Guidance and Learning App for Adult Digital Education Erasmus Project

Project Title

Guidance and Learning App for Adult 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 : Strategic Partnerships for adult education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Pedagogy and didactics

Project Summary

Nowadays, basic actions in daily life need a minimum of digital command as they are being done increasingly online. Nevertheless, 44% of the EU population has insufficient digital skills, and the 19% has none at all (Europe’s Progress Report, 2017). Such data are dramatic for European adults, in particular one out of three adults seem not to have sufficient digital skills and, according to International Communication Association (2014), more than 40% of parents start to learn technology thanks to children usage of technology since early age. As most of the education is nowadays focused on children, it is rather important to guide parents in digital learning to create a safe environment for children as well as an aware usage of technology, not to be seen anymore as “a diversion” by parents.
In general, there is the belief that learning of children ends when children leave school at the end of the day, and if parents are digitally aware and competent, it will be much easier to help students reach their potential. With regards to digital device usage, family learning processes are mainly related to control categories, from (1)active co-use, (2) restrictions of time and content, (3) technical restrictions, and (4) monitoring (Livingstone & Helsper, 2008). However, “giving authorisation” is not part of the learning if basic digital skills are not built – safety understanding and digital awareness of parents are so far the least studied themes (LSE, 2014) .
What is more, different recent OECD parents literacy reports have found compelling evidence in family language and maths benefit children’s skills as well as those of their parents and carers, furthermore supported by US studies putting in relation digital gap of parents with the future success of their children in terms of career and social self-affirmation (Children Partnership) – such studies are not really developed in Europe. As such, this can be seen as a generational gap that it is indirectly treated by the Digital Agenda of Europe that links social dis-empowerment to digital lack of knowledge.
Even though children aged 5-15 who use the internet spend more than 15 hours online in a typical week, with most children aged 12-15 have three or more media devices of their own, such a situation does not bring automatically to real digital education outcomes – ECDL Foundation has stated that 50% of young people over-state their actual capabilities.
Hence, main point is that if parents lack of digital educational basis and awareness, such a condition can deeply affect children empowerment and their ‘digital nativeness’ can simply be instead a condition of frailty.
Therefore, GLAD – Guidance and Learning App for Adult Digital Education project aims to empower adults and adult carers in terms of digital education of children, creating a safe pattern of training for parents that focuses on the relation between parents and children in digital technology usage, defining an overall framework of education to enhance the possibilities given by ICT and creating an app that can be used as a space where to have ready-to-go suggestion materials according to different everyday life situations.
GLAD main outputs refer to:
– A Theoretical framework embedding digital education to educational mediation strategies;
– Two handbooks, one for adult carers/educators and one for adults;
– An innovative and unique gamified app for adults to give on-going guidance on different themes and questions.
We will involve 30 adult educators at local level for pilot testing, plus 18 in the training foreseen in Nicosia guided by the National Association of Parents of Cyprus.
As such, the project wants to contribute to the current situation in Europe, bringing to better equipping in digital education educators/adult carers as well as in improving the digital literacy of adults and parents to ameliorate their influence on child development.

Project Website

https://www.digitalparent.eu/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 247469,85 Eur

Project Coordinator

Polska Fundacja Osrodkow Wspomagania Rozwoju Gospodarczego OIC POLAND z siedziba w Lublinie & Country: PL

Project Partners

• G.G. EUROSUCCESS CONSULTING LIMITED
• Neo Sapiens S.L.U.
• APS Polygonal
• OMOSPONDIA SYN. GONEON DHM. SXOLEION LARNAKAS
• SC MIXT SOURCE MANAGEMENT SRL