From digital citizen to digital professional

This paper aims to propose and evaluate a pedagogically sound and innovative strategy to teach a higher education course that prepares future professionals to intelligently use information and communication technologies (ICTs) in their personal and professional lives.

The conceptual framework used for the design of the course was the socio-constructivism and activity theories. The implementation of the course was evaluated using the intrinsic case study methodology by including several instruments.

The pedagogical strategy proposed proved to be sound, as the evaluation showed that students were able to describe, use and propose innovative uses of a wide range of cutting-edge technologies in their both everyday lives and professional settings; they also had the skills to analyse the opportunities and challenges that these presented. Moreover, students liked this innovative way of learning and ended with a positive attitude towards ICT.

Although several courses prepare students to be digital citizens or use ICT to enhance the teaching-learning process, millennials are ill prepared to use cutting-edge technologies in an innovative, responsible and critical way in their future professions. The course that was designed is original in that it goes beyond preparing digital citizens to prepare professionals in any domain to use ICT in an informed and responsible way. Moreover, it is a documented, successful example of an undergraduate universal course in a highly important current society dimension. The authors believe that its pedagogical proposal could be transferred to courses dealing with other global issues such as the environment, economy and peace.