Abstract:

The comprehensive digitalisation of society and economy is a chance to transform Europe’s technological leadership into the digital era. Above all, it requires a solid education in basic digital skills and core competencies.

We present in this paper PRAXIS digital, a conceptual framework that focuses on strengthening modern Higher Educations (HE) to adapt to changing learning environments and relations brought about by the social impacts derived e.g. from an unexpected pandemic. It consists of new learning perspectives, tools, and methodologies that can satisfy institutional duties to support teachers and students to adapt as undergraduate, postgraduate, professional training and lifelong learning relations change.

PRAXIS digital rethinks digital competencies by supporting digital literacy education and seeks to transform how to learn and teach in a digital age through an equal, inclusive and high-quality access to digital education. Such access is one of the biggest challenges of our time. From undergraduates, postgraduates to industry professionals upskilling to meet changing market needs, a digitally educated community offers significant benefits across the whole of society. For such reasons, the European education ecosystem must be supported to adapt to the changing dynamics and disruption brought about e.g. by COVID-19.

It is an enormous endeavour to redefine the values and rules for forward-thinking, equal education that engages each European citizen as part of a modern education system. Each individual needs high-quality educated core competencies in essential skills, data literacy, and computational thinking, on top of skills like critical thinking, problem solving, creativity, collaboration, and communication, for instance. This way, Europe will secure the future of its labour market since the high demand for a digitally up-skilled workforce is continuing to grow.

Based on a new understanding of HE in interaction with industry and services, PRAXIS digital also allows for a fast and economically necessary knowledge transfer for shaping the digital transformation. This may increase the employability as well as the socio-educational and personal development of all target groups within Europe. It could also contribute to the regional and national-specific labour market. In this sense, PRAXIS digital seeks to develop research-based, user-centred, and learning-outcome-based curricula that combine real-world applications and practice-oriented learning with diverse technological cooperation. This enables learners to foster professional competencies for the future in the digital age that can contribute to their employability while at the same time maintaining and developing the economic power of their own national or regional context.

Potentially, PRAXIS digital would contribute to a re-emergence of Europe’s technological leadership through an innovative shift to a “New Education” imperative: digital, learner-centred, agile, practice-driven, equal, and inclusive. As a result, it also may contribute to the necessary transformation of European HE as requested in the European Digital Education Action Plan 2021-2027. In this paper, we introduce the major characteristics of the conceptual framework and point to both the practical applications and benefits that can be derived from it.

Keywords:

Digital education, digital literacy, new technologies, higher education, digital skills, digital competencies.