Writing for Inclusion Erasmus Project

Project Title

Writing for Inclusion

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 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills; Inclusion – equity

Project Summary

Social inclusion has been a long-term key priority for the European Union to cater for diversity in Europe. As early as 2010, the European Commission launched the Europe 2020 Strategy to promote social cohesion and education played a paramount role since it was identified as an invaluable tool for social mobility within an equitable society. This project “Writing for Inclusion” (WIN) focuses on rising awareness, changing perceptions and providing resources to implement inclusion through the concept of “Care in Education”. WIN was submitted last year and, after including the reviewers’ suggestions, we have shifted action to make it more school oriented.

As for the project background, a needs analysis was carried out to examine the beliefs and perceptions of university teachers, pre-service and in-service teachers regarding inclusiveness and “Care in Education” (see Annex). The findings from the online survey suggested that diversity was seen as an asset, even if many educators expressed their willingness to be trained to use new technologies and new resources to implement the principles of “Care in Education”.

In order to mainstream inclusive practices, a four-country consortium has been created. It is composed of four universities: University of Vic-Central University of Catalonia (UVic-UCC) from Spain, Università di Firenze from Italy (UNIFI), Eötvös-Loránd University (ELTE) from Hungary, and Poltava V.G. Korolenko National Pedagogikal University (PNPU) from Ukraine; and four schools: Les Pinediques, from Spain, Istituto Comprensivo Le Cure, from Italy, Erzsébetvárosi Két Tanítási Nyelvű Általános Iskola és Szakgimnázium, from Hungary and Poltava Comprehensive school of I-III degree # 18, from Ukraine. The consortium has designed the WIN project to tackle the effective use of digital storytelling to foster Care in childhood education.

The Project target groups are in-service teachers, young learners, and more marginally teacher trainees. The project will be implemented in four schools to more than one hundred pupils. Furthermore, multiplier events for teachers, student teachers and governments will be organized to spread the results across the educational community.

In terms of subsidiary objectives, we should highlight the following:
1. To elaborate materials and organize events that advocate for non-discriminatory attitudes
2. To create animated resources for digital storytelling
3. To train teachers to deal with “Care in Education” through technology
4. To create a bond between European pupils using storytelling as an inclusive device
5. To elaborate and implement a program that encourages and validates the concept of “Care in Education” at a European level
6. To reinforce the bond between teacher training colleges and schools

With regards to the project results, WIN will create an open access learning platform to gather practices and transfer knowledge, skills and experiences among the project countries. In this sense, online materials will be created to provide theoretical knowledge and practical resources about “Care in Education” and to explore new creation processes in digital storytelling for diversity. Learning-focused animations will play a key part as instruments to connect what children do in the classroom to the rich media world that they live in. Additionally, a school toolkit will be developed to aid participants (teachers and students) through all the steps that are to be followed to develop a digital story. Finally, another outcome will be a Scientific Evaluation” report to ascertain the quality of the intellectual outputs and to guarantee the publication of scientific articles in indexed journals.

In relation to the positive impacts, participanting organisations, both schools and universities, will share knowledge and best practices; they will broaden their understanding of inclusive educational policies across Europe and they will acquire new international partners for future cooperation. In-service teachers will gain more insight into how inclusive practices can be implemented to mainstream students in their classes and they will have the opportunity to partake their best practices with other colleagues from participating partners. Children are undoubtedly at the core of our consortium because they will develop more inclusive attitudes towards diversity through creativity in digital storytelling and they will use technology as part of their emerging literacy process.

As for the long-term benefits, we plan that the online resources and materials will be used openly by schools, administrators, researchers, teachers and students from participating and non-participating countries. We also intend to continue offering training to in-service teachers though life-learning programmes at some of the consortium’s universities since our ultimate goal is to help build a more inclusive education system in which students and teachers cherish the values of diversity.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 129435 Eur

Project Coordinator

FUNDACIO UNIVERSITARIA BALMES & Country: ES

Project Partners

• POLTAVA V.G. KOROLENKO NATIONAL PEDAGOGIKAL UNIVERSITY
• Escola Les Pinediques
• Istituto Comprensivo Le Cure
• Erzsébetvárosi Magyar-Angol Két Tanítási Nyelvű Általános Iskola és Szakgimnázium
• Poltava Comprehensive school of I-III degree # 18 of Poltava City Council of Poltava region
• UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI FIRENZE
• EOTVOS LORAND TUDOMANYEGYETEM