This week at World Bank EduTech
week of May 16, 2022
This week, we’re talking about digital skills!
- What are digital skills?
- How are digital technologies transforming the ways people, businesses, and governments interact, transact, work, and learn?
- What are the most critical digital skills needed by teachers to teach in-person and remotely?
- How can frameworks help us categorize and organize the complexity and range of digital skillsets and create a common language?
Digital Skills 101
Digital Skills is one of the hot topics across the World Bank Education portfolio, but what are digital skills? We are not talking only about coding. Digital skills exist on a continuum, ranging in level from basic to intermediate to advanced, from digitally literate citizens to a digitally competent workforce. These skills can’t be taught in isolation, but unlike other skills, these have to be taught with digital technologies. Learn more about digital skills through the World Bank Digital Skills: Frameworks and Programs, by Sajitha Bashir and Koji Miyamoto.
Digital Skills in the Digital Economy
Digital technologies are transforming how people, businesses, and governments interact, transact, work, and learn, and to increase the adoption of digital technologies, countries need to foster citizens’ acquisition of digital skills through education and training, both formal and informal. The World Bank launched the Digital Economy initiative in different regions to support countries in this endeavor.
- Take a look to the latest blog by the EdTech team members Cristóbal Cobo and Iñaki Sánchez Ciarrusta, together with Alberto Muñoz: Investing in human capital in El Salvador: the knowledge currency of the digital economy, developed as part of the Digital Economy for Latin America (DE4LAC) program in El Salvador.
- Read about Digital Economy for Africa (DE4A) Country Diagnostics, including a chapter on Digital Skills
- Explore the Digital Skills Country Action Plan Guidebook (The Why, the What and How): Part 1, Part 2
Teachers and Digital Skills
The role of teachers is essential when we talk about equipping students with the right set of skills.
To help educators and policymakers understand the digital-pedagogical skills that teachers need, we created the Teachers’ Skills and Skills Frameworks for Remote and Blended Learning Knowledge Pack, with recommendations on how to choose a teachers’ digital skills framework that fits your context and tips to navigate those different frameworks. This short document provides an overview of the most critical digital skills needed by teachers to teach in person and remotely. The KP includes a comparative analysis of different digital skills frameworks as well as ready-to-be-used assessment tools.
As part of the 2022 EdTech Policy Academy, Changha Lee, from the EdTech team, hosted a conversation with Barbara Freeman, co-author of the KP, about Transforming Teachers for the New Normal:
Changa opened up the conversation with Barbara for a Q+A session:
More Tools Related to Digital Skills
Using a strong and updated framework can help us categorize and organize the complexity and range of digital skillsets and create a common language.
Here are some useful international examples and assessment tools for digital skills:
- DigComp 2.2.: The Digital Competence Framework for Citizens — With new examples of knowledge, skills and attitudes (updated in 2022): English, Spanish
- SELFIE: a free, online tool to help schools assess how they use digital technologies for innovative and effective learning. A complementary resource: Evidence from the adoption of the SELFIE tool for the digital capacity of schools in Spain.
- Pix (French)
- Ikanos (Spanish and English)
- Digital competencies for policymakers
- 600 resources and training courses to develop digital skills
Podcasts: Talking about Digital Skills
On our World Bank EduTech Podcast, we host a conversation about skills and the potential of digital technologies to innovate education and training practices and improve access to lifelong learning for employment, personal development, and social inclusion. On this two-part episode, we speak with Yves Punie, Senior Scientist and Deputy Head of Unit at the European Commission Joint Research Centre in Seville, Unit Human Capital and Employment.
Recommended Listening
ALL DIGITAL Week 2022 hosted a conversation focused on the importance of fostering digital literacy and the value of certification.
Click here to learn more.
