TEAC Conference Report Dec. 2015 | Page 9

D I G C O M P Workshop on education and training Moderated by Gabriela Barna (EOS, Romania) Speakers: Anusca Ferrari (European Schoolnet, Belgium) and Dimitra Andritsakou (Hellenic Adult Education Association, Greece) Theme: European Commission’s Digital Competence Framework – DIGCOMP Conclusions and recommendations: • The workshop addressed the issue of how telecentres can, on one hand, validate the competencies acquired in their settings and, on the other, certifying these competences. DIGCOMP could be one possible reference framework for this but there are others as well. • DIGCOMP is a framework of competences that a citizen needs to have to be considered digitally competent. The original idea was to provide an exhaustive view, keeping in mind that individuals will rarely be fully competent in all its areas. Very important to note that it was meant to be descriptive not prescriptive. However, not all agree that it has remained purely descriptive! • Digital competence needs to be recognised as basic competence just like it is the case for reading and writing. • DIGICOMP may benefit from a process of simplification, so that non-formal educators can easily use it as a reference. Already it is being used, for example by schoolteachers in Serbia, as a model for their own skills framework. However, for non-formal education providers it may indeed be quite academic. A more playful and hands on approach may be envisaged. • For some participants, certification is primarily the recognition of a pool of knowledge. However, the business world needs people with a consistent ability to learn and innovate. Certification can even be counter-productive, since employers now require outof-the-box thinkers especially for the digital economy. • G. Rissola proposed that telecentres map the training that they are providing, with the DIGICOMP framework, so that we can have a clear picture. The question remains on how can we certify these outcomes: should we build our own certification system or use existing ones? Being “DIGCOMP-compliant” could indeed become a quality label. TE members may consider the idea of creating our own label based on DIGCOMP for training and certification provided by telecentres. 9 What did people say on Twitter?