I-Curriculum pack

September 2004

The full version of this report is available to download in pdf format - see box below. On this page you'll find the paper's executive summary.

Executive summary

Why was the I-Curriculum project established?

The 21st century is being transformed by technology; both work and leisure practices are radically changing. And it is not simply a case of 'doing what we did before but adding some technology', it is about changes in the nature of human activity itself through the uses of new tools. For example, to be an art historian or scientist who works with digital technologies, is not the same as being an early 20th century art historian or scientist. The activity in these areas of work is reinvented to take account of the capabilities of technology. When we consider education, then, we need something different from the continuation of existing approaches - we need approaches that take into account the changes in today's and tomorrow's ways of working and knowing.

What is the I-Curriculum project?

The I-Curriculum project brings together researchers from Germany, Greece, Romania, Spain and the UK to look at the metaskills and metaknowledge needed for living and working in the digital age. It does not focus simply on what understanding of software packages is required, but takes a wider view of the complex challenges faced by humans today in digitally rich social and work environments, and explores the metaskills and metaknowledge likely to be required in these new contexts. It studied how this challenge is currently being addressed in curriculum requirements for teaching digital technologies across the five countries, current relevant literature that provides an insight into potential future approaches, and case studies of emerging innovative teaching practices. Within this context, the I-Curriculum project identifies the ability to actively participate in lifelong learning, to confidently and quickly learn how to work with, critique and exploit new and emerging digital tools, as the key skill needed in contemporary society, both today and in the future.

What is the I-Curriculum framework?

The I-Curriculum framework is a set of guidelines that can be used by policy makers, teachers and other educators, the producers of digital resources, and students to check whether a project or lesson achieves the goal of enabling active participation in lifelong learning practices. This framework could help in the examination of current curriculum and learning design, locating the process within the demands of changing cultures and mapping educational provision onto the new demands of new contexts in which life, work and education interact.

The framework represents a shift away from the notion of key skills. It looks at an activity as developing various skills related to digital literacies, the areas are:

• exchanging and sharing information; communication and collaboration
• researching: finding things out
• modelling
• working practices and attitudes.

Across each of these skill areas are three levels of curriculum activity: the operational curriculum involves using the tools and technology effectively, how to word-process, enter data, perform queries etc. Above this is the integrating curriculum, where technology is used for efficiency, motivation and effectiveness. Finally, the transformational curriculum involves recognition that what we might know, and how and when we come to know it has changed by the existence of the technologies we use and therefore the curriculum and organisation of teaching and learning needs to change to reflect those changes.

What does this report contain?

Background - this section defines what is meant by digital literacy skills in this document, and how we can distinguish between levels of competency.

The framework - discusses the theoretical underpinnings of the matrix as well as presenting the matrix.

Case studies - three illustrative case studies taken from some of the partner countries that demonstrate how current practice can be considered using the framework as an assessment tool.

Conclusions and recommendations - this summarises the findings and recommendations for the EU with respect to the development of digital literacy skills.

top of page