Our Youth – Speeding On The Information Highway? Erasmus Project

Project Title

Our Youth – Speeding On The Information Highway?

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 Schools Only

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2015

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Teaching and learning of foreign languages; Intercultural/intergenerational education and (lifelong)learning; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

Nowadays, the life of young people is – compared to previous generations – immensely affected by two developments: Globalisation and digitalisation. These developments are happening more and more quickly, both offering huge benefits to especially young people. A prime example of the benefits of globalisation is the EU, a union of states who has realised the idea of unity in diversity, a union of states which fosters friendly relations, a very important achievement, important to perserve especially in times of the current difficult political developments. Digitalisation offers benefits such as making grass-roots democracy easily possible or giving theoretically unlimited instant access to worldwide knowledge. However, both developments come with downsides as well, like a more competitive labour market or prejudices towards different cultures deriving from globalisation, or e.g. information overload or privacy concerns with regard to digitalisation.
In order to embrace the advantages and avoid the disadvantages of both globalisation and digitalisation, young people need to be well-prepared for a life in the information age, in a more and more globalised world of friendly partnership between European nations.
The aim of this project was to give young people this kind of preparation, and the objectives were thus promoting the abilities and attitudes needed to benefit from a united Europe of friends in a globalised world. Such abilities and attitudes comprise international teamwork and foreign language skills, achieving a climate of mutual understanding, trust and friendship among European nations and fostering dialogue and personal relationships between European citizens of different nations (including the specific relationships between the partners). Moreover, a second objective were the abilities necessary to cope with the challenges of the information age, which comprised technical ICT skills, as well as an awareness of benefits and downfalls of digitalisation and the knowledge of how to take advantage of the former while avoiding the latter. To achieve this educators needed and still need to be up to the task, and hence another set of objectives of this project were to foster everything just mentioned in teachers as well, in addition to teachers’ ability to guide and instruct students and also fellow colleagues in this. Only that way it has been able to achieve a long-term value.
The four participating schools from Austria, Finland, France and Germany are all schools with a strong European focus who have internalised the idea that a united Europe works best when its citizens unite at a grass-roots level. All schools can look back at successful experiences of European integration at school-level, be it in EU-funded projects or in student exchange programmes. Also, the four partners have put their focus on providing their students with an enriching learning environment with regard to digital skills, offering both instructions with regard to the technical aspects as well as guidance on the sociological, economical and personal effects of digitalisation. With this project, these four European schools have been able to show to their students that a united Europe is of utmost importance, represented by the teamwork in this project. Moreover, globalisation and European integration and digitalisation are no sheer technical terms anymore but were lived in this project. To achieve this, the methodology used was one that proved itself to be highly effective in previous projects: workshops of mixed international student teams, which, guided by mixed international teacher teams, produced various material to enhance digital skills, and which fostered the ability to profit from digital globalisation. According to evaluation results, the awareness level of students/teachers has been raised when it comes to advantages and disadvantages thereof. Depending on their individual strengths, students worked out guidelines on privacy issues and even artificially expressed themselves in drawings or theatre plays. Project work was carried out by via remote communication or during transnational learning activities.
So this international collaboration, apart from the impact the results themselves have had on dealing with digital issues, resulted in all partners establishing (or deepening) a mutual intra-European friendship, both on the level of individuals and the organisational level. We have experienced that this project promoted a European spirit, not only among the young generation and teachers taking part, but also among others who came into touch with the project and its members. This spirit of a united Europe – in contrast to existing symptoms of breaking apart – was passed on to parents, neighbours, friends, and hopefully will also reach future generations. Hence, this project will make its contribution to a future of a Europe of mutual collaboration and show that a united Europe is a strong one that can defy many obstacles.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 88135 Eur

Project Coordinator

Berufliche Oberschule Inn-Salzach & Country: DE

Project Partners

• Lappeenrannan Lyseon lukio
• OGEC Jean PaulII de la Salle
• Höhere Lehranstalt für wirtschaftliche Berufe / Bundesfachschule für wirtschaftliche Berufe Mureck