Catalonia offers criteria for deciding when a technology adds value in primary and ESO, and places AI in the fourth year
The Department of Education’s guide puts technology at the service of learning, with decision tables, progression by cycle, digital well-being and criteria for selecting resources.
The Department of Education and Vocational Training of the Generalitat de Catalunya published in September 2026, as a first edition, Tecnologies educatives al servei de l’aprenentatge: Educació bàsica (educational technologies at the service of learning: basic education), prepared by its Directorate-General for Curriculum and Vocational Development. It runs to about thirty pages in Catalan under a CC BY 4.0 licence and is aimed at teaching teams in primary and ESO (compulsory secondary education). It is not an AI guide: it is a general framework for the pedagogical use of technology, set in the context of the Pla de digitalització responsable (responsible digitalisation plan) and the Catalan curriculum (Decree 175/2022). AI is dealt with mainly in one section, the one devoted to the fourth year of ESO.
The starting point is that digital competence is transversal: “Digital competence is a transversal competence that contributes to the attainment of all competences”. The guide breaks it down into five specific competences: information literacy, content creation, online participation and collaboration, safe, healthy and responsible use, and development of digital solutions. It insists that they are not independent blocks, and gives the example of an investigation that can activate critical searching, writing a report, collaborative work, citing sources and data protection all at once.
The most useful part is the table of pedagogical criteria, which turns nine criteria into decision questions: what learning is to be promoted, what the technology makes possible that would be difficult, less rich or less inclusive without it, whether it makes the process visible and not just the product, how it supports collaboration, what barriers to access it reduces, what risks and screen time need to be managed, and what evidence will show what has been learnt. A second table describes eight learning processes (researching, representing thinking, creating, collaborating, personalising, programming, documenting, taking part as a digital citizen) and the value technology adds to each. The conclusion sums it up: “The fundamental criterion is to use technology with educational quality.”
Progression by stage is gradual. In the first cycle of primary, use should be occasional, guided and brief, and throughout the stage it should not replace reading, handwriting, arithmetic, conversation or play; in the sixth year, specific attention is called for at the end of the stage. In ESO, real, interdisciplinary problems are set, and the guide states that the greatest degree of autonomy requires one device per student, in continuity with the model in the sixth year of primary. Each stage has a table with the degree of autonomy and sample digital practices.
In the fourth year of ESO the guide says that students can already begin to use AI tools “in accordance with the guidelines” of the department, with teacher mediation. It advises using it after students have thought through or produced a first draft, and not when it would replace the process, when evidence of independent work is needed or when students lack the prior knowledge to validate the answers. This is almost the same wording as the Orientacions per a l’ús de la intel·ligència artificial als centres educatius, which the bibliography cites and which also set the threshold at 14 and the second term of the third year of ESO. The text also draws on DigComp 3.0 for digital well-being.
The digital well-being section starts from the definition of the Council of the European Union and proposes seven dimensions (physical, cognitive, emotional, social, safety, inclusion and equity, and empowerment), each with actions for the school and the teacher. It closes with eight criteria for selecting resources, such as pedagogical relevance, accessibility, security and privacy, or quality of content. As for limits, it is general guidance: it provides no data or studies, does not recommend specific tools and leaves detailed agreements to each school. For a teacher, it is useful for using the criteria and selection tables as a checklist in a cycle meeting, and section 4.2.2 if they work with the fourth year of ESO.
Catalonia offers criteria for deciding when a technology adds value in primary and ESO, and places AI in the fourth year
The Department of Education’s guide puts technology at the service of learning, with decision tables, progression by cycle, digital well-being and criteria for selecting resources.
The Department of Education and Vocational Training of the Generalitat de Catalunya published in September 2026, as a first edition, Tecnologies educatives al servei de l’aprenentatge: Educació bàsica (educational technologies at the service of learning: basic education), prepared by its Directorate-General for Curriculum and Vocational Development. It runs to about thirty pages in Catalan under a CC BY 4.0 licence and is aimed at teaching teams in primary and ESO (compulsory secondary education). It is not an AI guide: it is a general framework for the pedagogical use of technology, set in the context of the Pla de digitalització responsable (responsible digitalisation plan) and the Catalan curriculum (Decree 175/2022). AI is dealt with mainly in one section, the one devoted to the fourth year of ESO.
The starting point is that digital competence is transversal: “Digital competence is a transversal competence that contributes to the attainment of all competences”. The guide breaks it down into five specific competences: information literacy, content creation, online participation and collaboration, safe, healthy and responsible use, and development of digital solutions. It insists that they are not independent blocks, and gives the example of an investigation that can activate critical searching, writing a report, collaborative work, citing sources and data protection all at once.
The most useful part is the table of pedagogical criteria, which turns nine criteria into decision questions: what learning is to be promoted, what the technology makes possible that would be difficult, less rich or less inclusive without it, whether it makes the process visible and not just the product, how it supports collaboration, what barriers to access it reduces, what risks and screen time need to be managed, and what evidence will show what has been learnt. A second table describes eight learning processes (researching, representing thinking, creating, collaborating, personalising, programming, documenting, taking part as a digital citizen) and the value technology adds to each. The conclusion sums it up: “The fundamental criterion is to use technology with educational quality.”
Progression by stage is gradual. In the first cycle of primary, use should be occasional, guided and brief, and throughout the stage it should not replace reading, handwriting, arithmetic, conversation or play; in the sixth year, specific attention is called for at the end of the stage. In ESO, real, interdisciplinary problems are set, and the guide states that the greatest degree of autonomy requires one device per student, in continuity with the model in the sixth year of primary. Each stage has a table with the degree of autonomy and sample digital practices.
In the fourth year of ESO the guide says that students can already begin to use AI tools “in accordance with the guidelines” of the department, with teacher mediation. It advises using it after students have thought through or produced a first draft, and not when it would replace the process, when evidence of independent work is needed or when students lack the prior knowledge to validate the answers. This is almost the same wording as the Orientacions per a l’ús de la intel·ligència artificial als centres educatius, which the bibliography cites and which also set the threshold at 14 and the second term of the third year of ESO. The text also draws on DigComp 3.0 for digital well-being.
The digital well-being section starts from the definition of the Council of the European Union and proposes seven dimensions (physical, cognitive, emotional, social, safety, inclusion and equity, and empowerment), each with actions for the school and the teacher. It closes with eight criteria for selecting resources, such as pedagogical relevance, accessibility, security and privacy, or quality of content. As for limits, it is general guidance: it provides no data or studies, does not recommend specific tools and leaves detailed agreements to each school. For a teacher, it is useful for using the criteria and selection tables as a checklist in a cycle meeting, and section 4.2.2 if they work with the fourth year of ESO.
