Search for European Projects

We are all Digital Natives! - Sharing digital methods for digital citizens
Start date: Sep 1, 2014, End date: Aug 31, 2016 PROJECT  FINISHED 

The Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership "We are all digital natives” stands for a new way of thinking about education and lifelong learning. In Europe, learners need to know how to act and live with digital reality. Younger users need to achieve digital responsibility. Older learners and workers need to be introduced to and made proficient in the navigation of the digital world in order to qualify them for jobs needed today. The biggest challenge to become and stay a “digital native” is faced by teachers and trainers in all education sectors, in formal and non-formal education. For them it will in future be increasingly important to keep pace with the latest digital methods and technologies in order to keep their curricula up to date. Aims and Products The aim of the project is to evaluate and define good practice of use of digital methods in different education sectors in Europe. In this way it can be ensured that everyone becomes a digital native. The partnership developed and applied an evaluation grid, which was used to identify good and smart practices, from which a number of practices are presented in this booklet. During of five transnational meetings every partner prepared and presented two good practices. External stakeholders gave feedback on the evaluation grid and provided external perspectives. The lessons learned resulted in recommendations which are shared in a policy brief with decision makers. Impact The project has different impacts. • We expect the participants of the project to extend their knowledge on digital methods and how they are used in Europe. • We expect participant organizations to professionalize and innovate their curricula through new methods. • We expect the learner to become more motivated to perform lifelong learning and we expect stakeholders to become more aware on the need to include digital methods in teaching and training. Methodology The innovative and unique approach of the project is the connection of methods used in all educational sectors. Since until today a common overview or evaluated summary is missing. Synergies between education sectors or European projects are not used. The project closes this gap. Our aim is to encourage the use of digital devices in learning, thus making it easier, faster and much more fun. By destroying the disbelief that learning has to be boring and difficult and showing good examples of how exciting and elevating it can actually be, we are breaking old patterns and providing a fresh point of view on lifelong learning. Findings With the evaluation grid on hand more than 40 smart practices had been identified. The results came from all educational sectors. At the moment six topics dominate the teaching and learning of digital topics. The six themes are: 1. Entering the digital world 2. Connecting offline and online world (blended learning) 3. Finding digital solutions 4. Navigating the digital world 5. Digital Creativity 6. Digital participation and empowerment Entering the digital world is a crucial topic in most education sectors. The older generation has to learn to navigate and self-confidentially use digital tools. The younger generation has to learn how to handle the digital world. Teaching digital literacy is increasing participation and at the same time connecting generations.. Blended learning improves problem solving skills. Learners have to transfer observations, experiences and knowledge from online to offline. Usually based on projects and partly on gamification, the learners work interdisciplinary and are challenged to explore new ways and solutions by themselves. Finding digital solutions for analog problems directly addresses project management, transfer and entrepreneurial skills. With a set of methods like Hackathons innovative products might be generated in the end, but on the way learners will experiment, discuss and explore alternative perspectives on one problem. Navigating the digital world is implying that learners have already experience and knowledge on the digital world. However, the methods aim to improve and optimize this knowledge. The methods are designed to help trainers and teacher to become guide in the online world. Digital Creativity - With the digital age it became affordable and convenient to paint, take photos or videos, create and manipulate. The facilitator is rather a stimulator and observer guiding the learners to surprising and open results. Digital participation and empowerment is as well related to price, availability and access. Everyone has a voice – still if everyone has a voice, just those are heard which are unique. The project found that specifically digital storytelling has to become embedded in more curricula. Digital participation is the basis to become a smart digital citizen. Smart digital citizens help to build smart societies. Citizenship but as well information literacy are the top skills tackled by the methods collected under this theme.
Up2Europe Ads

Coordinator

Details

Project Website

5 Partners Participants