Animated Learning for Transitions – Early Recognition 2.0 Erasmus Project

Project Title

Animated Learning for Transitions – Early Recognition 2.0

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: Pedagogy and didactics; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

Emergent from a previous Erasmus+ action undertaken from 2016-2019, Alt-ER 2.0 represents continued efforts to make a clear and justified case for ICT and creative strategies to help young people in their learning and development. The first iteration of the project exposed concerns about the assumed efficacy of ICT in education contexts among parents and teachers, and created a Framework to defend and legitimize the use of ICT that embraces creativity and self-directed storytelling. This issue, though, has become ever so much more important in the age of Covid – when educational structures may have no choice but to move online, and lack of conviction in them from parents and teachers as effective can seriously impede progress and limit success.

The objectives of this iteration of the Alt-ER 2.0 project are to further develop the Framework for wider international contexts, but also to overlay the implications that Covid has and may continue to have on education systems and processes across Europe. The Toolbox/Platform (which is a collection of activities that present opportunities for creative self-expression) is to be expanded, with the set goal of including a stop motion animation suite. This will take the platform from one that allows participants to make meaning by decoding the scenes presented, into one that allows participants to tell stories by creating short films, an important shift in the scope and dynamics of the project. The Toolbox/Platform will additionally be updated with reference to the Covid outbreak and important concerns attendant to it by having characters be more socially distant and wearing masks to impart learning activites about Corona specifically.

The project group for Alt-ER 2.0 is made up of a mix of 5 higher education and research institutions and an SME that work in fields attendant to game based learning, pedagogy, and animation as a tool for learning and self expression and covers the countries of Denmark, the Netherlands, Finland, Italy, and Belgium. The assembled Analysis/Reporting and Research/Publications packages will create the most up to date knowledge and present it in ways that promote sharing and autonomous dissemination among a wide group of interested parties across Europe.

Methodologically speaking the group will employ a number of strategies based on participatory action learning/research where groups will work with both the tools and the framework to help determine where it is and is not fully developed as a result of their engagement. Workshops (in person or online) form the basis of this project work, with practical application and use of the tools and the framework being seen as an excellent way to further develop new concepts and needs in response to Covid, but also to further spread the use of the Alt-Er 2.0 program generally. Interviews and questionnaires employed in the workshop setting will generate a wealth of new knowledge about ICT and creativity in the classroom, but will also serve to create perspective on a range of responses enacted to combat the novel Coronavirus.

The project group is of the hope that when this project is finished it will have created an even more well developed framework and selection of tools for activating self directed creativity in both the home and the classroom, be it in person or online.

Additionally important is the consideration meant to be given to the variety of solutions presented for moving education online in the face of an epidemic, as Europe has been subjected to. The new effort put into the platform, the reporting, and into pursuing greater publication of the knowledge will present a considered case for the application of creative ICT oriented activities as a valuable tool in recreating the shared space of the classroom, ensuring the best possible outcomes for education in this unsure time.

It is unknown how long the effect of the Coronavirus outbreak will continue to wreak havoc on educational institutions across Europe, or how soon we can expect to be facing another outbreak that has similar effects on the standard European educational practice. By thoroughly investigating the implications of choices made and presenting a considered and vetted framework that justifies creatively activated ICT as a conduit to credible development and learning, those potential structures will be made as effective as possible for an unsure future.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 229254 Eur

Project Coordinator

VIA UNIVERSITY COLLEGE & Country: DK

Project Partners

• Teachergaming LLC
• CONSIGLIO NAZIONALE DELLE RICERCHE
• Camera-etc asbl
• STICHTING BREDA UNIVERSITY OF APPLIED SCIENCES