Literacy and ICT in Adult Education in Rural Communties Erasmus Project

Project Title

Literacy and ICT in Adult Education in Rural Communties

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 adult education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Early School Leaving / combating failure in education; Access for disadvantaged; Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills

Project Summary

Context/background:
The background of this project is that the Westfjords Life Long Learning Centre identified the need for a short but intense training material and a possible model for teachers in adult education in remote and/or isolated areas. Also the need for a tool for teachers so they can help their students to see for themselves what need they have to enable a high quality learning opportunity.
The focus of the project was: How teachers can help their students who have low levels of literacy and/or ICT that live in rural areas. It has been identified by the Icelandic government that there is a big difference in educational status between the Reykjavik area and the country site of Iceland (statistics from 2015). In Reykjavik around 20% of the people, aged 25-64 had only finished basic education whereas elsewhere in the country the number was over 30%. The other schools and organizations within Europe are dealing with the same problems and therefore the partnership was created with the help of EPALE.

The LICTED project is an acronym for Literacy and ICT in Adult Education in Rural Communities. The partnership addresses the need for specific material for adult educators that work in rural areas, both on literacy and ICT.
Some of the educators/teachers working in the centers are not trained as teachers and work on a contract basis whilst for those in schools they are trained teachers but need retraining. However all of them need training in how to teach students that have low levels of literacy and ICT. They and need a training based on where they are located -in a rural community. The mentality in rural communities is different and therefore the training for teachers on how to reach or teach the students is different.

Objectives:
The objectives of this project were to produce two guides/recommendations for teachers in adult education on how they can teach ICT and Literacy to students in adult education in rural communities. This was done and can be found on our website www.licted.eu. A questionnaire/tool that teachers or other staff member can use to work with students in a small group or privately was also made by the partnership. This was done both as a hands on tool, (a demonstration can be found on a video on our webpage) and as an electronic tool where student can self assess and take the results to the teacher of the school or a member of staff and discuss. The objective of it is to enable the students themselves to tailor their own learning opportunities.
The final objective is to produce micro videos for teachers on ICT and Literacy and how they can help and teach students with low level of ICT and Literacy. This was done and the videos are on our webpage where each of our videos demonstrates how the teachers can use the outputs made in this project.

Profile of Partners:
There are four project partners and they have in common being a part of delivery of adult education in their country in rural areas.
The Westfjords Life Long Learning Centre is a newcomer but has experience in leading projects. The Rigas Talmacibas Vidusskola is a school that is experienced in teaching adults through ICT. The Landesverband der Volkshochschulen Sachsen-Anhalt e.V. is a big organization of schools where they are very knowledgeable about different teaching methodologies involving their adult students.
The Spanish partner CEPA is a big school with expertise on teaching adult students in rural settings. They have many years of expertise in teaching adults with low levels of literacy.

Description of activities:
The activities that were supported by this project are intellectual outputs that are designed to be user friendly for teachers teaching in adult settings in rural areas. We gave out guides on how to teach students with low level of ICT and another on teaching low level of literacy. We made a tool that helps teachers and/or guidance councellors or other staff of schools to identify why the student had dropped out of previous studies and how they can plan what support he needs to stay in the studies he or she is now involved in. This can all be found on our webpage www.licted.eu. The videos that we made support the use of the guide and the tools and show the teacher how he can use them.

Results and impact:
There has been a an impact on the participating organizations. The staff of the institutions understands and identifies the needs of their students with low levels of literacy and ICT in rural communities. We also understand better how unique or situations is in our countries and we have a lot of common grounds. To see the rural of Germany or Spain and be able to compare it to the situation of rural Iceland and see that we both face the same challenges and we can use solutions that work in our rural areas. We see that there is still a lot of work to be done and ICT and literacy skills need to be further addressed for teachers and students in those areas.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 93772 Eur

Project Coordinator

Fræðslumiðstöð Vestfjarða & Country: IS

Project Partners

• Rigas Talmacibas vidusskola
• Landesverband der Volkshochschulen Sachsen-Anhalt e.V.
• Centro Público de Educación de Personas Adultas CAMPOS DEL ZANCARA