We asked Sofia about her experience at the JRC, and this is what she told us:

DES team (JRC):  Can you tell us a little bit what did you discover during your visit? 

Sofia: In the two weeks I’ve been in the JRC of Sevilla, I worked with almost each member of the team of the Digital Educational Skills. The team introduced me to the main projects they are working on. They showed me SELFIE, a free tool designed to help schools with digital technologies for teaching, learning and assessments, and SELFIEforTEACHERS, a free self-reflection tool for primary and secondary school teachers, that supports teachers in building and improving their digital competences.  

I also explored some other tools, and did activities based on experiments with Artificial Intelligence (AI). We discussed about the usefulness of AI, the different approach that can be applied, for example, with teachers and students of different ages, and what could be the correct use of it. 

DES team (JRC): You have been presented SELFIE, a tool aimed at teachers, school leaders and students. We have asked you to try and experiment with it from the student’s point of view, and to see how students could take the lead on using SELFIE in their school. What did you think? 

Sofia: I think that students can really help to develop the use of digital technologies in their school and to improve general digital competences. They could say what is most useful to understand and learn and what is not. Students could also importantly contribute to the strategy and propose some technical skills that could then be used for classes and to teach new topics. New, better ways of teaching can come from ideas, skills, knowledge and attitudes from students and teachers together. 

 DES team (JRC): What do you think are the positive outcomes for students when leading SELFIE?  

Sofia: If it starts from students, it could be easier to convince more people to participate and collaborate within the community of the school. If students have the initiative to do SELFIE in their school and then organise a meeting to discuss the results taken by the tool, there would be the possibility to exchange opinions and thoughts, come up with solutions or ideas. 

The main positive points of this are: students would show more participation and collaboration, so it would be easier to involve more people, their feedback can orientate teachers and school leaders towards what is really missing, the communication in the school would increase, it would create a space to exchange opinions and points of views, and the global feeling of community would be increased. 

DES team (JRC): What challenges can you foresee and how would you overcome them with a team of students? 

Sofia: Letting students take the initiative and lead SELFIE is not that simple. They need courage to try to involve everyone or at least as many people as possible. They need to be ready and aware that their idea could fail, and that facing adults, such as teachers, can be difficult. But I think that students know how to convince and that this would be overcome. Organising meetings to discuss about the results and the statistics, to understand where there is a lack of knowledge and skills, so what should be improved and where are the strengths of the school, wouldn’t be simple and give space for everyone personal opinions could create different difficulties in managing the situation. However, I think that this is also something that could be improved. Everyone should learn how to discuss, knowing that someone could have different point of view and to listen to others’ opinion. Facing these difficulties would make people grow together and discover more the advantages of digital technologies for daily activities.  

DES team (JRC): What are the SELFIE areas that you consider most relevant for students? 

Sofia: I think that the most important areas of the SELFIE questionnaire for students are infrastructure and equipment, collaboration and networking, because the basis of the development of digital education skills are a good infrastructure and equipment supported by collaboration and teaching support. 

DES team (JRC): You also tested the SELFIEforTEACHERS tool. As a student, what do you think of the use of technologies this tool is promoting? 

Sofia: I think SELFIEforTEACHERS can be very useful for the digital competence development of teachers, as it sends an instant and automatic feedback report with the results of the test and with tips for next steps. The feedback given help them understand their current level of digital competence and give advice on what they should improve. I think that if more teachers tested their skills and were supported by a tool which give them immediate feedback on areas for improvement, the whole school digital education level would grow more easily and faster. The use of digital technologies would increase thanks to the teachers' improvements and to the higher and easier students’ participation that would result from this.  

DES team (JRC): From your personal experience, do you think that digital technologies can improve learning? 

Sofia: Yes, of course. In my experience I think I can say that it is more convenient to use digital technologies for teaching and learning. For teachers it’s easier to explain complex topics and everything can be shared, saved, send. And for students it’s easier and quicker to take notes, do and send homework, work on project and presentation, collaborate with other classmates, share notes and information, do research, use videos and document to help studying and understanding. So, yes, digital technologies in the education system are becoming every day more and more important for everyone. I think that if everything is used in a correct and responsible way it can be very useful and innovative.  

Thank you, Sofia! We were happy to welcome you at the JRC Seville T1 Unit and to present our work to you. We wish you the best for your studies - and a good summer break! 

If you would like to share testimonies about the use of SELFIE, SELFIESELFIEforTEACHERS or any of our frameworks, we would be delighted to know. Don't hesitate to contact us!