Supporting School leaders to build a digital transformation strategy

After the pandemic, a strong need was identified to reform schools and to support teachers and students to develop digital skills and competences (UNESCO, 2020). In 2020, almost all students in Eu...

The project’s main aim is to support school leadership teams to upskill their competences to develop digital strategies. The objectives of the project were to: • Support school leaders and staff to develop a digital strategy • Develop school leadership teams’ competencies for leveraging free digital tools and resources for school improvement. • Develop a practical toolkit aligned with the DigCompEdu, with practical, step-by-step guides on how to design and deploy a strategy. • Adapt and use the SELFIE and TET-SAT tools to support the digital strategy development. • Develop the digital skills of school leadership teams and teachers. All project outcomes aimed to provide comprehensive support for school leaders concerning the digital transformation of their school in Europe, and in the same time to customize them for national and local realities.

After the pandemic, a strong need was identified to reform schools and to support teachers and students to develop digital skills and competences (UNESCO, 2020). In 2020, almost all students in Europe were learning partially or fully from home due to Covid-19, but at the same time, only few schools have written statements on the use of ICT for pedagogical purposes and digital technology in their school development plans (EC, 2019). This crisis made digitization in school education in EU even more urgent than ever. It was identified that school leaders often lack skills and need to be specifically trained to understand the complexities of digital transformation. They need to understand how to implement digital strategies in their schools in a systematic and strategic way. On one side, schools need to be reformed and teachers and students should be supported to develop digital skills and competences. On the other side, many additional problems arise, including digital infrastructure, innovative teaching and learning methods with ICT, continuous development of teachers, privacy, wellbeing and support for students in the digital age and others.

The main project results correspond on the planned results in the project proposal: - Project result 1: Digital Transformation Strategy Toolkit for school leaders (a comprehensive 128-pages document in EN), which is translated to all partner languages (BG, GR, NL, PO). - Project result 2: Training course for School Leaders on developing digital transformation strategies is designed and delivered. This result includes an LTTA in Athens, where members of the target groups and staff were trained to conduct local trainings in all partner countries. All project partners organized trainings in their respective countries. The materials were translated in all partner-languages. - Project result 3: eLearning platform with mobile app on leading with technology was developed. Each partner developed a unit for the MOOC. The platform and MOOC were tested with target group members and translated in all partner – languages. The implementation report is provided. - Project result 4: Collection of case studies and policy recommendations. All partners collected good practices and conducted national focus groups to gather ideas, challenges, and recommendations for national, European level. The report was translated in all partner – languages. In addition, several other results include: Project Management plan with all tasks defined by quantitative and qualitative indicators; Partner contracts; Quality Management strategy and evaluation activities; Promotion and exploitation plan; Promotion materials in various formats; Promotion and exploitation reports; 4 half-yearly reports; 4 Peer group evaluation reports; Progress and final report; Reports on Promotional activities; Reports on Multiplier events; At the end, the project managed to: Improve the capacity of schools and education systems for digital transformation; Improve the competencies for school leadership teams, teachers and school staff to develop digital transformation strategies; Improve the capacity of schools and education systems to engage in online education. Increase partners’ active application of the project outcomes in their professional practices; All DigiLEAD partners apply the project outcomes in their professional practices after the project’s completion. Many additional promotional activities were made to inform the target groups, stakeholders, and policy makers about digital strategy in school education. Increased topic-awareness of primary and secondary education school leaders and decision-makers during the project’s implementation and after its completion.