Methodology and Analysis
In the 2018/2019 school year, fourteen students regularly
attended the 1st year of the master's degree program, twelve
of which participated in the study. We resorted to the nonprobabilistic convenience sampling technique. As stated by
Carmo and Ferreira, the results cannot be generalized to the
population to which the convenience group belongs, but from
which precious information can be obtained [13]. This is an
exploratory case study [14] that used mixed analysis methods
(qualitative and quantitative), aiming to provide a greater
familiarity with the problem, in order to make it explicit or to
facilitate the formulation of hypotheses, providing a general
and rough view of the study objects [15].
For the exploratory case study presented here, we used the
document analysis of the master’s program, analysis of data
obtained by the Observatory Centre of the institution where
the master is taught, to a questionnaire sent to students and
participant observation conducted by the researcher.
The applied questionnaire consisted of both closed and
open-ended questions, which, according to Hill and Hill, is
useful when seeking qualitative information to complement
and contextualize the quantitative information obtained by the
other variables [16]. Numerical data were statistically
analyzed, while answers to open questions were coded and
categorized using content analysis [17]. This data collection
instrument allowed us to characterize the sample with regard
to its profile. Thus, eight of the participants are female and
four male. Regarding the age group, five are under 40 years
old and seven are over 40 years old. As for geographical
dispersion, from what we can see, six students are resident in
the city of Santarém and the rest reside in other locations. In
terms of professional activity, seven of the respondents are
teachers, one trainer, two fellows in an IES, one administrative
in an IES, and one content developer in an IES. More than half
of the students who are professionally active are found to
spend 30 to 40 hours a week working, with 25% spending
more than 40 hours.
III.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Data provided by the institution's Observatory cover four
areas: operation of the courses; intervention of teachers;
students self-assessment and U.S. workload. The questions
with a closed answer had a scale from 1 to 4 (1 - Strongly
Disagree; 2 - Disagree; 3 - Agree; 4 - Strongly Agree);
allowing the student to select the answer that corresponded to
their degree of agreement with the available statements.
The analysis of the data provided by the Observatory
indicates that the unanimity of the students considered that
the curricular structure of the master’s program is adequate to
its objectives, allowing the development of their competences
in digital literacy (MIL). Overall, they considered that the
courses worked well and were pleased with the intervention
of the teaching staff. Most of the students were satisfied with
the master program load considering, however, that the
practical component should be broadened, thus allowing a
greater contact with digital tools with application in context,
allowing a more monitored / supervised development of their
digital skills.
Regarding the most positive aspects, it was highlighted by the
students that the master program filled a necessary training
space, and the fact that the faculty was very receptive and
professional.
When asked about the less positive aspects of the master’s
program, reference is made to the need for more face-to-face
time. The vast majority also refer to the need for a longer
timeline for the Research Methodologies course so that they
can define their research proposal more precisely.
Overall, we found that students were globally satisfied with
the attendance of the first year of the Master's Degree in
Digital Resources in Education, enabling them to develop and
deepen digital skills.
Regarding the results obtained by the Questionnaire, and with
regard to study habits, it is observed that most devote on
average between 3 and 5 hours per week to studies. Pointing
as the main difficulty to study the lack of time (75%), having
to reconcile the master program with the professional
activity.
Quando os estudantes foram questionados sobre qual dos
vários aspetos, que compõem o curso numa metodologia de
blended learning, contribuem mais efetivamente para a sua
aprendizagem, destacou-se: a interação mediada com os
colegas e docentes (33,3%), seguido pela interação presencial
(25%) e as atividades e estudos realizados a distância
(16,7%). Regarding learning in the courses, some statements
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were proposed for analysis and indication of the levels of
agreement. From the results obtained in these statements it is
noteworthy that ten students fully agreed that they had a
significant learning in the master program; and nine fully
agree that they participated motivated.
In the questionnaire, when the students completed the phrases
“What I like and dislike about the master’s program because
I have a working methodology in blended learning”, it was
highlighted that the most liked is:
•
the spatio-temporal flexibility especially the
possibility of conduct research at any time of the day;
•
be able to organize the study at times when people are
more willing to learn;
•
and better reconcile time with other work and
personal activities.
Regarding what is least liked, we highlight the category
related to the face-to-face aspect, expressing the need for
more face-to-face moments that favor:
•
greater integration with colleagues and teachers;
•
support the organization of activities and the
deepening of the contents that are taught at a distance;
•
allow the development of a sense of belonging to a
group and an institution;
•
and diversify learning possibilities and forms of
assessment.
Regarding the use of digital technologies, students fully
agreed that:
•
make it possible to know and explore different
technological resources;
•
favor the use of diverse resources and materials in the
learning process;
•
develop technical skills related to the use of
technologies in the teaching and learning process;
•
feel more prepared for their future integration into
pedagogical practice;
•
enable the materials and activities to be more
organized and have the track record of learning..
As we mentioned at the beginning of the paper, the master's
degree under analysis has a working methodology of its
courses in blended learning, although in Portugal, at the time
we wrote and submitted the paper, there was no regulation
regarding the functioning of courses in this modality. In fact,
the lack of regulation of distance learning has limited the
potential for development and the generalization of degreegranting study cycles in non-face-to-face modalities (DL
83/2019, under discussion). The quality criteria that should
be used by the Agency for Assessment and Accreditation of
Higher Education (A3ES) are currently being discussed for
the evaluation and accreditation of degree programs in the
distance education modality. Namely, as regards the
curriculum and institutional design of the programs, the
pedagogical model, the training of teachers and support teams
and the academic and administrative infrastructures.*
Nevertheless, and after analyzing the data obtained, we can
start by mentioning that the profile of students of the Master
in Digital Resources in Education itself brings important
information to the discussion regarding the offer of courses
in the blended learning modality. Firstly, half of the
participants live outside the city of Santarém, which might
not have been possible if it wasn’t distance learning. In
addition, the professional activity occupies 30 to 40 hours of
its weekly time, which would also probably make the
attendance in regular classrooms impossible. As described,
the master’s program design provides for a range of distance
learning activities, the use of various digital tools in addition
to VLE, different methodologies and collaborative activities.
Still through the answers to the questionnaire it was possible
to observe a contradiction between the temporal flexibility
made possible by blended learning and the students' felt need
for more regular classroom classes. Only 25% of participants
indicated that face-to-face interaction was an aspect of
blended learning that contributed to their learning. As most
students report a lack of time to study (spending an average
of 4 hours per week), this need seems antagonistic. On the
one hand, because it would require more time from students,
on the other, because it indicates a difficulty in managing
distance study time. It should also be noted that temporal
flexibility was indicated as the most positive aspect of
blended learning.
It was also possible to realize that, for students, digital
technologies play an important role in blended learning, more
evident in this case because the master’s program itself points
to the goal of developing digital and pedagogical skills for the
promotion of innovative practices.
Also noteworthy is the openness of the course to other
participants, through open classroom classes, thus
contributing to one of the pillars of higher education, the
extension to the community.
Teachers and schools are the gateway to literate societies.
Thus, this training proposal is intended to be a tool for
training teachers of all levels of education in the development
of competences (knowledge, skills and attitudes) in the field
of media literacy and information (MIL). Focusing on the
pedagogical approaches needed to enable teachers to
integrate these literacies into their classrooms [18].
IV.
FINAL CONSIDERATIONS
Society is changing, evolving in the light of the
transformations of digital technology, affecting the lives of
citizens in general, and students and teachers in particular.
Students have new learning profiles, different ways of
accessing information and creating knowledge. Most
teachers, not of the technology-born generation, have to adapt
and develop digital literacy skills to meet the growing needs
for digital content access and content creation.
The master's degree presented here fills a gap in the area of
teacher education. It gives them access to training to help
them develop and strengthen skills in the use, creation and
integration of digital technologies and resources in their
teaching practices, core competencies in a globalized digital
society. In fact, a digitally literate society is a precursor to a
knowledge-based society. This globally interconnected
society with a strong digital component and presence requires
specific skills from its citizens [6], particularly students and
teachers.
The courses of the master’s program articulate with each
other in order to prepare the students for a progressive
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integration of ICT in their daily teaching practices, regardless
of the content or subject and according to different contexts.
The first year of the program culminates in an “ICT
Curriculum Integration” course where the Master's students
define, design and implement a project based on the acquired
knowledge and skills developed over the two semesters.
[5]
The master’s program syllabus presented here can be
found at https://goo.gl/tzVLb8. We stress again that the
purpose of this training is not in the technical skills per se. It
is based on how digital technologies can and should be used
to enhance pedagogical innovation, fostering innovative
practices and richer educational environments that are active
and adapted to learners' contexts and profiles.
[7]
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
[10]
*(Author’s note: by the time this paper was approved by
the SIIE conference, a Decree-Law No. 133/2019 of 3
September, which approves the legal scheme of the distance
higher education, was published. It can be accessed online.)
[11]
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