OBJECTIVE TOGETHER aims to foster digital creativity of young generations by leveraging on the “service learning” methodology and applying it to secondary schools, with the aim to engage students in community-valuable activities of digital transformation for cultural heritage resources, protecting and enhancing its value as community’s cultural assets. The project will develop a training path for secondary school teachers on how to provide significant creative digital skills through the application of service learning oriented to the design of a motivating learning environment, aiming to engage students in real-life initiatives in collaboration with key local actors for the promotion of their cultural heritage. CONTEXT What is service learning? SERVICE-LEARNING MEANS TO CREATE A LINK BETWEEN STUDENTS' LEARNING OBJECTIVES AND ACTUAL NEEDS FROM THE COMMUNITY THEY ARE LIVING IN, THEREFORE LITERALLY TAKING LEARNING OUT OF THE CLASSROOMS AND INTO THE REAL LIFE. SERVICE LEARNING DIFFERS FROM COMMUNITY SERVICE BECAUSE IT IS NOT SPORADIC OR MADE ON A VOLUNTARY BASIS, BUT SYSTEMATIC AND INCLUDED IN THE SCHOOL'S SYLLABUS, DEVELOPED IN A CLOSE AND LONG-TERM RELATIONSHIP WITH THE COMMUNITY'S STAKEHOLDERS. Why cultural heritage? Because cultural heritage lays at the heart of the creative economy, seriously hit by the COVID-19 emergency, and it plays a fundamental role for ensuring the continued development of societies. Therefore, there is an increasing need for the young generations to take over a role of responsibility towards their current and future cultural wealth, through the deployment of new competence frameworks where hard (digital) and soft (creativity) skills should be prominent. The process of digitisation and digital transformation of cultural capital that is currently underway is providing a great help for its long-term preservation and valorisation, while at the same time contributing to close the gap with younger generations, that are today fully digital native. The application and deployment of digital technologies, together with opportunities for their personal commitment presented as a challenge, provide a valid opportunity to close this gap and lead to higher degrees of involvement. As a matter of fact, digitisation might turn Europe’s cultural resources into an important pillar of the digital economy, while making heritage more accessible and open up new ways of enjoying cultural content. An innovative use of cultural heritage has also the potential to actively engage people, helping to secure integration, inclusiveness, social cohesion and public/private investment, all necessary ingredients of smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. The digitization of cultural heritage, whilst initially relegated to institutions, is now increasingly a collective process involving community access and collective sharing of knowledge. For this reason, the project TOGETHER aims to raise the engagements of secondary schools in cultural heritage management and preservation through a bottom-up approach, in order to build on this emerging practice and provide new pedagogical opportunities. The project TOGETHER has been designed in order to deliver the following tangible results: IO1 Teacher’s Handbook and Competence framework The first thread of activities will be aimed at delivering the Teacher’s Handbook, i.e. an instructional resource for secondary school teachers in the field of humanities to guide them towards the design and implementation of Service Learning-inspired initiatives addressed to the promotion and digitisation of local cultural heritage through digital creativity. The Handbook will mix theoretical contexts and rationale with practical insights. IO2 TOGETHER Digital Creative Academy The Academy will be an open online environment that will be useful for secondary school teachers and leaders to integrate the learning path taken with the Handbook. It will host a set of complementary resources (i.e. the Toolbox) like proposals for activities, project concepts and strategies, templates, assessment sheets and digital resources, delivered in a variety of formats. Elements of gamification will be adopted to improve students’ engagement. The Academy will be designed as a Social Learning Environment, thus encouraging co-creation of materials, participation and the formation of a European-wide community of practice. TARGET GROUPS The direct target group envisaged for the TOGETHER project are secondary school teachers and leaders, that are going to benefit from a new and innovative opportunity of Continuous Professional Development (CPD). The role of the teacher is broadening and becoming more demanding, as they are expected to use a wide variety of methods, tools and approaches and to tailor them to the students’ needs.
By implementing the project TOGETHER, our objectives were as follows: 1) Integrate service learning principles, fostering meaningful student engagement in community service projects. 2) Enhance digital creativity competencies among teachers and students, incorporating digital tools for innovative thinking and problem-solving. 3) Promote the preservation of local cultural heritage by involving students in digital initiatives. 4) Provide professional development opportunities for teachers and administrators, equipping them with effective pedagogical approaches and skills for service learning and digital creativity. 5) Foster collaboration and knowledge exchange among project partners. 6) Disseminate project outcomes, including the teacher's handbook, competence framework, and TOGETHER Digital Creativity Academy, to maximize impact beyond our community. Through achieving these objectives, we aimed to create a transformative learning environment, empower educators, and make a lasting contribution to cultural heritage preservation in the digital age.
In our application for the EU Erasmus+ project, we identified several key reasons for applying and outlined the needs we aimed to address through our participation. The primary motivation for our application was to enhance the professional development of teachers and students in the EU parent countries by integrating service learning and digital creativity skills into our educational framework. We recognized the importance of fostering digital competencies and preserving local cultural heritage, and we saw the project TOGETHER as an excellent opportunity to achieve these objectives. The needs we sought to address included: - Professional development - Digital creativity - Local cultural heritage In conclusion, our application for the project TOGETHER under the EU Erasmus+ program was driven by the desire to enhance professional development, promote digital creativity, and preserve local cultural heritage. We believed that participating in this project would enable us to address these needs effectively and contribute to the broader educational community.