Outlines for science digital competence of elementary school students

Abstract

Many of the digital competences of students can be transferred from their homes and out-of-school environments, but it is unrealistic to expect that students will become proficient in the use of equipment such as whiteboards or data-loggers outside school. An emergent research topic is thus “Are science teachers succeeding in transferring to their students the digital competences specific to the study of science?” In the initial research phase, our intention was to prepare a Digital Competence Framework for Science Learning for Elementary school Students, and a proposal for how this could be applied in the science classroom. We began from a study of the Slovenian syllabus for Computer Science and Multimedia in elementary school. We discovered that, in science education, we cannot rely on students' digital competence even at the basic level (use of e-mail, internet browsers, word processors and home multimedia), a situation that calls for intervention by science teachers. Additionally, the school subject Computer Science and Multimedia is elective, which is another reason that we cannot expect students to be digitally competent in all classrooms, nor we can expect this kind of digital competency merely on account of the abundance of digital technology all around us. A framework was prepared and adapted for the basic, general and subject specific levels. Specific classroom situations are identified for clarifying the concepts, and classroom practices based on tested sources are proposed for presentation at the conference.