Teaching in the Knowledge Society: Between Technology and Competences

After a short introduction describing the influence that digital technologies and especially the Internet had on mankind, the paper reports of the last projects for the introduction of digital technologies in Italian schools, and especially focuses on the InnovaScuola project. This analysis leads to the discussion of the difficulties that students meet while approaching discipline topics, and allows dwelling on the importance that a good digital literacy can have in helping students to overcome their problems. As a result a framework for digital competence assessment is reported, and the data obtained from a competition made at different school levels are shown. Main result is the highlighting of the importance of problem solving strategies for the improvement of everyday teaching; problem based strategies are then suggested to let teachers get best results in their work.