During the past year, the COVID-19 pandemic has made the need for effective digital education readiness more prominent and necessary than ever. Within a few weeks, there was an immediate demand for teachers to be able to deliver high-quality online/distance learning, support learners in multiple settings and on multiple levels. However, many schools around the globe were caught off guard and were unable to deliver high-quality online/distance learning and support to their students. As the first few months of the pandemic have gone by, and schools are starting to re-open, it is more important than ever, to look back, reflect on how have educational systems responded to this disruption, identify the major challenges that led some schools to underperform, and ultimately find ways to prepare for future similar challenges by equipping teachers and school communities with the necessary digital skills, tools and resources. The lessons learned during that first period of the pandemic can help schools not only prepare for a potential follow-up, pandemic-related crisis and lockdown situations but also take advantage of what has happened to establish a new school reality in which the use of digital technologies are no longer an emergency last resort but a mainstreamed practice harmonically integrated in the current learning processes. Digi-Science addresses the challenges mentioned above by preparing teachers to deliver effective science education courses to their students, within online/distance and blended settings, mainly through online experimentation and the use of virtual and remote science labs integrated within a concrete educational framework that is designed to foster the development of students’ skills while addressing equity, diversity and inclusion challenges. More particularly, the Digi-Science’s objective is to cover the needs of students and teachers mentioned above focusing on: 1. Equipping teachers with the necessary skills, methodology, tools and resources for adapting to online/distance learning and offering high-quality learning experiences to their students within these settings; 2. Offering open source high-quality, ICT-rich activities – particularly using online virtual and remote labs for science experimentation – and resources apt for direct use in the science classroom, designed based on an educational approach that fosters the development of students’ digital skills, provides motivation and improves learning outcomes during online/distance and blended learning contexts; 3. Offering a framework that blends harmonically face-to-face with online/distance learning including options for synchronous and asynchronous learning in formal/non-formal settings; 4. Enabling teachers to address equity, diversity and inclusion challenges in online/distance and blended learning settings. In order to achieve these objectives the project will produce i) the Digi-Science Teachers' Online Workroom - a digital infrastructure for teachers through which they will have access to a dedicated educational framework, resources and materials for the effective use of ICT tools and for setting up an inclusive teaching learning environment to implement online, blended and distance learning, ii) a set of 20 ICT-rich science activities for primary and secondary education that focus on online science experimentation, iii) a set of 20 short-videos including demonstrations, guidelines and examples to support the implementation of online experimentation and iv) a Self-Assessment Tool for teachers and students focusing on the development of their digital competences, particularly the collaborative dimension. The Digi-Science consortium is comprised of six partners: The University of Tartu (Estonia), Ellinogermaniki Agogi (Greece), Nucleo Interactivo de Astronomia (Portugal), the University of Deusto (Spain), the University of Cyprus (Cyprus) and the Institute of Geophysics, Polish Academy of Sciences (Poland).
The Digi-Science project aimed to prepare teachers to deliver effective science courses online and in blended settings. To reach our objectives we: - Created a pedagogical approach for science online/distance and blended learning using digital technologies - Built 20 ICT-rich science activities for primary and secondary education that focus on online science experimentation - Created a set of 20 short videos including demonstrations, guidelines and examples to support the implementation of online experimentation - Developed a guide for making educational videos - Built a free online course for teachers to develop their digital competences - Designed interactive materials for teachers to learn about supporting inquiry practices and fostering collaboration - Created interactive materials for accessibility online, equity, diversity and inclusion as well as for Universal Design for Learning - Created self-assessment tools for teachers and students enabling them to assess the development of their digital competencies including collaboration components in teaching or learning - Provided students with collaborative inquiry experiences using digital technologies - Reached teachers in each country via multiplier events and dissemination
The Digi-Science project aimed at addressing the challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic on education and the resulting need to prepare teachers in delivering inclusive, high-quality learning experiences within online/distance and blended settings. It sought to address this need through a European cross-border collaboration uniting 6 partners, each from different EU countries: UT (Estonia), EA (Greece), NUCLIO (Portugal), UCY (Cyprus), UDEUSTO (Spain) and IGF (Poland). Among the project’s priorities was to promote innovative digital teaching practices and reinforce the development of students’ and teachers’ digital competencies. Another need that the project aimed to fulfil was to support teachers in addressing equity, diversity and inclusion challenges during online/distance learning. Finally, the project sought to strengthen the profiles of the teaching professions by emphasising the importance of digital technologies in teaching and learning, highlighting the need for educational systems to adapt to the digital revolution and redefining the role of teachers to become mentors and activators of learning who guide and empower their students.