The current situation in the society indicates that young people are often exposed to manipulative information and it is very difficult for them to process it objectively. According to the Youth Report 2014 it is clear that extremism in the society is on the rise – especially among young people who are the most vulnerable group in the society. The concept of the project „Introduction of inovative tools for forming the critical thinking among young people through the personal and online storytelling“ is also shortly known as „Listen – Reflect – Change“. It is targeting the use of different forms of storytelling to shape attitudes of young people towards vulnerable groups of people in the society and to develop their critical thinking. This project is submited by the slovak non-profit organization Od emócií k poznaniu – Eduma that provides community services with a partnership of czech eduation company Glafka, s.r.o. The main aim of the project is to verify the applicability and the impact of inovative educational portal www.OnlineZivaKniznica.sk (Online Living Library) as a educational tool for pupils, students, youth, educators, teachers, youth workers and volunteers in Slovakia and Czech Republic. The project will have the same design of boht involved organizations and it will be implemented in both countries. The result of this strategic partnership will be the verification of the effect of www.OnlineZivaKniznica.sk and comparison outputs of individual activities in the context of Slovak and Czech environment. The project consists of important intellectual outputs that use personal written and online storytelling of disadvantaged people with barriers in the society and guidelines how to use these outputs for various educational aims such as shapping attitudes, developing critical thinking through the personal story of a concrete disadvantage person. Furthermore, it is the introduction and the support of inclusive education, preparing students for practice and real problems in the country (teachers, educators, social workers, journalists, political scientists, psychologists). Outputs: 1) set of educational publications containing written storytelling stories of marginalized people 2) guidelines how to use the educational materials in different learning environments 3) preparation and processing of online video storytelling with personal testimonies of people from vulnerable groups (refugees and migrants, people living in poverty, Roma, people with physical disabilities, people with sensory disabilities, unemployed people, people living in foster families). An important parts of the project are the multiplying actions that support understanding of the power of storytelling and its impact on emotional learning and critical thinking among young people (conferences, festivals, education professionals). All the outputs and results will be the part of the educational portal Online Living Library. It will include 80 storytelling videos and each video will have a special methodological guidance on how to shape the attitudes of young people to develop their critical thinking. It will help to understand how to use the concrete story for preparing students for their work experience with disadvantaged clients/ students. The portal will be enhanced with various educational materials - series of publications Stories of Knowledge (written storytelling) and methodological online support in the use in practice. We want to directly involve disadvantaged people in the society from Slovakia and Czech Republic to all of the activities whose story is a tool for learning and developing. All the outputs will be both – Slovak and Czech language and the videos from Online Living Library will be translated into the Sign language (for the community of deaf people). The project implementation will help to eliminate the negative phenomena in the behavior of young people. It will have a major impact on the relevant policies at European level (European Youth Strategy) and also at the national level (Youth Strategy in Slovak Republic for the 2014 - 2016 period - "Participation online, Motivation for global issues, defining the content and scope of the measures, tools and services aimed at the eradication and prevention of social exclusion of young people, Creation, testing and introduction of new services aimed at removal and prevention of social exclusion of young people).
The project „Introduction of innovative tools for forming the critical thinking among young people through the personal and online storytelling“ brought exceptional innovations. Especially in the fields of critical thinking, changing stereotypes and shaping the attitudes of young people towards vulnerable groups of people at schools and workplaces. Usage of storytelling in education has become one of the most dominant topics on conferences considering quality of education. Throughout the project we established contact with key persons in working and educational fields. They implemented storytelling and tools verified by project into their own educational programs. We have been attesting Innovations in the form of storytelling not even in Slovakia but also in Czech republic, where we have our partner organisation. During validation process we focused on systematic work with universities, elementary schools, high schools, non-profit organisations and companies with high rate of employees, younger than 30. We achieved the objective defined in the project with added value. Not only did we proved the effectiveness of storytelling as an educational tool in various areas, where the youth is formed, but we also created a strong demand for the tool and skills required for implementation. We have extended formerly defined forms of storytelling (personal, written and online) by adding a new tool. We verified the applicability and the impact of innovative educational tool, virtual reality, to be effective when shaping the attitudes of young people towards vulnerable groups of people. Within the project we created, verified and evaluated: written storytelling (17 ebooks created instead of 12) 8 in czech, 9 in slovak language; methodology - how to work with written storytelling methodology for online storytelling videos from Online živá knižnica (Online living library - “OLL”); 80 methodologies and 22 cases of a practise with videos of OLL. We originally scheduled 50+50 methodological materials, but in implementation we found out, there is much greater need to be inspired by existing praxis. Therefore we included stakeholders from universities, schools and non-governmental organisations, to process their own experience into example of good practice. Including support in the form of webinars and methodological videos (available on OLL). online storytelling videos - 49 videos in slovak language, 5 videos in czech language, 9 languages in english language (all of them having slovak, english or czech subtitles), 16 videos are in slovak sign language (Originally we wanted to make 30 czech videos. During realization we asked for a change due to new media laws - necessity to have the translation in language of the broadcasting country). we carried out 4 trainings as a part of dissemination (2 in Czech republic and 2 in Slovak republic) with overall number of participants 67. Focusing on storytelling and youth work in school, out-of-school and working environment. Participants of the training in Slovakia achieved certificate owing to accredited learning program ( EDUMA Bring up- educate- encourage to see, modules: With storytelling to inclusion, With experience to knowing, With stories to social responsibility, With inclusive approach to development. Original plan was to have 24 + 24 participants of the training. for the dissemination purposes, we carried out Festival of Living library (motto: Do not label) in Czech republic and Slovak republic with a huge number of visitors leaving nothing but positive comments. Festival was split into two days. First was specially oriented on teachers and assisting professionals. Second day was dedicated to youth. Festival was based on personal storytelling. Slovak festival participation: 35 living books and their assistants, 27 lecturers providing workshops. Czech festival participation: xxxx living books and their assistants, 27 lecturers providing workshops. out of dissemination we carried out Czech-slovak conference