DORIS - Designing Online Readiness & Interconnectedness In Schools - is a partnership of 15 organisations involving schools, local authorities, higher education & training providers from 4 European regions in Wales, Poland, Spain & Sweden. Through this project, partners will take a co-design methodology to explore the delivery of digital learning & eaching in schools. The objective is to help schools identify & understand the wide spectrum of needs & challenges at play and for all stakeholders to work together at local, regional & transnational levels to find & share innovative solutions to maximise the impact of digital learning & teaching. Through DORIS, the partnership will encourage representatives from all identified stakeholder groups including teachers, pupils & parents to work together with the support of design experts to develop innovative digital solutions to enhance learning and teaching experiences. We are adopting a broad interpretation of learning & teaching experiences in this project which encompasses all forms of interaction that supports learning, including traditional classroom teaching, distance or blended online learning, family engagement as well as transnational cooperation and the sharing of innovation, ideas and good practice. Although the Covid-19 situation has undoubtedly caused an acceleration in the use of digital platforms & applications to deliver learning & teaching, a priority of this project is to explore how educators can keep the momentum going & bring about real culture change in schools. We want to support & motivate teachers & support staff who have in the past maybe been reluctant to fully embrace digital methods of teaching & are perhaps tempted to resume 'traditional' methods now that classrooms are back open. Unsurprisingly, schools that already had established modes of online & blended learning were better prepared to deal with the new challenges & adapted more quickly to the crisis than schools that did not. Through DORIS we also want to challenge traditional classroom teaching from a strategic top-down level to show school leaders & management that teachers who are passionate about embedding digital methods into everyday-teaching can actually help to protect & promote the traditional core values of a school and fulfil wider education policy. In the New Welsh Curriculum, the Four Purposes state that ‘all our children and young people will be: ‘ambitious, capable learners who are ready to learn throughout their lives’; (2) ‘healthy, confident individuals who are ready to lead fulfilling lives as valued members of society’; (3) ‘enterprising, creative contributors who are ready to play a full part in life and work’; and (4) ‘ethical, informed citizens who are ready to be citizens of Wales and the world’. A clear thread running through the 'Four Purposes' is the concept of INTERCONNECTEDNESS. This is surely a goal for all schools across the world, not just in Wales. Of course, it is widely recognised that schools are not just places of learning - they are hubs of connectivity with the potential to make connections on many, many, levels. For example, schools have the ability to connect generations with one another; they can connect young people with people from different backgrounds and cultures; they can connect different ideas, views and interests - & ultimately, they have the honorable power of connecting young people with their futures. So why is the default position in schools so often disconnection? Through DORIS, the partnership will look at the values and benefits of schools becoming holistically interconnected, and will seek to reinforce the need to develop the digital competence skills of teachers, pupils & parents alike whilst also placing a strong emphasis on the integral role that digital methods of teaching & learning have in strengthening the multifaceted relationships within a school community.
In light of the unprecedented disruption faced by education institutions across the world faced due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the main objectives of this project were to adopt a co-design approach and to support an interconnected whole-school ethos. At the outset of this project the key stakeholder groups envisaged were learners, teaching staff, Senior Leadership Team representatives and parents/carers. These were needs and challenges that were identified at application stage: - a widening digital divide between those from privileged and disadvantaged backgrounds - insufficient training in digital teaching for teachers and parents - bad user experience during the pandemic putting organisations, practitioners and learners off the idea of digital education Other goals of this project were: - for service design experts to support groups of identified users through a series of workshops and other tailored activities to explore the delivery of digital learning and teaching in schools by applying a co-design methodology. They would help schools identify & understand the wide spectrum of needs & challenges from a user perspective with the view to improving the learning experiences of all groups. - for pupils to be connected to one another, to their learning, to their school, the wider school community and we also for families to be connected to their children as pupils, their learning experiences & the school itself; - to develop a collaborative network of teachers across regions ensuring a digital readiness within education; - to help schools to create an environment and culture conducive for deep, inclusive and interconnected learning; - to foster innovation and a collaborative culture within schools; - to take advantage of turbo-charged digital transformation in education brought about by the pandemic across the world for schools to have a workforce that that has the required skills, confidence and tools in this field; - to facilitate and encourage a transnational approach to education and foster collaboration between like-minded educational professionals; - to find out what the differences and similarities are in terms of challenges of and priorities for digital readiness in the schools located in the four different regions that participate in the project.
Through this project, the partnership wanted to encourage representatives from all identified stakeholder groups including teachers, pupils and parents to work together - with the support of design experts - to develop innovative digital solutions to enhance learning and teaching experiences. A broad interpretation of learning and teaching experiences in this project encompassing all forms of interactions that support learning were adopted. This includes traditional classroom teaching, distance or blended online learning, family engagement as well as transnational cooperation and the sharing of innovation, ideas and good practice. A priority of this project was to explore how educators can keep the momentum provoked by the pandemic going and bring about real culture change in schools. We wanted to support and motivate teachers and support staff who have in the past maybe been reluctant to fully embrace digital methods of teaching and were perhaps tempted to resume 'traditional' methods once that classrooms were back open. Through DORIS we also wanted to challenge traditional classroom teaching from a strategic top-down level to show school leaders and management that teachers who are passionate about embedding digital methods into everyday-teaching can actually help to protect and promote the traditional core values of a school and fulfil wider education policy. We have aimed to reinforce the need to develop the digital competence skills of teachers, pupils and families, and place a strong emphasis on the integral role that digital methods of teaching and learning have in strengthening the multifaceted relationships within a school community.