Pedagogical aspects to support students’ evolving digital competence at school

ABSTRACT

It is important that educators create a good basis for young students to develop their digital competence. This two-year case study aimed to find ways to foster the digital competence of young students in the early years of primary school education. The results show that spontaneous problems provided opportunities for students to show their competence and fostered their engagement. In addition, long-lasting changes were associated with learning digital competence at the beginning of primary school. Furthermore, all children were eager in using digital technology for learning, but their commitment in tracking their own development and using digital technology to make their learning transparent to homes varied. This study shows that when fostering young students’ evolving digital competence, teachers need to consider digital technology use holistically and in long-term.

KEYWORDS:

• Early years of primary education
• digital competence
• engagement
• educational use of digital technology
• educational technology

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Finnish National Board of Education [grant number 75/587/2016].