DECODE “DEvelop COmpetences in Digital Era” moves from: a) the awareness that the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is an increasingly important economic sector in Europe and both the integration of ICT in teaching practices and teachers’ digital competences could be strategic in this field; b) and the need to fill a void of information on real teaching practices.ICT Competences in Digital Era are crucial for promoting digital literacy, media literacy, the overcoming of digital divide, the promotion of social innovation and social inclusion. We can say, digital competences to respond the new demands of knowledge and information society to education system.DECODE is an action research project that aims to create the best conditions of exchange best practices in teaching digital skills. The main objectives of DECODE is to contribute, by an action research, to the improvement of the school digitization processes by:the understanding of the real organizational and educational processes, useful in providing important sources of information to policy and decision makers;the improvement of teachers’ strategic skills in the use of ICT in education and didactical activities;the spread of best practices at European level, and the improvement of media and digital literacy.For this reason DECODE has built a partnership (Italy, Spain, England, Finland, Romanian) among universities, research centers, training institutions, schools, schools associations, including various approaches and experiences. DECODE will contribute to the improvement of the school digitization processes by:the understanding of the real organizational and educational processes, useful in providing important sources of information to policy and decision makers;the improvement of teachers’ strategic skills in the use of ICT in education and didactical activities;the experiment a new training model for teachers, which aims at contributing to the creation of digital competences to respond the new demands of knowledge and information society to education system.The added value of the partnership is given by the fact that the transnational partnership show different experiences in ICT teaching field. This is why DECODE will be able to involve totally: 130 Headmaster for Focus Group; 2000 teachers for survey and 250 teachers for training experimentation pilot.The main activities will be developed following a stepwise approach. A first step regards the definition of the entire research design (IO1) to be shared with all partners in relation to: methodology, instruments, output etc. In this step DECODE will produce “A template for national research and tools (IO1)” that will be shared in the first meeting between all the Partners. The document is meant as a tool for sharing a frame on the digital challenges for the school in the digital era and for outlining a common shared frame. It is prepared by Roma 3 University in cooperation with the other Italian partners (FLCU and ANP).In the second step DECODE produces the National Research Report on “Training models and pedagogical teaching methods for teachers in the digital age” (IO2), where each Partner country realize its qualitative reseach on the bases of IO1, identifying more interesting training models and pedagogical teaching methods for teachers to improve their digital skills and favor their incorporation of digital resources in their daily teachers practices. (FLCU with support of the other Italian partners).In the third step DECODE will produce “Guidelines for Assuring Quality in the process of Integration of ICT tools in the teaching-learning process“ (IO3) (Romania). For this partners will involve around 30 key actors from national and local institutions in deeping interviews on the basis of a common standard prepared by Romania.In the fourth step each country realized the quantitative research and produce a report, titled “Practices, skills and training needs of digital teachers” (IO4) based on the results of national online survey (FLCU). The fifth step DECODE will produce the training testing to improve teachers’ competence (IO5), to realize a national report to share evidence of testing.The sixth step will gather all intermediate national report to elaborate the Comparative international Report. This output will contain all the notes and operative tools to transfer DECODE into other contexts, countries and situations.The seventh step explain the communication plan. That is a relevant, transversal action which will accompany all the project, concluding with an International Conference in Spain where every year an international Conference about e-learning is realized.
The DECODE project “DEvelop COmpetences in Digital Era: Expertise, best practices and teaching in the XXI century” was characterized as an action-research intervention, aimed at promoting comparison and exchange of virtuous practices in a transnational perspective, with the dual objective of a) encouraging a better understanding of the use of digital in professional and educational practices; b) intercept, share, enhance and disseminate the good practices present in schools, to activate virtuous processes of "bottom-up" innovation. The DECODE research-action project was carried out thanks to a partnership between universities, research centres, training institutes, schools, and professional associations, enhancing within the collaboration specific competencies, diversity of approaches and experiences of each partner: - IT: Link Campus University Foundation (FLCU); CRES-IELPO Research Center, Department of Education - Roma Tre University; ANP National Association of Head Masters and High Professionalism of the School; - ES: UOC, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya; - FIN: Omnia, the Joint Authority of Education and Regional Center of Espoo; - RO: IES, Institutul de Ştiinţe ale Educaţiei; - UK: Aspire-igen International. The research path involved the realization of six actions and as many intellectual outputs, described below: IO1 - The CRES - IELPO Research Center (Roma Tre University), worked on the definition of a 'common theoretical framework' useful to guide all the successive phases of research in a transnational perspective, through a background analysis on the main features European policies on digitization and the role of education. IO2 - The second action, which led to FLCU as the lead organization, involved the creation of focus groups for teachers and school administrators, and a comparative document analysis, which analysed the different aspects of European guidelines on digital policy for education in the national policies of partner countries. IO3 - During the third action, conducted by ISE - Institutul de Ştiinţe ale Educaţiei, the partners focused on the organizational and process aspects that form the background to the incorporation of digital technologies in educational practice. To this end, a qualitative analysis was carried out through the creation of approximately 15 in-depth interviews with privileged witnesses (institutional actors, policies and decision-makers), with the aim of identifying the quality elements for the integration of ICT in the teaching-learning process and outline the strategic dimensions of attention, criteria and indicators useful for monitoring the process. IO4 - The fourth action, headed by FLCU, involved the creation of an online questionnaire addressed to school teachers of all levels and grades coming from the five partner countries, with the aim of reconstructing the 'incorporation' processes of the digital technologies in teaching and professional practices, identifying experiences, skills (based on the European DigCompEdu framework) and the training needs of teachers in order to identify strengths, areas for improvement and development prospects. IO5 - From the results emerged during the online survey (IO4), the Open University of Catalonia (UOC) and the Finnish partner OMNIA, have designed and started testing in all partner countries an online training pilot course to accompany teachers in enhancing their knowledge and design and methodological skills aimed at integrating digital technologies in their professional and didactic practice. IO6 - The results of the research conducted at the macro, meso and micro levels were summarized in the final report “Digital Culture for Educational Organizations. Guidelines for Teachers and Education Agencies ". The report deepens the research work conducted and refines the analysis and explanatory capacity of the data collected through the online survey (IO4), using cluster analysis to reconstruct the professional practices of the professors participating in the transnational survey. The project used a participatory methodology, actively involving all the different target groups, contributing to: - promote a better understanding of how educational systems and teaching practices are confronted with the digital challenge; - experiment a new training model for teachers concerning the acquisition of digital skills; - increase the methodological and technical skills of teachers in the use of ICT in their ordinary professional and educational practices; - offer public debate and decision-makers useful and systematic information to inform decision-making processes.