Freedom to Learn on the Road - Learning Ourselves while Exploring the World

Background As the basis of our project, we took the idea of the world, as well as people in it are constantly moving, changing. We heard the idea many times before, that the world opened up by the 21st century, young people today have countless opportunities to travel abroad. But many times these travels, due to the lack of reflective action, stay just as personal memories. According to the World Economic Forum’s ‘Schools of the Future’ (2020) study, young people today will need to face such changes in their lifetime that we can barely imagine today (just think of the spread of AI in the workplace). Also the OECD’s ‘Education 2030’ (2018) study emphasizes the need of transferable skills such as initiative and responsibility. Furthermore the use of ICT technoliges are a given nowadayr. We believe that travelling provides a wonderful opportunity to help young people to achieve success in this environment. Objectives Our main objective with the project was to develop innovative educational materials, that can be used for helping young people become more mature, able to look at problems as challenges, able to react to changes, open towards others. As part of this, we created tools for the professionals working with young people (pedagogues, youth workers), so that they can plan their travels with their youngsters in a more conscious way, creating a creative and inspirational learning environment. During the development of materials, we always focused on having practical value as well as support for our vision mentioned above – to look at travelling as a way of learning. Implementation During the project we developed four intellectual outputs, all of which serve the above mentioned goals. To support this process we have organized partner meetings both offline and online. During an international pilot training, we introduced our materials to 14 participants from the partner countries. We piloted the developed online learning environment with 60 students, and collected valuable feedback from them. Towards the end of the project we organized multiplier events, to reach even more professionals and young people. During the whole project we continuously ran small scale dissemination activities to support the mainstreaming of the project. Achievements We have developed four intellectual outputs in the project. 1) The complex Curricula introduces the basic idea of the project, that is that travelling can be used in many different ways for skill- and personal development. We used the format of a traditional school curricula and filled with the innovative content of travelling. 2) The Methodology Handbook introduced the main methods of our project (experiential learning, self-reflection), and provides a collection of exercises that can be used by professionals with their youngsters. The activities are ordered into four categories: to use before, during, after or through virtual travelling. 3) The Training Plan is the program of a fivedays training, that prepares professionals to step out of the role of a teacher and become a facilitator, someone who creates the ideal learning environment for young people. Also, it introduces the other IOs of the project. 4) The Online Learning Environment is a platform that hosts digital activities that are based on the Handbook. Both adults can use it to prepare a program for their youngsters, or the young people themselves can use it for their own amusement.