Digital technologies need to be used more in the teaching process

PODGORICA, 11 OCTOBER 2019 – According to a national survey conducted by Ipsos research agency, with the support of UNICEF and Telenor, almost all teachers in Montenegrin primary and secondary schools – 94% of them – are using the internet on a daily basis and believe that its use in the teaching process is improving the quality of education.

Furthermore, the survey has shown that 40% of teachers have learned something new on the internet over the past month and have used that knowledge in school work, and also that more than 80% of teachers are interested in improving their skills in the application of digital pedagogy.

In this regard, under the “Digital Literacy for Every Child” initiative by UNICEF and Telenor, within which the survey was conducted, in collaboration with Rome’s Sapienza University, a pilot training was held on the basics of digital pedagogy for teachers of “Štampar Makarije” Primary School.

According to the survey, almost two-thirds of teachers inform themselves on a daily basis by reading print (64%) and online articles (69%). Most teachers (57%) and children (50%) say that it is easier for them to find information in articles on the internet, as well as that these are more interesting than print ones. This data confirms the need to make school textbooks and content available in digital formats.

Teachers’ digital skills are better developed than those of children and parents, but they need additional support in order to increasingly use various media, including digital media, in the teaching process. When it comes to the use of digital media in class, the activity of watching and commenting on video content on the topic being studied is dominant, while half of the teachers instruct their students to create multimedia content on the topic they are addressing.

Teachers most often visit the school portal for teachers in Montenegro, as well as the website of the Ministry of Education, their school website and Wikipedia. In addition, for the purpose of preparing their lessons, they also use professional thematic websites in the area they are teaching.

Only two percent of primary and secondary school teachers in Montenegro do not use the internet, compared to 20 percent of parents and 9 percent of children aged 9–17 in this category. These are usually teachers over the age of 46, one-third of whom are aware that they are missing out on something by not using the internet. Almost two-thirds of teachers have profiles on social networks, most often on Facebook, and then on Instagram – which is used mainly by younger teachers, those under 35.

Thanks to the cooperation of UNICEF and Telenor, Montenegro has become the first country to have comparable data on the digital skills of children, parents and teachers within the Global Kids Online research network.

The survey on teachers and the internet in Montenegro was conducted by Ipsos research agency in 2018, under a methodology developed in partnership with the London School of Economics and Political Science and UNICEF’s Office of Research – Innocenti, within Global Kids Online, an international research network on children’s use of the internet (www.globalkidsonline.net). In 2016, the same methodology was used for a survey on children, parents and the internet in Montenegro, with the support of UNICEF.

The partnership of Telenor and UNICEF was established in response to data from the aforementioned 2016 survey, which found that one-fifth of parents and one in 10 children in Montenegro do not use the internet, as well as that every second parent wants their child’s school to provide them with information on how they can best help their children to develop digital and media literacy.