5 training courses open to all to improve your digital skills

Our Digital action plan in education and higher education (NAP) in Quebec, scheduled to run from 2018 to 2023, will soon be completed. It consisted of a series of measures aimed at "creating an environment conducive to the deployment of digital technology for pedagogical purposes, to exploit it as a vector of added value, allowing to improve and diversify teaching and learning practices, and to support the development of digital skills.

Among the measures announced by the Ministère de l'Éducation du Québec (MEQ) was the development of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) to meet large-scale training needs. 

Maxime Roger, who coordinated the implementation of this NAP measure at the MEQ, explains that "the courses launched as part of the NAP are intended for a broad audience. Our approach aimed, well before the pandemic, to provide tools to the student community and network personnel and even, more broadly, to all citizens interested in digital competence, the teaching profession, artificial intelligence and distance learning. In 2019, a call for proposals had been issued; at that time, collaborative projects centered around these four themes were requested from educational institutions."

As such, five courses have been launched between September 2021 and September 2022. They can be found gathered on this page. They are open to education personnel, including teachers, principals, students and other professionals, as well as anyone interested in the subject matter, as they are offered free of charge and their resources are completely free of charge. Each course takes approximately 15 to 45 hours to complete. 

1. Digital literacy: everyone's business! 

Montreal university
Composed of seven modules, this CLOM provides information on digital literacy, as presented in the Reference framework for digital competence. In addition, it includes a variety of learning activities, videos and quizzes. 

Who is it for? Citizens, student community and faculty and staff

2. Artificial intelligence techniques: from foundations to applications 

Montreal university
The result of a CEGEP-university collaboration, this CLOM focuses on machine learning, a form of artificial intelligence. With its pedagogy based on active learning, continuous feedback and personalization of the learner's path, it aims to discover the basics of machine learning and its functions and how it can help solve problems in various sectors, such as astrophysics, linguistics, psycho-education and e-commerce.

Who is it for? Citizens, student community and faculty and staff

3. Being a teacher: a profession with a future to discover 

Montreal university
This six-module CLOM is designed to enhance and promote the teaching profession. These modules are organized around the new professional competency framework for teachers and are based on the 13 competencies essential to teaching practice. These competencies refer to the knowledge, know-how and interpersonal skills that underlie the work of teachers, highlighting the complex, dynamic and positive nature of the teaching activity. In particular, they explain a teacher's tasks and why he or she performs them, the knowledge on which he or she bases them, and the values that guide him or her towards students, but also towards parents and other educational actors. This CLOM will therefore help to clarify and illustrate these different notions and to better understand the current teaching work.

Who is it for? Citizens, student community and professional staff

4. Designing and managing a distance learning module (COFAD)

Montreal university
Designing and coaching the delivery of distance education courses is a critical skill for increasing student success and supporting innovation in teaching. This CLOM includes both asynchronous and synchronous sessions that provide opportunities to interact with peers and experts working at all levels of education. Theoretical and practical, this course is based on recent research findings and incorporates various pedagogical innovations.

Who is it for?  Managers, teachers and professional staff

5. Keys to successful distance learning and teaching (CREAD)

Laval University
This CLOM is divided into four tracks and offers the discovery and appropriation of the keys to succeed in a fully or partially distance learning course. Each course is structured in three levels, from discovery to in-depth, offering each person the possibility of finding answers to the questions they have.

Who is it for? Student community, administrators, faculty and staff 

Have you had the opportunity to take one of these courses? If so, share what you learned with us!