On the first day of the Summit, during breakout sessions participants explored five different ‘stops’ on our digital journeys. See the overview of the sessions below:

• Global citizenship education in digital competence centres
• IT skills for young refugees and migrants
• Adult education on basic digital skills
• Youth work with Digital
• Digital storytelling with illiterate adults

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Global citizenship education in digital competence centres

Recommendations from the BRIGHTS project

Moderators: Barbara Quarta, ALL DIGITAL; Luca Pagliaricci, Centro Studi Foligno

The current global scenario requires education and training institutions to assume greater responsibility than ever in helping learners of all backgrounds to develop into informed, critically literate, socially-connected, ethical and engaged global citizens. Nowadays, it is crucial that we give young people the competences and the voice to share their own perspective in a globalised society.

The topic of the session was implementing Global Citizenship Education (GCE) among young people using digital storytelling in formal and non-formal education. Experience, lessons learnt and recommendations from the BRIGHTS project were presented.

Barbara Quarta introduced and moderated the session, while Luca Pagliaricci shared his experience as a BRIGHTS national tutor in Italy. Moderators presented the findings from the BRIGHTS Experimentation Report, which summarises the results of the implementation of the BRIGHTS MOOC and face-to-face workshops in the project countries. Few examples of BRIGHTS digital stories produced by young people were also shown during the session. The young authors who took part in the session, talked about their experience. Session participants discussed how the methodology and results can be disseminated, scaled, and used by other digital competence centres or networks.

See the PowerPoint presentation used during the session (in .pdf)

How the BRIGHTS methodology and results can be used by other digital competence centres?

• The full BRIGHTS blended training course (MOOC + F2F workshops) can be localised and fully integrated in the training offer of digital competence centres working with young people.
• The BRIGHTS MOOC can be localised and integrated with new contents (on different topics).
• The project methodology can be used focusing only on a specific selected topic: e.g. sustainable development, human rights or hate-speech by producing online hate-speech counter-narratives.
• The project methodology can be adapted to a different target group: e.g. promoting social inclusion of refugees and migrants or other groups at risk of social exclusion.
• The project methodology can be used in digital competence centres to train e-facilitators working with adults and young people.
• The BRIGHTS digital stories can be used to raise awareness on GCE topics through a national or European online/offline campaign.
• The project methodology can be scaled up: BRIGHTS results can be complemented with other results from other local/national/European projects or initiatives and tested in different countries.
• Further funding opportunities can be identified at national and European level to further promote GCE and digital storytelling.

Participants concluded that the BRIGHTS methodology is very innovative and has a lot of potential for scaling up in different contexts and with different target groups.

For further interaction, ideas and communication, visit the online community on Global Citizenship Education on UNITE-IT. The community has over 100 members and anybody interested in the topic is invited to join.

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IT skills for young refugees and migrants

Experience from the WELCOME project.

Moderator: Nenja Wolbers, Stiftung Digitale Chancen

The main objective of this interactive session was to discuss what digital skills refugees and migrants need and how creative IT trainings can foster their social and digital inclusion.

Moderator Nenja Wolbers, project manager and trainer at SDC and partner in the WELCOME project, presented the project, its training programme, and “Fresh-from-the-oven” piloting experience.

The training programme developed within the project is tailored to the needs of migrants and refugees to help them integrate into the host country. It consists of four modules: Coding with Scratch, Digital Storytelling, Digital Journalism and Soft Skills. The main goal is to build the self-confidence of migrants and refugees and make them feel valuable, that is why the programme includes a practical part where the young participants organize a workshop for other migrants and local people on the IT topics they learned. Being in the role of mentors is very empowering for them.

To illustrate the link between offline and online activities, Nenja invited the participants for an energizer called Chic-Chac-Photo. Read about this and other energizers

The last part of the session was an open discussion among participants about their reactions and recommendations on how to improve the Digital Welcome training programme. Reactions and opportunities for further use of the programme included:

•  The aspect of feeling valued is important for everyone and should be part of any training programme, not only those for refugees and migrants. In this sense, the Digital Welcome training programme is a very good example.
• The target group of the programme could be broadened. One participant enquired about the possibility to adapt the programme to people with disabilities. This aspect has not yet been considered by the Digital Welcome project partners, but they are open to such discussion.

Recommendations included:

• Include a part on how to train people to give/receive feedback.
• Explain why soft skills exercises are necessary and are not just a playful experience. One participant suggested to show a funny picture of what happens at the work place when people don’t have soft skills.
• Explain what happens after the training, what should participants expect, how the results of the training (the acquired knowledge, skills and competences) will provide solution to their problems.
• Pre-assessment of participants’ needs, and expectations was recommended.
• A mixed training for refugees and migrants was recommended to increase the level of inclusion, but it was debated whether this is effective as a first step or should only come after the refugees and migrants have been through a first dedicated training.

Participants concluded that the Digital Welcome programme is very interesting and innovative and has a lot of potential for scaling up with other target groups or with mixed groups.

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Adult education on basic digital skills

Based on DigComp and DCDS – Digital Competences Development System project.

Moderator: Stefano Kluzer, AECA, ERVET

The discussion of the breakout session developed with an introductory presentation of the DCDS Erasmus+ project by Stefano Kluzer from AECA, ERVET (Emilia Romagna, Italy). This was followed by the illustration of how AUPEX (Extremadura, Spain) addresses the training of adult learners on DigComp area 5 Problem solving competences (focusing on the use of mobile phones) and finally, by a session of question and answers with the participants about DCDS and the AUPEX experience.
Unfortunately, no time was left to discuss the topics and priorities for the All Digital Working Group on DigComp. It was thus agreed that interested AD members would comment and enrich the first items list already posted in the WG and then a decision would be made on them.

The presentation on DCDS highlighted its two main aims – 1) influencing policy in favour of digital literacy for inclusion and 2) the design and testing of an assessment and training system for adult learners on DigComp’s 21 competences at foundation level – and its current progress. DigComp competence descriptions (level 1-2) have been specified into 95 specific learning outcomes (LOUTs). These were used to develop a self-assessment tool with both self-assessment and knowledge&ability questions and to set the objectives of 61 learning units (training building blocks). In turn, these units have been structured into 4 learning paths on: Base (safe navigation, search and email use); Communication and social media; Digital content production; and Exploring ICT (basic, transversal technical skills).

Gemma Parrado and José Miguel Morales, digital facilitators from AUPEX, answered to Kluzer’s final question on how to address DigComp’s Area 5 Problem solving competences with low digitally skilled and often also low educated adult learners. They illustrated specific examples of the topics they develop at basic and intermediate level for each of Area 5 four competences. Examples referred to smartphones, as they are now popular among adult learners. They work individually or in very small groups (about 4-5 people per trainer/facilitator) and stimulate peer-to-peer support. They emphasized the need to use simple language and familiar examples.

Q&A with participants concerned DCDS strategies to address illiterate people and to motivate people to register to the courses offered. Those on the AUPEX experience concerned the attention payed to security and netiquette aspects, the use of formal evaluation tests and training adaptation strategies depending on target groups.

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Youth work with Digital

Based on Youth Work HD tools and resources

Moderator: Hana Galogaza, CTK Rijeka

Youth work varies from country to country, and in some EU countries it is not yet recognized. The vast majority of European youths are online, making it sensible that youth workers also take their work online. The objective of the session was to understand how youth workers can be better prepared to face the new challenges. During the session, the Youth Work HD platform was presented as a new educational resource for digital workers and youth workers. All participants were invited to join the new edition of the Youth Work HD course in November 2018.

Participants discussed  the platform, shared their own experience on similar projects, resources and tools. Special focus was on follow up projects and new possibilities for cooperation in the field of youth work in digital environment.

The discussion took place online using an online tool called Menti, where participants can answer and ask questions anonymously. A few questions were shared with participants in the session to get an idea over the audience and their interest in Digital Youth Work. Questions shared in Menti were touching on the subject of ethics in youth work, sharing best practices, and clarifying the platform.

The outcomes of the session was a list of members interested in cooperation in the field of youth, a list of project ideas and a list of educational resources that members can use for youth work.

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Digital storytelling with illiterate adults

HURISTO interactive session.
Moderator: Eric Gijssen, MAKS vzw; freelance media coach and writer of the HURISTO manual

The purpose of the session was to discuss whether digital storytelling is an appropriate technique to work with low-skilled and even illiterate adults, which the challenges they may encounter and possible approaches to overcome them.

At the beginning of the session, Eric presented the HURISTO project and introduced some of the HURISTO partners who attended the session. The session officially started with an energizer. Learn more about the energizer and its purpose.

After the energizer, the discussion was first focused on the main challenges when working with illiterate adults. First participants watched a digital story produced in the context of the HURISTO Project (Ali’s bus – Terremondo, Italy), and the trainer from Terremondo told Ali’s story and shared some of the difficulties that they encountered during the HURISTO digital storytelling workshop.

During a brainstorming session, the following challenges have been highlighted:

• Language barriers, especially in writing and reading the scripts
• The risk that the digital story is too abstract
• Difficulties in creating a safe environment. Ana Belen, trainer in CEPA Montes Norte and partner in the HURISTO project, said that it is easier when people don’t know each other. They feel freer to share their stories
• Difficulties with the use of the digital tools due to low digital skills
• Lack of participants’ interest when they see that their stories don’t have much visibility
• Sometimes, participants in a digital storytelling workshop are obliged to participate in it and hence less motivate.

The discussion then addressed the possible solutions to tackle these challenges.

• Icebreakers are effective solutions when people are “obliged” to attend a digital storytelling workshop, as they bring people together.
• Facilitator’s role is to support participants in expressing themselves by creating a safe environment and helping them to shape their story when they find some difficulties. It would also be useful to have more than one facilitator. In this case, one facilitator could leave the group with a specific person when needed.
• It is good to contact the storytellers within a week after the workshop to ask their feedback.
• We must respect the stories, even if they seem too violent to someone’s eyes or they seem to address sensitive issues. After all, the aim of a digital storytelling workshop is to share real stories!
• Even though illiterate storytellers can be helped in writing the scripts, they face anyway the challenge of reading them. One of the solutions is, instead of writing scripts, to use drawings as a roadmap of the story.
• Participants also shared their experience with the different devices and digital tools to understand which are easier to use:
  o Ipads are preferred to laptops
  o Premier Pro is a paid software from Adobe, but it is very easy to use
  o Vlogit app is a very good app that can be used through the phone, both android and apple
• A way to give good visibility to participants stories is to organise a peer-to-peer event where they can share their stories with other peers. In the HURISTO project a peer-to-peer event was organised in each project country.

More details about solutions and examples are in the blogpost

The interactive session helped participants realise how digital storytelling can be the perfect technique for low-skilled adults to express themselves in an audio-visual way. They left the breakout session with a lot of inspiration and a bunch of practical ideas and tips.