Digital Competency preparation in teachers

Abstract

This paper describes the gap between the training in the Digital Competency (CD) that receives and the one that should receive the Primary Education teacher from the province of Castellón (Spain), to respond to the teaching-learning needs of the citizen in the present. This description has been made considering the perspective of the experts in this matter and the teachers of this educational level using quantitative and qualitative research techniques. A total of 289 teachers of Primary Education and 29 experts in CD and communication participated in the study. It has been characterized the initial and continuous training of teachers, the opinions and training needs of the citizen of the first decades of the XXI century, in relation to Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). The results show a lack of training in the CD of teachers derived from a purely instrumental and theoretical training on ICT, lacking a learning based on problem solving, management of overinformation, possession of critical sense and ethical conscience, among other needs. For this reason, the teaching community and the agents responsible for the management and decision making on the educational field should consider teacher training on CD based on information management and participatory learning.