S2DinTs - To Digitally Include Teachers and Students

‘S2DInTs - To Digitally Include Teachers and Students’ is a proposal of 7 partners from 4 countries addressing the problem of the Digitalization of the classroom, which, by means of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, suddenly became a ”new normal” of compulsory implementation, regardless of teachers’ preparation or readiness to perform it in the best possible way. The project's name pointed out for the dimension 'Inclusion into Digital Literacy', both Teachers as, by consequence, Students. Such dimension aimed to bring teachers into the digital era, to promote the teachers’ full and pedagogical info-inclusion but also to include in the Digital Era additional important actors. By generating a better school environment and being able to keep pedagogy and education properly running, particularly under such adverse circumstances as a pandemic generalized crisis, teachers would definitely gain skills and competences but also self-fulfillment and self-esteem. S2DInTs needs analysis was made during the implementation of previous projects which made the partners perceive the dimension of the sudden changes and how educational actors may not necessarily be prepared to cope with such radical, while unavoidable, changes.

The aim of this partnership was to address and to mitigate the problem of lacking digital competences in a complex social environment, as Schools, even sharpened by the COVID-19 crisis, and looking to achieve a truly pedagogical environment in the e-classroom, necessarily provided by fully prepared teachers. The project’s implementation context and objectives were defined as: - To support the increase of digital competences of teachers, by providing them the knowledge and tools to better promote their online classes, generating a friendly, an inclusive, and a better learning environment in the e-classroom; - To support School Education to become more inclusive, by upskilling teachers’ digital competences, and by enhancing students’ participation in digital classes and their access in equal terms, regardless any social context of disadvantage; - To increase teachers’ ability to understand and to deal with the transition from the traditional classroom to the e-classroom, not only from a technical, but also a pedagogical, a sociological and an human perspectives, raising awareness of notions such as info-exclusion or cyberbullying.

The S2DInTs partnership implemented the necessary activities conducting to the achievement of four products that would be further used as solutions for the needs. The partners met face-to-face in 5 different occasions as a way to harmonize their practices and to control the implementation of the project, including: - the overall management of the project (by ÇU); - the monitoring of the project's progress and evaluation of the achievements (executed by ÇU MEM, supported by all partners); - the dissemination of the activities and products in a way to ensure that the applicable external stakeholders are aware about the project and able to make use of its results (coordinated by 199.S.School, executed by all partners); - specific actions to ensure that such external stakeholders were involved and adhered to the project's cause and effects (coordinated by a joint force of ÇU MEM and the other TR partners); - the development of a e-course curricula (coordinated by ÇU, executed by all partners); - the development of a good practices guide and showcase (coordinated by NEU, executed by all partners); - the development of a benchmarking product comparing digital and traditional methods in the classroom by highlighting differences and similarities (coordinated by APLOAD, executed by all partners); - the development of a set of pedagogical e-games focused on values of digital and social inclusion (coordinated by CEVMB, executed by all partners).

S2DInTs results were its products (Tangible Results) and its further outcomes: Tangible Results: - TR1 – Teachers shifting to the e-environment: this was a course structured in an ensemble of modules aiming to support teachers in moving towards strategies and instruments to promote their digital lessons: learning how to solve problems, where to find tools and resources, how to structure lessons, how to address the students’ difficulties and problems and even the conflict among children, paying attention and preventing cyberbullying, etc. TR2 - Best & Promising Practices on Digital Classroom: through an ensemble of teachers’ testimonials and the description of promising practices and of practices already verified as highly successful, this became a guide demonstrating to those teachers who were not so proficient in the transition to the digital era, how they could implement their e-classrooms in the most promising and success-oriented way. In order not to be merely a repository of practices, this output had an assessment approach in order to detect areas requiring improvement in the described practices so it simultaneously announced them. TR3 - Digital Classroom: a EU Benchmark to support Innovation: a publication with several internal and external experts' contributions to bookmark the differences between traditional and digital methods in the classroom generating the idea of the e-classroom simultaneously as a counterfactual and as a complement, in a systemic and research oriented way, thus creating literature about this important subject and its future perspectives and tendencies. It was very distinct from the good practices guide since this publication focused on approaches and results, generating knowledge, much required nowadays in due regard for the fast evolving situation towards the digital era. Internal experts amongst the project partners and external experts other than project partners who sent chapters to the book participated as free of charge and they were not paid any fees. TR4 - e-Inclusion using a Gamified Approach - this result has been a creation and a collection of pedagogical games made available online for teachers to use in the e-classroom context as a way to promote inclusion of students coming from disadvantageous contexts and backgrounds, while raising awareness against discrimination and cyberbullying and in favor of a sound and respectful environment among the School’s community. This strongly impacted on students due to its ludic and competitiveness character. Website: providing for the visibility and dissemination of the project, its website was a fundamental output to enlarge its recruitment base of participants and stakeholders; it provided for a comprehensive information about the project and therefore was listed as one of its products. In line with this, also the additional dissemination materials were released: leaflets, newsletters and roll-ups, all accounting for a regular and permanent dissemination. Outcomes and effects were, by nature, harder results to conquer and definitely harder to measure, but target-values for indicators and foreseen impacts were provided further in this application. At this moment we focused on the overall description of the expected results during and beyond the project (sustainability). Further outcomes: - Dozens of Schools/teachers across Europe participated in the project and used its products, gaining on their digital skills; - Hundreds of students experienced new activities in class, discovering new and exciting possibilities presented to them in the eclasses; - Dozens of non-school actors (starting with the partnership itself) were involved in the school life, actively contributing to a stronger school, to diversity and to the appealing character of the e-teaching tools; - e-Classes became more attractive providing for higher levels of interest by students.