Abstract:

The digital revolution has changed our world to great extent including the educational sphere. The rapid transition from the technical training aids to the digital ones has led to many crucial changes and big challenges. The questions: what, why, when, where and how to apply the digital technology, resources, tools, applications – have emerged and appeared to be difficult for finding the clear answers. The only way for the teachers to go with the times is to raise their professional competency, promote their expert knowledge, adjust the teaching strategies to the digital era requirements.

To elicit the teachers’ interest to the educational digital technology use and their digital competence, the questionnaire was elaborated in the electronic format, providing the rating scale. The anonymous pool has revealed the high level of interest, however, some respondents’ competence rate has been lower than expected. The one-to-one interviews with the teachers have disclosed the various ways they have been passing through to raise their digital competence. The author has analysed her experience and reflected her best practices and unavoidable failures.

Considering e-learning as learning via information communication technology, this research also provides the overview on the open educational e-resources and the available professional development online courses for the English language teachers. The drawn conclusions have allowed to outline the guidelines for the teachers on mastering their digital skills and competence via the electronic communication means and tools as cornerstone of successful professional life.

Keywords:

Digital competence, life-long e-learning, online professional development.