ITONBOARD introduces young people to career orientation possibilities in IT with a focus on open source software communities. The onboarding program extends from gamified career orientation activities to in-depth e-learning to facilitating the involvement of companies in order to offer a practical component. Students in the general education system are first playfully familiarized with the basic ins and outs of careers in the realm of IT. Teachers are provided with the tools they need to carry out IT career orientation initiatives using innovative and engaging methods. Young people can use e-learning to obtain further information on their own with regard to the IT occupations in question. European IT companies are encouraged to offer internships to both secondary and post-secondary students and are offered guidance to this end. Facilitation of contact between IT companies offering internships and young people looking for them is provided via an online internship exchange. The project components interlock seamlessly with one another and guide students from their first playful contact with IT-related topics to the final community onboarding. The content is based on common working methods of open source projects and communities. All project results will be made freely available on an online platform and are designed to be transferable to other communities and technologies. The concrete project results include gamified career orientation activities at schools in escape game form, a guide for the implementation of project weeks at schools, e-learning courses on the topic of IT career orientation, an internship guide designed to assist medium-sized and small IT companies in the design of an internship and an online internship exchange as a European marketplace for internship providers and interns.
We set ourselves the goal of developing an orientation program for students, primarily to facilitate career orientation and the following entry into professional life, as well as to show students the possibility of doing internships and/or trainings or parts of the training abroad. With ITONBOARD we provide a modern and target group-oriented as well as innovative and country-neutral form of career orientation, which covers all necessary areas, starting with a test of interest, through insights into the actual working environment, to the Europe-wide placement of internships. The main goals we wanted to achieve with ITONBOARD include: - Introducing innovative practices in the digital age (e.g. Escape Game) - Promoting digitally supported teaching-learning measures/methods in general education schools across Europe - Contributing to the internationalization of internships and apprenticeships across Europe. - Attractive and modern alternative to classical career orientation for a stereotype-free, gender-independent career orientation - Support for IT companies in the design of internships - Promotion of young talents for open source technology and communities (onboarding)
We applied for ITONBOARD because we wanted to provide young people with new, modern and digitally supported opportunities for career orientation in IT professions. In addition, we wanted to draw attention to open source software communities in order to raise awareness for such IT communities and to create a new generation of future IT specialists. With ITONBOARD, students at general education schools can first be provided with information about IT professions through a fun way. In addition, teachers can now independently conduct career orientation measures for IT fields using innovative and motivating methods and provide additional information materials without any prior knowledge or expertise. Young people can also use e-learning to inform themselves independently about the focused IT professions. European IT companies are encouraged and guided to offer internships to pupils and young students. An online internship exchange mediates between IT companies offering internships and young people looking for them.