Through this project, we sought to empower teachers in their practice of digital content creation by developing a structured, scalable framework. Specifically, the project aimed to achieve the following: - Identify Core Competencies: By defining the exact skills and knowledge teachers need to effectively design and produce high-quality digital content. - Develop and Test a Scaffolding Framework: By partnering directly with teachers in the four project countries to trial, refine, and iterate a practical framework (underpinned by academic and digital competencies identified) that would support and guide them through the content creation process. - Deliver Practical Education Materials: By producing a repository of specialised training resources to help participating teachers master these identified competencies, as well as subject- and age-specific examples that could be adapted to a variety of secondary school classrooms across Europe. - Scale Long-Term Impact: By creating resources that could be tailored for pre-service teachers, therefore ensuring the project’s insights and benefits can be integrated into initial teacher education and scale across the wider education system.
We applied for this project to address the desire of schoolteachers involved in early project discussions to avail of a concrete, flexible framework & guidelines for digital content creation in the school setting. Teachers shared that while they were getting familiar with using digital tools to create bespoke educational content over the past several years, there is a lack of clear EU-wide guidance on ethical & accessibility practices in terms of working with free or paid-for creative online tools & AI for use in delivering lessons to students. As outlined in the Digital Education Action Plan (2021-2027), teachers should be supported in the use of digital tools to maximise digital pedagogy & expertise, including accessible & assistive technologies and digital content (p.12). We have addressed this need by involving teachers in co-creating a scaffolding framework & self-evaluation mechanism, going through an iterative process of experimenting with practical tools to produce digital content relevant to a diverse range of subject areas & age groups, & piloting the content with students. Feedback cycles led to updating & improving the materials for a scaled pilot, resulting in a road-tested set of classroom-ready resources.