About 140 students between 6 and 12 years of the CEIP ‘Real’ are being trained in digital skills thanks to the educational program DigiCraft.
The Provincial Director of the Ministry of Education, Vocational Training and Sports (MEFPyD) of Melilla, Juan Ángel Berbel, has presented the program, framed within the Vodafone Spain Foundation, together with the digital coordinator of the CEIP, Rocío González, and the Director of the Vodafone Foundation in Spain, Gloria Placer.
“The project aims to promote the digital transformation of schools and train Primary Education students in digital skills that will allow them to lead their future, thus breaking the digital divide between minors and awakening technological vocations, something that has to be worked on from the beginning of childhood education, going through Primary, Secondary and Vocational Training,” said Berbel.
Delving into this issue, the head of the Provincial Directorate of the MEFPyD in Melilla has made it clear that being competent in a digital world “goes beyond being able to use the latest device or software”. “It is a competence that must be worked on in all matters, which is equivalent to the safe and critical use of digital technology and that covers the knowledge, skills and attitudes that all citizens need in a digital society that, as we know, is in a rapid and frank evolution,” he said.
That’s why he pointed out that “it’s not just about having access to technological devices, but about how they are used and how they interact with them.” “It is also about educating digitally and, therefore, teachers play a fundamental role as facilitators and companions, as a travel guide in the learning and development of the digital skills that must be carried in the classroom.”
Berbel explained that DigiCraft is an educational program that aims to train boys and girls between six and twelve years of age in digital skills “that will allow them to develop their maximum potential”, while pointing out that it is developed in different environments to carry out this integration of digital skills in the classroom, with an innovative methodology, “which has as main elements of the innovative game, experimentation to discover creating, the combination between the physical and virtual world and the adaptation of the contents according to the age of the students to which the program is directed”.
Thus, this course 5 groups, which means about 140 students, benefit from this program, with two ways to approach the work depending on the itinerary that is being applied in each class.
The objective, Berbel has advanced, is to extend it, during the three years that the agreement lasts, to all primary school students, so that its scope would reach about 500 students, which are those who are studying Primary Education at the CEIP Real.
Artistic teachings and technology
The digital coordinator of the CEIP Real, Rocío González, has pointed out the positive impact that this program is having, linking artistic teachings with technologies through a series of activities so that students can get to know these technologies.
“Although it seems that today’s children are very used to new technologies, they are new resources and it is about the use of technologies in a different way, linking artistic teachings with technologies,” he said.
Rocío González explained that, in October, the training of teachers began, which lasted a week and, later, the implementation of this project began in the center, from which five classes benefit, which dedicate 1 or 2 hours per week to it.
Safe use
The Director of the Vodafone Foundation in Spain, Gloria Placer, for her part, who has reported that more than 650 educational centers throughout the country are developing this program, has stressed that they are influencing the use of technology from the perspective of a critical, safe and conscious use.
“Technology per se has no value or has a very limited value. At Fundación Vodafone, we are committed to making technology work to improve people’s lives, and that is what we try to work with children and their teachers from a very early age, from primary school,” he said.
In addition, Placer has referred to the importance of awakening vocations of technological type given that, in Spain, “there is a very large lack of professionals in the scientific-technological field, especially with women, who represent barely 4% of all professionals working in this field.”