Digital competition in initial teacher training

Abstract

The current investigation was carried out in 2013 with students of Education from the Town of Guayana (Venezuela). One of the primary aims of this research is to describe how these students use different technological tools; we are interested in the differences and similarities between the use of digital resources according to the context (university, workplace, personal life, etc.). The other goal of this project is to examine how the students’ predisposition towards team work is influenced by the use of telematic tools for collaborative work.
For this purpose a mixed method of investigation was used, consisting of an extensive questionnaire, followed by a focus group in which students were presented orally with the same items as the questionnaire, and asked to comment on them. Because the two methods utilized the same items, the results obtained will be presented concurrently in this article. Notable conclusions and implications include the students’ ability to recognize of a great deal of digital competence; that communication through the Internet is done mainly for personal reasons, and is especially associated with leisure and entertainment, much more so than for academic or professional reasons; that most students connect to the internet more than 30 hours per week; that all student groups show a preference towards teamwork over individual work, elucidating that teamwork at the university and in the working world are qualitatively different; that the mediums most used to communicate with acquaintances and friends are the WhatsApp application as well as the social networks, as opposed to direct oral communication as it has been in the recent past.