Abstract:

Digital Literacy und the overall use of ITC had become a critical and challenging topic in recent school development (Olofsson & al. 2015). Besides ICT practical skills teachers need ideas on how to implement digital media within their subjects. The so-called "subjects didactic" relates content and pedagogics together. Teachers who include technical knowledge as well as didactical thought within their professional capabilities can plan their lessons close to the model of TPACK (Shulman 1989, Koehler & Mishra 2006).

Recent studies (Gil-Flores et al. 2016) emphasize the impact of ICT-practice as relevant for teachers’ attitude towards digital media and their use in class.

Nevertheless, practice does not seem to be a sustainable guarantee for the implementation of digital media (Elstad 2017). Pre-school teachers, for instance, fail to implement digital practice sustainably in pre-school although they were trained in workshops and got digital equipment for their day-care center (Meister & al. 2012; Marci-Boehncke & Rath 2013; Goetz 2018). Supplementary, Blackwell, Lauricella & Wartella (2014) had emphasized the influence of teachers attitude and confidence as decisive factors for being digital in class. Different international studies try to explore teachers (Blömeke 2000; Biermann 2009; Kommer 2010; Ertmer & al. 2012) and pre-school teachers (Swertz 2012; Friedrichs-Liesenkötter 2015) media habitus or media-educational habitus. Age and sex do not seem to be a sufficient explanatory model for the observable behavior of the teachers in class.

As part of the EU Project DigiLitEY Cost 141010 this paper refers to an international survey of overall 80 in-service teachers from eight countries. We took the primary-school teachers interviews with internationally standardized interview questions. For Germany, we participated in eight qualitative teachers interviews of four primary schools.

We wanted to find out more about their knowledge as regards a possible theory of teaching as well as their theory about media that relates to their school practice. Epistemic as well as epistemological knowledge has been described as factors for efficient learning (Blömeke & Bucholtz 2014; Guerriero & Révai 2017).

We wanted to know in how far the teachers show an incorporated theoretical knowledge of digital reading and reading education as well as knowledge of mediatization (Krotz 2001; Krotz 2009, Hepp & Couldry 2016).

Results show significant differences in the amount of theoretical knowledge as well as practical abilities. The practical knowledge, as well as the theoretical knowledge, seem to be relevant – since teachers who show a lack of both do not at all integrate digital media. However, that alone does not seem to be responsible for their attitude towards digital media.

Nor is it the schools' digital equipment that makes the difference. The content analysis based on MaxQDA indicates by in-vivo-codes that it can be rather explained by a kind of professional self-perception or ethics that leads to a distant reflexion of ones’ role and responsibility for the next generation. The presentation will comment on the theoretical background, the international cooperation for the survey as well as the detailed content analysis of the data from Germany with a short reference to the data from Cyprus and Great Britain.

Keywords:

Digital literacy, teachers' beliefs, ITC skills of teachers, in-service teachers education.