Supporting school-educators in use of cultural heritage for inclusive digital education Erasmus Project

Project Title

Supporting school-educators in use of cultural heritage for inclusive digital education

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; Creativity and culture; Inclusion – equity

Project Summary

The integration of digital cultural heritage in compulsory education is more important than ever, as the challenges faced for the educational and cultural sectors due to COVID-19, require a strong reliance on digital teaching and learning. While the national curriculum can differ from country to country within the European Union, the focus on our common European history, cultural heritage and the heritage of migrant and marginalised populations in Europe, is as relevant as ever. Digital cultural heritage is envisaged as a powerful online education vehicle to teach in STEAM subjects. CHERISHED, seeks to set forward the path for a sustainable plan toward such integration.
In line with the Digital Education Action Plan for 2021-2027 and the ‘Education in Cultural Heritage’ report requested by the Research for European Parliament’s Committee on Culture and Education – CULT Committee (2018), the CHERISHED project aims to:
– Provide with a pedagogical framework and concrete recommendations for adoption by educational ministries across Europe
– Enhance the capacity of secondary school teachers’ toward integration of digital cultural heritage in their everyday teaching practices across the curriculum.
– Support school educators to safeguard the inclusive nature of digital learning opportunities in and through cultural heritage.
– Promote innovative quality resources and tools for school educators for integration of cultural heritage towards inclusive digital education.
– Provide an impact and evaluation tool for teachers’ self-assessment of their readiness to reuse digital cultural heritage in compulsory education.
– Promote awareness on the importance of cultural heritage readiness for inclusive digital education in Europe.
The intention through the CHERISHED project is to reach over one hundred (100) secondary school students, who will participate in pilot and implementation phases of the designed-based research pursued. Over sixty (60) secondary school teachers and principals will participate in the pilot and implementation phase and the learning activity of the project. At least 200 policy makers and cultural heritage professionals and teachers will be informed about the project’s scope, methodology and products through local events and seminars. Indirectly, it is anticipated that at least one thousand (1000) teachers and students will be informed about the project’s scope, methodology and products through dissemination campaigns and social media outlets and more than 2000 organisations at national and EU level, involved in school education, will be informed about the project’s scope.
The project will unfold through design-based research methodology, and involves preliminary context analysis, prototyping of tools and intellectual outputs developed, and implementation and assessment. Design thinking principles and formative evaluation will facilitate the project success. The anticipated results from the project include:
– Development of a framework for integration of digital cultural heritage in secondary school compulsory teaching, for inclusive digital education.
– Design of a teacher training programme for secondary school teachers and museum educators
– Develop an online platform where teachers can find digital modules for their training
– Develop a self-assessment tool for assessing teachers’ readiness in integration of digital cultural heritage in compulsory education and their cultural competence
– Design of a cross-curriculum country analysis with common subjects and specific units taught across compulsory secondary education in the partner countries.
It is expected that the CHERISHED project will offer educational authorities like ministries of education, with a Pedagogical Framework for integration of digital cultural heritage in mainstream education. The intention is to improve the capacity of secondary school teachers to use cultural heritage digital resources for mainstream education; in addition, cultural heritage institutions will access a much needed resource for how to digitise their collections, in order to create relevant sources, to ensure that an online collection offers sources that relate to educational curricula. Furthermore, teachers will be able to self-assess their readiness in integration of digital cultural heritage in compulsory education and their cultural competences, undertake a self-paced open access training programme and improve their skills. Secondary school students will benefit from exposure and engagement with digital cultural heritage collections, through the teaching. The project will enable systematic synergies between education and heritage policies to grow and promote digital collections of cultural heritage institutions, which have been largely affected due to the pandemic. Overall, the project will substantially showcase the importance of digital cultural heritage readiness for inclusive digital education in Europe and facilitate its integration.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 240956 Eur

Project Coordinator

The Square Dot team & Country: BE

Project Partners

• SYNTHESIS CENTER FOR RESEARCH AND EDUCATION LIMITED
• UNIVERZITA MATEJA BELA V BANSKEJ BYSTRICI
• Stichting Ki Culture
• INSTITUTO IKIGAI, ASOCIACIÓN ESPAÑOLA PARA EL EMPRENDIMIENTO Y EL DESARROLLO PERSONAL Y PROFESIONAL
• SOCIEDADE PROMOTORA DE ESTABELECIMENTOS DE ENSINO LDA