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DIgital Technology as a TOol

2021-1-RO01-KA153-YOU-0000106072021Mobility of youth workersfinalizedGood practice
Countries: RO|MK|EL|PL|BG|ES|IT|TR|HR · Grant: €37,604
Digital youth workDigital content, technologies and practicesDigital skills and competences

Objectives

At present, more than a third of the EU labor force lacks the basic digital skills required in most jobs across sectors, and over half of EU companies report difficulties in filling vacancies for ICT specialists. The digital skills level of European students is higher compared to that of the overall population and labor force, but more than one third of 13–14-year-old youngsters who participated in the International Computer and Information Literacy Study did not have a high proficiency level in digital competence. Like other sectors, education and training is undergoing a process of change. When properly planned and designed, the use of digital technologies for teaching and learning offers many opportunities, including the possibility to open to a more diverse cohort of learners, increase flexibility, personalization, and inclusion, and offer more interactive and engaging forms of cooperation and communication. At the same time, it brings challenges: educators need to master the digital environment to design high quality and engaging learning experiences and learners also need to be technologically savvy. There are a lot of youth work practitioners who lack the digital skills or attitudes to fully benefit from the opportunities created by digital technologies for delivering quality youth work. Many youth workers see digital media only as social media. Their understanding of the possibilities of digital media and technology should be widened. Inside the partnership we run what we called "a digital evaluation". We tried to self-reflect and self-asses our NGOs using DigCompOrg framework, with emphasis one the "Digital competence of staff and students" Key Element. For assessing our Youth Workers, we used DigCompEdu The result was not "so" satisfactory. Most of our youth workers were at "A" level: between Newcomer and Explorer. We started by identifying innovative practices in both delivering digital youth work and upskilling youth workers' digital competences. We found out that there are many good practices around Europe which can inspire others in their youth work practice. These practical examples also helped us to come to a working definition of "digital youth work". As digitalisation is a global phenomenon, it is imperative to facilitate knowledge exchange on digital youth work and young people’s digital cultures on an international level. Our main aim of the project was: To increase the quality of Digital Youth Work of NGOs Our objectives: 1: To improve the proficiency level for DigCompOrg - "Teaching& learning practices" key element, "Digital Competence of staff and students" sub-element, for 9 Youth NGOs, until the end of the project. 2. To upskill 32 youth workers' digital competences for 9 international NGOs, from Newcomer (A1) to Expert (B2) measured as proficiency level in Digital Competence Framework for Educators (DigCompEdu), by the end of the project.

Project partners (9)