WORld wars Toward Heritage for Youth Erasmus Project

Project Title

WORld wars Toward Heritage for Youth

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: ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Cultural heritage/European Year of Cultural Heritage; Civic engagement / responsible citizenship

Project Summary

WORTHY aims to contribute to the need of modernise schools that has been detected in PISA 2015 results, looking at the decrease in basic competences, coupled with fast technological progress and globalization, and to make schools able to create conscious European citizens.
“WORTHY-WORld wars Toward Heritage for Youth” aims to address these urgent needs by developing and testing an innovative approach whose main aim is to increase the motivation of 13-19 year old students to be socially conscious about their heritage and history.
To engage even the most unmotivated and underperforming students, WORTHY combines customized studying path with digital creativity. Inspired by “Internet of Things”, which refers to the possibility of connecting the internet to the world of physical objects, we explored various solutions to “digitally augment” the experience of students while studying facts, connecting the physical materials (manuals, maps, photos, objects) to the digital world, into a “Living Hi-Story”: an intense-lived experience for young students who could participate, transform and augment what they found at home, asking their families to recover the stories of their grandfathers that took part to War, thus applying digital competences, collaborating with peers, developing new skills and, ultimately, being more engaged in recreate history.
The project’s partnership – that is comprised by 7 partners from 5 different EU countries (IT, DE, PL, HR, GB) – was built upon a multi-stakeholders strategic partnership between schools and organisations active in different domains, but equally interested in the promotion of history studies and ICT tools application: ONGs, local education authorities, associations and e-learning private firms. The complementarity of profiles and expertise has allowed to maximize the project impact and has ensured high quality transferable results.
Leading role was assigned to the Municipality of Vicenza (CVI), given its experience and qualified staff managing EU funded projects.
Methodological expertise for designing a coherent framework for the WORTHY approach was brought by Progetto Mondo Mlal (MLAL), that has a long history in Europe and in other areas of the world in global education.
Research and development for the WORTHY Platform was ensured by GRYD Ltd, specialized in designing of advanced e-learning platforms and interactive resources for students and teachers.
The schools in IT, DE, PL and the Croatian youth association BREZA played a key role in this proposal and brought great expertise to design and develop the didactical resources and the practical lesson plans for teachers revolving around the WORTHY approach. They also offered inputs to partners in charge of other intellectual outputs, in order to design products in line with the needs and expectations of the target groups. Schools also led the pilot experimentation in their territories.
CVI led the dissemination package and BREZA coordinated the quality assurance task.
WORTHY project’s results:
• WORTHY Methodological Guidelines (e-publication)
• WORTHY web platform (OER) and toolkits (www.worldwars.eu), offering students and teachers online “ready-to-use” tools to augment the studying experience with rich media content
• 24 practical and freely accessible lessons plans
• 2 blended training courses for Augmented Teachers and on Parental Engagement.
The resources were launched, pilot tested and widely disseminated across Europe, in spite of the difficulties generated by Covid-19 pandemic. The dissemination strategy – basically relied on 8 multiplier events organized in 4 countries – was oriented to reach the school sector, at first, as well as relevant stakeholders active in other sectors, such as public libraries, museums, universities, e-book and digital publishers, local organizations, “GLAM” actors, technologists and digital makers, citizens.
The main identified impacts on teachers were: the increased competence in cultivating young students’ motivation and studying abilities; and a greater responsiveness to the needs of disadvantaged groups by developing, among others, competences in involving parents to support studying strategies. In the medium/long term these impacts will be sustained by the availability of multilingual OER, the creation of communities of Augmented Teachers, that favor networking and stimulate continuing professional development in this field.
Lastly the main impacts on students were: the development of a positive attitude towards studying history as part of their citizenship education and greater motivation thanks to the attractiveness of the blended approach proposed, the social dynamics created and the support of parents.
The impact will be amplified in the medium-long term by dissemination activities, carried out even after the end of the project, promoting the web platform that will generate a higher number of users, thus increasing the community and fostering an even higher engagement.

Project Website

http://worthy-project.eu/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 372011,6 Eur

Project Coordinator

COMUNE DI VICENZA & Country: IT

Project Partners

• Kepler-Gymnasium Pforzheim
• ISTITUTO TECNICO COMMERCIALE G. PIOVENE
• ProgettoMondo Mlal Onlus
• Gmina Niepolomice
• Udruga za rad s mladima Breza
• GRYD LTD