DIGITAL TUTORS: FACING THE NEW GENERATION AND CHALLENGES

DIGITAL TUTORS: FACING THE NEW GENERATION AND CHALLENGES

Digital Tutors: Facing the new generation & challenges

The crisis of the Coronavirus CoVid-19 has forced thousands of educational institutions to create their own online teaching scheme. Besides this, many reports at European level stated the multiple benefits of online education, as well as the trends in the forthcoming years of online training such as the EC - European Commission's Digital Scoreboard. This is also supported by some initiatives included in the 2020 Agenda such as the Agenda for New Skills and Jobs, Youth on the Move or the Digital Agenda and the Innovation Union; that foster innovation and modernisation of education in Europe. The EC has made some advances towards a more digital education, providing frameworks such as DigComp and DigCompEdu, there is still need of further developing the Digital Tutor role, especially in the non-technical skills.

The aim: the project is designed to define the role of Digital Tutor, to improve the teaching-learning process of online and blended training courses, to upskill online teachers and trainers as Digital Tutor and to create a resource repository to support digital tutors in their daily work.

More specifically, the project achieves the following OBJECTIVES:

OB1. To define the new role of Digital Tutor
OB2. To generate the map of competences required for a Digital Tutor
OB3. To create 2 tools supporting the development of the Digital Tutor role
OB4. To train, at least, 12 trainers as Digital Tutors
OB5. To create a community of Vocational Education & Training (VET) teachers (Digital Tutors)
OB6. To involve, at least, 10 stakeholders in the project development

At medium-long term objectives, the project intends to contribute to the existing framework of DigCompEdu,   as well as the Education and Training strategy 2020, in particular to the objective of Improving the quality and efficiency of education and training.

TARGET auditorium

The main TARGET GROUPS to which this project is addressed to are:
-VET teachers
-VET centres headmasters/mistresses

As well:
-Teacher training institutions
- Continuous teacher training institutions
- Policy makers
- National organisations implementing the DigComp and DigCompEdu frameworks
- Other stakeholders relevant in the field of VET education and training

Overall, more than 300 persons and institutions will be reached throughout the different activities of the project (development of Intellectual Outputs, Training Activity and the Multiplier Events). Other dissemination activities and the social networks will increase these figures. Also VET students will highly benefit from the project.

Project partners:

  1. Kedainiai VET centre  (Lithuania) - coordinating institution , VET institution

  2. Public institution “eMundus” (Kaunas, Lithuania),  NGO

  3. IES DISTRICTE MARÍTIM (Valencia, Spain), VET institution

  4. Associació Meraki Projectes de València  (Valencia, Spain), NGO

  5. Stichting voor Christelijk beroepsonderwijs en volwassen educatie Friesland/Flevoland  (Leeuwarden, Netherlands), VET institution

  6. STICHTING LEARNING HUB FRIESLAND  (Leeuwarden, Netherlands), Foundation

Besides the ACTIVITIES derived from the project itself (Project Management, dissemination, sustainability and exploitation, quality and risk control, financial administration, etc.), the partners are committed to develop all the necessary tasks to reach the project results on time and on budget.
Some of these activities include: interviews, coordination meetings, research and analysis of reports, pilot testing of the results reached and improvement of the project results achieved.
All partners have past experience in European funded projects and the partnership has been built based on recommendations. The partners are used to WORK COLLABORATIVELY and thus, the tasks and activities were already agreed during the initial phase of project design. All partners are involved throughout all the phases of the development of the project and its results, and the tasks and activities have been distributed based on each one’s expertise and background experience.

RESULTS

R1. Digital Tutor role definition
R2. Competence Map associated to the Digital Tutor role
R3. Competence Descriptors associated to the Digital Tutor role
R4. Evaluation System to assess the competences of a Digital Tutor
R5. Upskilling training programme (40 hours) for the Digital Tutor role, with 12 teachers trained
R6. Open Resource Platform including tools, practices, materials and other type of resources to support the Digital Tutor function
R7. Digital Tutor online community

The fact that the partnership is composed by a VET centre and a NGO/Foundation in each country increases the spread of the project results in different spheres of the society.

More specifically, the DIGITAL TUTOR project will bring the following BENEFITS:

-    Raised awareness of various related actors in the field of online education and training
-    VET teachers trained as Digital Tutors, through the promotion of the Upskilling Programme (training package) through the networks created within the project and those available by all partners
-    Increased number of students effectively included in online education, especially those with Special Education Needs or at risk of social or educational inclusion
-    Improved learning community in the VET centres providing online training with Digital Tutors
-    Fostered active participation at European level
 

Project period: 01 11 2020 - 31 12 2022

Programe: Erasmus+ KA202 Strategic Partnerships for VET

Project Ref. No.: 2020-1-LT01-KA202-077938

Project websitedigitaltutor.eu