Methods and tools to engage adult learners in the digital environment
As part of Result 1, Activity 2, the partners have created a Resource Library that demonstrates how to build and sustain effective group interactions in virtual classrooms. It takes the form of an easily accessible database and serves as a reference for best practises and helpful materials on the subject. This will enable the partners, their trainers and all interested teachers, tutors, mentors, coaches and other representatives of the project target groups to enrich their knowledge and daily practises in planning and preparing their online and hybrid lessons and sessions
All partners were involved in identifying resources and building the Library. The overall coordination of the process was done by the Bulgarian partner – Creativity and Educational Studio ARTED.
At the beginning, the partnership agreed on what they understood by a 'resource’, what criteria to apply and what steps to follow.
Thus, the partners decided to accept as a 'resource’ any methodological, didactic or pedagogical material related to building and maintaining effective group dynamics and interaction in digital educational environments.
It was also agreed that the selected resources should meet the following common criteria:
- They should address building and maintaining effective group interaction in an online learning environment.
- Preferably they should represent a European practise (produced by a European organisation), but interesting global practises are also accepted
- Should be available in English (if there are versions in other languages, that would be a plus).
- They should be available on easily accessible public sources (websites, digital libraries, digital journals, web portals, etc.).
- They should have a clear source of origin (i.e. the owner of the resource should be easily identifiable).
The partnership then proceeded to the following steps:
- finalising the template for the Resource Library;
- first phase of identifying resources, where partners matched appropriate materials based on mutually agreed criteria and sorted by type, title and link;
- cross-checking for duplicate resources to avoid repetition;
- 2nd Resource identification phase, in which all information about the identified materials was entered into the common template;
- building the Resource Library in English;
- translation of the Resource Library into all partner languages.
As a result, 65 resources, good practises and tools were identified and selected, which significantly exceeds the number of 30 foreseen in the proposal. Currently, the library includes: 2 manuals, 16 articles with helpful tips, 4 guidelines, 7 methodology/ToT documents, 2 examples of activities, 1 infographic/other graphic representation, 8 case studies, 1 online course, 14 videos and podcasts and 10 other resources.
For easy navigation, educators can choose between two options – either search the entire database or apply a philtre and go directly to the materials in the selected category. This saves them time and gives them direct access to the resources they need
So, would you like to browse the suggested materials and enrich your online teaching methods? Check out the following link – Resource library – digitaltools4teaching.