 Gretings and happy new year, ladies and gentlemen. It's an honor and a pleasure for me to join you all in the conversation on digitally competent teachers. But first let me apologize for failing to join you personally. I however do hope that my presentation will contribute to the ongoing discussions on this subject. I would also like to congratulate UNESCO for organizing this meeting and I believe the outcomes of this two days conversation will help in shaping further discussions on digital competencies and the revision of the ICT competency framework for teachers. Now according to Ferrari 2012, digital competence is the set of knowledge, skills and attitudes required when using ICT and digital media to perform tasks and build knowledge. Ferrari also adds that extending and improving digital competence is an essential component in the development of employable graduates. It is therefore clear that digital competencies are very critical in today's economies and in the work environment. However, ensuring graduates have the competencies and can effectively and efficiently use this skills remains a huge challenge especially in the developing countries. This challenge is made even more complex because digital competence is a multifaceted moving target covering many areas and literacies and rapidly evolving as new technologies appear. There is also general agreement that for graduates to have the requisite digital competencies and to be prepared as global citizens, these competencies and values must be introduced to them right from primary school through the entire education ladder. This is where teachers come in. ICT skills and digital competencies cannot be introduced to school education without the participation of teachers. It is therefore imperative that teachers have these skills before they can be expected to use and teach this in schools. So if teachers have a very central role to play in ensuring that children are introduced to these competencies in preparation for further education and for the job market and yet digital competencies cover a variety of subjects or areas, what then needs to be done. At the Commonwealth of Learning, we know that a lot has been done already by different organizations, agencies and institutions, but a lot still needs to be done, including one continuous transformation of curricula and learning resources to include different aspects of digital competencies and to include ICTs as both a teaching and learning tool. Two, transformation of assessment strategies. Changes in the curricula without corresponding transformation in assessment often encourages neglect of those areas that are examined, because unfortunately the reality in many school systems is that what is not assessed is not learned. Transformation of curricula must therefore be accompanied by transformation of the assessment strategies. We also need access to technologies for teacher educators, teachers and learners. These access should include knowledge and skills for technology use since access alone without the requisite skills will be a waste of resources and can be frustrating to all involved. Training and retraining of teacher trainers to ensure they have the right skills to infuse digital skills in training curricula and their methodologies. Many projects seeking to integrate ICTs have targeted teachers and not enough attention has been paid to training and retraining teacher trainers. The result has been a mismatch with teacher education institutions continuing to train teachers using old methodologies that do not sufficiently integrate ICTs. Teacher training, teaching and research methodologies that integrate technology are therefore a necessity if true transformation in teacher education is to be achieved. We also do need continuous professional development for both teachers and teacher educators to ensure they are all kept abreast of all the technological and curricula changes taking place. And we need partnerships at different levels, involving different stakeholders, partnerships that include for example local communities, schools, central national governments, local governments and development partners. We need to work together to achieve true transformation. Last but not least we need appropriate policies and policy environments that support transformation, creativity and innovation. Now in the next remaining minutes I will share with you some of our efforts and activities at promoting ICT integration and digital competencies here at the Commonwealth of Learning. Let me first of all point out that our new strategic plan was recently approved with the theme Learning for Sustainable Development. Teacher education will contribute to this theme by supporting governments, teacher training institutions and teachers to do the following. Devolve relevant context-based and pedagogically sound programs for teachers and teacher educators. Improve institutional capacity to use open and distance learning and ICTs effectively. Improve the quality of teaching and learning in teacher education institutions and in schools. And lastly but not least support governments and institutions to develop OER materials and scale up the adoption and adaptation of OER. We believe that in so doing we will be contributing to preparing teachers for the 21st century and for sustainable development. So here are a few of the projects we are engaged in. The Commonwealth Certificate for Teacher ICT integration or CCTI. This is an online certificate course devout by the Commonwealth of Learning in Partnership in Skulnet Africa and is aligned with the UNESCO ICT Competency Framework for Teachers. All the nine course modules are available as open educational resources. In the past call worked with different ministries of education to offer this course directly to teachers. However beginning last year 2015 and for purposes of promoting sustainability of efforts the model of provision has changed and call now encourages institutions to adopt and or adopt this modules into their existing programs and provide certification according to their different needs. CCTI is meant to do the following. Improve teachers teaching experience in the classroom using a range of ICTs. Increase school managers involvement in the ICT implementation process in the schools. Build local capacities to integrate ICTs in teaching and learning and to mainstream ICTs in education. We have so far worked with Antigone and Barbuda, Saint Vincent and Grandins, Trinidad and Tobago, Bahamas, Grenada, Lesutu and Uganda and we will continue to work with those governments and institutions keen to exploit this resource. The second strategy is MOOCs. Call recognizes the power and potential of MOOCs to provide access to education, promote innovation, creativity and sharing of resources. Call has partnered with a number of other institutions to mount MOOCs for continuous professional development for teachers and has since run courses in the integration of ICTs and OERs in teaching and learning and in educational research. We will also be mounting an in-service course for teachers in schools on the MOOC platform and work has already started with the training of course developers. So call has used MOOCs for other subjects as well but in teacher education more than 2500 teachers and teacher educators have since participated in these different MOOCs. The MOOC methodologies and technologies provide a huge promise and are great and are of great interest to us. We will therefore continue to explore better ways of harnessing this potential. We are also working to transform teacher education programs through the integration of ICTs. This is in addition to CCT and the MOOCs run. Call is currently supporting eight countries in Africa and Asia to transform their programs using ICTs. The activities under this include capacity building for teacher educators, development of online programs and training of teacher trainees in online study and use of ICTs for student activities and projects. One of the major motivations for this is the need to prepare teachers for the new role of teachers as facilitators of learning and using ICTs is central to this new role. Closely related to this effort is the Commonwealth Digital Education Leadership Training in Action or C-Delta. Under this program we will engage with governments, educational institutions, teachers and civil society organizations to assess digital education competencies, develop learning materials around the digital education skills, provide training opportunities for teachers and monitor student achievement and their relationships to livelihood. The C-Delta program will provide a framework for fostering digital learning and develop skilled citizens for lifelong learning. This is a long-term program and work is just beginning but we are excited and believe it will help promote a digital education environment in Commonwealth nations. We are also working to promote OERs in the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth of Learning has and continues to actively promote the development, adoption and adaptation of OER because of their potential to do the following, provide access to quality teaching and learning materials, contribute to enriching teaching and learning, exploit the power that ICTs have to facilitate maximum creation, utilization and sharing of information, encouraging teacher educators and teachers to actively participate in the creation, adoption and adaptation and sharing of OERs is one strategy that can be used to help teachers gain digital competencies. The Commonwealth of Learning has therefore released its resources under the most feasible open licenses including the Creative Commons CC by SCL license and these are available on our website. In many of the Commonwealth countries, English language is used as the medium of instruction but there are still challenges with the quality of teaching of English language. Poor language skills are partly responsible for the poor performance of children in schools and so call has in consultation with some teacher educators in the Commonwealth developed a bank of resources called Open Resources for English Language Teaching, ORLT that teachers can use to improve the teaching of English in their schools. We cannot build digital competencies without addressing language skills. We need effectiveness in language skills for effective communication. ORLT is therefore one of the tools we are using to support teachers achieve this in their schools. ORLT is currently being adapted for use in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda and some training of trainers will be taking place in Sri Lanka soon. In conclusion, I like to say this. I see integration and digital competencies are a must for 21st century teachers whereas a lot has been done before, a lot more means to be done and together we can make the difference. However, for deeper and wider impact we will need greater institutional and country commitments, more collaboration and coordination of efforts and strategic alliances. As the Commonwealth of Learning we are committed to these efforts and will be glad to continue participating in these conversations. Thank you for your time.