“Digital Citizenship across Borders” is a two-year project that involves a cooperation of schools from four countries (Spain, Austria, the Czech Republic, and the Netherlands) and three language families (Romance, Germanic and Slavic). Digital Citizenship is a very up-to-date topic, encompassing and addressing many of the issues European society is currently facing, including active citizenship, media literacy, critical thinking and many others. Furthermore, the international cooperation of the schools involved adds to it the multicultural and plurilinguistic element, enhancing the experience and providing for authentic communication in foreign languages. During the last decade we have seen how ICT and digital and social media have become an integral part of life, including school life and the learning-teaching processes. Nevertheless, neither students nor teachers always have a clear idea of the possibilities and the risks that their use implies. Through the given project, we aim to enhance the students’ use of ICT, not only for educational purposes, but also, more importantly, for their everyday life, especially in the social dimension. At the same time we would like to provide the teaching staff with tools and methods that allow them to use ICT and digital media on everyday basis in a safe and confident way. It is important to realise that a mere formal inclusion of new tools does not always mean a real change in education. We believe in a more practical approach, which encompasses experience sharing of both methodological and technical aspects, as well as includes hands-on activities for teachers. The project aims at attaining a number of objectives relating to students. First, it aims at enhancing their skills, including foreign language skills, intercultural skills, ICT skills, critical thinking skills, or cooperative skills. Moreover, it aims at developing students’ cultural knowledge and European attitudes and values of tolerance, democracy, respect and responsibility. The project also aims at attaining a number of objectives in the participating teaching staff, including the extension of the portfolio of teaching methods, enhanced and safer use of ICT, and development of communicative and foreign language skills. The attained skills and knowledge will not only be present during the duration of the project; on the contrary, we expect them to be of long-term benefit for the participants as well as for the schools and local communities. The project methodology rests on the four pillars of Digital Citizenship (Ferrari and Martnes 2016), namely skills, engagement, belonging, and security, hence the total number of project partners. The partner schools have been assigned the topics of the four short-term exchanges to correspond to, as well as expand on, the already existing expertise the respective school possesses in the given field. We believe this is an effective way of approaching the topic which will facilitate the introduction of digital citizenship into the schools’ curricula in an extent that would not be possible otherwise, should the schools engage with the topic on their own. Furthermore, the partnership will provide a platform for sharing experience in teaching methodologies, project learning, working with assessment and evaluation, and any other topics of relevance and / or importance. The project involves four short-term exchanges which will subsequently be hosted by each of the partner schools, attended by ca. 6 students and 2 teachers from each of visiting schools and by host school students and staff. To ensure that as many students as possible get a chance to participate, there will be a different group of students every year. Each of the meetings will focus on one of the four pillars of Digital Citizenship and will involve students working in international project groups on tasks connected to the topic of the meeting. The short-term exchanges will be complemented by online activities for students, taking place in between the project meetings. These activities will gain in difficulty as the project progresses, starting with short getting-to-know-you activities, followed up by more complex tasks (e.g. research) related to the topic of the upcoming exchange; these will serve as a preparation for the exchange. There will also be online activities and methodology trainings for teachers, accessible also to teachers not participating in the project. The topics will again correspond to the upcoming events and the participating schools will take turns in preparing them. The expected results are a set of materials, including student presentations and visual reports, as well as lesson plans and recommendations for the implementation of the topics prepared by teachers. All results will be freely accessible on the project website and will be shared with general and professional public via a series of presentations hosted by the participating schools.
“Digital Citizenship across Borders” was a two-year project that involved a cooperation of schools from four european countries (Spain, Austria, the Czech Republic and the Netherlands) and three language families (Romance, Germanic and Slavic). The project aimed at attaining a number of objectives relating to students. First, it aimed at enhancing their skills, including foreign language skills, intercultural skills, ICT skills, critical thinking skills, or cooperative skills. Moreover, it aimed at developing students’ cultural knowledge and European attitudes and values of tolerance, democracy, respect and responsibility. The project also aimed at attaining a number of objectives in the participating teaching staff, including the extension of the portfolio of teaching methods, enhanced and safer use of ICT, and development of communicative and foreign language skills. The attained skills and knowledge were not only present during the duration of the project but we also expected them to be of long-term benefit for the participants as well as for the schools. Digital Citizenship is a very up-to-date topic, encompassing and addressing many of the issues European society is currently facing, including active citizenship, media literacy, critical thinking and many others. Furthermore, the international cooperation of the schools involved added to it the multicultural and plurilinguistic element, enhancing the experience and providing for authentic communication in foreign languages. During the last decade we have seen how ICT and digital and social media have become an integral part of life, including school life and the learning-teaching processes. Nevertheless, neither students nor teachers always have a clear idea of the possibilities and the risks that their use implies. Through this project, we aimed to enhance the students’ use of ICT, not only for educational purposes, but also, more importantly, for their everyday life, especially in the social dimension. At the same time we wanted to provide the teaching staff with tools and methods that would allow them to use ICT and digital media on an everyday basis in a safe and confident way. It is important to realize that a mere formal inclusion of new tools does not always mean a real change in education. We believe in a more practical approach, which encompasses experience sharing of both methodological and technical aspects, as well as includes hands-on activities for teachers. The project methodology rested on the four pillars of Digital Citizenship (Ferrari and Martens 2016), namely skills, engagement, belonging, and security, hence the total number of project partners. The partner schools were assigned the topics of the four short-term exchanges to correspond to, as well as expand on, the already existing expertise the respective school possessed in the given field. Furthermore, the partnership provided a platform for sharing experience in teaching methodologies, project learning, etc. The project involved four short-term exchanges which were subsequently hosted by each of the partner schools, attended by around 6 students and 2 teachers from each visiting school and by host school students and staff. To ensure that as many students as possible got a chance to participate, there was a different group of students every year. Each of the meetings focused on one of the four pillars of Digital Citizenship and involved students working in international project groups on tasks connected to the topic of the meeting. The short-term exchanges were complemented by online activities for students which took place between the project meetings. These activities gained in difficulty as the project progressed, starting with short getting-to-know-you activities, followed by more complex tasks (e.g. research) related to the topic of the upcoming exchange. These served as a preparation for each Short-term exchange. Additionally, online activities and methodology trainings for teachers were created which were also accessible for teachers not participating in the project. The topics of these online courses corresponded to the upcoming events and the participating schools took turns in preparing them. The project results are a set of materials, including student presentations and visual reports, as well as lesson plans designed by teachers for the implementation of the digital citizenship topics in everyday lessons. All results and materials are freely accessible on the project website and have been disseminated to the public and school-related audiences via a series of presentations hosted by the participating schools.