Digital, Responsible Citizenship in a Connected World (DRC) Erasmus Project

Project Title

Digital, Responsible Citizenship in a Connected World (DRC)

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 school education

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; EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

In our increasingly connected world, whereas the use of technology is becoming even more prevalent in students’ lives, it is essential to promote digital citizenship in school education. Digital citizenship is defined as “the norms of appropriate, responsible behaviour with regard to technology use” (Ribble, 2011, p. 10). Digital competence consists one of the eight key competences for Lifelong Learning recommended by the European Parliament and the Council (2006) and has been confirmed as a relevant priority for the European Commission (EC) (EC, 2010a, 2010b). In Europe, only 30% of the students’ population can be considered as digitally competent (EC, 2013a).

Digital, Responsible Citizenship in a Connected World (DRC) is an Erasmus+ project, implemented between November 2017 and October 2019. The overall aim of the DRC project was to infuse contemporary pedagogical practices in quality lifelong learning for students and teaching professionals including teachers, school leaders and teacher educators across Europe.

The project worked towards achieving the following specific objectives, over the past two years:

-To teach students and teachers digital citizenship skills
-To integrate digital literacy and citizenship as part of school curricula
-To promote synergies and cross-fertilisation throughout school education
-To support teachers develop a positive attitude towards digital citizenship
-To cultivate responsible, ethical, global citizens for a digital world
-To establish the foundation of a digital citizenship program for school education
-To adopt the DigComp Framework

The DRC project has been developed and implemented by a consortium of five partners from four European countries: Cyprus, Greece, Ireland and Italy. Throughout the lifecycle of the project, DRC partners have been collaborating to develop and deliver seven (7) intellectual outputs (IO) foreseen by the project. These were developed based on the European Digital Competence Framework for Citizens known as DIGComp (Ferrari, 2013; Vuorikari, et al., 2016). DIGComp consists of five digital citizenship areas, and these include (1) Information and data literacy, (2) Communication and collaboration, (3) Digital content creation, (4) Safety, and (5) Problem solving (Ferrari, 2013). The highly demanding work of completing these IOs has been distributed across the two years of the project; the responsibility for developing the IOs has been allocated evenly among partners.

Throughout the lifecycle of the project, partners have undertaken the following activities, with some partners taking the lead in managing key project outputs, as follows:

1. Project Management – CARDET
2. Quality Assurance of Outputs – FIPL
3. 4 Project F2F Meetings – TAMAT, FIPL, Rafina, CARDET
4. 4 Project Online Meetings – CARDET, with support from all partners
5. Dissemination, multiplication, sustainability – INNOVADE
6. O1. Create the ‘Digital Citizenship profile/identity’ of schools-wide – Led by The Primary School of Rafina, with the support of CARDET
7. O2. Design Pedagogical Framework for the development of e-Toolkit on Digital Citizenship – Led by TAMAT
8. O3. Create the Digital Literacy and Citizenship Guide for teachers – Led by FIPL
9. O4. Development and Evaluation of the Digital Citizenship Programme and Curricula on digital literacy – Led by CARDET
10. O5. Development of Digital Citizenship App – Led by INNOVADE
11. O6. Deliver workshops to students – Led by FIPL
12. O7. Offer certified training MOOC to teachers – Led by CARDET

All partners completed all foreseen implementation activities, and the activities were positively evaluated by local target group members who expressed that the project could have a real impact on their local school communities.

These activities have led to the development of skills and competences of teachers, educators, parents and students in the area of digital literacy, raising the awareness of these target groups of the 5 digital competence areas of the DIGComp Framework. Through the curriculum materials developed, the project has also supported the application of the DIGComp Framework in primary schools in all partner countries, by providing teachers and parents with access to tangible education materials that can support them to engage with this framework through practical and engaging education activities such as the DRC e-Toolkit on Digital Citizenship (IO2), the Teacher’s Guide (IO3), the Digital Citizenship Programme (IO4), the DRC – Digital Heroes App (IO5) and the certified Digital Citizenship MOOC for teachers (IO7). Dissemination of outputs resulted in the development of synergies and cross-fertilisation throughout school education.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 175878 Eur

Project Coordinator

CENTRE FOR ADVANCEMENT OF RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT IN EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY LTD-CARDET & Country: CY

Project Partners

• 1st Primary School of Rafina
• INNOVADE LI LTD
• TAMAT CENTRO STUDI FORMAZIONE E RICERCA
• FUTURE IN PERSPECTIVE LIMITED