IMPROVING METHODS IN E-LEARNING TO TACKLE DIGITAL DIVERSITY Erasmus Project

Project Title

IMPROVING METHODS IN E-LEARNING TO TACKLE DIGITAL DIVERSITY

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 : Partnerships for Digital Education Readiness

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Access for disadvantaged; Quality Improvement Institutions and/or methods (incl. school development); Pedagogy and didactics

Project Summary

The ITEACH project, a partnership composed of 5 schools from Italy, Spain, Portugal, The Netherlands and UK, aims to deal with the situation arisen in the European schools due to the COVID-19 lockdown. Before COVID-19 face-to-face lessons was the common way of teaching, however from now on (at least until COVID-19 crisis finishes) e-learning will be an important part of the way of teaching at schools. Thus, there is a need of training in online platforms for e-teaching and a need to put into practice innovative methods, carried out before physically, in a digital environment, in order to deal with the student diversity at school and not to leave any student behind. A need analysis, carried out in the 5 partner schools, shows that, in all the cases, there were issues related to internet connection or outdated devices in families and students, issues teachers found using online platforms due to a low training in teachers on e-learning platforms, students left behind due to a lack of knowledge and practice using online platforms and finally, some kind of labor unrest in teachers due to the obligation to use an unknown digital environment to teach.

To deal with this situation this projects has these main objectives:
– Improve digital competence in teachers to improve their e-teaching.
– Reduce digital gap in terms of ICT skills and lack of equipment in our students and improve their motivation to e-learn.
– Offer new opportunities of teaching/learning through exchanging methods of e-learning and resources for different subjects, for teachers and students.
– Enhancing the sense of European citizenship through the creation of collaboration spaces for students and teachers.
– Improve the language communication (in English) for students and teachers.

The project intends to involve 5 different group classes of students at each partner (around 100 students per partner) and at least 5 teachers from each school. The participant teachers will fit the following profile: good level of English , eagerness to change their way of teaching (flexibility), good level in ICT (or willingness to learn) and ability to teach other colleagues to spread the benefits of the project. The student group class profile will fit: good behavior and interest in learning of the whole class, having fewer opportunities students in the group and good level of English. There will be especially important the participation of students with fewer opportunities (economic situation) in order to achieve the part of the objectives.

To carry out the project there will be two kind of activities. On one hand the project will have online training sessions. This training sessions will be on how to use Moodle platform, Google Classroom, online tools for e-teaching, flipped classroom, collaborative methods, gaming and digital teaching. The main purpose of these sessions will be to share how to teach in digital using innovative methods. In addition to this training sessions, there will be local training for all the partner schools teachers. On the other hand, the project will have 5 e-lesson days consisting of 6 e-lessons on different subjects each (like a full school day) . In these e-lessons teachers will put into practice what they have learnt in the training session. The main purpose of these activities will be to offer opportunities of learning for students and motivate them, so that they can use e-learning environments with more confidence. It is important to point out that devices, for those students in need, are necessary to develop the project and thus, funds for these devices have been applied.

From this activities the following results will be produced:
– A booklet with teaching units for different subjects using digital environments with digital resources and explanations on how to use it.
– A set of digital resources, such as videos or digital lessons in different subjects.
– At least a one day of e-lessons per country, recorded.
– Training material for teachers to know how to use different type of e-platforms.
– A website with links to all the open resources produced in the project: e-lessons, training, digital resources, video tutorials.
– A public TwinSpace. The link fo the project website will be posted in eTwinning and in every school website, so anyone can access it.

Finally from the completion of this project it is expected:
-An increase in motivation both in teachers and students to use e-platforms for the teaching-learning process.
-A better quality of the lessons taught in the participant schools, as they will be enriched with digital resources and new approaches.
-An higher participation in projects to improve our schools, both from teachers and students, making our schools more dynamic.
-An improve in the use of English and a better understanding of other countries.
– A change in policies at local/regional/national and EU level to foster equipment investment in schools participating in projects.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 53250 Eur

Project Coordinator

IES Lucia de Medrano & Country: ES

Project Partners

• RSG Slingerbos|Levant
• ISTITUTO DI ISTRUZIONE SUPERIORE P.LEVI
• The Weald Community School & Sixth Form
• AGRUPAMENTO DE ESCOLAS DO CRATO