UNESCO presents ICT training project for teachers to Brazilian managers in education
12-08-2009 (Brasilia)
ICT Competency Standards
for Teachers
© UNESCO
On 4 August UNESCO’s Brasilia Office, in partnership with Microsoft Brazil, presented the Portuguese version of ICT Competency Standards for Teachers to managers and decision makers in education. This UNESCO publication, consisting of three parts, was prepared in the framework of the ICT Competency Framework for Teachers (ICT-CFT) project, which brings together specific guidelines for planning training programmes for teachers to ensure the acquisition of ICT skills by students.
The meeting was attended by experts from Brazilian governmental institutions in the area of education and by representatives of Microsoft. Two other meetings are organized for education managers on the municipal level: one is taking place today in São Paulo and another will be held on 26 August in Rio de Janeiro.
According to Guilherme Canela Godoi from UNESCO’s Brasilia Office, once 10,000 brochures are distributed to professionals throughout the country, UNESCO expects to receive a feedback about the project in order to better adapt it to the Brazilian reality.
The brochures will first be forwarded to those responsible for the training of basic-education teachers. “Receiving comments from the future teachers is very important, because they have to understand and to learn how to use ICT tools when they are still at university”, says Maria Inês Bastos, UNESCO Office in Brasilia.
UNESCO believes that traditional educational practices do not offer teachers, anymore, the necessary skills for preparing students to fully participate in the knowledge society. Essential players in the transfer of knowledge, teachers need to acquire competencies that would allow them to offer their students learning opportunities supported by technology.
The overall objective of the ICT-CFT project is to improve teacher practice in a way that contributes to a higher quality education system that can, in turn, produce a better informed citizenry and higher quality workforce that can, as a result, advance a country’s economic and social development.
ICT Competency Standards for Teachers provide guidelines to facilitate the effective use of ICT both by teachers and students. This goal can be achieved through an educational environment where students are trained to search, assess, evaluate and create knowledge, solving problems and making decisions.
The Standards consist of three parts:
Policy Framework, which explains the rationale, structure and approach of the project;
Competency Standards Modules, which cross the components of educational reform with various policy approaches; and
Implementation Guidelines, which provide a detailed syllabus of the specific skills to be acquired by teachers within each module.
According to Guilherme Canela Godoi from UNESCO’s Brasilia Office, once 10,000 brochures are distributed to professionals throughout the country, UNESCO expects to receive a feedback about the project in order to better adapt it to the Brazilian reality.
The brochures will first be forwarded to those responsible for the training of basic-education teachers. “Receiving comments from the future teachers is very important, because they have to understand and to learn how to use ICT tools when they are still at university”, says Maria Inês Bastos, UNESCO Office in Brasilia.
UNESCO believes that traditional educational practices do not offer teachers, anymore, the necessary skills for preparing students to fully participate in the knowledge society. Essential players in the transfer of knowledge, teachers need to acquire competencies that would allow them to offer their students learning opportunities supported by technology.
The overall objective of the ICT-CFT project is to improve teacher practice in a way that contributes to a higher quality education system that can, in turn, produce a better informed citizenry and higher quality workforce that can, as a result, advance a country’s economic and social development.
ICT Competency Standards for Teachers provide guidelines to facilitate the effective use of ICT both by teachers and students. This goal can be achieved through an educational environment where students are trained to search, assess, evaluate and create knowledge, solving problems and making decisions.
The Standards consist of three parts:
Related themes/countries
· Brazil
· ICT in Education
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Contact information
- UNESCO
Source
- UNESCO Office in Brasilia (in Portuguese)
Field office