Creating an Online Teaching & Community Management Gold Standard for Digital Teachers Erasmus Project

Project Title

Creating an Online Teaching & Community Management Gold Standard for Digital Teachers

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Partnerships for Digital Education Readiness

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

GONLINE’s goal is to create a gold standard for online learning community management. The COVID-19 pandemic has had a radical impact on schools, teachers, and students. While many teachers had already incorporated digital tools in their classrooms, having to suddenly do everything online required a significant adjustment. So far, most governments and schools have often focused on the content of education, but it could be argued that the social and community aspects of schools are equally important. GONLINE aims to combine the importance of effective online education with the value of a solid and conductive online learning community.

Project Goal:
To create a new gold standard for online teaching and learning community management for digital educators.

Objectives
1. Research: how teachers adapted to the new teaching circumstances enforced by the COVID-19 pandemic and how online learning communities are formed.
2. Develop: create new guidelines for online teaching and learning community management.
3. Launch: a training program for educators involved in digital education to optimize remote teaching and manage online learning communities effectively.

Firstly, we will make use of the large networks of teachers available to us. We will collect data on their efforts so far, survey them on their experience with digital teaching and online communities, and interview teachers to gather more details. The data processing stage will encompass both quantitative and qualitative data analysis. The assembled data will be analysed and composed in a report that will be shared with the public. While we will of course use this data to further GONLINE, we also hope that other organizations, researchers, or other interested people will use our data to initiate other projects, products, services, etc.

The second stage of the project involves the solidifying of the data into a guide of best practices that teachers can use to enhance their online teaching and strengthen their online learning communities. These best practices provide guidance on how to optimise and utilize digital tools for effective online teaching and on how to create and manage thriving online learning communities that bring out the most in education, the teachers, and the students. Again, these guidelines will be published for the public free of charge. These guidelines should provide educators both in Europe and beyond with a clear framework of how online education can be used most effectively in these pandemic conditions. However, we hope these guidelines will also highlight the importance of social and wellbeing value of strong learning communities. We hope that GONLINE will not only cater to the social needs of children, but also in turn have a positive effect on their learning and level the field for children who may not have access to such communities and social support within their families or at home.

Based on the data we obtained in the first stage of the project and on the established guide of best practices, we will develop a training course for teachers. This course will be available online and be available for free. Even after the course has ended, teachers will still be able to access the materials and reach out for further support. Given that the course will be available online, for free, and at all times, we expect that many teachers all over the world will be able to benefit from this course and thus collectively improve digital learning and bolster active and successful online learning communities.

GONLINE will initially be launched in English, followed by versions in Norwegian, Dutch, and Finnish. However, we hope that the project will also be translated and adapted to other languages and countries. We will actively share GONLINE with not only our own networks of teachers, but also reach out to other educators, schools, associations, and governing bodies.

The project team is composed of three partners: Pålogga, Freeed, and Tools for Pedagogy. In the wake of school closures, Pålogga was set up to bring together teachers in Norway who suddenly found themselves in new territory. Soon, a very active network of more than 80,000 Norwegian teachers was formed. The Finnish company Freeed offers an online platform for teachers to network, share ideas, exchange resources, and use their collective skills to their best advantage. Tools for Pedagogy provides teachers with a directory of teaching resources that can be found and used online. Pålogga will be responsible for the research stage, Freeed will develop the best practices guidelines, and Tools for Pedagogy will take over the training course.

Together, we hope that GONLINE will equip teachers with the valuable tools needed for digital teaching in an online world both now and beyond the pandemic.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 123206 Eur

Project Coordinator

Pålogga AS & Country: NO

Project Partners

• Eduhub Oy
• Tools for Pedagogy