Deeper understanding our digital gadgets for better use in class

Pupils in remote and depopulated areas and from low income families as usual acquire digital devices when the models become obsolete. This prevents being in line with the latest features of the digital tools. In this way such pupils fall behind their peers in coping with digital devices and become more and more digitally divided. In this regard the project has been aimed to address deficiencies of these pupils in understanding the latest achievements of the digital technologies and to shorten the lag in coping with advanced software applications. This has been motivated by the initiating partners P1 and P2 as schools operating in such rural, remote and depopulated areas of the country primarily with pupils from families facing economic and integration difficulties. Relevant support has been rendered by the rest of the partners. The addressed needs were the following: - Overcoming distrust of being capable to master up-to-date digital devices - Understanding that knowledge on hardware and software could be developed independently from the practical possession of digital devices - Understanding that any digital device should serve to the user and not be seen as a mark for the social status which divides people

The wanted to achieve the following: - Ameliorating the pupils`understanding on the modern digital devices for personal use and the complex processes inside - Closing the gap between pupils in dealing with cheap and expensive gadgets and respective technologies embedded into these - Strengthening the sense of necessity of education among pupils and their relatives. The general project objective was to provide a simplified hardware and software model of a digital device which is adapted to pupils from families with economic or integration impediments and could be understood by their relatives in order to strengthen both the positive attitude towards school as well as the link between parents and teachers. The specific objectives of the project were: - Introducing the anatomy of a hardware system to pupils in an interesting and easy-to-understand way - Acknowledging the pupils with the basic software processes and simplified algorithmic programming - Providing a close look to modern aspects in creating interactive elements within partnership based on the EU values

Within the project the team implemented respective activities in the following groups: A. Thematic activities oriented to achievement of the specific project objectives 1. Creation of an animated model of the hardware anatomy of a digital system 2. Creation of an interactive flow chart expressing the work of the software of a digital system 3. Compilation of a set of animated and interactive resources thematically oriented to acknowledge pupils with the EU values 4. Adaptation and finalization of the hardware and software models and the resource set through cross border meetings and gathering feedback 5. Organization of open workshops with pupils on exercising the hardware and software models and resource set B. Horizontal activities supporting the overall project flow and ensuring reaching the general objective - Project administration on daily basis, incl. in-person or online meetings - Sharing and promotion activities, external communication and publicity measures - Piloting the developed training materials - Collecting and processing the feedback - Quality assurance and evaluation - Involvement of associated partners - Extending the network of interested schools on the elaborated models

The outputs of the project are: - Creation of an animated model of the hardware anatomy of a digital system as main version in English - Development of national versions in Bulgarian, Portuguese and Serbian - Creation of an animated model of the software data processes and flows of a generic digital system as main version in English - Development of national versions of the software model in Bulgarian, Portuguese and Serbian - Creation of a set of animated and interactive resources thematically oriented to acknowledge pupils with the EU values as main version in English - Development of national versions of the set in Bulgarian, Portuguese and Serbian - Development of an animated resource set - Preparing national versions of the set in Bulgarian, Portuguese and Serbian Other project results are: - Organization of 2 cross border seminars with teachers - Organization of 10 methodological meetings with teachers and ICT experts - Organisation of 20 workshops with pupils, teachers and external people - Organization of 4 partner meetings for revision of the models - Gathering and processing feedback from 31 other schools and external organisations - Involving 146 people in piloting - Covering 2100 people in promoting the project