DIGITAL-S aims to to develop innovation about digital technology to generate a real impact on trainers and adult learners' skills on rural areas. In a dematerialized world where it becomes an essential prerequisite to master the exploitation of a computer and the internet, DIGITAL-S has the ambition to develop one of the 8 European key skill, the digital skills. To do so, the project wants to support and provide uninitiated trainers with digital competences in the field of training. The project will focus on keeping pace with the constant evolution of ICTs by integrating them into habits of training. The project will particularly focus on distance education learning for adult learners from rural areas (mostly with disadvantaged backgrounds) having urgent specific needs to enhance their digital skills. Indeed, knowing how to use a computer and being able to reach all the information contained in the internet have become a must to fully exist as an accomplished individual and citizen and eventually, find a job. ICTs have also proved that they are a good answer to help with motivating adults to learn more effectively. In rural areas, distance learning solution to get digital skills is all the more adapted since those learners are not always available (considering their professional and family activities) and can face mobility issues to get to a training centre. Eventually, it will also increase their employability since nowadays, computers and ICTs are more and more used on the labour market.
Nowadays, digital learning plays a major role in the field of adult training. It allows renewing the attention et the interest of learners, more willing to be committed to their training, while tackling the obstacles trainers may encounter when they work face-to-face with a more traditional approach. The DIGITAL-S project aims to develop and promote one of the 8 key competencies identified in the European Union which is digital competence: the safe and critical use of ICT (information and communication technology) at work, during leisure activities and while communicating. The ambition of DIGITAL-S is to develop the knowledge and enable both the adult trainers and learners in rural areas to have a better understanding and confidence to use ICT, and more particularly e-learning. To reach this objective, the training platform called Moodle enabled them to learn and experiment via a virtual environment. 5 partners from 5 different countries (France, Spain, Italy, Romania, and Poland) acting in the field of adult education worked collectively for two years (September 2017 to September 2019) to address this challenge of digital inclusion:- Taking ownership of digital learning and the benefits ICT may bring in the field of adult training, for professional trainers- Addressing the very specific needs of adult learners in rural areas in this specific area- Conceiving, delivering and evaluating the online learning courses implemented on the Moodle platform, a major training tool used worldwide, to the adult learners of rural areas who will experiment e-learning for the first time- Facilitating the integration of this public into modern society in a context where most of the services are now online.Thanks to the expertise of the consortium of DIGITAL-S, the results achieved are beneficial to any organization willing to understand better how to conduct relevant e-learning training. The intellectual outputs available are: 1. A professional and methodological guide gathering the methods, tools, and knowledge necessary to better grasp the e-learning opportunities (intellectual output 1)2. A face-to-face training content about the opportunities of e-learning addressing specifically the adult learners facing obstacles while using ICT, which compiles the experimentation realized in each country (intellectual output 2)3. 5 online courses about digital competences (data protection, tools for online collaboration, Internet browsing, etc.) delivered and experimented on the Moodle platform (intellectual output 3).The DIGITAL-S projects targeted two major publics, while taking into account the diversity of their profiles and context:1.Target group 1 (direct group): professional trainers working in the partner organizations in the field of adult education or for disadvantaged groups2.Target group 2 (undirect group): adult learners coming from rural territories, the participants can be alienated from the workplace or training provisionally or permanently because of geographical location. They encounter difficulties with specific digital topics identified during the project. The European project scope enabled to collaborate with 15 professional trainers and more than 250 adult learners from rural areas who were able to benefit from the tailored online courses on digital topics. The methodology employed was based on a training action for professional trainers from 5 different countries to conceive, test and validate pedagogical activities, methods and evaluation tools to measure the level of skills and knowledge of adult learners’ participants of the online courses via the Moodle platform. The national activities consisted of working sessions for the 3 professional trainers to produce and implement the expected online course via a virtual environment. This preparation was organized in each country.2 experimental phases took place with the adult learners in each country: one in September 2018 (prior training in blended learning with the trainer, enabling the participants to be more confident to perform the next training in distance) and one during the first trimester 2019 (online course on the Moodle platform during a period of 4 weeks). At the transnational level, 2 European seminars (short-staff training week) in May 2018 in Romania, and in May 2019 in Poland gave the trainers the opportunity to gather, exchange their practices, methods and work on the results of the experimentation. 3 transnational meetings in France, Spain, and Italy ensured good monitoring and fruitful exchanges among partners. The results are accessible to everyone (open license). They have been conceived in such a way they can be adapted and transferable to other contexts of professional trainers in contact with a public of people with limited digital skills. They have been exploited at different scales, both at local and European level thanks to the reliable professional networks of DIGITAL-S partners.