Tools4Teaching in Digital Education Settings

The COVID 19 pandemic and the recent developments in teaching tools posed new challenges in front of educators and training professionals. Most of them had to quickly shift from face-to-face group settings to online classrooms, where they had to ensure the same level of interaction and involvement of learners and improve their ability to facilitate interaction, collaboration and communication through digital technologies. The project outputs - GUIDELINES for adult educators on how to better set up effective group dynamics in online learning environment, a RESOURCE LIBRARY with European and world practices in the area, PRACTICAL EXERCISES applicable in 6 different types of teaching domains, a series of the T4T webinars with a collection of testimonials, a Virtual Multimedia Exhibition, the creation of the international T4T Community – provided educators with the necessary knowledge and skills and supported them in improving their competences in developing and maintaining effective group dynamics in online environment and helped them be more effective, capable and confident when preparing for and delivering their online lessons.

The overall objective of the project was to strengthen capacity of adult educators/training professionals to build and sustain effective group dynamics in digital education settings, so to better engage their online learners. The specific objectives were: 1. to improve educators’ competences about the specifics of building and sustaining effective online group dynamics and ensuring high level of learners’ experience in digital classrooms through development of Guidelines and a Resource Library on the topic. 2.To increase educators’ knowledge and skills to offer and maintain high level of interaction and involvement of students in digitally delivered lessons and sessions through creating an interactive data base with hands-on energisers, warm-up and wrap-up activities suitable for online environment, as well as video resources how to easily apply them. 3. To create a network of educational professionals who are knowledgeable how to ensure the same level of interaction and learners’ involvement in online and physical teaching environments. 4. To promote cross-sector and transnational cooperation between partner countries and active exchange of lessons learnt between educational providers from formal/non-formal/informal areas.

To develop the outputs of WP1, the following Activities were implemented Within ACTIVITY 1, the lead partner, ViONE, created the methodological framework with a conceptual background and templates for the partners to develop the GUIDELINES for adult educators on how to better set up effective group dynamics in online learning environment. Following these instructions, the partners created 6 modules covering 6 different aspects of teaching in digital education settings, namely: M1 “Specifics on online learning environment comparing to physical settings and blended learning”; M2 “Suitable digital tools and software for maintaining effective online interaction”; M3 “Specifics of engaging learners and working in small groups in online learning environment”; M4 “Creating engaging energisers and warm up exercises suitable for online environment and remote learning”; M5 “Boosting online teaching creativity and learners’ engagement through artistic activities”; M6 “Educator’s role and behaviour in online teaching environment” All the drafts of the modules in EN were peer-reviewed by the partners and modified according to the review summary. After that, the materials were tested in LTTA and after fine-tuning translated in partners` languages. DomSpain created a section on the open educational resource dedicated to the Guidelines. After that, a lead partner of ACTIVITY 2, ARTIED, developed internal recommendations to the partners on the search criteria for a RESOURCE LIBRARY and templates for entries. The partners collected the resources for adult teachers, both within the EU and all over the world. Additional recourses and materials gave a broader picture to adult educators and training professionals on the available European and world practices in the area and served as a reference point to them. DomSpain created a database section on the OER. LTTA, organised by MyArtist in Oct2022, gathered 18 full-time participants (3 of them online) and 6 representatives of partners’ organisation who took part online in various sessions of the training. The participants created a Virtual Exhibition and laid a basis for creating the T4T Community with the discussion of ideas about digital tools and practices among adult educators and training experts: https://digitaltools4teaching.eu/community To develop WP2, the following Activities were implemented: Within ACTIVITY 1, the lead partner DomSpain created internal instructions for the partners, containing also conceptual background and temples to prepare PRACTICAL EXERCISES that cover 3 types - energisers, warm-up and wrap-up activities – applicable in 6 different types of teaching domains – language trainings, entrepreneurship trainings, teaching environmental topics, ICT trainings, using artistic and creative activities into educational process and exercises suitable for people with disabilities. All the suggested ideas were discussed online with the partners as well as by each partner with their internal teams and project stakeholders and only those exercises that were agreed to be useful and replicable by the majority of the partners were finally included in the collection. The materials were prepared in EN and partners’ languages. DomSpain developed a user-friendly, easily navigated, section on the T4T OER. Within ACTIVITY 2, a series of international webinars to pilot the developed exercises into partner countries was organised. To do this, the lead partner of the activity, EDUPRO, prepared a guide for the partners on the selection of the participants, preparation of the materials of the online sessions, and gathering the feedback of the participants (together with EDUPRO). The lead partner of the dissemination activities, MyArtist, created the promotional materials for the series of the webinars and for each webinar separately, and all the partners used their channels to promote the webinars. The webinars had a great success and the partners decided to collect the best practices/experiences and reflections of the participants. Thus, a T4T OER’s section “Testimonials” (in EN) with 6 stories of adult educators and 6 stories of adult learners, participants of the webinars, was created: https://digitaltools4teaching.eu/results/testimonials Within the whole period of the project implementation, quality assurance and evaluation activities as well as impact monitoring were carried out on internal and external level. All the project activities and results were promoted by the partnership and each partner separately for the local, regional, national, and international stakeholders

The following outputs and other results were produced within the project: Within Result 1, there were produced: - GUIDELINES to ADULT EDUCATORS (Act1) https://digitaltools4teaching.eu/results/guidelines on how to better set up effective group dynamics in online learning environment-in EN and partners’ languages- with 6 modules covering 6 different aspects of teaching in digital education settings. Each module consists of a theoretical part with a practical activity, a Power Point (available online via the website and offline as downloadable documents) and self-assessment questions automatically assessed online. - RESOURCE LIBRARY (Act2) https://digitaltools4teaching.eu/results/resource-library - in EN and partners’ languages - with resources not only from the EU but also outside it, on how to maintain effective group interaction in online learning environment filtered out based on the type of resource - LTTA in Athens, Greece, in October 2022, for adult educators -representatives of the partner organisations and stakeholders - who experimented with the tools/methods developed in Act1 and Act2 and gained hands-on experience with the proposed project approach and the developed Guidelines and Resource Library. As the tangible result of the LTTA, there was created a VIRTUAL MULTIMEDIA EXHIBITION called “Dead Storytellers’ Society” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKk5K6J732E and an international T4T Community of Practice. Within Result 2, there were developed: - PRACTICAL EXERCISES (energisers, warm-up and wrap-up activities) https://digitaltools4teaching.eu/results/practical-exercises suitable for online learning environment and boosting group dynamics covering 6 teaching domains: entrepreneurship, artistic and creative activities, ICT and language trainings, environmental topics, exercises suitable for people with disabilities. The exercises are presented as a database - in EN and partners’ languages - where a user can choose the type of exercises using the filters. - Series of INTERNATIONAL WEBINARS https://digitaltools4teaching.eu/results/webinars to pilot the developed exercises into partner countries. The international webinars tested the developed practical exercises among educators from partner organisations, stakeholders and associated partners and were built around the topics: “Keep students engaged during an online language class”, “Gathering your ideas! Being an entrepreneur & the Boss”, “How to engage students while teaching environmental topics”, “How to use artistic/creative activities for boosting online teaching creativity and learners’ engagement”, “Practical exercises suitable for People with Disabilities”, “Keep Your students active during online ICT training” - As an additional tangible result of Act2, there was developed a collection of stories of the trainers and trainees who took part in the webinars. All the developed materials are available online on the terms and conditions of CREATIVE COMMONS: CC BY-NC-SA4.0