WORTHY aims to contribute to the need of modernise schools that has been detected in PISA 2015 results, looking at the decrease in basic competences, coupled with fast technological progress and globalisation, and to make schools able to create conscious European citizens, who know who they are and approach life with wonder, humility and a profound social conscience. “WORTHY - WORld wars Toward Heritage for Youth” aims to address these urgent needs by developing and testing an innovative approach whose main aim is to motivate 13-19 year old students to reflect more (at school, at home and in their communities) about the fact that History is thus not just about things 'long ago and far away' – though it includes that – but it is about all that makes humanity human – up close and personal and to let students enjoy more the experience of studying history. To engage even the most unmotivated and underperforming students WORTHY combines customised studying path with digital creativity. We will explore various solutions to “digitally augment” the experience of students while studying facts. We wish to turn the physical manuals, maps, objects into a “Living Hi-Story”: an intense-lived experience for young students who can participate, transform and augment what they will find at home asking to their families to reciver the stories of their grandfathers that went to War, thus applying digital competences, collaborating with peers, developing new skills and, ultimately, being more engaged in recreate history. This approach will be supported at school, as well as at home through the engagement of parents. The multi-stakeholders strategic partnership will: - Author “WORTHY Guidelines”, e-publication providing teachers and other relevant stakeholders with methodological guidelines to implement WORTHY - Develop the OER - The WORTHY Platform and toolkits with the aim of offering students and teachers online “ready-to-use” tools to augment the studying experience with rich media content. The materials in the WORTHY Platform will be brought to life with contents curated and created bystudents and teachers from across Europe. - Develop a set of practical lessons plans. The plans provide teachers with examples on how to integrate the WORTHY approach into their classroom activities and practically define the competences of the Augmented Historians - Launch of 2 Blended training courses for Augmented teacher and Parental engagement. Both courses foresee the self-assessment of learning outcomes and the recognition of competence acquired by teachers through a certificate - Re-activation the inter-generation dialogue, that very often during adolescence become weak, through the request to students to find at home stories, pictures, objects belonged to grandfathers that took part to War and to discuss them with their families. The resources will be launched, pilot tested and widely disseminated across Europe. The dissemination strategy is oriented to reach the school sector, at first, as well as relevant stakeholders active in other sectors, such as public libraries, e-book and digital publishers, local organisations, “GLAM” actors, technologists and digital makers, citizens. Sectorial and cross-sectorial strategy will rely on 8 multiplier events organised in 4 countries and further activities, such as the circulation of 2 recognizable brands (Augmented historian and Augmented teacher), press-conferences, e-newsletters, mass-use of social networks. Structurally embedded in the logic of the project are: -1 Joint Staff training Event held in Vicenza to deepen WORTHY approach and ICT in history studies - 4 short term exchange of groups of pupils in IT, DE, PL and HR. A unique occasion for 120 students to take part in an international experience and collaborate with EU peers in studying activities and experiences of augmentation. Main impacts on teachers will be: increased competence in cultivating young students’ motivation and studying abilities; a greater responsiveness to the needs of disadvantaged groups by developing, amongst others, competences in involving parents to support studying strategies. In the medium/long term, these impacts will be sustained by: the availability of multilingual OER; the creation of communities of Augmented Teachers, that favor networking, and stimulate continuing professional development in this field. Main impacts on students will be: Fostered a positive attitude towards studyng history as part of their citizenship education and greater motivation thanks to the attractiveness of the blended approach proposed, the social dynamics created, and the support of parents. We expect this impact to be amplified in the medium-long term: dissemination activities, carried out even after the end of the project promoting the WORTHY Platform, will generate a higher number of users, thus increasing the community and fostering an even higher engagement on the side of participants that have participated first.
WORTHY aims to contribute to the need of modernise schools that has been detected in PISA 2015 results, looking at the decrease in basic competences, coupled with fast technological progress and globalization, and to make schools able to create conscious European citizens. “WORTHY-WORld wars Toward Heritage for Youth” aims to address these urgent needs by developing and testing an innovative approach whose main aim is to increase the motivation of 13-19 year old students to be socially conscious about their heritage and history. To engage even the most unmotivated and underperforming students, WORTHY combines customized studying path with digital creativity. Inspired by “Internet of Things”, which refers to the possibility of connecting the internet to the world of physical objects, we explored various solutions to “digitally augment” the experience of students while studying facts, connecting the physical materials (manuals, maps, photos, objects) to the digital world, into a “Living Hi-Story”: an intense-lived experience for young students who could participate, transform and augment what they found at home, asking their families to recover the stories of their grandfathers that took part to War, thus applying digital competences, collaborating with peers, developing new skills and, ultimately, being more engaged in recreate history. The project’s partnership – that is comprised by 7 partners from 5 different EU countries (IT, DE, PL, HR, GB) - was built upon a multi-stakeholders strategic partnership between schools and organisations active in different domains, but equally interested in the promotion of history studies and ICT tools application: ONGs, local education authorities, associations and e-learning private firms. The complementarity of profiles and expertise has allowed to maximize the project impact and has ensured high quality transferable results. Leading role was assigned to the Municipality of Vicenza (CVI), given its experience and qualified staff managing EU funded projects. Methodological expertise for designing a coherent framework for the WORTHY approach was brought by Progetto Mondo Mlal (MLAL), that has a long history in Europe and in other areas of the world in global education. Research and development for the WORTHY Platform was ensured by GRYD Ltd, specialized in designing of advanced e-learning platforms and interactive resources for students and teachers. The schools in IT, DE, PL and the Croatian youth association BREZA played a key role in this proposal and brought great expertise to design and develop the didactical resources and the practical lesson plans for teachers revolving around the WORTHY approach. They also offered inputs to partners in charge of other intellectual outputs, in order to design products in line with the needs and expectations of the target groups. Schools also led the pilot experimentation in their territories. CVI led the dissemination package and BREZA coordinated the quality assurance task. WORTHY project’s results: • WORTHY Methodological Guidelines (e-publication) • WORTHY web platform (OER) and toolkits (www.worldwars.eu), offering students and teachers online “ready-to-use” tools to augment the studying experience with rich media content • 24 practical and freely accessible lessons plans • 2 blended training courses for Augmented Teachers and on Parental Engagement. The resources were launched, pilot tested and widely disseminated across Europe, in spite of the difficulties generated by Covid-19 pandemic. The dissemination strategy – basically relied on 8 multiplier events organized in 4 countries - was oriented to reach the school sector, at first, as well as relevant stakeholders active in other sectors, such as public libraries, museums, universities, e-book and digital publishers, local organizations, “GLAM” actors, technologists and digital makers, citizens. The main identified impacts on teachers were: the increased competence in cultivating young students’ motivation and studying abilities; and a greater responsiveness to the needs of disadvantaged groups by developing, among others, competences in involving parents to support studying strategies. In the medium/long term these impacts will be sustained by the availability of multilingual OER, the creation of communities of Augmented Teachers, that favor networking and stimulate continuing professional development in this field. Lastly the main impacts on students were: the development of a positive attitude towards studying history as part of their citizenship education and greater motivation thanks to the attractiveness of the blended approach proposed, the social dynamics created and the support of parents. The impact will be amplified in the medium-long term by dissemination activities, carried out even after the end of the project, promoting the web platform that will generate a higher number of users, thus increasing the community and fostering an even higher engagement.