The Covid pandemic has had a profound impact on the delivery of education. Ensuring high pedagogical standards for the transfer from physical to virtual classrooms, there is a need to develop educators’ digital competences to facilitate more engaged and student-centered learning (DEAP 2021-2027). Developing digital competences also means fostering learners’ critical competences to learn autonomously, manage change, collaborate for real-life problem-solving, and contribute to learner-centered innovation (Iivari et al. 2020; Jackson 2019; Fleaca & Stanciu 2019; Sousa et al. 2018; EU Digital Education Action Plan 2018; Renewed EU Agenda for Higher Education 2017). According to course feedback collected by the project partners in spring 2020, learners wanted their online learning to be more inspirational and meaningful. Interaction, collaboration, and effective communication with teachers and peers were seen as key to improvement. The LEARN&CHANGE project aims to support educators and learners to apply open-access digital tools and platforms more widely and creatively. To introduce variation and meaning to digital and blended learning, we engage learners in collaborative digital storytelling to innovate sustainable change for the hard-hit sector of tourism in Europe. The project brings together educators, learners, and tourism industry associated partners to co-create easy-to-use mobile learning resources related to such timeless topics as nature and eco-tourism, cultural heritage sites, smart city solutions for tourists, technology for tourists, and geoparks. The objectives of the project are to: - build educators’ pedagogical competences to develop and deploy open-access digital tools to enhance learners’ digital competences to manage and drive change - train educators and learners (bachelor and master students) to make responsible use of open-access digital tools for innovative and impactful content creation and for social engagement - develop co-creation competences of educators, learners, and associated industry partners to envision alternative futures through collaborative digital storytelling, aimed at driving sustainable change in the hard-hit sector of tourism in the participants’ respective regions and across Europe The target groups that we engage in the co-creation of learning solutions are: - educators looking to innovate engaging digital and blended learning to empower learners to participate in the design of their own learning and become competent digital storytellers - learners looking to develop their digital competences to attain meaningful and sustainable goals in collaboration with educators, peers, and stakeholder networks - regional industry partners looking to mitigate the impact of the pandemic and foster sustainable change in their hard-hit sector in both short and long term The partnership consists of five universities from Finland, Hungary, Portugal, the Czech Republic, and the Netherlands. The partners and the expertise they bring to the project are: - Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences – marketing, digital storytelling, tourism - Budapest Business School – language for specific purposes, tourism and hospitality - University of Chemistry and Technology in Prague – English for specific purposes, intercultural communication, project management - Polytechnic Institute of Castelo Branco – intercultural communication, pedagogical innovation - Saxion University of Applied Sciences – sustainability, hospitality, technology The mobile learning resources of collaborative digital storytelling can be integrated in courses of languages, communication, marketing, and tourism to ensure wide impact across disciplines. The tangible project results are: - A participatory pedagogical framework to digital learning to help innovate collaborative digital storytelling for sustainable change (O1) - A digital solutions toolkit to support educators to implement the framework and add meaning to digital and blended teaching and learning (O2) - 25 inspirational and easy-to-use mobile learning assignments (5 modules of 1 ECTS) with relevant assessment, validation, and recognition instructions (O3) - An accessible and user-friendly Web Gallery of open-access mobile learning resources and inspirational digital storytelling examples (O4) - An Action Plan to support the sustainability and transferability of the project results (O5) All partner universities integrate the mobile learning resources in their courses to foster continuous digital storytelling in collaboration with international peers. The project’s collaborative storytelling resources and results are disseminated in the participants’ professional and peer networks to inspire new educators, learners, and stakeholders to engage in collaborative digital storytelling for sustainable change, with an aim to help European services and tourism sector to curb the effects of the Covid pandemic.
The aim of the LEARN&CHANGE project was to support educators and learners to apply open-access digital tools, apps, and platforms more widely and creatively to enrich higher education teaching and learning. To introduce variation and meaning to digital and blended learning, we set out to engage learners, educators, and industry partners in collaborative digital storytelling with an aim to innovate sustainable change for the tourism and services sector in Europe. The project brought together educators, learners, and industry partners to co-create, test, and finalize easy-to-use e-learning resources geared to driving sustainable changes in learning, travel, and lifestyles. Through this multi-stakeholder collaboration, we wanted to tackle real-life sustainability challenges with creative digital stories that inspire target audiences to rethink their attitudes, values, and actions.
The project Learn to Change - Collaborative Digital Storytelling for Sustainable Change (LEARN&CHANGE) was designed to meet the need of creating engaging pedagogies and materials for digital learning and teaching. The needs analysis carried out among HE students at the partner institutions (Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences, Budapest Business School, Polytechnic Institute of Castelo Branco, University of Chemistry and Technology in Prague, and Saxion University of Applied Sciences) indicated that there was a need to make digital learning more meaningful, interactive, collaborative, and participatory for students, who were suffering from "Zoom fatigue" after the emergency remote teaching (ERT) period caused by the sudden onset of Covid-19 in the spring of 2020. HE teachers, too, were looking for fresh ways of digital interaction and collaboration based on learner-centered pedagogies. They wanted to develop their digital capacities, looking to be able to deliver more varied and engaging learning experiences for their students. Teachers felt that they needed more knowledge and case examples of using open-access tools, apps, and platforms for effective digital learning, teaching, and collaboration.