FACING THE DIGITAL ERA CHALLENGES – TEACHING ‘DIGITAL’ CITIZENS’ SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITIES (CSR) USING PRINTED, ELECTRONIC AND SMARTPHONE MEDIA Erasmus Project

Project Title

FACING THE DIGITAL ERA CHALLENGES – TEACHING ‘DIGITAL’ CITIZENS’ SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITIES (CSR) USING PRINTED, ELECTRONIC AND SMARTPHONE MEDIA

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 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills; Civic engagement / responsible citizenship

Project Summary

The digital era (the Internet, social media, virtual reality, smart phones) has brought unprecedented changes in the life of society, brought new aspects, new methods, new ways of life, changed the way we all deal with small or large social issues. This digital age places enormous demands on society as a whole, but above all on the younger generation. The young upcoming generation spend a very considerable amount of time in the “virtual reality”. However, the digital new era does not only mean new challenges for pupils and students. The development of digital technologies has also increased the barrier between teachers and parents (Generation Y) and pupils (Generation Z). On the one hand, the new generation is adapting faster to the coming trend, so it is now common for children and adolescents to be able to control some new facilities better than their parents and teachers. On the other hand, it contributes to the widening gap between generations. The concept of digital citizenship has only appeared in education for a short time, which is why there are very few teaching materials in schools. There are already online resources that deal with the issue, but they are usually not primarily intended for didactic purposes.

For this reason the project team developed teaching materials regarding Digital Era’s social competence (or: civic competence). There were two main target groups. It was agreed that the first group would be upper elementary pupils/students (12-14 years) and the second group would be secondary students aged15-18 years. As some of the topics are (at least partly) new to the teachers too, Teachers’ Support Materials (TSM) were also developed for the teachers of both age groups. The original plan was to elaborate eight topics divided into two modules dealing with issues like digital society, media literacy, digital information vs. manipulation, internet ethics, electronic communication specifics and rules, et.
We planned to divide each topic into two modules but the elaborated volume of materials considerably surpasses the original plans. When collecting topic and theme suggestions in IO1, high number of other, important suggestions also came up. We decided to divide the individual topics into 3 modules. We elaborated four books in English (core version), electronic version, smartphone version plus supplements to the books in all participants’ national languages. (I.e., 4 volumes in English plus 6 x 4 volumes on national languages).
One module is to be taught in a 45-minute class. Even though the national versions are usually shorter that the core English version it enables teachers to teach the materials in national languages, too. Sample class plans, methodology suggestions, homework and control questions are attached to each module in the TSM.

The team consisted of eight partners from six countries (the Czech Republic, Greece, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Italy). Since the project was focused on school education, most of the partners were from schools. But there was also municipality, a foundation and an SME (having experience in teaching and elaboration of teaching materials). With that, practically all stakeholders were represented – albeit the two most important target groups were pupils and their teachers.

Project activities were a chain of transnational meetings and individual working periods between them. It optimally combined the independent work and the common discussion and approval of it. Transnational meetings always started from project management part when all important project management issues like communication, documentation, progress indicators, dissemination, finances etc. were discussed, followed by a workshop each time, discussing the contents of the work done and assignment of tasks for the next period. Each participant country hosted one meeting, providing thus opportunity for the participants to meet local citizens, visit local schools and cultural events – i.e., developing friendship between communities and countries.

Methodology applied was a combination of individual and common work giving thus opportunity to the partners to present itself but still developing jointly accepted, common results.

Partners expect a very important impact on all stakeholders, above others on the two crucial target groups: the pupils and their teachers. The upcoming generation will be more up in arms to face the Digital Era challenges, become knowledgeable and responsible, fulfill their own social duties and responsibilities and also firmly exercise their rights. Teachers will be provided useful background information regarding the project topic too.

Since the social attitude and life changes usually slowly, the real effects are expected to occur mid- and long-term only. It is of crucial importance that the upcoming generation meets all expectations of the society.

Project Website

http://socires-project.eu/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 280123,64 Eur

Project Coordinator

Skoly Brezova – stredni odborna skola, zakladni skola a materska skola, Brezova & Country: CZ

Project Partners

• Fondazione don Lorenzo Guetti
• Suprex Kft
• Obec Vrakun
• 4 EPAL KAVALAS
• Zakladna skola s materskou skolou
• Istituto di Istruzione “Lorenzo Guetti”
• Scoala Gimnaziala Alexandru Roman Auseu