THE PROJECT
Teachers, trainers and lecturers are at the front line of our Higher Education systems, shaping the skills, attitudes and behaviours of our young people on a daily basis. If we are to see lasting and deep changes in the digital skills of young people today we must invest in the skills training of the people who teach them and enable critical thinking, digital literacy and active e-citizenship to become fully integrated into all learning activities.
However, many lecturers and teaching staff completed their initial professional training before the invention of social media and while they may be proficient in its use in their personal lives, there is a large skills gap regarding the use of digital media for pedagogic purposes.
Our Project will respond to these needs by pursuing the following specific objectives:
- Identify and showcase innovative, participative approaches to developing digital wellbeing in education (Compendium of Best Practice)
- Upskill teachers in confident use of digital education, combining digital wellbeing with effective development of other digital competences (Digital Wellbeing Education OERs & APP)
- Develop a Digital Wellbeing App to be used as a stand-alone resource for students, and as an additional teacher resource to be used alongside the OERs
- Produce a Teachers’ Digital Pedagogy Toolkit to support teaching staff in developing their own digital competences and mainstreaming digital literacy skills in their teaching activities.
- Rigorously test and optimize the resources before disseminating them widely to ensure strong use among the target groups.
OUR IMPACT
Teachers, lecturers and educators will improve their understanding of the risks of social and digital media usage and use the resources to introduce more effective pedagogic strategies for teaching and assessing digital competences congruent with digital wellbeing.
In encouraging teachers to integrate digital wellbeing teaching into their programmes, HE institutions will offer higher quality learning opportunities for students. Thus, they will achieve a greater contribution to societal needs, and provide a more well-rounded civic and social education of value to society and students themselves.
Students will make the most of digital learning and develop more critical thinking skills, enabling them to critically assess the media they consume and create. They achieve improved outcomes in terms of their academic achievement, social competences and active citizenship.
Our Outputs will provide lecturers and students with resources to develop their digital competences and include:
COMPENDIUM OF BEST PRACTICE
DIGITAL WELLBEING EDUCATION OERS & APP
