Digitally competent schools: teacher expectations when introducing digital competence in Finnish basic education

Abstract

The increased exposure to technology raises a need for understanding how the digital world works, just as we learn about the physical world. As a result, countries all over the world are renewing their school curricula in order to include digital competence, computer science or other similar content. In this paper, we provide insight into what teachers see as crucial aspects when implementing a new curricula introducing digital competence as a transversal element. We have analysed 86 Finnish teachers’ descriptions of digitally competent schools and digitally competent personnel, in order to identify a list of prerequisites that can be helpful to school leaders who are to drive the change at their local schools.

Keywords

• digital competence
• basic education
• teacher expectations
• schools as learning organisations
• curriculum changes