In meeting 1, we learnt how to create a blog and post and manage our materials into that. The blog can be developed as e-portfolio where our research activities and teaching courses can be placed and reveal our professional skills to researchers, teachers and students as well as potential employers. I am keen to build my own blog during this AUPU2 course as this can be as a preliminary step towards improving my digital competence for my future career in academia.
To continue this assignment, I would like to discuss this question: What is digital competence?
There is a published reference where this question is deeply discussed (Ilomäki et al., 2011). Based on this article, digital competence is “the most recent concept describing technology-related skills”. In addition to digital skills, digital competence comprises social and emotional aspects for using and understanding digital tool. For sure, the use of computer and internet play key roles in this regards, but what I am interested to know is how to utilize digital tools to involve students. For describing the skills and competence of using digital technologies, different terms have been utilized e.g. 21st century skills and information technology skills. For us, living in 21st century, especially when involved in learning and teaching environment, this competence is vital, inevitable and demands attention and improvement as well. No doubt that courses like AUPU2 provide me with the opportunity of working further in this area.
Blended learning is another method that can be used to improve learning environment. As described in Mozelius and Hettiarachchi (2011), blended learning is the convergence of online distance and traditional face-to-face courses. For example, before I join KAU, I was responsible for teaching in couple of courses for two years where I normally had it as face-to-face education; however, I had a chance to teach a course by skype for distance students as well. The blended learning and use it in education environments gets growing attention in this century. In the above article (Mozelius and Hettiarachchi, 2011), 10 critical aspects for the design and implementation of blended learning in higher education have been investigated. Among these critical factors, Technology is indeed the fundamental ingredient for developing blended learning in higher education and Economy and being cost-efficient is very important aspect to investigate. However, I think for converting a face-to-face course or a full online course into a blended learning system or designing a blended learning education, in initial plantings, all ten categories mentioned in the article are required to be considered.
As a conclusion, I believe that the digital competence and blended learning are tools improves environmental learning while helping teachers to develop their pedagogical skills and ability to design and develop new courses. During the AUPU2 course, I would like to extend my pedagogical use of digital tools for my teaching courses to create an interesting learning environment for the students.
References
Ilomäki, L., Kantosalo, A. & Lakkala, M. (2011). What is digital competence? Brüssel: European Schoolnet. Zugriff am 20.06.2015 unter https://tuhat.halvi.helsinki.fi/portal/files/ 48681684/Ilom_ki_etal_2011_What_is_digital_competence.pdf.
Mozelius, P. & Hettiarachchi, E. (2017). Critical Factors for Implementing Blended Learning in Higher Education. International Journal of Information and Communication Technologies in Education, 6(2), 37- 51. https://dx.doi.org/10.1515/ijicte-2017-0010.