Digitalized Learning Path for Educational Organizations Erasmus Project

Project Title

Digitalized Learning Path for Educational Organizations

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 vocational education and training

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Pedagogy and didactics; Cooperation between educational institutions and business

Project Summary

The Digitalized Learning Path for Educational Organizations (Learning Path) project was based on the European Framework for the Digital Competence of Educators (DigCompEdu). The framework was used as a transnational reference providing a common framework, which was helpful for the cooperation, as project partners were able to compare and assess each other’s results. The project focused on 3 development paths for enhancing digital skills and competences in educational organizations. All paths contain concrete results, which are available on the project website eulearningpath.com.

1)The Organizational Learning Path focused on organizational strategies, “road maps”, and each project partner developed their own organizational road map. The road maps focused on enhancing the organization’s digital capacity and defining focus areas and competence levels for teachers’ digital competence development and CPD activities. Partners tested various CPD activities and based on the experiments created/updated their strategies. The DigCompEdu framework helped focus on relevant competence areas, instead of specific digital tools/programs. This was crucial, as digital tools and programs change sometimes quite fast, whereas the competence areas are more constant. Another important aspect was the involvement and commitment of top management. This ensured that the development work was integrated into the core operations of the organizations already during the project and would continue also after the project.
2)The Personal Learning Path for teachers/trainers focused on developing a model for individual competence development based on existing skills/competences and designing the path onwards according to individual needs and interests. The personal path is developed on top of org. requirements and starts from individual competence assessment. Based on self-assessment and current proficiency level, the teachers designed their personal paths with individual objectives and suitable CPD activities. Experiments of various CPD activities included in-house-trainings, online trainings, mentoring, facilitated workshops etc. and they utilized service design approach, in which the end-users were involved in the development of their own CPD activities. Based on these experiments each organization developed their training scheme for digital competence development.
Proceeding with small steps, sharing experiences and developing together were essential factors in succeeding and creating motivation to go further. Validation of developed competences can be difficult in informal education and here the experimentation with Open Badges proved rather interesting. Open Badges (micro-credentials) can be rewarded for acquiring certain competences and the validation can be a motivational factor for pursuing the next goals.
3)The third development path focused on stakeholders. The project platform, eulearningpath.com, was established already at the beginning of the project to continuously engage interested parties and share development steps and results in real time. The Platform is an open online resource and will remain so also after the project. Final models and best practices are described on the website, as well as e.g. blog postings on development steps and activities taken. The best practice models can be used as such in other educational organizations, but can also be adapted and implemented in any type of organization. Therefore the dissemination activities also focused on workplace instructors, cooperative companies and HR-reps of business organizations.

At the start of the project all 5 partners were in different stages of digital development and with the common framework and cooperation had a possibility to reflect and compare their stages and receive valuable feedback and insights from each other. The partners tested and evaluated different competence assessment tools and concluded that the DigCompEdu-tools SELFIE and CheckIn are most suitable for educational organizations. The work of the project group was efficient and rewarding. The structure of the project, agile & flexible development, was considered suitable as it enabled continuous monitoring of progress and quick reactions to needed adaptations.
The involvement of top management proved to be crucial, as all partners are now even more committed to the continuous development of digital capacity, skills and competences. The teachers involved gave positive feedback for being able to participate in the design and experimenting of their own CPD activities and emphasized the importance of management’s support and provided possibilities. The common consensus after the project was that the Learning Path models are practical, current, and can be used as a basis for digital competence development in any organization. Developing teachers’ digital competences step-by-step according to individual needs and interests, on top of organizational minimum requirements, is efficient and motivative.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 216600 Eur

Project Coordinator

Tampereen Aikuiskoulutussäätiö sr & Country: FI

Project Partners

• INSTITUTO DE SOLDADURA E QUALIDADE
• Berufsförderungsinstitut Wien
• VUC Storstrøm
• Oberstufenzentrum Informations- und Medizintechnik