Abstract:

The pleasantness and the massive number of apps and web apps dedicated to teaching risks confusing us or forcing us to make a forced use of technology, leading us to move away from the more classic disciplinary teaching in the classroom. Can we perhaps think that doing the same things we would have done with pen and paper is innovation if done with a text editor? Does switching from one imaging software to another one, different but essentially identical, make sense or build digital skills? Can we delude ourselves that these are the digital skills of tomorrow? Do we really believe that tomorrow is so far away?

Precisely to overcome this type of problem, which often distresses teachers, a group of expert italian trainers, called Docenti Web and operating for years in the province of Varese (Italy), has decided to give life to a Task Force capable of reclassifying and reorganizing the indications of DIGCOMP EDU. We have tried to transform the theory into something really usable by other teachers, examples and experiments scalable over time, for different levels and types of schools, for different subjects. Beyond slides and theoretical examples, the working group has involved hundreds of teachers in drafting explanatory project fiche that lead back to a lesson in the classroom which on the one hand preserves the usual contents and practices with respect to the subject taught, on the other involves strategies, methodologies and digital skills useful for the citizen of tomorrow, as well as effective learning.
All the teachers involved knew that they were contributing to the building of a public collection of Open Educational Resources.

The trainers then held homogeneous training courses by agreeing on practices, proposals and contents. The trainees were asked to explain their ideas and put them into situations through forms prepared by the trainers themselves, to create a homogeneous database.

The idea was promoted by the head of the working group and then spread throughout the Varese area. Engineering, involvement and support to the groups was given in an accentuated and constant way by the coordinator Cristina Bralia and by one of the leading members of the team Katia Cattaneo. Dissemination took place through the reference website for the school community.

The authors of this article, and the team all, believed, and still believe, that only from the ground up, that is from teachers and not from institutions or universities, is it possible to understand which digital skills to bring into play and in which way this action produces greater involvement, understanding and memorisation.

Keywords:

Digital skills, new media, digital citizenship.