DIGITAL COMPETENCE IN PRIMARY EDUCATION: A REVIEW OF LEARNING OUTCOMES

• Main Author: Esin Hazar
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Informascope 2018-04-01
• Series: International Online Journal of Education and Teaching
• Online Access: http://iojet.org/index.php/IOJET/article/view/322

This paper examines the current status of digital competence indicators in the Turkish primary school curricula. The European Commission had long been studying on developing a common digital competence framework for citizens and in 2016 a revised framework was published to be used as a reference in various sectors as well as education. In most official papers the importance of digital competence is highly stressed and studies to provide students with these skills are carried out by Turkish Ministry of National Education (MONE) and other governmental institutes. In this paper we explore the indicators of digital competence standards in the Turkish primary education. We identified the curricula of three compulsory subjects and analyzed the learning outcomes of these curricula to understand the place of digital competence standards in curricula and in which competence areas are emphasized mostly. The review was conducted using the curricula of three subject areas in primary education: the Turkish language, mathematics and personal and social development. The review of the learning outcomes in these curricula shows that 7, 5 % of learning outcomes emphasizes digital competence in the Turkish language curricula while this rate is %4 in mathematics and personal and social development subject areas when the top rates are considered. It is seen that most digital competence areas are ignored in each subject; communication and collaboration is totally excluded in all three subjects while data and information literacy was included in merely Turkish language curriculum; safety competence area was stated only in personal and social development curriculum and Mathematics curriculum contained learning outcomes merely related to the problem solving.