The project intends to deliver a completely innovative training system based on gamification and interactive tools, helping adults to acquire basic knowledge of computer programming and promote an active and conscious usage of IT tools in households. This will help them improve their digital and transveral skills and their ability to support their children in the use of ICT. Software is becoming the language of our world. In the future, not knowing the language of computers will be as challenging as being illiterate or innumerate are today. For this reason it is very important to invest in digital literacy and coding education both for adult people, especially in view of the growing life expectancy. According to the “The Survey of Adult Skills” (EC-PIAAC) the function of adult education should be to support economic growth and competitiveness, assure inclusive and equitable development, provide socio-economic benefit, but also individual benefits, in terms of personal and professional development, empowerement, adaptability, employability and active participation in society. This is exaclty what the present project intends to do, by promoting coding education among European adult learners. Coding education is not only about equipping the current and next generation to work as software engineers, it is about promoting computational thinking, i.e. a problem solving method that uses computer science techniques. It combines mathematics, logic and algorithms, and teaches a new way to think about the world. Computational thinking teaches how to tackle large problems by breaking them down into a sequence of smaller, more manageable problems, it helps our logic go from specific solutions to general ones. The direct target group is composed of adult people of any age and status, workers, parents, retired. However, the development of contents and tools will cater for the needs of specific sub-groups, such as women, men and young adults. Represetatives of the end-beneficiaries, about 200 per country, 1000 in total, will be involved in several stages of the project: during the initial in-depth analysis of adult learners attitude to coding, in the delivery and assessment of the training and in the framework of demonstration events. Moreover, the partners will organise local contests to stimulate participation and creativity. Indirect target groups are the stakeholders that can exploit the results in different contexts and will be reached mainly thorugh dissemination and exploitation activities: training and educational centres, schools, civil society organisaitons, public authorities and decision-makers. They can use the platform, contents and games to organise courses and events on coding education, to train teaching staff or to promote digital learning towards policy-makers. Thanks to dissemination activities, it is expected to reach and involve about 5.000 people and 2000 organisations. The main tangible result will be an interactive, multifunctional platform for adult coding education. The platform will be user-friendly and will host contents and tools targeted to the different sub-groups. Moreover, the training path will offer interactive tools and quizzes for assessment of knowledge through informal learning (using badges for certification of acquired competences) and also practical exercises and gadgets to be used with children and teenagers, so to favour intergenerational learning. The expected result is to promote digital learning and key competences of adult people in Europe, in line with the Agenda for Adult Learning, set up by the European Commission. As for intangible expected results in the medium and long term, the foreseen outcomes are the following: • Improvement of personal skills and motivation of adult learners through coding education • Favouring active participation and better understanding of the digital world we live in • Improved professional opportunities as basic coding skills is also needed for many jobs, plus it helps developing transversal skills such as problem solving that are needed in any job • Favouring the promotion of non-formal and informal learning among adult people usually excluded from mainstream and traditional education pathways. • Improved intergenerational learning and safer usage of ICT by kids and adults. By using the practical tools to code and play on coding with their children, parents have the opportunity to teach their kids the basics of computer programming, be more prepared in supporting their children homework, play a more active role in assisting their kids when using technology devices. The project is implemented by a consortium of 7partners from 5 European countries (SP, IT, GR, PL, NO), including fundations for local development, schools, adult education providers, civil society organisations, software house and university.
The project has delivered an innovative training system based on interactive tools, helping adults to acquire basic knowledge of computer programming and promote an active and conscious usage of IT tools in households. These training materials have covered a wide range from the basics of digitalization, computational thinking and using everyday examples to develop algorithms (targeted to non-digital users) to the actual development of code through the use programming languages and through the use of specific tools and games targeted to coding with children. The developed materials will help users improve their digital and transversal skills and their ability to support their children in the use of ICT. According to the “The Survey of Adult Skills” (EC-PIAAC) the function of adult education should be to support economic growth and competitiveness, assure inclusive and equitable development, provide socio-economic benefit, but also individual benefits, in terms of personal and professional development, empowerement, adaptability, employability and active participation in society. This is exactly what the present project has done, by promoting coding education among European adult learners and by working together with international activities such as code-week.org . The EDUCODE consortium has operated under the principle that coding education is not only about equipping the current and next generation to work as software engineers, it is about promoting computational thinking, i.e. a problem solving method that uses computer science techniques. It combines mathematics, logic and algorithms, and teaches a new way to think about the world. The direct target group is composed of adult people of any age and status, workers, parents, retired. However, the development of contents and tools has catered for the needs of specific sub-groups, such as women (trough the case studies provided) by ECWT, men and young adults. Representatives of the end-beneficiaries, about 200 per country, 1000 in total, have been involved in several stages of the project: during the initial in-depth analysis of adult learners attitude to coding, in the delivery and assessment of the training and in the framework of demonstration events. Moreover, the partners will organise local contests to stimulate participation and creativity. Indirect target groups are the stakeholders that can exploit the results in different contexts and have been reached mainly through dissemination and exploitation activities: Each partner has developed further contacts both within the time-frame and after the training and educational centres, schools, civil society organisaitons, public authorities and decision-makers. They can use the platform, contents and games to organise courses and events on coding education, to train teaching staff or to promote digital learning towards policy-makers. Thanks to dissemination activities, the knowledge of the project has reached more than 5.000 people and 2000 organisations. The main tangible result has been an interactive, multifunctional and multilingual platform for adult coding education. The user-friendly platform hosts contents targeted to the users. Moreover, the training path offers quizzes for assessment of the acquired knowledge and also practical exercises and gadgets to be used with children and teenagers, so as to favour intergenerational learning. The expected result was to promote digital learning and key competences of adult people in Europe, in line with the Agenda for Adult Learning, set up by the European Commission. As for intangible expected results in the medium and long term, the foreseen outcomes are the following: • Improvement of personal skills and motivation of adult learners through coding education • Favouring active participation and better understanding of the digital world we live in • Improved professional opportunities as basic coding skills is also needed for many jobs, plus it helps developing transversal skills such as problem solving that are needed in any job (including the basics of digital skills) • Favouring the promotion of non-formal and informal learning among adult people usually excluded from mainstream and traditional education pathways. • Improved intergenerational learning and safer usage of ICT by kids and adults. By using the practical tools to code and play on coding with their children, parents have the opportunity to teach their kids the basics of computer programming, be more prepared in supporting their children homework, play a more active role in assisting their kids when using technology devices. The project is implemented by a consortium of 7 partners from 5 European countries (SP, IT, GR, PL, NO), including foundations, schools, adult education providers, civil society organisations, software house and university.