How to use the ICT Skills Framework
  

The E.E.P. is starting to explore the range of new skills that education professionals will need in ICT-rich learning environments. We welcome all comments by email to innnovations@eep-edu.org.

Click each major area of skills to view the range of skills we believe each contains. We are not suggesting that all teachers will need to acquire all these skills. Some skills will be needed by all teachers and some by only a few teachers. We are also not suggesting that teachers should already have these skills. In the next ten to twenty years there will be major changes in the ways that education and learning happen; teachers' skills will need to develop alongside these changes.

We intend to develop this categorisation by adding explanations of what we believe each category of skills includes. We aim to add this in mid June. It is currently being reviewed by EEP members and it will include the top-level skills grouped in four main areas:

  • Resources for learning
  • Learning approach
  • Communication and collaboration
  • Learning management and recording

Resources for learning
This main area includes skills relating to using all kinds of ICT-based resources that are or will be used by students and teachers to promote learning. The skills to help learners use these tools to learn will be required, as well as the skills just to use the tools personally.

Learning Approach
A number of the broad competences listed in this area have not yet got individual competencies identified because our understanding of how learning happens is as yet poorly developed and much research is needed. Please suggest additions.

Communication and collaboration
This is another area where the individual competencies are very unclear and it may be necessary to establish more broad areas of competence in these skills areas. Wireless access to the Internet and networks will extend and change many of these areas and will need to be specifically considered.

Learning management and recording
The skills to manage learning, formative and summative assessment, and recording of student activity, learning processes and achievement in systems where ICT is pervasive. These skills need to be considered at several different levels which will certainly include:

  • teachers managing learning at class and group level
  • middle managers in education with institution-wide or area-wide responsibility
  • education leaders and senior managers responsible for strategic leadership of education and learning

We believe that a consensus should develop as to the skills that education professionals will need so that appropriate training can be found or developed. Several E.E.P. Members are collaborating with the UK Department for Education ICT Industry Club skills group who are working on this area and we acknowledge their influence on our thinking. We would be very interested to know of similar initiatives in other countries so that links could be forged.

We are aware that training in these skills is not yet widely available. In some cases we are only just learning what these skills entail. There are two main ways that teachers will be able to find training:

  • Some of these skills are general ICT skills that many groups of workers need to acquire. For training in these skills teachers can look to training already available to other groups.
  • Some of these skills are specifically educational. It is possible that some of the training already available to corporate training providers using e-learning may be useful to teachers in educational institutions. However some skills will be specific to the education of immature learners and the operational approaches of educational institutions. Training for these skills will need to be developed by educational authorities.

It is also our intention to develop this categorisation to link to training that is available to teachers, which can help them develop these skills. We would be very pleased to know of any such training that is available in Europe, or of examples of training elsewhere in the world which could inform approaches to training in Europe.