Developing Digital Competences of Vocational Teachers

2. Problem And Research Question

Digital media have established themselves far more quickly and effectively in work and everyday life than in education (Weiss, 2012, p. 3). It is hoped that the use of media will improve learning efficiency, facilitate greater orientation to the future professional needs of learners and accompanied personality development in a digital society, etc. Digital media therefore are already part of vocational training at different levels: as part of the everyday life and work of students and teachers, as a method or as content in vocational school teaching. Especially the methodological and didactic use of digital media, often subsumed under the term eLearning, dominates public debate. Overall, however, the use of digital media and eLearning in vocational schools has only played a minor role to date (Wilbers, 2012, p. 38).

However, due to the growing importance in companies and thus the commercial part of the training, vocational schools are coming under increasing pressure to also address the implications of digital media for education and training. “In this area, vocational schools are facing a permanent and extremely differentiated need to adapt that is not seen in this scope or diversity in any other kind of school” (Wilbers 2012, p 40). Common teaching practices are seen as a central barrier to innovation. This is because whether or not media enter the classroom depends not only on the technical prerequisites, but also on the skills and the willingness of the individual teachers to try out new forms of teaching. So far, however, school routine is dominated by traditional forms of teaching, in which the tutorials, smaller individual and group work and lectures are predominant (Euler, 2012, p. 21). New teaching concepts, such as media-supported, problem-based learning or project forms featuring wikis or weblogs can only be integrated into such models to a limited extent.