The highly infectious COVID-19 disease, declared a pandemic by World Health Organization, has changed the educational panorama of the world in a very short time. In the face of global school closures, all educational systems have faced striking challenges in moving from traditional methods of learning to online/distant teaching-learning environments. The pandemic has shown that the world is not ready to address such challenges efficiently and effectively. In addition, some areas in education call for more immediate attention..According to the European Commission survey that started on March 2020, VET specific online courses/modules are not available. Ready-made material with VET specific content is less developed and there is a strong call for the Commission and national public authorities to create a database with existing resources to be shared for free around Europe. It was found that VET learners might be at disadvantaged compared to learners from other educational tracks as more efforts are put into general school subjects, and less in typical vocational content (https://ec.europa.eu/social/vocational-skills-week/fight-against-covid-19_en). Hence, this project aims to contribute to maintaining the continuity of VET in the field of tourism by introducing digital VET opportunities. This will ensure that students get the most of their education and training and they are less affected by the crisis situation. In order to do so, the project aims to develop a set of guides for digital vocational education in the tourism sector for administrators, teachers, students and their parents that will introduce digital solutions physical and architectural challenges, break down qualification barriers in digital vocational teaching and allow social and cultural adaptation to digital learning. In addition, the other output, Virtual ADE advisor - an individualized space for improving digital qualifications of a vocational teacher will improve teachers’ skills. The Virtual ADE advisor will include interactive content in vocational education-teacher training course; Individualized path depending on the initial qualifications of the teacher; virtual Q&A space and sub-spaces for exchanging good solutions and lesson plans according to different vocational subjects and other subjects taught at the school. The project encompasses all relevant parties in VET school education and includes administration and teaching aspects as well as learning and practice aspects. Stakeholders in the field of tourism including businesses such as hotels, restaurants, trade associations and employment agency will be consulted during material and strategy development. The needs of the target groups will be addressed in the following manner: Administration-principals: they will be provided with digital solutions to the immediate problem Teachers: they will be given tools to improve school education via the teacher training course, individualized pathways to learning and OERs as well as the Q&A space that will provide mentoring and coaching. Students and parents: they will be provided with strategies to socially and culturally adapt to the new mode of learning. School leaving due to low skill levels of lack of adaptation will be minimized. The project results will be shared with wider audiences in education, VET and tourism and expected to bring a new voice to the world of VET.
Increasing digital readiness and online teaching and learning, empowering the target groups in vocational education(administrators, teachers, students, parents and stakeholders), providing them with guides about the important issues to consider when implementing online education, giving teachers a platform to develop themselves and continue their training on online education and relevant platforms, increasing their interest in learning new technologies were the main aims of this Project. Hence, guides were created for the target groups and a virtual platform was prepared for teacher training. With the help of project results, the guides and the platform; it was aimed to provide the target groups with tools to improve their capacity and knowledge about online education, including effective organization of their environment, teaching and learning with the utmost capacity, using online tools, assessment, effective online communication, cyber security and resource management. Hence, the final aim is to improve online education and receive the utmost benefit from online it from all parties with accurate guidance and support.
The Project was born from the need to increase the digital readiness of teachers, administrators, students, parents and stakeholders in VET especially in the field of tourism because the pandemic has shown us the immense need for readiness and training in this area. When the pandemic started, there were many issues about effectively using digital technologies in education and most of them arised from lack of training and experience in this field. Hence, the project aimed to increase digital readiness as well as digital knowledge and experience not only for teachers and students but also for the administrators, parents and relevant stakeholders. The project aimed to present an innovative practice in the field of VET by focusing on readiness (technological and content) and adaptation of all relevant parties to the digital implementations in education by providing them with the required tools to maintain high educational standards by improving their skills, their adaptation and motivation, the project set out to support administration and teaching staff. Hence, it was aimed to improve online education in all aspects from selection of online tools, to lesson planning to presenting online lessons to students and assessment