CONTEXT The digital revolution is transforming the way young people play, access information, communicate and learn. Youth today have unprecedented learning opportunities. Digital and social media literacy training is now necessary to ensure that young Europeans can harness the potential of online opportunities to build skills, careers and relationships effectively but also safely. OBJECTIVES (1) to support the continuous professional development of youth professionals; (2) to develop key digital and social media literacy training material for youth with fewer opportunities; (3) to create a policy paper to advocate for the promotion of responsible digital citizenship of youth with fewer opportunities. PARTICIPANTS 12 youth professionals will complete the first iteration of the in-service training programme at the transnational training event. A further 40 youth workers will complete the in-service training, 10 in each partner country. 80 young people with fewer opportunities will attend the digital and social media literacy workshops - 20 in each partner country. 5 youth workers in each country will comprise the advisory committees of the partners (20 in total). 50 youth workers, youth trainers/ facilitators, managers of youth organisations and policy-makers will attend the Final Conference in Cyprus. 200 young people with fewer opportunities will be actively engaged in building digital and social media literacy competences. 100 youth organisations will receive information about the project and the resources developed. ACTIVITIES & METHODOLOGY The partners will develop and pilot resources for youth workers working with young people with fewer opportunities. The overarching methodology will be Open Education. Innovative methods will be used such as, in-service training, blended learning. Non formal and experiential learning underline the in-service training and the related Handbook. During the short-term joint staff training event "TRACES in-service training for Youth Workers" and the training for young people, the methodology will be a blend of: (1) self-driven online learning (2) non-formal education participatory methods (3) face-to-face instruction on the use of specific online tools. The partners will meet with their advisory committees of youth workers to validate the outputs and to conduct semi-structured focus groups for the creation of the Policy Paper on the Digital Citizenship of Young People with fewer Opportunities. A Collaborative online Learning Database will be created and maintained using the latest methodologies to feature all the outputs and facilitate internal and external cooperation. A combination of dissemination methods will support the visibility of the project, the partners, and Erasmus+. The methods include classic and social media, digital promotion and face-to-face activities such as the multiplier events, and the final conference. The Stakeholder Dialogue Model will facilitate the communication and engagement of people interested in the welfare of the youth and the endorsement of the Policy Paper by policy-makers and managers in the youth field. Management wise, the project will follow a collaborative, results oriented approach with ongoing monitoring and risk-assesment with the traffic lights tool. The partners will communicate face-to-face during the project meetings but they will harness online media for communication and cooperation. RESULTS & IMPACT The partners will develop and pilot innovative tools and five main intellectual outputs: 1. Digital and Social Media Literacy Curriculum Resources; 2. In-service Training Programme Handbook; 3. Collaborative online Learning Database; 4. Policy Paper "Policy recommendations on the promotion of digital citizenship for all young people through digital youth work in Cyprus, Finland, Ireland and Romania"; 5. Guidelines for Youth Workers working with Digital Media. TRACES will equip the youth professionals with practical tools to use in their work. The youth workers will support the young people with fewer opportunities to make the most out of digital and social media for their competence development and to protect themselves from digital threads. LONGER TERM IMPACT Most importantly, young people, whatever their status, who complete the curriculum resources developed as part of the project will bring a considerable skill-set with them wherever they go in their life in the connected world. With the use of a Policy Paper, the partners will start a dialogue on the digital citizenship of young people with fewer opportunities. The dialogue will continue long after the project end. Samewise, the open access to the intellectual outputs in combination with carefull dissemination and exploitation activities, will prolong their use by the partners and other organisations in Europe. The project will reinforce the international dimension of youth work and the capacities and international scope of the pa
The objectives of the Project were: (1) to support the continuous professional development of youth professionals; (2) to develop key digital and social media literacy training material for youth with fewer opportunities; (3) to create a policy paper to advocate for the promotion of responsible digital citizenship of youth with fewer opportunities.
CONTEXT The digital revolution is transforming the way young people play, access information, communicate and learn. Youth today have unprecedented learning opportunities. Digital and social media literacy training is now necessary to ensure that young Europeans can harness the potential of online opportunities to build skills, careers and relationships effectively but also safely. NEEDS In their quest for methodologies to support their work with young people with fewer opportunities, the partners had observed a complete absence of training where the use of digital and social media is concerned. No research or policy paper on digital citizenship for the young with fewer opportunities was located either. The analysis for the training needs of youth professionals was based on two studies: “The challenges for youth work training: lessons from Romania” by FITT and “Youth Trainers in Cyprus” by A. Dalosi for MIM. In both studies the youth professionals appeared lacking the confidence to work with digital media. Close to 50% of the respondents stated they provide support in Citizenship Education but only 4% is familiar with digital citizenship. The Rural Hub (Ireland) and Innoventum (Finland) provided insights in order to produce comparable results. The opportunities for professional development for youth workers when it comes to digital and social media appeared to be scarce in all the countries. It has to be noted here that, at the time of the analysis for the training needs, digital citizenship was not part of the curricula in formal education in any of the 3 countries. The content of the intellectual outputs had been decided based on the common characteristics identified among the youth in the partners' countries: every year, more young people were cyberbullied; some young people couldn’t tell the difference between an advertisement and a news story; young people relied vastly to the internet to communicate with their peers but they lacked the skills and etiquette to communicate online for academic and professional purposes; they believed they could use the internet to retrieve information about their civic life but they did not know how; they believed they could exert their citizens' rights online more; they felt the need to reconcile their on-line and off-line identities. For youth with fewer opportunities the need for digital and social media literacy was bigger because (a) they were gaining access to more digital media very rapidly and (b) they needed reinforced support to extract the maximum benefits for their lives and careers that new digital technologies offered and to stay safe online.
CONTEXT The digital revolution is transforming the way young people play, access information, communicate and learn. Youth today have unprecedented learning opportunities. Digital and social media literacy training is now necessary to ensure that young Europeans can harness the potential of online opportunities to build skills, careers and relationships effectively but also safely. OBJECTIVES (1) to support the continuous professional development of youth professionals; (2) to develop key digital and social media literacy training material for youth with fewer opportunities; (3) to create a policy paper to advocate for the promotion of responsible digital citizenship of youth with fewer opportunities. PARTICIPANTS 12 youth professionals will complete the first iteration of the in-service training programme at the transnational training event. A further 40 youth workers will complete the in-service training, 10 in each partner country. 80 young people with fewer opportunities will attend the digital and social media literacy workshops - 20 in each partner country. 5 youth workers in each country will comprise the advisory committees of the partners (20 in total). 50 youth workers, youth trainers/ facilitators, managers of youth organisations and policy-makers will attend the Final Conference in Cyprus. 200 young people with fewer opportunities will be actively engaged in building digital and social media literacy competences. 100 youth organisations will receive information about the project and the resources developed. ACTIVITIES & METHODOLOGY The partners will develop and pilot resources for youth workers working with young people with fewer opportunities. The overarching methodology will be Open Education. Innovative methods will be used such as, in-service training, blended learning. Non formal and experiential learning underline the in-service training and the related Handbook. During the short-term joint staff training event "TRACES in-service training for Youth Workers" and the training for young people, the methodology will be a blend of: (1) self-driven online learning (2) non-formal education participatory methods (3) face-to-face instruction on the use of specific online tools. The partners will meet with their advisory committees of youth workers to validate the outputs and to conduct semi-structured focus groups for the creation of the Policy Paper on the Digital Citizenship of Young People with fewer Opportunities. A Collaborative online Learning Database will be created and maintained using the latest methodologies to feature all the outputs and facilitate internal and external cooperation. A combination of dissemination methods will support the visibility of the project, the partners, and Erasmus+. The methods include classic and social media, digital promotion and face-to-face activities such as the multiplier events, and the final conference. The Stakeholder Dialogue Model will facilitate the communication and engagement of people interested in the welfare of the youth and the endorsement of the Policy Paper by policy-makers and managers in the youth field. Management wise, the project will follow a collaborative, results oriented approach with ongoing monitoring and risk-assesment with the traffic lights tool. The partners will communicate face-to-face during the project meetings but they will harness online media for communication and cooperation. RESULTS & IMPACT The partners will develop and pilot innovative tools and five main intellectual outputs: 1. Digital and Social Media Literacy Curriculum Resources; 2. In-service Training Programme Handbook; 3. Collaborative online Learning Database; 4. Policy Paper "Policy recommendations on the promotion of digital citizenship for all young people through digital youth work in Cyprus, Finland, Ireland and Romania"; 5. Guidelines for Youth Workers working with Digital Media. TRACES will equip the youth professionals with practical tools to use in their work. The youth workers will support the young people with fewer opportunities to make the most out of digital and social media for their competence development and to protect themselves from digital threads. LONGER TERM IMPACT Most importantly, young people, whatever their status, who complete the curriculum resources developed as part of the project will bring a considerable skill-set with them wherever they go in their life in the connected world. With the use of a Policy Paper, the partners will start a dialogue on the digital citizenship of young people with fewer opportunities. The dialogue will continue long after the project end. Samewise, the open access to the intellectual outputs in combination with carefull dissemination and exploitation activities, will prolong their use by the partners and other organisations in Europe. The project will reinforce the international dimension of youth work and the capacities and international scope of the pa