INTERNET SECURITY AND EFFECTIVE INFORMATION SEARCHES IN EDUCATIONAL PROJECT NETWORKS BASED ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF DIGITAL COMPETENCE

With the appearance on the scene of digital technology and the development of its applications, unsuitable practices are on the rise in the navigation and use of the Internet that put the privacy of adolescents in danger since many are unaware of its inherent risks. One of the aims of the International Centre for Advanced Technologies (Centro Internacional de Tecnologías Avanzadas -CITA) of the Germán Sánchez Ruipérez Foundation is to minimise and reduce unsuitable ICT habits through an educational project (UTILITIC). This project is focused on integral training in the handling of information and communication technologies by means of a broad range of activities that develop digital competence. These activities are based on processes aimed at improving users’ awareness of internet security and effective information searching on the Internet. The idea is for the participating students to be as autonomous as possible in their use of ICT, but in a safe and responsible way. Students will learn to make a critical use of ICT, to obtain reliable information from the web, to make useful searches, and to build knowledge using Web 2.0 tools.

Using a quasi-experimental approach we established a pre-test, an implementation stage and a post-test. The aim of the pre-test is to determine the student’s level of digital competence at the start of training. The educational process begins after this step, and once it is finished the student’s level of digital competence is re-tested to see if they have developed this competence and to what extent. For the tests we use a scale of digital competence and a descriptor index by means of the contents.

In addition to studying digital competence, we have also collected data about students’ habits in the use of both the Internet and smartphones in order to understand how each of them relates to these technologies. Most of the data collection is carried out in the pre-test, although in the study about internet habits, data is also collected in the post-test stage to find out if the students’ behaviour has changed any after the implementation of the educational project.

At the present time the pre-test stage is over and the implementation stage is now being carried out.
To date we have observed that the students’ level of digital competence at the beginning of the project was quite basic, and is gradually increasing during the implementation stage. This observation leads us to expect that project in question can foster proper and safe use of ICT.