Digital Literacy in the Netherlands: the Dutch are crossing the borders

Publication date: November 15, 2022

By Ramon Moorlag, Code Week ambassador in the Netherlands 

Digital literacy will become soon – the date has not been confirmed yet – a permanent part of the curriculum in the Netherlands. But how do you make pupils digitally literate? What does that require of teachers and teacher educators? Kennisnet, the i&i trade union, and the Network of Teacher Educators Digital Literacy consider these questions by looking beyond the borders and asking themselves: how do other countries do it?  

These topics will be explored in a series of webinars that will start with Australia on Monday, 21 November, and will be hosted by Prof. Dr. Neil Selwyn, a leading scientist who spent the past 25 years researching the integration of digital technology in schools, universities, and adult education, and a Distinguished Professor in the Faculty of Education at Monash University in Melbourne.  

Dr. Neil Selwyn has recently shared his thoughts on digital literacy and the use of technology, saying that: 

“There is more and more talk about the new phase that digital technology is entering. This forces us to think about digital literacy in distinctly different terms. While digital literacy efforts so far have focused on supporting young people to become better users of technology, the key digital technologies in the 2020s are unlikely to be technology ‘used’ by people. Instead, the most influential and insidious digital technologies in the coming years are likely to be technologies that are ‘used’ on humans.” 

This statement would only lead to more follow up questions such as: What does this mean for Australian digital literacy education? What are pupils already learning, and how does that work out? How do the teachers and teacher trainers down under the train? 

This webinar intents to answer some of the abovementioned questions by following the programme outlined below:  

Agenda (CET) 

• 8 pm: Lecture Neil Selwyn 
• 8.30 pm: ask your questions to Neil Selwyn (led by Kennisnet advisor Remco Pijpers) 
• 9 pm: chat (in Dutch); what’s happening in the Netherlands? 
• 9.15 pm: end 

The webinar addresses mainly education professionals, but following Code Week values to make computational thinking, coding, programming, computer science, robotics, tinkering with hardware and digital skills at large accessible to everybody, everyone is welcome to join even if not working at a school. To attend it’ll be necessary to sign up and fill out a registration form.