Education and training are the best investments in Europe’s future. They play a vital role in boosting growth, innovation and job creation. They also have an important role to play in creating a European identity, building on common values and cultures, help empower people to engage and participate, and shape the future of a Europe characterized by democracy, solidarity and inclusion. For this reason, Europe’s education and training systems need to give people the forward-looking knowledge, skills and competences they need to innovate and prosper. Additionally, it is proven that an early exposure to STEM and ICT has a positive impact on students' perceptions towards those subjects, and can ensure that they become more digitally competent as adults (STEM Alliance, 2017). Hence, digital education technologies enrich learning in a variety of ways and offer learning opportunities, which must be accessible to all; they open access to a wealth of information, education and training resources – but one must also have the capacity to evaluate and make efficient use of them. At the same time, during the last many months, all of humanity has come against the pandemic of COVID-19 that has affected the daily lives, work and education of us and our children in unprecedented ways; physical contact is now restricted or even forbidden in some contexts, while transportation for non-necessary activities is limited – of course for the benefit of public health. While it is true that we are in the process of a rapid and unexpected transition, and one that can be intimidating sometimes, it is not sustainable to “shut-down” all of the human activities for a long period of time and we must find alternative and innovative ways to continue our work, education and recreation. However, this transition has been proven to be a challenge both for students and for tutors alike, especially in STEM fields such as educational robotics in which the partners of project “Going the Distance” specialize in, and in which demonstration, teamwork and experimentation are key. Therefore, in accordance with the programme’s priorities, the new requirements of the VET sector and EC’s Digital Education and Action Plan (2021-2027) we have designed this project in order to: a) Identify the tutors’ specific needs during the COVID-19 period b) Distinguish from other free relevant digital tools that are of poor quality c) Navigate them on how to deal with the social repercussions identified mainly on youngsters because of the lack of actual contact d) Prepare a new training curriculum for tutors and develop innovative digital support materials e) Train the tutors on how to make effective use of the above, assess the educational content and receive feedback f) Create an open distance learning platform with online courses, webinars, tutorials, evaluation based on electronic badges, etc. Through this multifaceted approach and set of activities, we believe that the results of “Going the Distance” will foster both the short-term (for dealing with the current conditions that are expected yet to last) and long-term development (equipping our target groups with digital tools and soft skills that will be valuable for their future success and employability). In this regard, our consortium includes 6 partners from different EU countries (Netherlands, Greece, Estonia, Romania, Bulgaria and Italy) with all of them representing organizations focused on STEM capacity building, mainly through educational robotics, providing them with the opportunity to cooperate, exchange best practices and create outputs that will allow them to enrich their existing VET schemes in regards to STEM learning and related technological challenges. Nevertheless, since the educational challenges are similar for all stakeholders today in this new reality, the project’s results will help tackle common gaps of deficient digital learning and online engagement of tutors and students alike, not only in the partners’ regions, but will in other countries and contexts too. For this reason, all the outputs and materials developed during “Going the Distance” will be shared freely and as widely as possible with stakeholders of various profiles on an international and country level, to encourage and facilitate their augmentation, replication, up-taking and mainstreaming.
In accordance with the programme’s priorities, the new requirements of the VET sector and EC’s Digital Education and Action Plan (2021-2027) we designed this project in order to: a) Identify the tutors’ specific needs during the COVID-19 period b) Distinguish from other free relevant digital tools that are of poor quality c) Navigate them on how to deal with the social repercussions identified mainly on youngsters because of the lack of actual contact d) Prepare a new training curriculum for tutors and develop innovative digital support materials e) Train the tutors on how to make effective use of the above, assess the educational content and receive feedback f) Create an open distance learning platform with online courses, webinars, tutorials, evaluation based on electronic badges, etc. Through this multifaceted approach and set of activities, we believe that the results of “Going the Distance” will foster both the short-term (for dealing with the current conditions that are expected yet to last) and long-term development (equipping our target groups with digital tools and soft skills that will be valuable for their future success and employability).
Digital education technologies enrich learning in a variety of ways and offer learning opportunities, which must be accessible to all; they open access to a wealth of information, education and training resources – but one must also have the capacity to evaluate and make efficient use of them. Digital capacity building is even more important nowadays when physical interaction is restricted as a result of COVID-19, and we are all living in a strange and unsettling new reality, where nobody knows exactly how long things are going to continue like this. While all of us are experiencing and dealing with the situation in our own ways, students and learners around Europe have a particularly new set of circumstances with which to contend, and they – as well as tutors, administrators, parents, and everybody else involved in formal and non-formal education and training – need to learn ways to adapt. In this regard, the main need that our project “Going the Distance” wanted to address, was to train and equip STEM tutors with a free and open distance learning platform, in order to be able to enhance their digital competences, their pedagogical skills and to effectively implement online courses with their students.