The Impact of COVID-19 on Digital Competence A Case Study of Preservice Teacher Education Students in the Sultanate of Oman

The study looked into how COVID-19 affected the digital competence of a group of preservice teacher education students at a higher education institution in the Sultanate of Oman. The paper examined students' digital profile in five areas namely information and data literacy, communication and collaboration, digital content creation, safety and problem solving. Data from 32 undergraduate students was collected by utilizing DigComp, a European Commission digital skills self-assessment tool and findings from a survey. The digital competence framework measures the set of skills, knowledge and attitudes that describes what it means to be digitally competent. These skills are important for students to be effective global citizens in the 21st century. The results of the study revealed that the majority of the students scored Level 3 (Intermediate) in their self-assessment competency test score. The majority of the students perceived that their digital competence improved significantly as the result of online learning which was accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The rationale of this investigation is that it helps educators understand the students' level of digital competence and the students' perspectives on ICT skills. In turn, it informs us the ways to monitor the students' digital progress and the next steps in developing their digital competency © 2023, International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications.All Rights Reserved.

Technology-Enhanced and Student-Centered Learning as a Method to Foster Students' ICT Competence and Problem Coping Skills

The aim of this research-to-practice full paper is to present the results of most recent analyses of the long-term school pilot project named "learning office approach". The learning office represents an alternative branch of a technology-oriented vocational secondary school in Europe encompassing the grades K9-K13 and has been implemented at the IT department in 2016. Students of a learning office cohort have flexible course schedules allowing them to choose between several subjects on a daily basis, which in turn enables differentiation and individualization: Students seeking help or striving to deepen their knowledge and skills may visit chosen subjects more often. Since learning office subjects do not rely on lectures and direct instruction, teachers become facilitative coaches helping students become self-responsible learners and study in a self-driven, self-directed way, which in turn fosters their 21st century skills.The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting emergency remote teaching strategies demonstrated the supreme importance of digital competences and self-efficacy: Students were abruptly required to work autonomously with digital systems and study at home in a self-driven way. Since the learning office heavily relies on students working with digital educational material and tools in a self-directed and student-centered way, the question arises if learners show indications of increased ICT competences and self-efficacy in the learning office.This paper evaluates the interplay of students' self-reported ICT skills, school-specific self-efficacy, and academic performance in the learning office approach and traditional classrooms. Based on an extensive literature review, a questionnaire was developed and distributed among all 552 students of the grades 9-13 and students' final grades of the winter term 2021/22 were analyzed. The results show a significant increase in self-perceived problem coping skills and ICT competences in the learning office approach, including the sub-scales "general ICT self-concept", "communication", "process and store", and "generate content". We conclude that technology-enhanced student-centered approaches, such as the learning office, are a viable method to foster students' 21st century digital skills. © 2022 IEEE.

Teacher's ICT Skills and Readiness of Integrating Augmented Reality in Education

In recent years, the ministry of education has adopted policies aimed at enhancing the consistency and efficacy of the teaching and learning process. In the midst of the Covid19 pandemic, the implementation of different alternatives to the current teaching and learning mechanism is extremely crucial. With the migration of the current education online, AR is viewed to be a suitable and relevant alternative to be implemented. However, study on teacher readiness to adopt AR in education is still absent. Therefore, there is a need to investigate teacher's ICT skills and their readiness in deploying AR in teaching and learning. This research uses quantitative study and survey as the research methodology with 96 teachers involved as a participant. The data analysis is performed using descriptive analysis with the help of SPSS software. The findings showed that teachers in this research show a minimum to moderate level of expertise skilled in handling different ICT aspects. In addition, the research has also shown that teachers in this study show less familiarity with AR technology. The significance of this study is able to provide a set of empirical results that is beneficial for further education planning by the government.