"Don't Mind the Gap!" (DMTG) is a project based on the observation that the digital gap between teachers and pupils and the digital gap among pupils and among teachers remains one of the main problems in developping various digital skills in todays schools. To bridge that gap we want to work with both teachers and pupils on "educational videos". Producing educational videos is unthinkable nowadays without using digital devices both for recording, cutting, assembling and sharing these videos and videos are commonly accepted by teachers of all kinds of subjects, as they have been widely used in schools since the 1970s. So the objectives of our project are to enable teachers and pupils to produce different kinds of "educational videos" (e.g. documentaries, How-to-videos, vlogs, screencasts, video tutorials, ...) in order to help teachers and pupils overcome their scepticism regarding their own digital competences. We also want them to develop tools that will help them to discover the quality criteria that apply to different kinds of "educational videos" and to develop tools to test the effectiveness of educational videos. So they will also be doing some real research on topics whose larger themes have been proposed by the organizing teachers but with a free choice of subtopics. There will be two kinds of participants: teachers involved in the different transnational meetings, the shorter exchanges of groups of people and of course the joint staff teacher training. There will be at least 20 teachers directly involved in the meetings plus, the 40-60 teachers that will be involved indirectly through other project activities taking place in the participating schools. There will also be the pupils involved in the project. There will be about 80 pupils directly involved in the shorter exchanges of groups of pupils, there will be 300 - 400 pupils directly involved in the other project activities in the participating schools, there will be 3000 - 3500 pupils involved indirectly thorugh the various dissemination activites in the participating schools. As for the activities there will be a lot of scripting and video-production going on. We will also watch and analyze existing videos to find out what makes them work or what makes them fail to work. We will thus identify possible quality criteria and realize new videos on different topics. We will then develop tools to test the effectiveness of the videos we produced and ask pupils which are not directly involved in the project to watch the videos and do the tests. We will create sub-titled videos or synchronized videos of Danish, German, Latvian or Czech videos. During the different shorter exchanges of groups of pupils we will work in mixed groups and discover new techniques and tools to realize new sorts of educational videos. We will organize "release parties" at the end of these meetings to show the results of our exchanges to a larger public and to possible stakeholders as well. We will finally use the experiences of the shorter exchanges of groups of pupils to organize a teacher training where teachers shall learn how to produce educational videos in their classes to further enhance their teaching. We shall be substantially aided in this task by the "Medienzentrum Ostbelgien" our non-school partner from Eupen, Belgium. As for the methodology, we will involve our pupils in the learning process. We believe that lost of pupils have real skills in video-making and we strongly believe that they will be able to help us, bridging the gap. We will also be counselled by the "Medienzentrum Ostbelgien" which has lots of contacts to people susceptible to help us conceiving truly enriching scenarios for our different activities. As results of our project, there will be a considerable number of educational videos on various subjects made by pupils for pupils, that can be used in many different countries (as part of the videos will be in English, others in Czech, German or Latvian). We will also produce handouts for teachers and pupils to help them realize educational videos on subjects in their school curriculae or subjects they are isimply nterested in. There shall be a youtube and/or vimeochannel where the videos will be available and shall be added even afternthe final report will have been submitted.. As for the long term profit, the use of "educational videos" shall be established as a common activity in the praticipating schools and we're hoping to inspire neighboruing schools as well and to establish collaboration with local teacher training academies to further disseminate the project results and the methodology that we will have developped in the long run.
"Don't Mind the Gap!" (DMTG) was a project based on the observation that the digital gap between teachers and pupils and the digital gap among pupils and among teachers remains one of the main problems in developing various digital skills in today´s schools. To bridge that gap we wanted to work with both teachers and pupils on "educational videos". Producing educational videos is unthinkable nowadays without using digital devices both for recording, cutting, assembling and sharing these videos and videos are commonly accepted by teachers of all kinds of subjects, as they have been widely used in schools since the 1970s. Thus the objectives of our project were to enable teachers and pupils to produce different kinds of "educational videos" (e.g. documentaries, How-to-videos, vlogs, screencasts, video tutorials, ...) in order to help teachers and pupils overcome their scepticism regarding their own digital competences. We also wanted them to develop tools that will help them to discover the quality criteria that apply to different kinds of "educational videos" and to develop tools to test the effectiveness of educational videos. So they have also been doing some real research on topics whose larger themes have been proposed by the organizing teachers but with a free choice of subtopics. There have been two kinds of participants in the meetings: teachers involved in the different transnational meetings, the shorter exchanges of groups of people and of course the joint staff teacher training. There have been 25 teachers directly involved in the meetings. There will also be the pupils involved in the project. About 80 pupils have been directly involved in the shorter exchanges of groups of pupils, another 400 - 500 pupils have been directly involved in other project activities in the participating schools. As for the activities there has been a lot of research on different topics, scripting and video-production going on in schools in order to prepare the shorter exchange of groups of pupils and in international teams during the shorter exchanges of groups of people. We thus created videos on democracy in schools, some of the explaining the concept and different forms of school democracy, others using interviews with EU parliamentarians about the topic of democracy in schools. We also created videos on our cultural specificities and cultural differences in city quarters using different animation software. We created videos on the topic of inclusion and different aspects and forms of inclusion and finally created a series of videos explaining what digital competencies are and how to acquire them. The videos have been made available through school websites, the different schools facebook pages and a Youtube channel and have first been shown to public in release parties that have been the closing events of all shorter exchanges of groups of pupils. In collaboration with our non-school partner "Medienzentrum Ostbelgien" and cooperating with Paperplane Productions a local based production company, we have also organized a teacher training involving 20 teachers from the 4 participating countries, who learnt how to create educational videos in a hands-on approach in order to implement the technique in their schools. RESULT & IMPACT We have also produced methodology handouts and lesson plans for teachers and pupils to help them realize educational videos in their classes, on subjects in their school curriculae or subjects they are simply interested in. Subtitled versions of the videos and handouts and lesson plans in Czech, Danish, German or Latvian - which we inititally wanted to realize with our students, have not been realized due to the restrictions of the Covid-19 situation, which all schools had to face more or less intensely. And there were bigger problems to solve and more important things to do that to invest in realizing these project dissemination results.