Summary of the legal framework of the use of ICT in the ESO
Technology is part of our students’ everyday life, and they will use these tools to study, work and even for leisure. In our class we will teach how to research, select and organise information in digital media. So, why do not we include them in our class?
The use of ICT in Secondary Education has become a very important tool in teaching, especially in teaching languages. Regarding English subject, the Decreto 87/2015, de 5 de junio, del Consell, por el que establece el currículo y desarrolla la ordenación general de la Educación Secundaria Obligatoria y del Bachillerato en la Comunitat Valenciana, stablishes the syllabus for all the stages of Secondary Education, in which communication and information technologies take become very relevant.
According to this law, one of the main objectives of the Secondary Education is to develop basic skills in the use of information sources to critically acquire new knowledge. That is to acquire a basic knowledge in the field of technologies, especially in those involving information and communication.
Digital competence is a basic skill that has to be acquired to understand and survive in modern society. It implies the confident and critical use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in different areas. This competence consists of acquiring the skills to search, obtain, process and communicate information and transform it into knowledge. The law devotes an entire block of contents mainly to this important cross-curricular element. During the course the students will have to learn to research, select and organise critically information in digital media, as well as apply filtering strategies and critical sense in information treatment. They will have to use different ICTs to share information and tasks with their counterparts, such as blog research, wikis, forums, sound bank, specialised web pages, virtual dictionaries and encyclopaedias and specialised databases.
The use of ICT in the English class also benefits the acquisition of other competences, such as learning-to-learn, linguistic competence and sense of initiative and entrepreneurship, since it promotes autonomy and self-management in our students, as well as being an interesting source of authentic material, in contrast to the fake and sometimes too unnatural communication situations from traditional text books. Therefore, we can state that these media promote self-learning, self-assessment and oral interaction and writing in virtual contexts.
Digital resources are essential tools to initiate students into autonomous mechanisms for learning a foreign language, adapted to levels and communicative skills, with a fundamental role, as a cross-curricular element, in evaluation activities for oral registers.
Regarding the contents of the syllabus for all the stages of Secondary Education, the law includes a block of contents based on cross-curricular elements, in which ICTs play an important role. According to this section, students will learn to filter and contrast the information from different ICTs and will share the information and resources with the rest of the group to create a collective product or goal. It is stressed the importance of having good habits and behaviours in communication and in protecting oneself and the others from bad practices such as cyberbullying.
Finally, the role of the teacher must be pointed out. The learning process is centred in the students and therefore, the role of the teacher is essential as facilitator of knowledge and learning. The teacher must provide the students with tasks that make possible the students action on the four language activities stablished by the CEFRL (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages): reading, listening, writing and speaking.
