Educational Trainings as One of the Effective Forms of Digital

Competence Development of Secondary School Teachers

Tetiana L. Hodovaniuk

1 a

, Tetiana M. Makhometa

1 b

, Irina M. Tiahai

1 c

Mariia O. Medvedieva

1 d

, Svitlana M. Pryshchepa

1 e

and Andrei V. Voznyak

2 f

Pavlo Tychyna Uman State Pedagogical University, 2 Sadova Str., Uman, 20300, Ukraine

Kryvyi Rih State Pedagogical University, 54 Gagarin Ave., Kryvyi Rih, 50086, Ukraine

Keywords:

Digital Competence, Educational Training, Online Tools, Practicing Teachers.

Abstract:

The article considers possibilities of developing digital competence of teachers by using educational training

as an optional form of organization of the educational process and professional development of teachers.

Different approaches to the interpretation of the concept of digital competence of specialists, in particular

practicing teachers, are identiﬁed. Described training as one of the active forms of obtaining knowledge in

the system of continuing education of teachers. Given examples of online tools that were used during training

sessions for practicing teachers to develop one of the main components of their professional competence –

digital competence. Provided static data on the effectiveness of this form of digital competence development,

obtained as a result of a survey of participating teachers described in the article of educational trainings.

1 INTRODUCTION

Intensive development of world civilization, global

transformation of education, intellectualization of

labour, as well as educational realities in a present

pandemic, indicate that one of the current issues that

needs immediate solution is the lack of proper digital

education policy, low digital competence of teachers

and students etc.

As stated in the Concept of the New Ukrainian

School, one of the tools to ensure success is the end-

to-end application of information and communication

technologies in the educational process. In particular,

it is emphasized that “the introduction of ICT in ed-

ucation should move from one-time projects to a sys-

temic process that covers all activities. ICT will sig-

niﬁcantly expand the capabilities of the teacher, opti-

mize management processes, thus forming important

for our century technological competencies in the stu-

dent” (Elkin et al., 2017). All this indicates that mod-

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7087-7102

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4825-4707

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4360-7553

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9330-5185

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3483-1112

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4683-1136

ern society needs a teacher who has relevant knowl-

edge and is able to qualitatively meet the educational

needs of consumers of educational services using ad-

vanced pedagogical and information and communica-

tion technologies.

However, it should be noted that this is possi-

ble only if the teacher is constantly updating his/her

knowledge and skills development to teach qualita-

tively, but at the same time, as noted in the National

Report on state and prospects of education develop-

ment in Ukraine, to learn continuously when “edu-

cation becomes a means to the aim of human devel-

opment, which allows to establish its leading role,

the purpose of which is to form the skills necessary

to perform various functions – self-expression, self-

realization, development of social relations and abil-

ity to act” (Kremen, 2017).

The active use of information and communication

technologies by the subjects of the educational pro-

cess contributes not only to the informatization of the

education system (Fedorenko et al., 2019), but also to

the growth of professional competencies of teachers

(Bakum et al., 2019). One of the professional com-

petencies that should be formed in the teacher of sec-

ondary education institutions is the competence in the

ﬁeld of information technology, the development of

which is carried out through the use of integrated di-

372

Hodovaniuk, T., Makhometa, T., Tiahai, I., Medvedieva, M., Pryshchepa, S. and Voznyak, A.

Educational Trainings as One of the Effective Forms of Digital Competence Development of Secondary School Teachers.

DOI: 10.5220/0010931900003364

In Proceedings of the 1st Symposium on Advances in Educational Technology (AET 2020) - Volume 2, pages 372-381

ISBN: 978-989-758-558-6

dactic systems, computer, Internet resources and dis-

tance learning (Shokaliuk et al., 2020).

The Law of Ukraine “On Education” deﬁnes com-

petence as “a dynamic combination of knowledge,

skills, thinking, attitudes, values, other personal qual-

ities that determine a person’s ability to socialize suc-

cessfully, conduct professional and / or further educa-

tional activities” (Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, 2017).

Regarding the deﬁnition of competence in the

ﬁeld of information technology, there was no un-

ambiguous approach until recently. Scientists

often used a variety of terminology: “infor-

mation competence”, “informational competence”,

“information-digital competence”, “digital compe-

tence”, “information-communication competence”,

etc. Recently, the term “digital competence” has be-

come more widely used by scholars which ﬁrst ap-

peared in international documents and is widely used

in foreign countries.

The issues of digital competence were covered in

(Ferrari, 2011; Kuzminska et al., 2019; Leshchenko

et al., 2021; Prokhorova, 2015; Scott, 2015; Vuorikari

et al., 2016). In particular, the issues of development

of digital competence of a teacher were shown in

(Ivanytsky, 2020; Kartashova et al., 2018; Moiseienko

et al., 2020; Spirin, 2010; Trubavina et al., 2021).

There are many deﬁnitions of digital competence,

among them:

• conﬁdent and thorough use of information and

communication technologies in such areas as

work (employment opportunities), education,

leisure, involvement and activities in society,

which are vital for everyday socio-economic life

(Kartashova et al., 2018);

• ability to use digital resources and information

technologies, understand and be able to evaluate

digital resources and content critically, communi-

cate effectively (Scott, 2015);

• a set of knowledge, skills required to use infor-

mation technology and digital media to perform

tasks; problem solving; information management;

cooperation; communication; creation and dis-

tribution of content; joint activities and meeting

needs (Ferrari, 2011);

• the quality of the specialist, which indicates the

level of qualiﬁcation from basic visual perception

and practical skills to more critical, evaluative and

conceptual approaches to the use of ICT, as well

as includes attitude and awareness in the ﬁeld of

ICT (Spirin, 2010).

In particular, digital competence of teacher is in-

terpreted as:

• knowledge, skills and abilities in the ﬁeld of ICT

and the ability to apply them in professional ac-

tivities (Moiseienko et al., 2020);

• the ability of the teacher to effectively and efﬁ-

ciently use ICT in teaching and for professional

development (Prokhorova, 2015);

• the skill of the teacher to apply information tech-

nology in professional activities (Vuorikari et al.,

2016), etc.

However, the features and ways of developing the

digital competence of practicing teachers have been

studied little and require additional research.

The purpose of the article is to reveal the possibil-

ities of developing digital competence of teachers by

using educational training as an optional form of or-

ganization of the educational process and professional

development of teachers.

2 RESULTS

The problem of continuing education of teacher prac-

titioners, whose professional activity occupies one of

the leading places in the development of society due

to modern paradigms of social development, novelty

of personal and social requirements to the system of

professional education of teachers and their readiness

to improve professional development.

In our opinion, special attention should be paid

to identifying ways to develop digital competence of

teachers in the context of continuing education. Thus,

Dryden and Vos (Dryden and Vos, 2005) see the main

task of modernity in “preparing all educators in such a

way that they know how to combine the best available

information technologies in the world with the most

advanced teaching methods available in the world and

teaching”.

One of the active forms of acquiring knowledge

in the system of continuing education of teachers is

educational training. Training comes from the “to

train”, which means “teach, train, instruct”. At the

same time, training is an interesting communication

and an exciting process of learning about yourself and

others and an effective form of learning, expanding

experience and a way to develop skills and abilities

(Panchuk, 2015).

Unlike traditional, training forms of learning fully

cover the full potential of student: the level and scope

of his/her competence (social, emotional and intellec-

tual), independence, ability to make decisions, inter-

action etc.

The effectiveness of this form of education is due

to the fact that (Blinov, 2008):

Educational Trainings as One of the Effective Forms of Digital Competence Development of Secondary School Teachers

373

• the point of view and knowledge of each partici-

pant is valued;

• there is an opportunity to share your experience

and analyze it in a comfortable atmosphere with-

out coercion;

• there is an opportunity to learn by performing

practical actions;

• mistakes can be made that will not lead to punish-

ment or negative consequences;

• there are no assessments and other “punitive”

means of assessing new knowledge”.

In the framework of the international project

“Modernization of Pedagogical Higher Education Us-

ing Innovative Teaching Tools” (MoPED) of the EU

program Erasmus + KA2 – The Development of

Higher Education Potential, No 586098-EPP-1-2017-

1-EN-EPPKA2-CBHE-JP participants of Uman State

Pedagogical University conducted a series of train-

ings for teachers of secondary education, regardless

of their professional orientation.

According to statistics, the following distribution

of teachers who participated in the trainings was ob-

tained. Of the total number of training participants

who received feedback, 10% teach in primary school,

54% – in secondary school, 36% – in high school.

Among those who teach in primary or secondary

school, depending on the subject they teach, we have

the following distribution: humanities – 12.5%; social

sciences – 2.1%; economic sciences – 4.2%; technical

sciences (computer) – 25%; technical sciences (non-

computer) – 27.1%; other ﬁelds (mathematics, chem-

istry, teacher-organizer) – 29.1%.

The level of digital competence of participants at

the beginning of the trainings was mostly sufﬁcient

(38%) and average (62%).

The purpose of these trainings was to increase the

digital competence of teachers, acquaint them with

modern innovative tools and learning technologies.

The topics of the trainings were as follows: “Go-

Lab Ecosystem”, “Research Learning Technologies”,

“Computational Thinking”, “Development of Digital

Competence through Mobile Technologies”, “From

Classical Lesson to Research Learning”, “Research

Learning: Creating ILS on the Go-Lab Platform”,

“Mobile learning technology: the use of Classroom

in school practice”, “Technology of development

of critical thinking in students”, “STEM-education:

robotics, the use of sensors of mobile devices for

physical experiment”, “Introduction of Flipped Class-

room Technology in educational process”, “Technol-

ogy “Six Hats”: the development of critical thinking

of students”, “Technology “Scribing”: a vivid presen-

tation of educational material”, “Mentimeter.com –

online survey in real time”, “Formation of soft skills

in students during implementation of the educational

process”, “The use of multimedia board as one of the

requirements of modern educational process in the in-

formation society”, “Virtual interactive whiteboards

as a modern means of educational material”, “Dis-

tance learning platforms and services” and others.

During the trainings, participants learned how to

organize educational activities more effectively, store

and create ﬁles in cloud storage, automatically eval-

uate student tasks and effectively organize work in

groups etc. The team of trainers demonstrated a vari-

ety of free online tools for ofﬂine and online classes,

for a vivid presentation of educational material, con-

trol of students’ knowledge etc. Here are examples of

online tools that were demonstrated during the train-

ings and contributed to the development of digital

competence of teachers and students.

One of the modern online tools that fascinates stu-

dents regardless of their age is Kahoot! This is an ed-

ucational service with which you can conduct interac-

tive educational games: quizzes, discussions, surveys,

etc. You can access it through a web browser or the

Kahoot app! in Google Play or App Store.

During the trainings, participants had the opportu-

nity to get acquainted with four options for registra-

tion on this service: Basic, which is free; Plus, Pro-

fessional, Premium, which are paid. But even basic

(free) access to the platform gives the teacher quite a

lot of opportunities:

• allows to involve up to 50 students in testing;

• you can create questions yourself or use ready-

made questions from the bank;

• you can enable the function for automatic mixing

of answers to the question;

• to visualize the question, you can use a bank of

images, add them to questions or use as answers;

• it is possible to limit the time given to the student

to answer questions;

• you can determine the number of points for each

correct answer;

• allows you to ﬁnd out how each student answered

the questions or build success charts of the aca-

demic group.

Free access allows you to create only two types

of questions: quiz, namely a question with “multiple

choice”, when the student is offered several answers

and he chooses one or more correct and “true or false”

when the student is offered two mutually exclusive

answers (ﬁgure 2).

The offered service allows to carry out testing in

two ways:

AET 2020 - Symposium on Advances in Educational Technology

374

Figure 1: Distribution of teachers who participated in the trainings.

Figure 2: Types of questions in Kahoot!.

Figure 3: An example of Kahoot! for teachers.

• virtual classroom – testing can be taken with stu-

dents during ofﬂine lessons. In this case, the ques-

tions and answer options appear on the projector

or computer screen of the teacher and students an-

swer from their mobile phones or computers;

• for self placed learning – students take tests on

their own, questions and answer options appear

on the screen of their computers or smartphones.

Educational Trainings as One of the Effective Forms of Digital Competence Development of Secondary School Teachers

375

Figure 4: View and download the report.

Figure 5: Kahoot! results report in Excel.

By choosing this method, the teacher has the op-

portunity to set the date and period of time during

which the test will be open.

During the conversation at the training, all educa-

tors unanimously stated that during online lesson it

is quite difﬁcult to keep students’ attention when ex-

plaining the material. Therefore, the trainers showed

that you can try not just to tell the topic with the pre-

sentation, but to prepare the Kahoot test! and activate

students with short pauses with interesting questions

on the topic. Students can take quizzes individually,

and it is possible to create competitions where par-

ticipants receive points for speed and correctness of

answers. A small competition will always help make

the lesson more interesting.

Since the training was attended by teachers from

different subjects, in order to acquaint them with this

platform, our team was offered to pass Kahoot! on

“What do I know about Ukraine?” (ﬁgure 3). The

work with this service was as follows: ﬁrst, teach-

ers took the role of students and passed the quiz, and

then, after registration, independently created their

own Kahoots in accordance with the subjects taught.

After working with this service, teachers came

AET 2020 - Symposium on Advances in Educational Technology

376

Figure 6: Service LearningApps.

Figure 7: Types of interactive exercises in LearningApps.

to the conclusion that Kahoot! is a convenient tool

for creating tests that can be used for: current and

thematic control of students’ knowledge; self-study

and self-control; preparation for tests and independent

work; survey of students’ opinions, etc. The “virtual

classroom” survey method can be used not only for

classroom classes or distance learning. It can also be

used during student conferences, research groups or

other events where there is a need to involve students

in discussing scientiﬁc or educational issues.

The service allows you to download to Google

Drive or PC ﬁle (ﬁgure 4) with the named results in

Excel format (ﬁgure 5).

Another online service that allows you to create

interactive exercises is LearningApps.org. This ser-

vice is a designer for the development of various tasks

in various subject areas for use in the classroom and in

extracurricular activities and for kids and high school

Educational Trainings as One of the Effective Forms of Digital Competence Development of Secondary School Teachers

377

Figure 8: Creating a Class in LearningApps.

Figure 9: The results of the survey of training participants.

students.

LearningApps service is a Web 2.0 application to

support educational processes in educational institu-

tions of various types. Designer LearningApps is de-

signed to develop, store interactive tasks in various

subject disciplines, through which students can test

and consolidate their knowledge in the form of games,

which contributes to the formation of their cognitive

interest (ﬁgure 6).

The service presents many interactive exercises

that have been developed for various forms of edu-

cational process. During the training, teachers were

shown how these exercises can be used in working

with an interactive whiteboard, as well as individual

exercises for students when doing independent work.

The LearningApps service provides the ability to

AET 2020 - Symposium on Advances in Educational Technology

378

Figure 10: The results of the survey of training participants.

Figure 11: The results of the survey of training participants.

obtain code so that interactive tasks can be posted on

the pages of websites or blogs of teachers and stu-

dents. The trainers emphasized to the participants

that each of the resources can be used in their class,

changed for their own needs, develop a similar or

completely different training module, it can be stored

in your own “ofﬁce”, creating your account in this on-

line environment.

During the training, participants had the opportu-

nity to get acquainted with the types of tasks offered

by this service (ﬁgure 7), to play the role of a student,

having already completed the exercise and to create

their own interactive task under the guidance of train-

ers. There are several exercise templates available in

each group, the description and samples of which can

be previewed before creating your own learning re-

source.

The participants of the trainings were shown the

possibility of creating a Class in the teacher’s own ac-

count (ﬁgure 8), entering data about students, creating

a proﬁle for each student, setting a password to log in,

etc.

This feature of the proposed service will be useful

in connection with the current epidemiological situ-

ation in the country and in the world, as the teacher

will be able to provide students with tasks remotely

and monitor their implementation.

After working with this service, the training par-

ticipants agreed that the Learning Apps service and its

electronic versions of tasks are especially attractive

Educational Trainings as One of the Effective Forms of Digital Competence Development of Secondary School Teachers

379

because they allow you to get results almost imme-

diately after the test. Interactive learning tasks help

increase the level of digital competence of teachers

and students, as well as aimed at solving the most im-

portant task of education – to teach school leavers to

work productively in the world of global informati-

zation and in connection with global quarantine and

the transition of all educational institutions to distance

learning which is very important.

In addition to these online services, participants

were also introduced to such services as: Mentimetr,

Classtime, Plickers, ClassTools, etc during the train-

ing. The method of conducting trainings on the use of

these services in the educational process will be de-

scribed in more detail in the following publications.

At the end of the trainings, the participants were

interviewed about the general impression of the train-

ings, the methodology of their conduct and technical

and social competence of the trainers. 50 respondents

took part in the survey. The results of the survey are

presented in the form of diagrams (ﬁgures 9–11).

3 CONCLUSIONS

So, the growing role of ICT in education and every-

day life requires the formation of digital competence

of each individual. This process is entrusted to the

teacher as the main agent of action and the engine

of modern reforms. That is why there is a question

of continuous improvement of their level of digital

competence – quality, the formation of which allows

teachers at a high professional level to use electronic

educational resources to search, logical selection, sys-

tematization, use of educational material and effective

educational process.

Further research should focus on the use of other

innovative technologies, including the ClassDojo,

Classtime platform, etc., to increase the digital com-

petence of practicing teachers, as well as to ﬁnd other

training topics for the development of professional

competence of educators.

REFERENCES

Bakum, Z. P., Palchykova, O. O., Kostiuk, S. S., and Lapina,

V. O. (2019). Intercultural competence of personality

while teaching foreign languages. Espacios, 40(23).

Blinov, O. A. (2008). Features of the organization of

psychological training. Zbirnyk naukovykh statei

Kyivskoho mizhnarodnoho universytetu, 12:9–23.

Dryden, G. and Vos, J. (2005). The New Learning Revolu-

tion. A&C Black, 3rd edition.

Elkin, O., Hrynevych, L., kalashnikova, S., Khobzey,

P., Kobernyk, I., Kovtunets, V., Makarenko, O.,

Malakhova, O., Nanayeva, T., Shiyan, R., and Us-

atenko, H. (2017). The New Ukrainian School:

conceptual principles of secondry school reform.

https://mon.gov.ua/storage/app/media/zagalna

Fedorenko, E. H., Velychko, V. Y., Stopkin, A. V., Chorna,

A. V., and Soloviev, V. N. (2019). Informatization of

education as a pledge of the existence and develop-

ment of a modern higher education. CEUR Workshop

Proceedings, 2433:20–32.

Ferrari, A. (2011). Digital competence in practice: An

analysis of frameworks. Technical Report JRC68116,

Joint Research Centre of the European Commission,

Luxembourg. https://ifap.ru/library/book522.pdf.

Ivanytsky, O. I. (2020). Formation of digital competence

of the future teacher of physics in the process of pro-

fessional training. Scientiﬁc notes [Volodymyr Vyn-

nychenko Central Ukrainian State Pedagogical Uni-

versity]. Series: Pedagogical sciences, 185:29–33.

http://nbuv.gov.ua/UJRN/Nz p 2020 185 7.

Kartashova, L. A., Bakhmat, N. V., and Plish, I. V. (2018).

Development of teacher’s digital competency in terms

of information and educational environment of a sec-

ondary education establishment. Information Tech-

nologies and Learning Tools, 68(6):193–205. https:

//journal.iitta.gov.ua/index.php/itlt/article/view/2543.

Kremen, V., editor (2017). National Report on the

State and Prospects of Education Develop-

ment in Ukraine. Pedahohichna dumka, Kyiv.

https://lib.iitta.gov.ua/706242/2/nac%20dopovid%

202017%20ENG.indd%2022-03-2017.pdf.

Kuzminska, O., Mazorchuk, M., Morze, N., Pavlenko, V.,

and Prokhorov, A. (2019). Study of Digital Compe-

tence of the Students and Teachers in Ukraine. Com-

munications in Computer and Information Science,

1007:148–169.

Leshchenko, M. P., Kolomiiets, A. M., Iatsyshyn, A. V., Ko-

valenko, V. V., Dakal, A. V., and Radchenko, O. O.

(2021). Development of informational and research

competence of postgraduate and doctoral students in

conditions of digital transformation of science and

education. Journal of Physics: Conference Series,

1840(1):012057.

Moiseienko, M. V., Moiseienko, N. V., Kohut, I. V., and

Kiv, A. E. (2020). Digital competence of pedagogical

university student: Deﬁnition, structure and didactical

conditions of formation. CEUR Workshop Proceed-

ings, 2643:60–70.

Panchuk, O. S. (2015). Using elements of training and game

exercises in health lessons. Grade 7: Textbook.

Prokhorova, S. M. (2015). The concept of digital com-

petence of a foreign language teacher in the world

educational space. Bulletin of Ivan Franko Zhyto-

myr State University. Pedagogical sciences, 4:113–

116. http://nbuv.gov.ua/UJRN/VZhDUP 2015 4 24.

Scott, C. L. (2015). The Futures of Learning 3: What kind

of pedagogies for the 21st century? http://unesdoc.

unesco.org/images/0024/002431/243126e.pdf.

Shokaliuk, S. V., Bohunenko, Y. Y., Lovianova, I. V., and

Shyshkina, M. P. (2020). Technologies of distance

AET 2020 - Symposium on Advances in Educational Technology

380

learning for programming basics on the principles of

integrated development of key competences. CEUR

Workshop Proceedings, 2643:548–562.

Spirin, O. M. (2010). Information and communication and

informatic competences as komponents of the system

of professional-specialized competences of informat-

ics teacher. Information Technologies and Learning

Tools, 13(5). https://journal.iitta.gov.ua/index.php/itlt/

article/view/183.

Trubavina, I., Dotsenko, S., Naboka, O., Chaikovskyi, M.,

and Meshko, H. (2021). Developing digital compe-

tence of teachers of humanitarian disciplines in the

conditions of COVID-19 quarantine measures. Jour-

nal of Physics: Conference Series, 1840(1):012052.

Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine (2017). Law of Ukraine

“On Education”. https://zakon.rada.gov.ua/laws/

show/2145-19/ed20170905#n24.

Vuorikari, R., Punie, Y., Carretero, S., and Van den Brande,

L. (2016). DigComp 2.0: The Digital Competence

Framework for Citizens. Update Phase 1: The Con-

ceptual Reference Model. Publication Ofﬁce of the

European Union, Luxembourg.

Educational Trainings as One of the Effective Forms of Digital Competence Development of Secondary School Teachers

381