The DeSeCo Report – Choosing and defining key competencies

ICT has been an integrated part of the Norwegian curriculum for Knowledge Promotion. ICT manifests itself through the basic skills required by the curriculum, namely oral skills,

reading, writing, digital skills and numeracy (LK06/13, Framework for basic skills). My experience as a student in upper secondary school, as well as a student in teacher training practice, has shown me how much time students spend on computers and Internet. However, being able to use ICT does not necessarily mean that one has the competence to employ various digital tools for different purposes such as writing essays, online research, online communications, et cetera, nor does it mean that the students’ personal experiences with ICT should be regarded as useless in an educational setting. The thesis argues that the current curricular practices in the English subject, with relation to ICT, must be subject to change.

This is due to the fact that even though the English subject curriculum in theory gives teachers the opportunity to choose how implement ICT when teaching, the reality is that a lot teachers                                                                                                                

1  English as a foreign language

appear to be conservative and reluctant to change in teaching practices where ICT is concerned, which will be discussed in more detail later in the chapter. However, seeing as society is in constant change, particularly when it comes to technology, it makes sense that the schools should follow. Otherwise, one risks that the digital skills the students cultivate at school will be irrelevant to the tasks and communications the students are expected to participate in after graduation. Therefore, it is necessary to examine the language learning possibilities presented in the combination of formal educational use of ICT and informal learning with ICT.

Moreover, it is important to first establish what is meant by the terms ‘digital skills’

and ‘digital competence’. The OECD’s Definition and Selection of Comptencies Executive Summary says: “a competency is more than just knowledge and skill” (OECD 4). In other words, digital competence is not simply about knowing how to get access to web resources or write a paper; it is about knowing how to use those skills in a context. The context changes depending on the situation, whether one is at school, at work, or at home. For the sake of simplicity, in the further discussion on the matter, I will use the word ‘competence’ rather than ‘competency’. According to the Oxford Dictionaries competence and competency are defined the exact same way, as “the ability to do something successfully or efficiently”

(Oxford.com). Thus I will use the term ‘competence’ henceforth.

The DeSeCo identifies key competences in three different categories:

• Use tools interactively

• Interact in heterogeneous groups

• Act autonomously

Students need to be able to use an extensive range of tools, engage in activities with people who may have different backgrounds and values than themselves, and they need to be able to take responsibility and make decisions on their own, creating a place for themselves in society without constant guidance from others (OECD 5). These three categories form the

foundations of key competences, competences that are required in order to prepare students for life after school. Furthermore, the DeSeCo report states: “competence is an important factor in the ways that individuals help to shape the world, not just cope with it” (OECD 6).

Learning new abilities and being competent at something (e.g. reading, writing, mathematics, etc.) are not only necessary requirements for students to face the world; what students learn in school lay the groundwork for future improvement. The school does not give students all the answers to questions and problems they will face in adult life, but it will provide them with the possibilities to take action and create progress in society. It is the next generations’

responsibility to further develop what already exists, as well as make way for new advancements.

While this thesis involves all three fundamental categories of key competences (see the beginning of last paragraph) to a certain degree, the category I would like to highlight is

“use tools interactively”. The category communicates a need for more than just students having access to assorted tools. As the DeSeCo Project states:

Using tools interactively requires more than having access to the tool and the technical skills required to handle it. Individuals also need to create and adapt knowledge and skills. This requires a familiarity with the tool itself as well as an understanding of how it changes the way one can interact with the world and how it can be used to accomplish broader goals. (OECD 11)

In other words, it is not enough for students in Norwegian schools to know how to use a computer and how to access Internet. The majority of students have access to this at home either through a shared family computer or a private computer and/or laptop. In my practice at upper secondary school I observed how students navigated the Internet. Some spent time on Facebook or similar websites, some spent time on online games, while others read online newspapers and blogs. This shows that they know how to use computers and Internet for their own personal purposes. What it does not show is whether or not they are able to adapt those technical skills to academic purposes involving the same tools, nor does it prove that these technical skills will be relevant later in life.

In relation to the aforementioned category, the DeSeCo Project identifies three

competences in which one of them involves “using knowledge and information interactively”

(11). The following list of requirements explains what the individual, or in this case the student, needs to be able to do in order to this particular competency:

• Recognize and determine what is not known;

• Identify, locate and access appropriate information sources (including assembling knowledge and information in cyberspace);

• Evaluate the quality, appropriateness and value of that information, as well as its sources; and

• Organize knowledge and information (OECD 11)

If one, for the sake of argument, assumes that students fulfill the first two points on the list of requirements, then the students have a base to work from. They receive a task to solve, recognize what they have to look for in order to do the task, and later find a book or a webpage where they may gather the information they need. However, when it comes to evaluating the legitimacy of the sources, especially the sources one can find on the Internet, one might find this problematic. First of all, the students need to know how to assess their sources, not just how to access them (Ref. Framework for Basic Skills). For instance, Wikipedia is the online encyclopedia favored by a copious number of students of different ages, which I will get back to later in this thesis. Some people will claim that Wikipedia is an inappropriate source of information as practically anyone can create or edit articles in the encyclopedia, while others will say it is fine as long as they make references to it or if the students only use it for tasks that will not be formally assessed (Blikstad-Balas and Hvistendahl 41).