The Covid-19 pandemic disrupted the normal business operations and processes of almost any industry as well as the normal life of any citizen of the EU countries. The normal operations of the educational organizations were severely affected, as well as the teaching and learning efforts of teachers, pupils and their parents, students, participants of life-long learning. The educational ecosystem was forced to adapt by implementing organizational and technology means. Before the Covid-19 pandemic most educational organizations went through “flu-holidays”, but for a shorter time. The typical scenario of interruption was “turn-off the whole educational activities for short period”. Today the Covid-19 situation is different. The educational ecosystem must manage long-term disruptions and provide continuity in variety of scenarios: lockdowns; some of the students are in class, some are in quarantine; no teachers available; a lot of learners must asynchronously catch up with missed classes, etc. The ”Covid-19 Digital Response” project’s (d-Response) objectives are: 1 Capacity building for online, blended and distance learning and teaching by using digital technologies 2 Development of digital pedagogical competencies of teachers based on the EU Framework for Competences in the field of digital technologies 3 Creation of learning content suitable for working in a digital environment. Dissemination of this content upon the “open source” model 4 Creation of methodology and processes for the implementation of online, blended and distance learning along the educational lifecycle, under normal and Covid-19 like situations. Applying business continuity best practice and standards. The results of the project are presented by 5 intellectual outputs: O1 Digital platform for online, blended and distance learning and teaching based on open source and free accessible web-services O2 Methodology and processes for online, blended and distance learning and teaching along the learning lifecycle, under normal and Covid-19 and the like situations, based on digital technology, and business continuity best practice and standards O3 Digital learning content suitable for online, blended and distance teaching and learning O4 Trainers Digital Competences Manual O5 Case study on implementation of the d-Response project products with pilot schools in Bulgaria and Romania There are six partners in d-Response project 1 School of Business Competences Ltd., Bulgaria, Educational centre – Vocational Training 2 Liceul Technologic Szekely Karoly, Romania, School– Vocational Training 3 Instituto Tecnologico de Canarias S.A., Spain, Research Institute 4 Die Berater Unternehmensberatungs GmbH, Austria, Educational centre – Adult education 5 ACEEU GmbH, Germany, QA body which accredits universities in Entrepreneurial University- and Engaged University- accreditation programmes. 6 Centre for Advancement of Research and Development in Educational Technology Ltd., Cyprus, Research Institute/Centre PRINCE2 project management method will be used for d-Response project management. The d-Response project activities are focused on the delivery and implementation of the project’s intellectual outputs and achieving the project’s goals. These fall in two categories: 1. Project management according to PRINCE2 2. Project’s outputs delivery and implementation: O1 Identification, integration and set-up of appropriate digital environment. Creation of project’s web-site to promote and disseminate the intellectual outputs O2 Development of methodology and business processes which reflect the specifics of teaching/learning in digital environment, and provide business continuity under normal and Covid-19 like situations O3 Development of digital learning content. Establishment of formats and standards for the learning content, which allow easy transfer to other languages. Using “Text-to-voice”, “Print-to-Braille” tools to prepare learning staff for people with disadvantages. O4 Development of Trainers Digital Competences Manual O5 implementation of the d-Response’s outputs with pilot schools in Bulgaria and Romania, feedback, and preparing of Case study. General activities: Training the relevant project roles on the intellectual outputs. Dissemination of the project outputs. The potential longer-term benefits by d-Response’s outputs: The O1 digital platform is built on open-source and free accessible resources, which are maintained by the community. By our experience these can be used for 5+ years. The O2 methodology and processes develop digital learning/teaching/business continuity culture which once established can be upgraded with the new technologies. The O3 and O4 outputs will be shared under “open code” model, hence have potential to be implemented and maintained the educational community. The O5 Case study will provide reliable model of implementation of online, blended and distance learning and teaching for educational organizations which have no experience.
The ”Covid-19 Digital Response” project’s objectives are: 1 Capacity building for online, blended and distance learning and teaching by using digital technologies 2 Development of digital pedagogical competencies of teachers based on the EU Framework for Competences in the field of digital technologies 3 Creation of learning content suitable for working in a digital environment. Dissemination of this content upon the “open source” model 4 Creation of methodology and processes for the implementation of online, blended and distance learning along the educational lifecycle, under normal and Covid-19 like situations.
The Covid-19 pandemic disrupted the normal business operations and processes of almost any industry as well as the normal life of any citizen of the EU countries. The educational ecosystem was forced to adapt and manage long-term disruptions through providing continuity in variety of scenarios: lockdowns; hybrid attendance of students- in class and online; lack of available teachers onsite; asynchronous learning pace, etc. The Partners forming the project consortium play different roles in their local educational ecosystems, but have the same needs: granted business continuity in Covid-19- like conditions, appropriate digital- and communication- technologies for online-, blended- and distance- learning, digitally competent teachers, digitally usable content, methodology and processes to follow. Those needs were successfully addressed by the project products: a digital learning platform (O1), methodology and processes (O2), digital training content to showcase different formats (O3), trainer digital competencies manual (O4). Thanks to the rich expertise of all involved organizations, all outputs were created with free available tools and are a nice example for interested stakeholders how to solve similar issues.