Technology is everywhere! Where is the balance?

The variety of changes taking place in today’s world requires not only from students and teachers permanent adaptation to new conditions of education, but also from parents. The parents are often not sufficiently aware of importance of social and personal skills development in the context of preventing decrease in primary school students' learning outcomes resulting from abuse of technology. Digital revolution taking place in recent years has a negative impact on primary students' social skills. Their activity in the Internet drastically limits their activity in the real world which results in lack of opportunities to practice social skills live. The low level of social skills seems to be one of the crucial factors of various types of addictions e.g. computer/smartphone among young people. The rapidly developing technology causes difficulties in adapting teaching. Our intention was to offer tools that enable teachers and parents to support primary school students in maintaining a balance in the use of technology and strengthening competences, which are becoming so crucial in a world where technology plays such an important role.

The main goal of the project was to prevent the decrease in primary school students' learning outcomes resulting from the abuse of technology, in particular computers, smartphones, and to develop an innovative teaching toolkit aimed at teachers focusing on primary school's students ' social and personal skills development. The specific objective of the project was to develop a teaching toolkit meeting the demands of today's primary schools in the area of tackling learning disadvantage, early school leaving and low proficiency in basic skills. Moreover, our intention was to enhance the professional development and strengthen the professional profile of primary school teachers. Our specific aim was also to promote the idea of greater involvement of parents in the process of development of primary school students’ social and personal skills. And finally, the project's goal was to improve the quality of work and practices of the organizations involved in the project in an international context.

The following activities were implemented in the project: 1. Transnational Project Meeting in Spain 2. Transnational Project Meeting in Poland 3. Project partners staff together developed teaching toolkit which includes: - a questionnaire to determine how primary school students use technologies and what is the level of students' social and personal skills - teaching programs focusing on developing of soft skills in the environment of existing technology - lesson plans for training soft skills in the environment of existing technology - tutorial for teachers including tips on using individual methods - tutorial for parents including tips on developing their children’s social and personal skills 4. Pilot teaching toolkit was implemented in primary schools in Spain and in Poland. 5. Multiplier event in Poland - training for teaching staff of the primary schools (teachers, psychologists, pedagogues, school headmasters), which aim was to present teaching toolkit and results of the pilot implementing 6. Multiplier event in Spain - training for teaching staff of the primary schools (teachers, psychologists, pedagogues, school headmasters) which aim was to present teaching toolkit and results of the pilot implementing

Project partners' staff developed the teaching toolkit, which was piloted in Polish and Spanish primary schools. Toolkit consists of: - a questionnaire to determine how primary school students use technologies and a a questionnaire to determine what is the level of their social and personal skills - teaching programs and lesson plans for training social and personal skills of primary school students in the environment of existing technology - tutorial for teachers including tips on using individual methods of developing the students social and personal skills  - tutorial for parents including tips on developing their children’s social and personal skills Other results were: -the level of social and personal skills of primary school students increased which limits ICT addictions among young people and finally improve students' learning outcomes -the primary schools teachers' competences crucial in today's word which strengthen their professional development were improved -parents' awareness of the impact of soft skills development on their children's school performance and ability to support developing these skills were increased -the quality of work and practices of the organizations involved were improved