Digital Competences and Intercultural Values in e-Learning Environments Erasmus Project

Project Title

Digital Competences and Intercultural Values in e-Learning Environments

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: Intercultural/intergenerational education and (lifelong)learning; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

This project aims to meet the demands of a given population, which growth tendency in a near future is evident. More specifically, it aims to help, on one hand, individuals being +55 years old; on the other, individuals being immigrants and refugees. The common aspect among them is that they find major difficulties in acquiring digital competencies. This specially affects both segments of the older population and individuals originating in rural and technically underdeveloped environments. Additionally, they are also in need of improving other types of competencies, such as geospatial skills, cognitive stimulation (within +55 individuals) or mastering a foreign language (within immigrants), among others. As far as the so-called digital gap is concerned, it is necessary to perform coordinated actions in order to integrate invididuals who are at risk of social exclusion into the world of ICT’s. This objective is in line with action no. 61 at the Digital Agenda of the Europe 2020 Strategy. The main aim of this project is to produce a variety of innovative materials and resources that foster the acquisition of these skills. They are mainly oriented to instructors who teach individuals from these population segments, as a way of contributing to improve teaching skills. At the same time, students and learners, as final beneficiaries, will benefit from the outcomes of the project. On a side note, their opinions and feedback were also taken into account when performing the activities that have been planned for the project. Equally important has been the participation of other agents and institutions, public and private, from educational, political and public environments. Therefore, the outcomes will help:
– Foster acquisition of digital, geospatial, linguistic and cognitive competences within the groups of students and learners that will benefit from the project (+55 and immigrant individuals).
– Contribute to their social integration by an increased awareness to the historic and cultural heritage within a European context.
– Stimulate teacher updating in connection with the project’s conceptual scope (usage of ICT’s and intercultural perspective, among others).
In order to achieve those aims, a set of resources has been created, in which motivation is a key driver. To do so, it was planned that the usage of ICT’s would be promoted by implementing a playful perspective, i.e., gamification. It implied creating a set of videogames including additional resources and communication tools that promoted the users’ active participation. Additionally, a database was included to incorporate information and links to products and results from other national and european projects of the consortium members and from public and private institutions that may be of interest and in accordance with the objectives of this project. All products are available in the languages of the members of the consortium: Spanish, German, Italian, Hungarian, Portuguese and Slovenian, in addition to English. Access to products, which will be published under a Creative Commons license, will be open and free of charge in www.e-civeles.eu.
Another perspective we explored deeper into and to serve as a second pillar for this project — together with the use of ICT — is interculturality. We firmly believe that knowledge on European historic heritage and culture can certainly be a channel towards the social integration of foreign groups, the results of which can be enhanced through cohabitation and dialogue with another extremely relevant population segment, namely: people +55, who are likely to value this kind of initiatives as incentives towards active aging. The videogames consist of guidance and problem-solving in four virtual 3D scenarios corresponding to historic centre of different towns with relevant cultural heritage in the partner countries: Antequera (Spain), Évora (Portugal), Udine (Italy) and Velenje (Slovenia).
The consortium is made up by a cross-sectional entity of six partners from six countries: UMA (ES), BIBA (DE), Trebag (HU), ULE (IT), USE (PT) and INTEGRA (SI). Each partner also coordinated a network of local participants that will attend the different activities for the promotion and dissemination of the project, thus reinforcing the establishment of synergies and fostering the impact and sustainability of the project, especially through training courses and multiplying events. The immediate impact through these activities has been the transfer of knowledge and the improvement of competences with the use of our products of 120 students and 170 teachers to key agents, possibly achieving, with the additional help of our local supporters a total of approximately 16,000 people in an indirect way by following a snowball effect. Contact with European and national platforms, attendance to Conferences and the publishing of papers may help increase this number meaningfully.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 195217 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIVERSIDAD DE MALAGA & Country: ES

Project Partners

• INTEGRA INSTITUT, Institut za razvoj clovekovih potentialov
• Università delle LiberEtà del Fvg
• BIBA – BREMER INSTITUT FUER PRODUKTION UND LOGISTIK GMBH
• TREBAG SZELLEMI TULAJDON- ES PROJEKTMENEDZSER KFT
• USE – Universidade Sénior de Évora – Associação de aprendizagem ao Longo da vida