Are you ready? Assessing Digital Competencies for Online Learning via the General Technology Confidence and Use (GTCU) Instrument
Abstract: This brief paper reports on one part of a case study of a fully online course conducted in the Faculty of Education of a mid-sized university in the province of Ontario, Canada. This course—part of the faculty’s Bachelor of Arts in Educational Studies and Digital Technology (BA-ESDT) program—was focused on Problem-Based Learning (PBL); included both synchronous and asynchronous components; employed the Fully Online Learning Community (FOLC) learning model; and required its learners to complete an online version of the General Technological Competence and Use (GTCU) survey, both near the beginning (pre) and end (post) of the course, to assess learners’ digital competency for fully online learning. This paper reports specifically on some preliminary pre-post GTCU survey results, especially in terms of the potential usefulness—for learners, faculty, and program—of the instrument’s just-in-time availability and informative graphical displays.
Presider: Miguel Garcia-Ruiz, Algoma University