INITIAL TEACHER TRAINING IN THE INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION SOCIETY: AN ANALYSIS OF THE DIGITAL COMPETENCES OF THE STUDENTS IN PRIMARY AND INFANT EDUCATION DEGREES IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CADIZ

The massive presence of digital gadgets and tools has changed our lives, mainly as the result of Internet technology. The active role played by the Internet user (prosumers according to Toffler, 1979) has provided a new way to connect with knowledge, characterized by new sources of culture and agents of knowledge, new styles of social participation and interaction, and new forms of contents management and creation (Buckingham, 2005; Pisani y Piotet, 2010; Lopez y Angulo 2015). At a time in which culture is liquid (Bauman, 2006), the educational task becomes more complex and requires a restatement of the educational training and its professional nature. University Degrees on Education have the responsibility to respond to the new ways of teaching and learning which are required by the present digital scenario. This paper presents the results of the research carried out in the Faculty of Educational Sciences of the University of Cadiz (UCA) which analyzes digital competences of students in Primary and Infant Education Degrees. The collected data are going to be organized according to the following spheres: timings, spaces and uses of ICTs; the analysis of communicative competences and collaborative learning and information search and management, and the analysis of the level of relevance given by the students to the mastery of ICTs as undergraduates in Educational Sciences and as future teachers. This study involves a reconsideration of the Study plans for Educational Sciences in the Information and Knowledge society. The SPSS has been used for the analysis of quantitative data; likewise the categorization research has been used for qualitative or textual data.