Be Smart – Strategic Partnership for Digitally Excluded Erasmus Project

Project Title

Be Smart – Strategic Partnership for Digitally Excluded

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 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Access for disadvantaged; Inclusion – equity; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

Summary
Organizations involved in adult education with 8 Member States of the European Union have set up a strategic partnership dedicated to the recommendations of the Europe 2020 strategy. It is estimated that up to 45% of adults in the European Union who do not have basic digital competences are already excluded, discriminated against, or not adapted to the labour market. That is why the European Commission sees the key role of adult education in the development of digital competences. As a result of cooperation leading to the submission of the application educational project “Be smart – Strategic Partnership for Digitally Excluded” (SPADE) was developed, the main goal of which was all kinds of activities involving people at risk of exclusion, among others due to age and education deficits. The project carried out activities leading to overcoming the basic barriers to the use of digital technologies, such as the lack of motivation and the lack of appropriate skills, offering our target groups the opportunity to acquire appropriate digital competences on courses tailored to their psychophysical needs.
Among the partners were Folk Universities from Germany and Austria and a SeniorNet School of Adult Education in Sweden – precursors of adult education and lifelong learning, and organizations from Poland, Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Portugal, which, despite lesser experience in the field of informal education, tried to keep pace with more experienced partners. According to the DESI (The Digital Economy and Society Index) indicators, in the field of digitization Germany, Austria, Sweden and Portugal are in the forefront of countries whose citizens take advantage of new technologies, and other partners: Czech Republic, Poland and Bulgaria are among the countries falling behind in this ranking. All organizations that make up our partnership, in accordance with the requirements of the present times, offer courses in ICT (information and communication technologies) for different audiences, including older people and people with a low level of education. By developing the international cooperation, the educators who were working with the institutions and partner organizations had a chance to exchange experiences in the area of organization of the courses and choice of their topics for the above groups and use the working methods proven by partners, like the potential of volunteering. This aim was achieved by meetings and workshops. The exchange of experiences in the field of digitization and presentation of good practices as well as the implementation of e-learning platforms was mainly facilitated by trainings/workshops carried out in countries deemed to be leading. The acquired knowledge was tested and implemented through local activities such as courses and computer consultations in all partner countries.
The international cooperation of the partners involved ensured high quality, versatility and adequate scope of the topics to the educational needs of the European societies The results of the project, which in our opinion are worth being multiplied, were placed on the Moodle platform and on the platform of the European Commission EPALE. In this way, we give our project a special European educational dimension in the field of Open Educational Resources – OER.
A lasting result of the project will be a generally available project website, photos and descriptions on the websites of partner organizations and an e-brochure with a description of the methods and results of the project in English and the national languages of the partner organizations.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 151116,41 Eur

Project Coordinator

Poleski Osrodek Sztuki & Country: PL

Project Partners

• PRO-MED spolka z ograniczona odpowiedzialnoscia
• Asociace NNO JMK
• Norrköpings stadsmuseum
• volkshochschule stuttgart e.V.
• Aidlearn, Consultoria em Recursos Humanos Lda.
• Balkanska Agenciya za Ustoychivo Razvitie
• DIE WIENER VOLKSHOCHSCHULEN GMBH