Digital Heroes Erasmus Project

Project Title

Digital Heroes

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 youth

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; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

Through this project we want to engage youth in a maker, hands-on, learning-by-doing education. The challenges we identified are:
– Humanity is facing major challenges: from health issues, to food insecurity, habitat and biodiversity loss, water scarcity.
– The tech industry is growing and evolving at a rapid pace. Unfortunately, it is given insufficient attention to technical education, therefore we do not have enough people skilled in science, technology, engineering and math.
There’s a technological and creative revolution underway. Technology is shaping how our world is changing and how we educate young generations nowadays. Amazing new tools, materials and skills turn us all into makers. Using technology to make, repair or customize the things we need brings engineering, design and computer science to the masses. This maker movement overlaps with the natural inclinations of youth and the power of learning by doing. The active learner is at the center of the learning process, amplifying the best traditions of progressive education. Children are natural tinkerers. Their seminal learning experiences come through direct experience with materials. Digital fabrication, such as 3D printing and physical computing, including Arduino, Makey Makey and Raspberry Pi, expands a child’s toy and toolboxes with new ways to make things and new things to make. For the first time ever, childhood inventions may be printed, programmed or imbued with interactivity. Recycled materials can be brought back to life. While school traditionally separates art and science, theory and practice, such divisions are artificial. The real world just doesn’t work that way Architects are artists. Craftsmen deal in aesthetics, tradition and mathematical precision. Video game developers rely on computer science. Engineering and industrial design are inseparable. The finest scientists are often accomplished musicians. The maker movement blurs the artificial boundaries between subject areas, it erases distinctions between art and science.
Given all mentioned, the solution we propose through this project is to use all this technology and the maker movement itself to create solutions for the challenges we face, a STEAM, maker oriented approach, that will inspire and engage young people into design thinking, critical thinking, collaboration. Prototypes examples we aim to inspire youth to create during the 2020 and 2021 mobility programs: Monitor Air Pollution, Water Pollution Monitor, Heart Rate Monitor.
Mobility program duration: 8 weeks in 2020 and 8 weeks in 2021, 16 participants/ week (targeting youth from 14 to 25 years old), in July – August 2020 and 2021. Each group of students will attend the program for 2 consecutive weeks, so they engage in plenty of tech related activities and deepen their skills.
After the 2 weeks, each group will enroll in a mentorship program with the objective of improving, scaling and marketing their prototype.
Prior of the mobility programs in 2020 and 2021, the consortium will work intensively on a maker curriculum targeting youth aged 14 to 25. We believe maker education should move into the mainstream. We will outline how making is a rigorous process that leads to valuable new technologies, products and experiences. Specifically, we will show clearly the kinds of knowledge, skills and practices students learn as part of making.
The shift to “making” represents the perfect storm of new technological materials, expanded opportunities, learning through firsthand experience, and the basic human impulse to create. It offers the potential to make the educational experience more learner-centered: relevant and more sensitive to each learner’s remarkable capacity for intensity.
The project objectives:
– Introduce youth and young students to maker education
– Help youth develop digital literacy and other useful skills (e.g. 21st century skills) to tackle challenges stemming from professional sector, but also environmental issues and challenges our society is facing
– Improve the digital skills of youth so that they can play an active role in our modern society
– Inspire youth to become ambassador of modern pedagogies and constructivist teaching methods among individuals of the same age
The main activities:
– Infrastructural preparation: arrangements for the two mobility activities, setting up the project’s communication
– Preparation of the first mobility for young people: the visit to Bucharest, at Small Academy hub
– Preparation of the intellectual outputs: delivering 3 intellectual outputs, used in class with the youth attending the program:
– Preparation of the mentorship program
– Launching a communication campaign about the second mobility activity
– Preparation of the second mobility for young people

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 160596 Eur

Project Coordinator

Asociatia Small Academy & Country: RO

Project Partners

• REZEKNES TEHNOLOGIJU AKADEMIJA
• DIGIJEUNES
• BURGASKI SVOBODEN UNIVERSITET