The digital era has led to changes in the way the economy and companies work. It is clear that neither companies, schools, training centres nor society is adequately prepared for this change. Professionals on the labour market nowadays need to be able to work with ICT tools and understand how these work. It has taken a bit longer for this change to arrive in VET curricula and VET institutions. Yet, digitalisation has progressed at a different pace in different EU countries. While Estonia is by many considered a “digital state” which has managed to digitise its society nearly completely, Germany is considered to be far behind when it comes to digitisation especially when it comes to government services and digital education, whereas Lithuania is somewhere in the middle field (see Digital Economy and Society Index 2017). When it comes to Vocational Training and Education (VET), the need for adapting to the digital markets and making VET more attractive by including digital learning into the curricula is obvious. Students and apprentices need to be able to have the necessary ICT skills for the modern labour market. Currently, there is a skills gap between the increasingly digitalised labour market and VET training that is provided. In order to close the skills gap, VET providers need to digitalised their learning environment so that apprentices and students learn the necessary skills and are adequately prepared for their professions. This is especially true for disadvantaged learners such as students with learning difficulties who need digital skills teaching methods adopted to their learning speed and needs. The Exchange of Good Practice project "Digitalise VET" will focus on three different aspects of digitalisation: - digitalisation of training: e-learning methods and digital skills - digitalisation of VET tools: managing learning with different digital tools (e.g. moodle and other learning and exchange platforms) - digitalisation VET for disadvantaged: adapting e-learning and its tools to disdavantaged learners: what are their needs and limitations? The project will consist of two transnational project meetings and three study visits to each of the involved partner organisations. During the study visits one of the three above mentioned aspects will be the main focus. The study visits will involve a mixture of presentations, discussion groups, practical demonstration and job shadowing. After the study visits a guideline for digitalisation of VET institutions with the three mentioned topics in focus will be developed.
The digital era has led to changes in the way the economy and companies work. It is clear that neither companies, schools, training centres nor society is adequately prepared for this change. Professionals on the labour market nowadays need to be able to work with ICT tools and understand how these work. It has taken a bit longer for this change to arrive in VET curricula and VET institutions. Yet, digitalisation has progressed at a different pace in different EU countries. While Estonia is by many considered a “digital state” which has managed to digitise its society nearly completely, Germany is considered to be far behind when it comes to digitisation especially when it comes to government services and digital education, whereas Lithuania is somewhere in the middle field (see Digital Economy and Society Index 2017). When it comes to Vocational Training and Education (VET), the need for adapting to the digital markets and making VET more attractive by including digital learning into the curricula is obvious. Students and apprentices need to be able to have the necessary ICT skills for the modern labour market. Currently, there is a skills gap between the increasingly digitalised labour market and VET training that is provided. In order to close the skills gap, VET providers need to digitalised their learning environment so that apprentices and students learn the necessary skills and are adequately prepared for their professions. This is especially true for disadvantaged learners such as students with learning difficulties who need digital skills teaching methods adopted to their learning speed and needs. The Exchange of Good Practice project "Digitalise VET" focused on three different aspects of digitalisation: - digitalisation of training: e-learning methods and digital skills - digitalisation of VET tools: managing learning with different digital tools (e.g. moodle and other learning and exchange platforms) - digitalisation VET for disadvantaged: adapting e-learning and its tools to disdavantaged learners: what are their needs and limitations? The project consisted of two transnational project meetings and three study visits to each of the involved partner organisations. During the study visits one of the three above mentioned aspects was the main focus. The study visits involved a mixture of presentations, discussion groups, practical demonstration and job shadowing. After the study visits a guideline for digitalisation of VET institutions with the three mentioned topics in focus was developed and can be downloaded via the coordinators website: https://www.internationaler-bund.de/angebot/10589/