We are now fully living in a digital world and all the economic sectors, from agriculture to education, are impacted with the digitalisation of their tools and practices. For most of the VET actors, digital learning are two words generating enthusiasm and scepticism amongst them depending their digital skills and experiences but two words they cannot run away because they are now a central part of their everyday work. All their stakeholders are asking for more digital learning: - Learners and not only millennials and generation Z are more and more confident to use online tutorials and digital tools for learning. They are quite often asking for it as they don’t understand why they should go into a classroom to learn some general notions that can be easily taught online. Travels are also getting more and more complicated for them for many reasons: costs, availability, pollution… - Training financing organisations want to increase the number of learners and at the same time their quality with individualisation. Digital learning make it possible to reach those objectives. - Schools management want to be competitive and offering the same digital services as their competitors. So, trainers and teachers are meeting many new consultants and new IT companies specialized into developing software, apps, learning management systems, serious games, virtual reality tools…to help them implementing digital learning. And most of them are confused with all those possibilities and tools and don’t basically understand how to integrate them in their everyday job and own pedagogy. The vocational education and training (VET) sector needs to be modernized and digital learning is a key player of the VET modernisation process. But digital learning is implying digital skills and according to EC, almost half of Europeans (45%) don’t have basic digital skills (using a mailbox, editing tools or installing new devices). The Commission has addressed digital skills and training as part of the EU Skills Agenda alongside the modernisation of VET. The 2019 European Semester: country-specific recommendations is also tackling those 2 issues: - “…A large number of Member States are therefore recommended to strengthen and modernise their education and training systems…” - “…Digitalisation is a key lever of productivity, competitiveness and growth. Traditional sectors and small and medium-sized enterprises are particularly lagging behind in their digital transformation…” Teachers and trainers are not spared by lack of digital skills and as the cornerstone of VET modernisation success, it is important to implement useful and realistic solutions to help them developing and increasing their own digital learning skills and knowledge. The INTROduction to digital learning project (INTRO) objective is to create digital trainings for teachers and trainers: Learning how to teach with digital learning. The INTRO project training is based on 3 specific modules: 1 – Sharing skills & knowledge on innovative and digital learning 2 – How to teach with digital learning 3 – How to learn with digital learning The INTRO training will be spread using a Facebook Group as a Learning Management System (LMS). The INTRO project digital contents will be tested with about 400 trainers and teachers all over EU. Expected impacts are: - Teachers and trainers’ self-confidence with digital learning - Modernising their training contents - Increasing their skills & knowledge with digital tools
The aim of the project INTRODUCTION TO DIGITAL LEARNING was to show that digital training courses can be implemented without great technical knowledge and financial investments. Our experience as VET actors and developers of distance learning courses has led us to several conclusions, which are: - To make the implementation of digital training systems less complicated for VET actors - Propose simple and sustainable digital solutions more in line with teachers and trainers pedagogy than technology - Facilitate the appropriation of digital content by teachers and trainers - Addressing learners to allow them to be key elements of their digital training course
The recent COVID-19 health crisis highlighted that not all VET (Vocational Education and Training) actors were technically and/or materially prepared to develop and implement synchronous and asynchronous digital training courses. It also showed that learners were not sufficiently prepared to follow distance learning courses. The modernisation of the education and training sectors is a major challenge for education in the years to come. This modernisation involves: - the acculturation of all stakeholders (teachers and learners) to digital learning - increasing skills in digital learning pedagogical practices - knowledge of development and dissemination of digital learning courses