21st century skills – personalised learning in the digital age Erasmus Project

Project Title

21st century skills – personalised learning in the digital age

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 : Strategic Partnerships for Schools Only

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Quality Improvement Institutions and/or methods (incl. school development); Access for disadvantaged

Project Summary

At the time of application, the Europaschule Kamp-Lintfort had been developed as a “media school” for 2 years. The handling of media was rudimentarily anchored in the lessons in the different grades, with various “media subjects” (computer science as a module subject, as a compulsory optional subject or as a subject in the field of industrial science) and in grade 8 the subject “media education”. In terms of content, the focus of the media subjects was more on the aspect of a basic education in information technology, in the subject “media education” more on the aspect of “living with media”, their reflected and critical use. Since its foundation, the Europaschule has worked with learning plans that are aimed at different learning needs and enable self-directed and individualised learning. For us the question arose how digital learning opportunities could be integrated into these learning plans. This led to a new focus on digital media: How can they be used to realise a higher level of differentiated learning? This school development focus of the Europaschule should be further developed together with schools from other European countries. With the schools from Poland, Estonia, Spain, Latvia and the Netherlands, partner institutions were found which, on the one hand, described the use of digital media as a current school development priority and, on the other hand, already had practical experience in this area. The project partners agreed on the objectives:
• Exchange on the use and application of digital media and services in schools
• Development of learning opportunities for individualised learning
• Training of pupils as media experts who pass on their knowledge peer-to-peer at their schools to their fellow pupils
In order to achieve these goals, transnational working groups were formed in which the colleagues concretised the issue of individualised digital learning opportunities for the subjects mathematics and English. This was done by developing digital offers together with pupils or testing them with groups of pupils at the participating schools. At the project meetings, these experiences were then evaluated and arrangements and responsibilities for the next step of the project work were agreed. It was important to us that the working groups included colleagues from the respective faculties. This also ensured that the students could be integrated into the conferences. As a result of these working groups, a wide variety of learning materials for selected subject areas in the subjects English and Mathematics are available.
To provide a framework for these, a database was developed (http://santbonaventura.org/app/en/login) into which the individual exercises and offers were integrated. Exercises can be entered into this database by the individual countries. The database is designed to be open so that in the future, further subject areas can be opened up and filled with material that has been created by the participants themselves or is already available on the Internet. The technical procedures are explained with tutorials, so that administrative activities can be easily implemented.
In order to bring the pupils into direct contact with each other and to implement the training of media experts, two “DigiCamps” were organised as part of the project. A total of 26 pupils and 1 – 2 teachers for each country took part in these pupils’ meetings. These “DigiCamps” were subsequently rated extremely positively by both the pupils and the accompanying teachers. The joint work on the content “Digital Media” combined with the corresponding cultural programme led to an intensive exchange of ideas, some of which resulted in friendships that were cultivated at a much later stage. However, the fact that the implementation of these “media experts” in the participating schools and the peer-supported teaching of media education was not as systematic and sustainable as planned at the beginning of the project must be criticised. In this area we will have to work more intensively in future as a school development task.
The acceptance of digital media for individualised learning and the insight into the sense and necessity of such offers has increased significantly at the Europaschule since the beginning of the project. Not least because of the school closures due to Corona, digital learning offers have become an almost self-evident supplement to conventional classroom teaching.
Nevertheless, it must also be said that the fact that the last project meeting had to take place as a video conference due to Corona had a very negative effect on the completion of the project. The exchange about the final evaluation was much less intensive than the coordinating school had hoped for.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 181105,51 Eur

Project Coordinator

Sekundarschule Kamp-Lintfort & Country: DE

Project Partners

• III LICEUM OGOLNOKSZTALCACE Z ODDZIALAMI MISTRZOSTWA SPORTOWEGO IM. ZBIGNIEWA HERBERTA W ZORACH
• Luunja Secondary School
• Comunidad en el colegio San Buenaventura de Arta-Franciscanos de la TOR
• Maaslandcollege
• Amatas novada Skujenes pamatskola