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LINKS-UP – Learning 2.0 for an Inclusive Knowledge Society – Understanding the Picture

Work Package 2 Case Study Report on inclusive Learning 2.0 Deliverable 2.1 Report on in-depth case studies of innovatve examples of the use of Learning 2.0 and Web 2.0 for inclusive lifelong learning. Edited by Guntram Geser Authors: Davide Calenda, Clare Cullen, Joe Cullen, Thomas Fischer, Guntram Geser, Renate Hahner, Martjn Hartog, Wolf Hilzensauer, Damian Hayward, Else Rose Kuiper, Veronique Maes, Bert Mulder, Katharina Nasemann, Sandra Schön and Diana Wieden-Bischof

Project Reference: 505544-LLP-1-2009-1-DE-KA3-KA3MP

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publicaton refects the views only of the author(s), and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the informaton contained therein.

Project informaton

LINKS-UP Learning 2.0 for an Inclusive Knowledge Society – Understanding the Picture Lifelong Learning Programme Sub-programme: KA3-ICT Acton: KA3 Multlateral Projects Project Number: 505544-LLP-1-2009-1-DE-KA3-KA3MP

htp://www.links-up.eu/

Contact

Thomas Fischer Insttute for Innovaton in Learning (ILI) [email protected] Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg

Editor Guntram Geser, Salzburg Research Forschungsgesellschaf, Salzburg, Austria

Authors Davide Calenda, Servizi Didatci e Scientfci per l’Università di Firenze, Prato, Italy Clare Cullen, Arcola Research LLP, London, United Kingdom Joe Cullen, Arcola Research LLP, London, United Kingdom Thomas Fischer, Insttute for Learning Innovaton (ILI), Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen, Germany Guntram Geser, Salzburg Research Forschungsgesellschaf, Salzburg, Austria Renate Hahner, Insttute for Learning Innovaton (ILI), Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Erlangen, Germany Martjn Hartog, The Hague University of Applied Sciences, The Hague, The Netherlands Damian Hayward, Arcola Research LLP, London, United Kingdom Wolf Hilzensauer, Salzburg Research Forschungsgesellschaf, Salzburg, Austria Else Rose Kuiper, The Hague University of Applied Sciences, The Hague, The Netherlands Veronique Maes, Arcola Research LLP, London, United Kingdom Bert Mulder, The Hague University of Applied Sciences, The Hague, The Netherlands Katharina Nasemann, Insttute for Learning Innovaton (ILI), Friedrich-Alexander-University ErlangenNuremberg, Erlangen, Germany Sandra Schön, Salzburg Research Forschungsgesellschaf, Salzburg, Austria Diana Wieden-Bischof, Salzburg Research Forschungsgesellschaf, Salzburg, Austria

A digital version of this Summary Report can be downloaded from htp://www.links-up.eu/

TABLE OF CONTENT Executve summary...................................................................................................... 5 Part A 1 Theoretcal and methodological overview..................................................................8 1.1 Learning, inclusion and Web 2.0.............................................................................8 1.2 Methodological approach ....................................................................................10 1.3 Research questons ..............................................................................................10 1.4 Research methods and case study design............................................................ 11 2 Selecton criteria and selected cases........................................................................ 13 2.1 Data collecton and analysis................................................................................. 13 2.2 Overview of selected cases...................................................................................14 3 Analysis of interventon concepts of Web 2.0 learning and social inclusion..............20 3.1 General observatons on the interventon concepts.............................................20 3.2 Tabular overview of the interventon concepts.................................................... 21 3.3 Important aspects of the interventon concepts..................................................24 4 Web 2.0 technologies used.......................................................................................27 4.1 General observatons on technology implementaton and use ...........................27 4.2 Tabular overview of tools and objectves............................................................. 28 4.3 Paterns of technology implementaton and use..................................................31 5 Problems encountered and lessons learned............................................................. 33 5.1 Observatons on major issues faced by the projects.............................................33 5.2 Tabular overview of problems encountered and lessons learned........................33 5.3 Discussion of the main problem areas and lessons learned.................................41 6 Recommendaton for successful projects in Web 2.0 learning and social inclusion...49 6.1 Overcoming resistance of organisatonal cultures................................................ 49 6.2 Meetng user needs and requirements in e-skilling & inclusion...........................49 6.3 Promotng open Web 2.0 based educatonal practces in schools........................50 6.4 Using appropriate e-learning & inclusion methods.............................................. 50 6.5 Driving partcipaton on community websites...................................................... 51 6.6 Securing sustainability and impact....................................................................... 52 7 The case studies and the landscape of Learning 2.0 for inclusion.............................53 7.1 Introducton..........................................................................................................53 7.2 The policy context................................................................................................ 54 7.3 The theoretcal context.........................................................................................58 7.4 The practces context ...........................................................................................61 8 A ‘theory of change’ interpretaton of the results.....................................................66 8.1 Introducton: Theory of change and impact assessment...................................... 66 8.2 Evidence on impacts.............................................................................................67 8.3 Summary of impacts: general theory of change analysis......................................70

Part B 9 Narratve reports......................................................................................................73 9.1 ALPEUNED ........................................................................................................... 73 9.2 Assistve Technology Wiki.....................................................................................78 9.3 Avatar@School.....................................................................................................86 9.4 BREAKOUT ........................................................................................................... 92 9.5 Conecta Joven.................................................................................................... 106 9.6 Cyberhus............................................................................................................ 118 9.7 EduCoRe............................................................................................................. 122 9.8 FreqOut!.............................................................................................................128 9.9 HiStory................................................................................................................134 9.10 ICONET............................................................................................................. 138 9.11 Mixopolis..........................................................................................................143 9.12 MOSEP..............................................................................................................148 9.13 Mundo de Estrellas...........................................................................................153 9.14 Netlukio..........................................................................................................166 9.15 Notschool......................................................................................................... 172 9.16 Pinokio..............................................................................................................184 9.17 rePlay................................................................................................................188 9.18 Roots & Routes.................................................................................................193 9.19 Savvy Chavvy.................................................................................................... 197 9.20 Schome Park.....................................................................................................202 9.21 Seniorkom.at.................................................................................................... 208 9.22 TRIO..................................................................................................................214 9.23 Web in the Hood.............................................................................................. 220 9.24 XenoCLIPse....................................................................................................... 223 10 Literature and sources.......................................................................................... 228

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Background and aims of LINKS-UP LINKS-UP is a two-year research project that is co-fnanced by the Lifelong Learning programme of the European Commission. The project started in November 2009 and is carried out by an internatonal project team: The project co-coordinator University of Erlangen (DE), Arcola Research LLP (UK), European Distance and eLearning Network (UK), Salzburg Research Forschungsgesellschaf (AT), Servizi Didatci e Scientfci per l’Università di Firenze (IT) and University of the Hague (NL). The overall aim of LINKS-UP is to combine and enhance the know-how of existng projects in the feld of inclusion with learning 2.0 in order to promote beter future e-inclusion projects and policies. More specifcally, LINKS-UP will | collect and analyse informaton on projects that are using Web 2.0 tools and methods for learning and social inclusion, | implement an “Innovaton Laboratory” for “Learning 2.0 for inclusion” to support knowledge-sharing between diferent existng initatves, | develop new approaches and tools building on the gathered expertse, and | test identfed success factors in fve learning experiments examining whether and in what ways they improve the efciency and efectveness of current learning 2.0 approaches for inclusion. This research work refects the increasing interest in the opportunites ofered by “Web 2.0” for supportng innovatve ways of learning, especially for those who are “hard to reach” or “at risk” of social exclusion. LINKS-UP relates to, and aims to support, a number of current policy initatves. On the European level this includes the EU i2010 initatve (2005) 1, the Riga Declaraton on e-inclusion policy goals (2006)2; the Lisbon Declaraton on e-inclusion (2007) 3; the European Commission’s Communicaton “Ageing Well in the Informaton Society” (2007)4 and the “e- inclusion: be part of it” initatve5.

1

i2010 - A European Informaton Society for growth and employment. Available online at: htp://ec.europa.eu/informaton_society/eeurope/i2010/index_en.htm [2010-09-15]

2

Riga Declaraton (2006). Available online at: htp://ec.europa.eu/informaton_society/events/ict_riga_2006/doc/declaraton_riga.pdf [2010-09-16]

3

Lisbon Declaraton: An Alliance for Social Cohesion through Digital Inclusion, Lisbon, 2829 April 2006. Available online at: htp://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/where/latnamerica/regional-cooperaton/alis/documents/lisbon_declaraton_en.pdf [2010-09-16]

4

EC Communicaton (2007) 332 fnal. Available online at: htp://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/site/en/com/2007/com2007_0332en01.pdf;

5

e-Inclusion: Be Part of It! Available online at:: htp://ec.europa.eu/informaton_society/actvites/einclusion/bepartoft/index_en.htm [2010-09-10]

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Case study report on inclusive Learning 2.0 This report presents an in-depth case study analysis of 24 examples of innovatve use of Learning 2.0 and Web 2.0 for inclusive lifelong learning (project deliverable 2.1). The report comprises two parts: | Part A presents the approach and results of the case study analysis, and | Part B contains the narratve descriptons of the 24 case studies. The main objectve of this collecton and analysis of exemplary projects is to investgate the potental of Learning 2.0 to support the social inclusion of groups at risk of exclusion from society. In partcular, problems encountered and lessons learned by the projects are summarised, and a number of practcal recommendatons provided on how to realise successful projects in Web 2.0 learning and social inclusion. The projects studied are also set within the current “landscape of Learning 2.0 for inclusion”, i.e. the contexts of policy, theory and practces. Thus the extent to which the cases are supportng the major policies in the feld, the conceptual thinking around social inclusion and the needs of excluded groups is evaluated. Moreover, the projects are refected upon from the perspectve of a “theory of change” approach taking account of the evidence on impacts they provide.

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PART A

PART A

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1

THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL OVERVIEW 1.1 Learning, inclusion and Web 2.0 6 ‘Inclusion’ is a complex concept, not least, because it is intmately associated with its opposite – exclusion. As Glass (2000) observes, there is frequently a confusion in the literature between trying to measure social exclusion and trying to measure the efects of policies aimed at eliminatng it. The eliminaton of exclusion – inclusion – needs to address complex mult-dimensional phenomena. As the European Commission (2004) defned it, exclusion is ‘a process whereby certain individuals are pushed to the edge of society and prevented from partcipatng fully by virtue of their poverty, or lack of basic competencies and lifelong learning opportunites, or as a result of discriminaton. This distances them from job, income and educaton opportunites as well as social and community networks and actvites. They have litle access to power and decision-making bodies and thus ofen feeling powerless and unable to take control over the decisions that afect their day to day lives.´ The growing ubiquity of ICTs in recent years, as a result of the burgeoning ‘Knowledge Society’, has atracted the atenton of initatves and projects aiming at harnessing technologies to address exclusion and support inclusion. This has especially been the case with regard to ´Web 2.0´, and ‘social networking’ technologies, with their potental to support far greater social interacton than before. As a range of studies have demonstrated (see Redecker et al., 2009); the Web ofers a lot of possibilites for self-expression and people are able to partcipate, e.g. to gain informaton, to communicate and to collaborate in many diferent ways. For example, with the use of web 2.0 technologies, blind people are able to partcipate by using a braille display, a device which transforms the informaton on the screen into embossed printng. Also, migrants can use online tools to enhance their second language abilites with informal learning actvites. Nevertheless, the “digital divide” between beter-educated and higher-status groups and involuntary of-liners or people with low digital literacy stll exists and limits the possibilites of partcipaton. A recent report by the Oxford Internet Insttute observed that: “technological forms of exclusion are a reality for signifcant segments of the populaton, and that, for some people, they reinforce and deepen existng disadvantages” (Helsper, 2008). There is strong evidence to suggest that signifcant numbers of people remain at the margins of the ‘knowledge society’ – not least because the complexity and diversity of their lives, and their roles in a ‘technologically rich’ society, remain poorly understood (Facer & Selwyn, 2007). Digital inclusion itself is therefore a new feld for inclusion initatves, concerning e.g. the accessibility of web resources or digital literacy of people at (the risk of) exclusion. Against this background, a number of initatves have been established to support the applicaton of ICTs – partcularly Web 2.0 – to inclusion. In tandem, a range of initatves aimed at awareness-raising and disseminaton of good practces in the feld have been implemented, including, several awards schemes. For example, the European e-Inclusion Award7 was established in 2008 in the following categories: ageing well, marginal-

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The following text is a slightly revised version of parts of Schafert, Cullen, Hilzensauer & Wieden-Bischof, 2010, pp. 57–64.

7

European e-Inclusion Award – htp://www.e-inclusionawards.eu/ [2010-05-18]

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ised young people, geographic inclusion, cultural diversity, digital literacy, e-accessibility, and inclusive public services. Altogether 469 European insttutons had applied for the eInclusion Award in 2008. To build an overview of the results and lessons learnd in the projects, the European Commission initated a study (Osimo, De Luca & Codagnone; 2010) on projects and initatves in the whole feld of inclusion by private and non-proft European organisatons. The majority of case studies are in the feld of e-accessibility (ibid, p. 10). Another study, published in 2008, gives an overview on the diferent felds of acton and examples of einclusion in Austria (The Federal Chancellery 2008). Furthermore eLearning Papers No. 19, a publicaton of elearningeuropa.info, has published a number of artcles on inclusion and digital technologies (eLearning Papers, 2010). Learning with ICT is to be seen as a key driver for inclusion. It is increasingly argued that Web 2.0 can empower resistant learners and groups at risk of exclusion by ofering them new opportunites for self-realisaton through collaboratve learning, and by changing the nature of educaton itself. This owes much to a noton that has come to the fore in recent thinking on learning – the idea that educaton is now focusing on ‘new millennium learners’ (NML), and that the future of learning is inextricably bound up with these learners. NML – those born afer 1982 – are the frst generaton to grow up surrounded by digital media, and most of their actvites dealing with peer-to-peer communicaton and knowledge management are mediated by these technologies (Pedró, 2006). For example, it is easier to take part in open learning initatves, proft from open educatonal resources and new tools that allow easy communicaton and collaboraton for learners. There seem to be fewer boundaries to take part in these opportunites compared with formal educaton setngs, where social milieu, family background, healthiness, socio-economic possibilites and the accessibility of educatonal insttutons as well as the geographic juncton e.g. urban areas, are stll the most important factors for (non) partcipaton. Yet, as noted above, the evidence base for these conclusions is fragmented and contested. There is also counter evidence that Web 2.0 can reinforce exclusion and reduce learning outcomes. For example, it seems that people with beter educaton and socioeconomic backgrounds proft more from the new learning and partcipaton opportunities than others. This efect – those who have more will get more – is called Mathew’s efect based on a popular citaton from the bible. Therefore, a sceptc view on projects within this feld is needed. Critcal questons comprise: Is learning 2.0 really supportng inclusive life-long learning? Can isolated experiments be mainstreamed and is learning 2.0 fundamentally changing the educatonal landscape? Untl now, there have only been a few studies that bring together experiences in this feld. For example, the aim of the project “E-learning 4 E-inclusion” is “to build a community for those with valuable expertse regarding the use of eLearning for digital inclusion” (Casacuberta, 2007, 1). Another contributon which focuses on inclusion projects dealing with learning and Web 2.0 is called “e-learning 2.0” (Downes, 2005) or in short “learning 2.0”. As a part of a bigger project about learning 2.0 projects and their efects on innovaton (see Redecker et al. 2009) a study based on case studies of eight projects on learning 2.0 for inclusion was implemented by Cullen, Cullen, Hayward, & Maes (2009). Within this study, the described initatves focus on learners ‘at risk’ of exclusion from the knowledge-based society. For example, the alternatve online-school “Not-school” focused on young people for whom 'school does not ft'. Another example is “MOSEP” , which de-

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veloped training materials for trainers using the e-portolio method, addressed the growing problem of adolescents dropping-out of the formal educaton system around Europe (Hilzensauer & Buchberger, 2009). The study delivered an overview about approaches and experiences within eight case studies concerning the innovatveness, the barriers and success factors of the initatves. Building on the results of the above mentoned study by Cullen et al. (2009), the LINKSUP project has been developed. LINKS-UP will collect and enhance the know-how of selected European projects in the feld of inclusion through learning and Web 2.0. The project aims at delivering recommendatons for beter projects and policies in the special feld of inclusion through learning 2.0. This report is one important step for this.

1.2 Methodological approach From a methodological point of view, the recommendatons coming from LINKS-UP will be derived through a four-step-process: Step 1: The project consortum will describe and analyse case studies of existng projects in the feld of inclusion through learning 2.0 with a detailed tool-kit for case studies. Step 2: In fve “innovaton laboratories” LINKS-UP partners will observe new Web 2.0 usages within existng projects using ‘acton research’. Acton Research (Pedler, 1997) focuses on gathering and analysing data to assess the nature and scope of changes brought about by an innovatve interventon – in these cases the use of Web 2.0 to supplement existng learning practces. Observatons made by the project manager and by partcipants will be collected, selected and refected on. The data collecton and analysis will be linked to specifc hypotheses posed by the inital LINKS-UP research analysis. For example, the acton research will test the hypothesis that ‘motvatonal resistance to partcipaton in Web 2.0 learning environments can be reduced through peer support – especially with older learners’. On the basis of the acton research results, a list of recommendatons will be developed as a guideline to make beter projects and policies in the future. Nevertheless, the frst part of our investgatons is a case studies analysis.

1.3 Research questons The overall research questons of LINKS-UP are based on the assumpton that, the usage of Web 2.0 is supportng inclusive lifelong learning. LINKS-UP will thus explore three main issues: | Is Learning 2.0 really supportng inclusive life-long learning? | Can isolated experiments be mainstreamed? | Is Learning 2.0 fundamentally changing the educatonal landscape? Other research questons providing additonal input to the study were: | What kinds of Learning 2.0 applicatons are currently being developed and implemented to support lifelong learning and social inclusion? | What are their characteristcs, in terms of technical confguratons; learning scenarios; pedagogic methods; insttutonal arrangements? | What kinds of new digital skills are emerging as a result of the use of Learning 2.0 applicatons?

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| What other, non-digital key competences for lifelong learning, are being supported by Learning 2.0 applicatons? | In what ways are Learning 2.0 applicatons equipping users with skills that will increase their labour market opportunites? | What examples of good practce can be identfed and how can these be used to support future policy and practces in the feld?

1.4 Research methods and case study design The research design of this study is a slightly modifed approach of the approach developed for Cullen et al (2009). The methodological approach adopted follows accepted models and practces used in case studies (Yin, 2002), but incorporates additonal elements chosen to suit the partcular focus of this study – partcularly the research questons outlined above – and the environment in which Learning 2.0 initatves operate. Six of these additonal methodological elements applied were: | Behavioural additonality analysis (Georghiou & Clarysse, 2006) – a method used to measure both individual and aggregate changes in learning and social interacton behaviours, using self-reported measurements; | Theory of change analysis (Chen, 1990) – an approach used to identfy both the explicit and implicit paradigm of change that lies at the heart of an innovaton – in other words the transformatve model that is embedded within it; | Cultural logic analysis (Habermas, 1981) – a ‘discursive’ approach used to supplement the ‘theory of change’ analysis and aimed at de-constructng the conceptual and theoretcal paradigms underlying the initatves, their ‘vision’ of Lifelong Learning, Learning 2.0 and e-Inclusion and their intended outcomes; | Pedagogic audit – a tool for assessing learning outcomes (see as an example the Australian Flexible Learning Community, 2004); | Digital skills audit – a method focusing on capturing the extent to which Learning 2.0 applicatons are developing and supportng e-skills over and beyond the basic ICT skills typically aimed at in conventonal digital literacy programmes; | Social capacity audit – an instrument aimed at assessing the efects of partcipaton in Learning 2.0 initatves aimed at promotng social inclusion on promotng individual capacity and social partcipaton (see Freire, 1970 and Horton & Freire, 1990). The case study methodology design is based on fve inter-connected stages: (a) logistcs, (b) positoning and profling, (c) data collecton, (d) analysis, (e) synthesis. Table 1 summarises the objectves of each phase together with the methods and tools used to implement it.

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Phase

Objectves

Methods and Tools

Logistcs

Establish protocols for implementng case studies

Case study procedures

Identfy key informants and data sources. Contact key ‘gatekeepers’. Arrange site visit

Logistcs audit

Desk research to collect preliminary data on the case

Case profle template

Situate the case in its cultural and organisatonal lifeworld

Environmental Audit

Collect preliminary data on key research questons with main informant

Key informant Interview schedule

Collect data generated through utlisaton of platform and tools

Guideline for automated data collecton

Collect data on user experiences

Self administered user questonnaire

Collect in depth data on user experiences

User interview schedule

Collect group data on user experiences

Focus Group Guidelines

Observe how the initatve operates on the ground

Observaton guideline

Analyse content produced by the initatve

Content analysis Guideline

Assess key outcomes and impacts for individual users

Behavioural additonality analysis template

Compare intended outcomes with actual outcomes

Theory of change analysis template

Evaluate the ‘vision’ of the initatve

Cultural logic analysis

Assess learning outcomes

Pedagogic audit

Assess innovatve e-skills outcomes

Digital skills audit

Integrate the results of the data collecton and analysis to answer key research questons

Case Summary template

Positoning and Profling

Data Collecton

Analysis

Synthesis

Table 1: Case Study Design (see Chen, 1990)

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SELECTION CRITERIA AND SELECTED CASES 24 cases were selected for a detailed analysis. The selecton of cases refected the following priorites: | Diferent Learning Setngs – include formal and non-formal learning setngs; diferent target groups, in partcular ‘at risk’ and ‘hard to reach’ groups; training situatons (i.e. workplace, at home; distance or face-to-face), training needs (i.e. general, vocatonal, leisure; re-skilling, up-skilling) and interactons (i.e. learner-teacher, learnerlearner, teacher-teacher), organised learning (i.e. in schools, universites, training centres); | Diferent Social Computng Applicatons – include a variety of uses of social computing applicatons in learning contexts, involving wikis, blogs, podcasts, social bookmarking, editng and networking tools, virtual realites/immersive technologies, as well as networking, sharing, reviewing, commentng, collaboratve knowledge creaton, editng or publishing; | Maturity and Potental of the Initatve – include initatves that provide examples of sustainable development; | Geographical Distributon – include a range of diferent geographical locatons and cultural environments. The procedure adopted for case study selecton was as follows: | A frst list of potental projects within the feld of inclusion and learning 2.0 was compiled by our partner Arcola Research LLP, through intensive research for cases and projects in diverse diferent European publicatons and repositories. | The partners additonally looked for interestng projects within their language area. This was a very productve step as the partners found a lot of projects from outside the UK: Typically they are described and documented in their natve language without English translaton (which is normally only needed in European cooperaton's or in UK). | Aferwards, the partners selected possible projects (with the help of the already described criteria above) and contacted project managers of potental case studies. | Depending on the interest and agreement of the projects the fnal list of case studies was discussed and decided by the project partners.

2.1 Data collecton and analysis As noted above, the study approach incorporates a mult-methodological design involving the use of diferent data collecton methods (quanttatve and qualitatve) involving a diverse range of actors that consider each of the examples from diferent perspectves. As a result, data collecton varies from case to case in terms of the type of data collected, the range of actors represented, the balance between ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ data. However, the case study procedure involved synthesising and interpretng the results using a common template in order to promote standardisaton and support cross-case comparisons. This approach was successfully used (Cullen et. al., 2008), and we slightly modifed templates and procedures due to the partners' needs.

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2.2 Overview of selected cases

Scope of Inclusion

Ageing well

Marginalised people (e.g. educatonal – school drop out, gifed people, illness, economic, labour market, social exclusion risks...)

Geographic inclusion (e.g. regional focus, non-urban or rural area)

Cultural diversity

g

g

g

g

(e.g. migrants, ethnic minorities)

ALPEUNED

g

Assistve Technology Wiki

g

Avatar@School

g

BREAKOUT

g

Conecta Joven

g

Cyberhus

g

EduCoRe

g

FreqOut!

g

g

g

g

HiStory

g

ICONET

Digital literacy (e.g. all populaton groups)

g

Mixopolis

g

MOSEP

g

Mundo de Estrellas

g

Netlukio

g

Notschool

g

g

Pinokio

g

rePlay

g

Roots & Routes

g

g

Savvy Chavvy

g

Schome Park Seniorkom.at

g

g

g

TRIO

g g

Web in the Hood

g

XenoCLIPse

g g

g

Table 2: Classifcaton of the cases according to the diferent categories of e-Inclusion

Table 2 gives an overview of the cases and shows the variety with respect to their “scope of inclusion”. The classifcaton of inclusion scenarios is based on the categories of the e-inclusion awards8. Table 2 shows that in this sample most of the projects focus inclusion of marginalised people. Other important dimensions are cultural diversity and digital literacy, whereas ageing well and geographic inclusion are (intentonally) less present.

8

htp://www.e-inclusionawards.eu/

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Target groups

Young kids

Teenagers9

ALPEUNED

Students10

(young)11 Adults

Seniors

g


g

Avatar@School BREAKOUT

g g

g

Conecta Joven Cyberhus

g g

g

g

EduCoRe

g

FreqOut!

g

g

HiStory

g

ICONET

g

Mixopolis

g

g

MOSEP

g

g

Mundo de Estrellas

g

Netlukio

g g

Notschool

g

Pinokio

g

g

rePlay

g

g

Roots & Routes Savvy Chavvy

g g

Schome Park

g

g g

g

Seniorkom.at

g

g

TRIO

g

g

g

g

Web in the Hood

g

XenoCLIPse

g g

g

g

Table 3: Target groups addressed

Table 3 shows that all age groups are well represented, although most cases include the category teenagers. Obviously, Web 2.0 strategies focus more on the Net-Generaton as well as on the adolescence. Most projects have more than one target group, which offers a variety of implementaton scenarios as well as transferability of results.

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Persons between the ages of 13 and 19.

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This category includes young people who atend a regular school or university curriculum.

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FreqOut! And Roots & Routs targets young people aged 13-25 years old.

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Learning actvites

formal12

non-formal13

ALPEUNED

informal14 g

Assistve Technology Wiki Avatar@School

g g

g

BREAKOUT

g


g g

g

EduCoRe

g

g

FreqOut!

g

g

HiStory

g

g

ICONET

g

g

g

Mixopolis

g

g

g

MOSEP

g

Mundo de Estrellas Netlukio

g g

g

Notschool

g

g g

Pinokio

g

rePlay

g

g

g

Roots & Routes

g

g

g

g

g

g

g

g

g

g

g

Savvy Chavvy Schome Park

g

Seniorkom.at TRIO

g

Web in the Hood XenoCLIPse

g

g

g

Table 4: Category of the Learning Actvites

Most of the learning scenarios focus on informal learning outcomes, ofen in combinaton with either formal or non-formal aspects. Although informal learning actvites are hard to categorise, the cases focus on the indirect acquirement of skills by “doing” something with the internet (in diferent setngs) or by using Web 2.0 technology. The documentaton and refecton upon these actvites allow for informal learning outcomes.

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Formal learning is learning that takes place within a teacher-student relatonship and educatonal setng (e.g. school). Nonformal learning is organized learning outside the formal learning system. For example: learning by coming together with people with similar interests and exchanging viewpoints, e.g. in a youth organizaton. Informal learning occurs in everyday life, e.g. situatons at work, conversatons, playing, etc.

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Inclusion objectve

Educatonal Re-inserton

Supportng Disability

ALPEUNED

g


g

Digital Literacy

Overcoming Low ICT Use

Addressing Social Isolaton

g

g

Avatar@School

g

BREAKOUT

g


g g

EduCoRe

g

g

g

g

g

FreqOut!

g

g

g

HiStory

g

ICONET

g

Mixopolis

g

MOSEP

g

Mundo de Estrellas Netlukio

g

Notschool

g

g

g g

g

g

g

g g

g

Pinokio

g g

rePlay

g

Roots & Routes

g

Savvy Chavvy Schome Park

g g

Seniorkom.at TRIO

g g

g

g

g

g

Web in the Hood

g

g

XenoCLIPse

g

g

Table 5: Inclusion objectve

With regards to the inclusion objectves, the cases are quite heterogenous. Most of the projects provide strategies against social isolaton, accompanied with other measures. Ofen the inclusion objectve is combined with an educatonal focus, where up-skilling and competence development are key. Also some cases with a focus on inclusion of people with disabilites are included in the sample.

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Tables 6 and 7 below present the felds of interventon combined with the diferent categories of learning actvites and age groups:

Young kids

Teenagers

Students

Ageing well

(young) Adults Seniorkom.at

Seniors HiStory Seniorkom.at

Avatar@School BREAKOUT Avatar@School Marginalised people (e.g. educatonal – school drop out, gifed, illness, economic, labour market, social exclusion risks...)

BREAKOUT Cyberhus Mundo de Estrellas rePlay Web in the Hood Pinokio

Cyberhus


FreqOut! ICONET MOSEP Netlukio Mundo de Estrellas

ALPEUNED

Conecta Joven

TRIO

EduCoRe

ICONET

FreqOut!

Conecta Joven TRIO

Roots & Routes

Notschool

TRIO

rePlay Roots & Routes Schome Park

Geographic inclusion (e.g. rural area)

Netlukio FreqOut! ICONET Mixopolis

Cultural diversity (e.g. migrants, ethnic minorites)

Pinokio

Netlukio

Savvy Chavvy

Pinokio

Web in the Hood

Roots & Routes Savvy Chavvy

Conecta Joven Mixopolis

FreqOut!

XenoCLIPse

Roots & Routes

Conecta Joven

XenoCLIPse

Schome Park XenoCLIPse Digital literacy (e.g. all populaton groups)

FreqOut! Web in the Hood


Conecta Joven

Conecta Joven

FreqOut!

HiStory

Seniorkom.at

Seniorkom.at

Web in the Hood

Web in the Hood

Table 6: Addressed age groups and felds of inventons of the case studies

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formal Ageing well

non-formal

informal

HiStory

HiStory

Seniorkom.at

Seniorkom.at ALPEUNED

Marginalised people (e.g. educatonal – school drop out, gifed, illness, economic, labour market, social exclusion risks...)

Avatar@School

Avatar@School

Cyberhus

EduCoRe

ICONET

FreqOut!

MOSEP

ICONET

PINOKIO

Mundo de Estrellas

Netlukio

Netlukio

rePlay

Notschool

Roots & Routes

rePlay

Schome Park

Roots & Routes

TRIO

Schome Park

Assistve Technology Wiki BREAKOUT Conecta Joven Cyberhus EduCoRe FreqOut! ICONET MOSEP Mundo de Estrellas rePlay Roots & Routes Schome Park

Geographic inclusion (e.g. rural area)

Netlukio

Netlukio

ICONET

ICONET

ICONET

Mixopolis

FreqOut!

FreqOut!

Netlukio

Mixopolis

Mixopolis

Pinokio

Netlukio

Pinokio

Roots & Routes

Roots & Routes

Roots & Routes

Schome Park

Savvy Chavvy

Savvy Chavvy

XenoCLIPse

Schome Park

Schome Park

Conecta Joven

Cultural diversity (e.g. migrants, ethnic minorites)

XenoCLIPse Conecta Joven FreqOut! Digital literacy (e.g. all populaton groups)

XenoCLIPse

FreqOut!

HiStory

HiStory

Seniorkom.at

SeniorKom.at

Web in the Hood


Table 7: Addressed learning and feld of interventons of the case studies

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3

ANALYSIS OF INTERVENTION CONCEPTS OF WEB 2.0 LEARNING AND SOCIAL INCLUSION The projects covered in the sample of LINKSUP case studies imply theories and models of change. The expectaton is that by introducing in a social environment some innovative components – in our cases Web 2.0 tools and methods – diferent behaviour of individuals, social groups or organisatons are promoted and, thereby, some favourable impact and change achieved. For example, such impact and change may be re-engagement and beter achievement of learners thereby leveraging employability and allowing for job careers. A project in Web 2.0 supported learning and social inclusion relate to macro-model and a micro-model of change. In the example above, the micro-model is about the learner’s re-engagement and achievement (how can this be realised more efectvely) linked with a socio-economic macro-model that requires people with certain qualifcatons and aspiratons (how to provide the economy, business and other sectors with knowledgeable and dedicated workers). There are other such models in partcular when it comes to issues of social anomy (e.g. deprived communites) and social exclusion (e.g. of ethnic minorites and migrant communites). In such problem situatons, the intended impact of using Web 2.0 tools and methods in the frst place is about strengthening communites and promote social inclusion. But processes of social learning play a key role also in such situatons (e.g. actvites that vitalise a social community, help develop mutual understanding among social groups, etc.). The models inform interventons aimed at tackling problems in learning and social inclusion and realising favourable impacts and changes in attudes, knowledge and behaviours. In the sectons below, we analyse the interventon concepts of the projects studied. The interventon concept of each project comprises the problem addressed, the target group(s), the interventon using Web 2.0 tools and methods, and the intended impact of the interventon. The sectons below are structured as follows: 1. provides general observatons on the interventon concepts of the projects studied; 2. presents a tabular overview of the interventon concepts; 3. discusses and illustrates important aspects of the concepts.

3.1 General observatons on the interventon concepts Problems addressed: The main problems requiring interventon are understood to be lack of competences and partcipaton in social life, i.e. social inclusion which requires actve engagement by the individuals and social groups themselves. In partcular, engagement in educaton, vocatonal training and lifelong learning in many social groups is seen as a core issue. A core issue in our sample of projects of course are e-skills as a basis for employability and partcipaton in the informaton and knowledge society. Furthermore, beter counselling in critcal problem situatons as well as for vocatonal orientaton and job fnding is seen as a vital need. Also there is a quest for innovatve approaches that challenge established ways of providing public services. For example, such

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approaches should allow for re-envisioning educaton and new scenarios of schooling or allow for new methods in crime preventon and ofender rehabilitaton services. Target groups: Groups that stand out as interventon targets are “hard to reach” learners in deprived communites including also ethnic minorites and larger groups of migrants. Young people are a prime target of interventons because they are seen to be “at risk” (and potentally ofending), have talents for a job career in creatve industries, and may strengthen their community by becoming role models of achievement and a voice for their interests. Other partcular interventon targets are children, students and adults with disabilites or medical conditons. Interventon approaches: A “blended” approach is the most common form of interventon. The main reason for this is that in many interventons frstly lack in e-skills and other barriers such as lack in motvaton and trust must be overcome. A “blended” approach also allows for developing social relatonships and exchange of experiences among partcipants (community building) that can be supported, eased and enhanced by using Web 2.0 tools. “Online only” approaches are used in contexts where there is an established portal or community website and users can be expected to already have sufcient e-skills. Intended impacts: Re-engagement in learning, vocatonal training and lifelong learning and leveraging employability combined with social inclusion are the strongest themes in our sample of case studies and, probably, also the primary intended impacts of the majority of similar projects across Europe.

3.2 Tabular overview of the interventon concepts The table below provides an overview of the interventon concept of each project studied. The concept comprises the identfed problem, the target group(s), the interventon using Web 2.0 tools and methods, and the intended impact of the interventon. Details about the partcular Web 2.0 tools used are provided and analysed separately in the next chapter.

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Problems & target group addressed

Web 2.0 supported interventon and intended impact

ALPEUNED

Equal learning opportunites and social inclusion of distance learning students with disabilites

Promote peer communicaton and counselling in forums on the distance learning portal to address problems of disabled students and increase social inclusion

Assistve

Improvement of ICT and e-learning opportunites for disabled adults and children through cooperaton in a dedicated membership organisaton

Allow for actve online partcipaton of more members on the organisaton’s website to create momentum and receive new ideas and support

Aggressive social exclusion (e.g. bullying) requires competence in confict mediaton of students and teachers

Provide a virtual environment as a safe place for role-playing in confict situatons and learning about how to behave and mediate in such situatons

BREAKOUT

Need of new approaches in youth crime preventon and ofender rehabilitaton services

Allow for Web 2.0 based communicaton in “acton learning” of students at risk, teachers, probaton services and youth ofending teams to prevent of-fending behaviour

Conecta Joven

Vocatonal training and lifelong learning opportunites for marginalised social groups of adults to allow for employability and social inclusion

Provide hands-on ICT training combined with online learning and exchange of experiences to keep learners engaged and socially connected

Cyberhus

Meaningful leisure actvites and counselling for kids and teens “at risk”

Provide a save on-line environment where kids and teens can connect, learn together and get support by skilled counsellors in critical situatons

EduCoRe

Support employability and partcipaton in society of people that sufer from physical defciencies afer an accident or illness

Blended training and counselling approach for people in the physical rehabilitaton process (hospital, rehabilitaton centre, home) to allow for skills acquisiton and social connectedness

FreqOUT!

Promote creatve actvity, social inclusion, and employability of young people from deprived communites

Blended approach to engage, train and connect talented young people and pre-sent their creatve products, potentally allowing for a job career in the creatve sector

HiStory

E-inclusion/partcipaton of seniors that is also benefcial for the wider social community and society

Engage seniors to partcipate in the digital sphere by telling their stories of personally experienced historical events and developments online (actve e-citzenship)

ICONET

Recogniton of informal vocatonal skills of students gained in extra-curricular experiences to leverage employability

Develop validaton procedures in a train-thetrainer environment and pro-mote adopton of the procedures potentally raising the job chances of students

Technology Wiki Avatar @School

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Mixopolis

Need of beter vocatonal orientaton and job fnding of young people with migraton background

Atract, inform and connect young people from the target community through an online job orientaton portal

MOSEP

Prevent early school leaving and leverage students’ educatonal achievement and preparaton for vocatonal careers

Motvate and train teachers and vocatonal counsellors to use e-portolios and online collaboraton methods to beter accompany students in their educaton and vocatonal orientaton career

Mundo de

Increase well-being and learning of ill school-age children in hospitals

Provide the children with an online environment for learning, recreaton and social community

Netlukio

Students and adults who cannot partcipate in the regular school system (e.g. parents with small children, shifworker, disabled persons, students living abroad) but want to gain an upper secon-dary school diploma

Provide a fexible learning environment for self-directed course work and com-municaton with tutors and peers to prepare for the natonal exam

Notschool

Re-engage and remove barriers to learning of young people who have become disafected in traditonal school environments or excluded by behaviour or circumstances from school

Enable personalised and self-directed learning with community support (tutors, peers and other community members) to allow for resilience and educatonal achievement of students

Pinokio

Need to promote intercultural logue against social exclusion of grants involving pre-school primary school children, teachers parents

diamiand and

Combine story telling (fables) with new media to co-create narratves that allow for discussing and beter understanding of processes of social exclusion

rePlay

Interventon programs for social (re-) integraton aimed at marginalised and potentally ofending young people

Provide an environment for game-based social learning and integraton in centres for young ofenders and schools in deprived communites

Roots &

Promote creatve actvity, social inclusion, and employability of talented young people from deprived communites

Blended approach of face-to-face learning and hands-on development of skills in creative producton with online community and presentaton of creatve products, potentally allowing for job careers in the creatve sector

Strengthen ethnic minorites by encouraging young people to take pride in their culture

Provide a safe, self-managed environment for young people from the Gypsy community to connect, share experiences, and tell stories about their culture

Estrellas

Routes

Savvy Chavvy

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Schome Park

Explore new educatonal possibilites of co-learning and peer mentoring of young people with difcultes in mainstream schooling

Provide a virtual world for open learning practces that challenge traditonal teacherstudent roles and assessment of learning, allowing for re-envisioning educaton and new scenarios of schooling

Seniorkom.at

E-inclusion of seniors by providing opportunites for recreatonal, learning and community actvites

Engage seniors on a dedicated portal by allowing for meaningful and largely self-organised actvites with own contributons

TRIO

Retenton of adults in vocatonal training and lifelong learning

Provide a regional portal with e-learning courses and communicaton features that help counter learner drop-out and leverage retenton

Web in the

Strengthening deprived communites through e-skilling and community-focused actvites of adults

Blended approach with physical meetng places for socialising and presence and actvites of community members on the Web aimed to stmulate people caring for each other

Strengthen ethnic minorites and migrant communites by encouraging young people to produce own media images of their culture

Support media producton and presentaton of young people from the target communities potentally opening up job careers in media organizatons

Hood

XenoCLIPse

Table 8: Overview of the interventon concepts

3.3 Important aspects of the interventon concepts Problems addressed At the most general level the core problem addressed is social inclusion requiring actve partcipaton of the target groups addressed. More specifcally, lack of engagement in educaton, vocatonal training and lifelong learning of people young and old is seen as a prime target in need of interventon. The larger part of the case studies addressed this problem area. Clearly an inclusive knowledge society cannot be realised if many people do not avail of some e-skills and vocatonal experiences as a basis for employability and partcipaton in social and economic life. Also beter counselling in critcal problem situatons as well as for vocatonal orientaton and job fnding is seen as a vital need and addressed by some of the projects (e.g. Cyberhus, ICONET, Mixopolis and MOSEP). Partcularly interestng are also projects that respond to the quest for innovatve approaches that challenge established ways of providing public services. This includes Schome Park in the feld of re-envisioning educaton and creatng new scenarios of schooling and Breakout that tested new methods in crime preventon and ofender rehabilitaton services.

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Target groups addressed The major interventon targets are a range of social groups that are understood as “hard to reach” and comprise unemployed low-skilled adults, young people “at risk” that should be re-engaged in learning, and ethnic minorites and migrant communites lacking social inclusion and partcipaton. There is a strong focus on social groups in deprived (urban) communites and young people are seen as a prime target also because they may strengthen their communites. They may become role models of achievement, leveraging pride in, and respect of, ethnic minorites and migrant communites, and serve as a voice for their culture and interests. A partcular focus of projects in this feld is to recruit and train talented young people for a job career in the creatve industries (e.g. FreqOUT!, Roots & Routes, XenoCLIPse). Other partcular interventon targets are children, students and adults with disabilites or medical conditons (e.g. ALPEUNED, Assistve Technology Wiki, EduCoRe, Mundo de Estrellas). Interventon approaches Most commonly used is a “blended” approach that comes in diferent variants and is fne-tuned for diferent target groups and interventons: At the base level there are interventons that frstly aim at overcoming barriers to social inclusion and learning, then support development of basic e-skills, and additonally promote actvites on the Web (e.g. Conecta Joven and Web in Hood). A special case is Notschool that developed a whole system for re-engaging school dropouts in learning, allowing for self-directed learning without fear of failure or pressure to achieve, connectng with a supportve community (peers, tutors and other community members), and securing formal accreditaton and certfcaton of educatonal achievement. Interventons that focus on talented young people allow for hands-on acquisiton of skills in creatve producton (workshops, summer schools, etc.), online social networking and presentaton of products, potentally opening up a path towards a job career in the creatve industries (e.g. FreqOUT!, Roots & Routes, XenoCLIPse). Furthermore there are interventons that prepare teachers and vocatonal counsellors to use innovatve tools for beter accompanying students in educaton and vocatonal orientaton and preparaton, e.g. e-portolios (MOSEP) or a method for validatng in-formal vocatonal skills of students gained in extra-curricular experiences (ICONET). Also of note are examples of interventons that focus on teachers, students and parents to develop awareness and skills (e.g. story telling, confict mediaton) for overcoming social exclusion (e.g. Avatar@School and Pinokio). Approaches that mainly or only use online actvites can be found in the context of established online portals, for example, a distance learning university (ALPEUNED), an Internet-based upper secondary school (Netlukio), a re-gional portal for vocatonal training (TRIO), a job orientaton portal for students (Mixopolis) or a platorm for seniors (Seniorkom.at).

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Furthermore there are open or restricted community websites that implement Web 2.0 tools to allow more members to share ideas and collaborate on topics of interest (e.g. Assistve Technology Wiki, Cyberhus, Savvy Chavvy). In such cases the target groups are expected to already have sufcient e-skills for accessing informaton, partcipatng in actvites, and communicatng with peers or a counsellor.

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4

WEB 2.0 TECHNOLOGIES USED This secton analyses what technologies, in partcular, Web 2.0 tools have been used by the projects. The observatons concern what platorms and specifc tools are used and if projects are similar in terms of purpose and target groups use the same or diferent sets of Web 2.0 tools. The sectons below are structured as follows, 1. provides general observatons on how the projects implemented and used a range of Web 2.0 tools; 2. presents a tabular overview of what project objectves were supported by which Web 2.0 tools; 3. discusses some paterns identfed in the implementaton and use of the tools.

4.1 General observatons on technology implementaton and use Ofen several tools have been used – most ofen communicaton and collaboraton tools such as weblogs, wikis, forums, chat and podcasts. Media sharing platorms such as YouTube, fickr, slideshare are also an important element in many projects. Such tools and popular platorms are seldom combined with “classical” e-learning portals and course programs. The Moodle platorm has been used by several of the projects; others used Drupal or a home-grown system (e.g. the social sofware inspired and highly user-friendly system of “Web in the Hood”). Social networking platorms were used by projects aimed at bringing together creatve people from marginalised communites, e.g. Facebook by FreqOUT! and Ning by Savvy Chavvy. Projects also explored how to use virtual worlds, e.g. Second Life by Schome Park and OpenSim by Avatar@School.

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4.2 Tabular overview of tools and objectves Web 2.0 tools used

Objectve for which the technology has been used (and by whom)

ALPEUNED

Interactve forums on a distance learning portal

Support student peer counselling related to issues of disabled students (Spanish Natonal University for Distance Learning - UNED)


Wiki and media sharing on a Moodle platorm; wiki related features included Wetpaint, a „Wiki Weekly Digest“ e-mailed to members, a „Community Spot-light“ introducing a member

Engage members of AbilityNet that focuses on improving ICT for people with disabilites (registered natonal charity, UK)

Avatar

OpenSim virtual world with avatars for role playing of students

Trial a virtual learning approach for confict mediaton in situatons such as bully-ing and other social aggression (EU Soc-rates project)

BREAKOUT

Weblog, forum and podcasts functonality on a EU project website

Allow for communicaton among teachers, probaton services, youth ofending teams and others who work with young people at risk (EU Socrates project)

Conecta Joven

Weblog, forum, co-authoring and media sharing on a regional portal dedicated to adult workplace and lifelong learning

Ofer 23 community support centres collaboratve and blended learning oppor-tunites aimed to overcome “digital di-vide” (largescale regional project in Catalonia, Spain)

Cyberhus

Several tools such as Weblogs discussion forum, Q&A, instant messaging clients and others, implemented on Drupal

Provide a save online club environment for kids and teens including counselling by volunteers (non proft organisaton).

EduCoRe

Weblogs, forum, wiki, implemented on Moodle

Trial e-inclusion of people that sufer from physical defciencies afer an accident or illness; e.g. Weblog as learning diary, online collaboraton and e-counselling (EU Gruntvig LLL project)

FreqOUT!

Uses a wide range of tools such as weblogs, social networking (Facebook group), YouTube and other content producton, sharing and presentaton tools

Support creatvity projects with marginalised young people (13-25 yrs) in deprived communites (Vital Regeneraton, UK, funded by public grants and private sponsorships)

HiStory

Weblogs for writng, aggregatng and commentng on personal stories

Trial e-inclusion of senior people who tell their stories of personally experienced historical events and developments, promote inter-cultural / generatonal exchange (EU Lifelong Learning project)

@School

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Web 2.0 tools used


ICONET

Web 2.0 features in a train-the-trainer tool, forums to share ideas and access material for counselling of students

Trial vocatonal counselling tools aimed at documentng relevant vocatonal skills of secondary general school students that are not covered in school leaving certfcates (EU Leonardo project)

Mixopolis

Wiki, forums, weblogs, chat, poll, social bookmarking and other tools and functonality

Portal for accompanying young people with migraton background (but also others) in vocatonal orientaton and job fnding (part of the German natonal “Schulen ans Netz” initatve)

MOSEP

E-Portolio sofware (Mahara), Wiki, video podcasts

Train teachers and vocatonal counsellors on e-portolio work with students who prepare the next phase of their educaton or a vocatonal career (EU Leonardo project)

Mundo de

Personal Learning Environment, interactve forums, online games and other features

Support learning and well-being of schoolage children in 32 public health service hospitals in Andalusia (Spain) since 2000

Netlukio

Learning management system with virtual classroom technol-ogy, wikis, forums, weblogs, skype; recently a virtual confer-ence room for remote partcipa-ton in a classroom at Otava Folk High School has been added

Allow students and adults who cannot partcipate in the regular school system to gain an upper secondary school diploma (start funding by ESF, natonal funding for regular operaton)

Notschool

A range of tools such as weblogs, “MySpace” functons (notes, bookmarking, etc.), podcastng; implemented on First Class plat-form; partcipants also received an iMac computer and a printer (also access to digital media equipment) and internet access at home

Work with young people who have become disafected in traditonal school environments or excluded by behaviour or circumstances from school (UK DfES funded-project)

Pinokio

Weblogs, ebooks, podcasts, slide-share and other tools for producing and sharing stories

Promote intercultural dialogue against social exclusion of immigrants involving pre-school and primary school children, teachers and parents (EU Comenius project)

rePlay

3D game environment for learning situatons aimed to prevent ant-social behaviour

Develop and trial a game platorm for social (re-)integraton of marginalised young people, meant to be used by secondary schools in deprived areas and centres for young ofenders (EU FP7-ICT project)

Estrellas

29

Web 2.0 tools used


Weblogs, social networking and multmedia sharing tools; the web tools were used in combinaton with vocatonal internships, summer schools and other face-to-face learning opportunity

Engage marginalised young people between 15 to 25 in creatve actvites, bring them in contact with professionals from the arts and creatve sector, and pave a route towards further learning and career development (EU Leonardo project)

Savvy Chavvy

Social networking (Ning based community), weblogs, discussion forums, podcastng and video sharing (via YouTube/Blip.tv); leaders from the online community were trained to administrate and moderate the site

Provide young people from the Gypsy community with a safe place to share stories, podcasts and blogs about their culture (funded and promoted by On Road Media, UK, based on School for Social Entrepreneurs and Unltd awards)

Schome Park

Second Life virtual world, wiki, weblogs, forums, media-sharing (YouTube, blip.tv, Flickr)

Explore new educatonal possibilites of colearning and peer mentoring in an inclusive community; partcipants were young people aged 13-17 with difcultes in mainstream schooling (Open University project, UK – funded by the Natonal Associaton for Gifed and Talented Youth, the Innovaton Unit, Becta)

Seniorkom.at

Portal with a broad range of functonality from weblogs to web radio, also taking care of easy and barrier-free access to features and content

Engage senior people in recreatonal, learning and community actvites such as contributng content (artcles, photos, videos), keeping a diary, partcipate in forums and chats, games, etc. and ofering news and advice on special themes (funded and promoted by several Austrian senior organisatons and media, sofware and communicatons providers)

TRIO

Forums and wiki on a Moodle based platorm ofering e-learning courses

Counter drop-out and increase learner retenton on a vocatonal training portal by allowing communicaton among learners and tutors (portal funded and managed by the Administraton of the Region of Tuscany)

Web in the

Web toolbox with which people can create their own website in 4 clicks and then enrich the profle, use a logbook, add content, etc.; there is also a module for startng an actvity and invitng people to join

Provide e-skills training for adults and help them create own web pages aimed to promote social processes in the neighbourhood; “animators” connect the people behind the websites (funded by the Commissie dag indeling [NL], Oranje Fonds, EQUAL-ESF)

Roots & Routes

Hood

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XenoCLIPse

Web 2.0 tools used


Online course and hands-on training in video clip creaton; the videos were made accessible online and a special Web 2.0 element was a geo-referenced directory for people interested in reaching clip producers (e.g. journalists, media companies)

Empower and make visible interests of ethnic minority and migrant communites and promote media careers of students from these communites (EU eLearning project)

Table 9: Overview of tools and objectves

4.3 Paterns of technology implementaton and use Use of Web 2.0 tools and features on existng insttutonal platorms A large part of the projects used Web 2.0 tools in the context of EU projects (e.g. EU Leonardo, Socrates and other) that typically set up a dedicated project website. Yet there are also a number of initatves that use Web 2.0 tools and features on existng insttutonal platorms, e.g. ALPEUNED, Assistve Technology Wiki, Cyberhus, Mundo de Estrellas, Netlukio, Seniorkom.at, TRIO. The fact that a platorm is already implemented can be an advantage or a hindrance to the full use of a Web 2.0 approach. Open platorms with Web 2.0 tool modules (e.g. Drupal, Moodle and others) ease the setup, customizaton and interoperability of tools. Other platorms may considerably limit what tools a project can use (and in which ways) and, even, impede a Web 2.0 approach. An illustratve case is Cyberhus that in 2009 changed to a fexible platorm (Drupal) and, as their project manger reported, “saw an explosion in use of our forums and queston and answers columns”. Another example may be TRIO: Managed by the Administraton of the Region of Tuscany this platorm since 1998 ofers traditonal e-learning courses. TRIO has over 120,000 registered users and provides thousands of hours training each month. TRIO recently moved from a proprietary system to Moodle and implemented forums and wikis. Do similar projects use the same set of Web 2.0 tools? We tried to identfy if projects that are similar in terms of purpose and target groups use the same set of Web 2.0 tools. The answer for our sample of projects is “no”. Rather a core set of tools is used by very diferent projects. Though a large part of the projects want to engage and support people in community building. The core set of tools comprises weblogs, wikis, forums/chat and is used by projects with purposes and target groups as diverse as e-inclusion of people that sufer from physical defciencies (EduCoRe), support of young people with a migraton background in vocatonal orientaton and job fnding (Mixopolis) and online engagement of seniors (Seniorkom.at).

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Use of one core tool A couple of projects illustrate that rather simple tools as well as advanced environments may be used as the core tool: For example, HiStory used Weblogs to engage seniors in history telling; ALPEUNED implemented a dedicated forum on their distance learning portal to supports student peer counselling related to issues of disabled students. Among the advanced environments are an OpenSim virtual world with avatars for role playing of students used by Avatar@School, and a 3D game environment developed and trialled by rePlay for purposes such as re-educaton programmes in centres for young ofenders. “Low tech with high touch” Among the outstanding examples are uses of “low tech” (but as such state-of-the-art) tools such as weblogs, social bookmarking and slideshare. For example, Notschool that re-engaged teens in educaton or Pinokio that engaged kids and parents to work on themes related to social exclusion of immigrants.

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5

PROBLEMS ENCOUNTERED AND LESSONS LEARNED The projects studied encountered a number of problems and learned some interestng lessons that are of interest to other Web 2.0 based e-learning and e-inclusion initatves. The sectons below present and discuss these problems and lessons learned. They are structured as follows: 1. provides general observatons on major issues faced by the projects; 2. presents a tabular overview of the main problems and lessons learned of each project; 3. summarises and illustrates the main problem areas and lessons learned.

5.1 Observatons on major issues faced by the projects Organisatonal cultures: The most fundamental issues have to do with organisatonal cultures. Projects may face resistance by such cultures to use Web 2.0 communicaton and collaboraton tools. Ofen a change in mindsets and practces would be necessary to beneft from Web 2.0 approaches. User needs & requirements: Identfying and meetng the needs & requirements of the target groups is one of the key success factors. Some cases that used Web 2.0 tools for e- inclusion seemingly were unable to properly identfy and address them untl later phases of the project. Level of partcipaton: Some projects did not reach the expected level of partcipaton by the envisaged target groups. Sometmes project managers have too high expectatons of actve partcipaton of the users of a portal or community website. In some cases high motvaton and self-organisaton of partcipants can drive an online community, others need moderaton by skilled community managers. Measuring learning gains and securing formal certfcaton: Projects that use Web 2.0 approaches usually imply that students have more freedom than in a traditonal learning environment. However, there are considerable issues with regards to assessment and formal recogniton of learning outcomes. Project-to-project work with difcult to reach communites: A number of cases demonstrate critcal issues with regards to sustainability and impact of initatves that work with hard to reach social groups under the pressure of funding regimes. Working with socially excluded groups: Successful work with social groups such as ethnic minorites and migrants requires buy-in and self-organisaton of leading members of the excluded groups. Availability of ICT: Last but not least there are issues that have to do with out-dated ICT in some places (e.g. schools), lack of access to ICT by people in deprived areas, and need of easy to adapt and use tools.

5.2 Tabular overview of problems encountered and lessons learned The tabular overview below notes the specifc context and focus of each project (e.g. EU project focused on partcular objectves, regional e-skills initatve, etc.), and summarises the Web 2.0 elements, the main problems encountered and most important lessons learned by each project.

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ALPEUNED

Context / focus

Web 2.0 elements / main problems encountered / most important lessons learned

Initatve of the Spanish Natonal University for Distance Learning (UNED) aimed to support peer counselling of students with disabilites

Web 2.0 elements: The university implemented interactve forums on the distance learning portal to allow for peer communicaton and counselling. Problems: Student motvaton and engagement was felt to be low. Only 482 disabled students out of a total of 4026 enrolled were interested and visited forums. Lessons learned: There was much „chatng“ (e.g. about the university administraton) which, however, was not moderated and channelled towards productve ends.


Membership organisaton (registered natonal charity, UK) that aims to improve ICT for people with disabilites and supports e-learning opportunites for disabled adults and children

Web 2.0 elements: The organisaton implemented a wiki and media sharing to allow for actve online partcipaton of more members. Problems: The level of partcipaton was much lower than expected, most content was generated by only a few members. Lessons learned: Web 2.0 applicatons do not necessarily drive partcipaton. Diverse interests of diferent potental users must be taken into account and their needs and requirements addressed thoroughly.

Avatar @School

EU Socrates project focused on confict mediaton in situatons such as bullying and other forms of social exclusion

Web 2.0 elements: An OpenSim virtual world with avatars was used as a safe place for pupils to role-play in confict situatons and learn about how to communicate and mediate in such situatons. Problems: Some technical problems in schools that lacked up-to-date computers and because of internet frewalls or flters. Lessons learned: An applicaton such as Avatar@School should be used as part of a wider social integraton strategy.

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BREAKOUT

Context / focus


EU Socrates project focused on crime preventon and ofender rehabilitaton

Web 2.0 element: The project used applicatons such as weblogs, forums and podcasts to promote communicaton among students at risk, teachers, probaton services and youth ofending teams. Problems: Resistance of organizatonal cultures to adopt the project approach („acton learning“) – lack of sufcient partcipaton on the collaboraton platorm. Lessons learned: Established practces of hierarchic organisatons are difcult to overcome. Yet, Web 2.0 applicatons can provide an environment for students at risk that is external to their normal paterns and vehicles of social interacton and they may engage in a self-help support culture.

Conecta Joven

Large regional project in Catalonia aimed at e-inclusion of marginalised social groups involving 23 community support centres focused on adult workplace and lifelong learning

Web 2.0 elements: The project provides hands-on ICT training and blended learning opportunites with Web 2.0 features. Problems: Difculty of atractng funding to secure sustainability and potental extension of the actvites to other localites. Lessons learned: The key success factor of the project is voluntary partcipaton of young trainers and motvators and contnuity of their work on the local level.

Cyberhus

Non proft organisaton that provides a save online club environment for kids and teens including counselling by volunteers

Web 2.0 elements: The online environment ofers a wide range of tools such as weblogs, discussion forum, instant messaging and others. Problems: Good online counselling (e.g. on how to face problems in school) required beter and diferent interacton tools. Lessons learned: Implementaton of a fexible platorm and tool set allowed enriching the interacton with the youngsters.

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EduCoRe

Context / focus


EU Gruntvig project focused on people that sufer from physical defciencies afer an accident or illness that threaten their employability and partcipaton in society

Web 2.0 elements: A set of Web 2.0 tools (e.g. blog, wiki, forum) allowed a blended training and counselling approach for people in the physical rehabilitaton process (hospital, rehabilitaton centre, home). Problems: Inital training content and setng was not appropriate for patents with physical defciencies; some sceptcism of medical staf. Lessons learned: User needs & requirements must be analysed thoroughly and organisatonal contexts fully taken into account.

FreqOUT!

Initatve managed by the independent charity Vital Regeneraton that works with deprived communites in boroughs in London (funded by public grants and private sponsorships)

Web 2.0 elements: Use of several tools for communicaton, social networking and content sharing and presentaton. Problems: Project-by-project based work with hard to reach social groups under the pressure of funding regimes. For example, longer interventon is ofen needed to reach, train and engage creatve people from deprived communites. Lessons learned: Strong barriers to learning require diferentated methods of involvement; importance of demonstrate impact to sponsors and mainstreaming of successful projects.

HiStory

EU Lifelong Learning project focused on e-inclusion of senior people who tell their stories of personally experienced historical events and developments

Web 2.0 elements: Primarily weblogs for writng, aggregatng and commentng on personal stories. Problems: Some reluctance of seniors to commit to personal contributons with ICT; difcult to customize tools (e.g. multlinguality). Lessons learned: Good guidance and support is necessary, e.g. workshops with seniors to explain the project approach, step-by-step guide on how to use tools.

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ICONET

Context / focus


EU Leonardo project aimed to develop and promote tools for evaluaton of informal vocatonal skills of students gained in extra-curricular experiences

Web 2.0 elements: Web 2.0 features in a train-the-trainer tool, forums to share ideas and experiences. Problems: Sceptcism about adopton of the interview and validaton tools in routne practce. Lessons learned: Adopton of the tools and recogniton of validated informal skills by potental employers will require changes in mindsets and practces.

Mixopolis

Portal of the German natonal Schulen ans Netz initatve that wants to accompany young people with migraton background (but also others) in vocatonal orientaton and job fnding

Web 2.0 elements: Portal with several communicaton and networking tools (e.g. wiki, forum, poll, social bookmarking). Problems: Atractng and retaining users from the target groups. Lessons learned: Need to systematcally involve third partes and multpliers such as schools, migrant organisatons, youth centres and others.

MOSEP

EU Leonardo project focused on teachers and vocatonal counsellors working with students who prepare the next phase of their educaton or a vocatonal career

Web 2.0 elements: E-Portolio sofware (Mahara), Wiki and video podcasts for train-thetrainer approach. Problems: Diferent educatonal cultures and requirements of partcipatng insttutons, tutors and learners necessitated developing a broad picture of possible e-portolio uses, processes and outcomes. Lessons learned: E-portolio adopton requires promotng a collaboratve teacher role and a change in insttutonal mindsets and practces.

Mundo de Estrellas

32 public health service hospitals in Andalusia that since 2000 provide ICT to school-age children to allow for learning, social community and wellbeing

Web 2.0 elements: Personal Learning Environment with access to forums, online games and tools for sharing of experiences. Problems: Mainly technical issues and increasing expectatons of users of online features, i.e. upgrade infrastructure to provide new applicatons, services and a wider range of content. Lessons learned: A well-balanced ofering (i.e. learning, community and recreaton), integraton within hospital environment, and engagement of families and carers must be achieved.

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Netlukio

Notschool

Context / focus


The Internet Upper Sec-ondary School (Finland) that allows people with difcultes to atend a regular school curriculum to gain a school diploma (start funding by ESF, natonal funding for regular operaton)

Web 2.0 elements: Virtual classroom and conferen-cing, wikis, forums, weblogs (incl. personal learning portolio and diary).

UK DfES funded-project aimed to reengage young people who have become disafected in traditonal school environments or excluded by behaviour or circumstances from school; involves some 500 young people each year

Web 2.0 elements: Several tools for virtual presence, enhancing basic skills and allowing for social community (tutors, peers and other community members).

Problems: Some inital problems with the virtual class-room and conferencing technology (loading tme, communicaton features, etc.). Lessons learned: Importance of fnding a good bal-ance between self-directed learning and communica-ton with tutors, peers and the wider school com-munity in order to stay in contact and encourage the learners.

Problems: Intermediaries between home and school must be dedicated to following innovatve and unconventonal methods. Inital difcultes in assessing measurable learning gains and securing formal certfcaton. Lessons learned: Disengaged students perform beter when taken out of a standardsdriven school environments as there is no fear of failure or pressure to achieve. A constructvist approach with personalised, selfdirected and community-supported learning em-powers learners and removes many of the barriers to learning.

Pinokio

EU Comenius project involving preschool and primary school children, teachers and parents to promote intercultural dialogue against social exclusion of immigrants

Web 2.0 elements: Weblogs, ebooks, slideshare and other tools for producing and sharing stories. Problems: Promotng co-creaton in a school environment where traditonally the teacher is expected to mediate content and assess learning achievements. Lessons learned: Combining traditonal story telling (fables) with new media provides fertle ground for pedagogical innovaton, e.g. co-creaton of narratves allows for discussing and beter understanding of processes such as social exclusion.

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rePlay

Context / focus


EU FP7-ICT project that develops and trials a game platorm for social (re-) integraton of marginalised young people, meant to be used by schools in deprived areas and re-educaton programmes in centres for young ofenders

Web 2.0 elements: Social interacton mainly within the game and face-to-face with therapist, teacher or social worker, however, online applicatons such as a discussion forum may be integrated. Problems: Some inital problems were technical robustness and design for boys and girls; possible difculty to achieve market take-up. Lessons learned: Need for high fexibility of the learning environment, e.g. diferent user profles and con-tent related to specifc preventve and interventon programs.

Roots & Routes

EU Leonardo project aimed to engage marginalised young people between 15 to 25 in creatve actvites, bring them in contact with professionals from the arts and creatve sector, and pave a route towards further learning and career development

Web 2.0 elements: Weblogs, social networking and mult-media sharing tools supplement and expand vocatonal internships, summer schools and other face-to-face learning opportunites. Problems: Engaging the target groups and establishing close connectons with vocatonal training centres and the professional world of cultural and creatve producton. Lessons learned: Success requires high visibility (branding), ambassadors and multpliers in the communites, and role models for the talented young people.

Savvy Chavvy

Initatve of On Road Media (UK) that provides young people from the Gypsy community with a safe place to share stories, podcasts and blogs about their culture (funded by School for Social Entrepreneurs and UnLtd awards)

Web 2.0 elements: Social networking (Ning), discussion forums and media sharing tools (e.g. YouTube); leaders from the social community administrate and moderate the site. Problems: Inital lack of interest and buy-in by the tar-get community that had faced racism and exclusion. Lessons learned: Importance of gaining credibility and trust, fnding community ‘champions’, ownership and moderaton of the registraton-based social networking environment by the community.

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Schome Park

Context / focus


Open University UK project that explored new educatonal possibilites of co-learning and peer mentoring in an inclusive community; partcipants were young people aged 13-17 with difcultes in mainstream schooling (funded by NAGTY, The Innovaton Unit, Becta)

Web 2.0 elements: Second Life virtual world with several communicaton and media-sharing features. Problems: Lack of fast internet access and eskills by some members of the target group; educatonal staf asked for more directon (e.g. clearer alignment to curriculum) and technical support; difcult to monitor and assess learning progress and outcomes. Lessons learned: Open learning models challenge traditonal school setngs, in partcular, teacher-student roles and assessment of learning outcomes. Teachers are likely to fear loosing control and need pedagogical as well technical training to develop collaboratve elearning skills.

Seniorkom.at

Natonal portal for engaging senior people in a broad range of recreatonal, learning and community actvites (funded and promoted by several Austrian senior organisatons and media, sofware and communicatons providers)

Web 2.0 elements: Portal with a broad range of functonality from weblogs to web radio, also taking care of easy and barrier-free access to features and con-tent Problems: Providing, marketng and maintaining many opportunites for e-partcipaton. Keeping the high-level of support by promoters and sponsors. Lessons learned: Strong motvaton from, and self-organisaton by, the user community is key („a web-site of seniors for seniors“).

TRIO

Regional vocatonal training portal funded and managed by the Administraton of the Region of Tuscany

Web 2.0 elements: Moodle based platorm ofering e-learning courses with additonal features such as forums and wikis. Problems: Constant concerns of the portal are learner drop-out and retenton rates in vocatonal training and lifelong learning. Lessons learned: Communicaton and collaboraton features have been implemented, yet they are more frequently used among tutors. The learners must be motvated and skilled the use the tools as part of the curriculum.

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Web in the Hood

Context / focus


E-skills training and community building initatve for adults in deprived communites in the Netherlands funded by the Commissie dag indeling, Oranje Fonds, EQUAL-ESF

Web 2.0 elements: A web toolbox that allows easy creaton and enrichment of user websites and communicaton (e.g. a module for startng an actvity and invitng people to join). Problems: Social community workers are not necessarily interested in ICT for their clients; also the approach to address all (not only marginalised people) and stmulate people caring for each other was much harder to implement than the initators thought. Lessons learned: The core of the initatve is the „blended“ approach with physical meeting places for socialising and exchanging ideas and the web presence and actvity of community members. The idea that the partcipants could organise Web in the Hood all by themselves did not work out yet. A professional “animator” is stll very important to drive partcipaton.

XenoCLIPse

EU eLearning project aimed to empower and make visible interests of minority and migrants communites and pro-mote media work / careers of students from these communites

Web 2.0 elements: Video clips created by the partcipants are presented online and a Web 2.0 based directory is ofered for people interested in reaching the producers (e.g. journalists, media companies). Problems: Facilitatng access to digital producton tools and development of media skills and products is only the frst step. Lessons learned: Involvement of mainstream media organizatons and associatons is necessary so that the community empowerment has societal impact.

Table 10: Overview of problems encountered and lessons learned

5.3 Discussion of the main problem areas and lessons learned Below we summarise main problem areas of, and lessons learned by, the projects. Selected examples illustrate critcal issues. Many lessons learned about success factors may be transferable to other projects contexts. Resistant organisatonal cultures The larger part of the case studies presents projects that involved individual or a group of organisatons from the educatonal sector, i.e. schools, universites, vocatonal and adult & lifelong learning centres. Other projects involved rather diferent organisatonal cultures, for example, social workers (Web in the Hood), ofending and drugs services (Breakout), hospitals and physical rehabilitaton centres (EduCoRe).

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Some of the projects had to face reactons by the organisatonal cultures that ranged from more or less actve resistance (e.g. against using collaboraton tools) to a moderate, and probably realistc, degree of sceptcism by the professional staf (e.g. about usefulness of the results in routne practce). The strongest resistance was felt in the Breakout project which involved organisatons that are focused on crime preventon and ofender rehabilitaton. For example, there were tensions between and within professional groups because of „territorial boundaries“, hierarchy and competton among units. This contributed to a lack of sufcient commitment and partcipaton in the project’s „acton learning” approach. The need to achieve changes in organisatonal mindsets and practces was also experienced in Notschool, where intermediaries between the youngsters and the project team had to commit to following innovatve and unconventonal methods. A less obvious example is Web in the Hood, which, however, challenged ingrained paradigms of social workers (at least in the Netherlands). One would expect a warm welcome by social work organisatons of an initatve aimed at increasing e-skills and Web actvity of members of deprived communites. But not so, at least not as a priority need. Importantly, Web in the Hood took a diferent approach than the dominant paradigm. While professional social workers mainly focus on marginalised people, the project ad-dressed everybody and aimed to stmulate people caring for each other (Kuiper, 2007). Also projects that involved educatonal organisatons, e.g. schools, distance learning universites and vocatonal training platorms identfed issues of organisatonal culture. Those issues relate to the open educatonal approaches for which Web 2.0 environments and tools were used. Open learning models challenge traditonal school setngs, in partcular, teacher-student roles and assessment of learning outcomes. A good example is Schome Park which used a Second Life virtual world to explore new educatonal possibilites of co-learning and peer mentoring in an inclusive community. Some staf members and students found it difcult to re-imagine educaton and teacherstudent roles. Teachers asked for more coordinaton and pedagogical and technical support. The need to promote a collaboratve and co-creatve teacher role not only to teachers but also to students, parents and other stakeholders was also expressed in clear “no resistance” projects. For example, in the Pinokio project that involved primary schools that nourish a rather traditonal image of the teacher. It should be clear that in the school environment projects ofen face problems that are associated with tmetabling and additonal burden of staf. School staf under tme pressure will very likely to see new projects as a nuisance rather than a potental beneft. Key lessons learned: Projects involving organisatons such as ofending and drugs services may have to cope with considerable resistance by organisatonal culture and tensions because of professional rivalry, competton for resources, disciplinary diferences and disputes. Introducing an online collaboraton platorm will very likely have no impact on their organisatonal culture and practces; only litle use of such platorms can be expected.

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In order to promote unconventonal approaches and methods, ingrained paradigms of professional communites must be identfed and addressed, be they medical staf, social workers or teachers. Open educatonal approaches that use Web 2.0 environments and tools will challenge traditonal school setngs and teachers as a change in teacher-student roles is necessary. Teachers are likely to fear loosing control and need pedagogical as well as technical training to develop collaboratve e-learning skills. Measuring learning gains and securing formal certfcaton Some of the projects had to deal with issues of measuring learning gains (e.g. to demonstrate impact) and of securing formal certfcaton of outcomes. These issues of course are closely related to the objectves of educatonal insttutons and their core role of providing certfed qualifcatons. ICONET developed and promoted procedures and tools that allow for validatng relevant vocatonal skills gained by students during extra-curricular experiences. The project focused on teachers in secondary general schools and job counsellors. There remained some sceptcism about the impact on routne practces, i.e. wider adopton and use of the interview and validaton tools. Also recogniton of validated informal skills by potental employers seemed unsure, e.g. if the formal school leaving certfcate is not convincing. Schome Park found it difcult to identfy progress in learning in the Second Life virtual world, because the exploratve and communicatve methods allowed students much more freedom than a traditonal learning environment. Teachers asked for more directon (e.g. clearer alignment to curriculum) and worried about how to assess learning outcomes. Also Notschool experienced inital difcultes in assessing measurable learning gains and secure formal accreditaton. Yet these difcultes could be overcome by the development of a scheme of point scoring qualifcatons that allow gaining certfcates by a natonal awarding body. Key lessons learned: Projects that use Web 2.0 approaches must address the issue of how to assess learning progress and outcomes. As such projects are ofen understood as pilots there is the expectaton that some of the experiences are transferable into routne practces. Yet such practces will not fourish if alignment with curriculum goals is missing or cannot be adequately assessed. Measuring learning gains also is important in other contexts than formal educatonal insttutons such as social inclusion programmes for deprived communites or social work with talented young people from migrant and ethnic minority groups. While formal certfcaton may not be an issue in such cases, demonstratng some form of impact usually is (e.g. re-engagement in learning, presentaton of creatve products, etc.). Actve partcipaton of target groups Some projects found it difcult to reach the expected level of partcipaton by their target groups. In the ALPEUNED project, the Spanish Natonal University for Distance Learning (UNED) implemented forums for disabled students to allow for peer communicaton and coun43

selling. Yet there was a lack in student motvaton, only 482 disabled students out of a total of 4026 enrolled visited a forum. There was much „chatng“ which was not moderated and channelled towards productve ends. As the communicaton also included issues concerning the university administraton the “chatng” may also have been unwelcome and a potental threat of community lobbying. AbilityNet implemented Assistve Technology Wiki to allow for actve online partcipaton of more members, but the level of partcipaton was rather low; most content was generated by only a few members. TRIO, the regional vocatonal training portal of the Region of Tuscany implemented communicaton and collaboraton features to counter learner drop-out and increase retenton. Yet the features were more frequently used among tutors than students. Mixopolis, a portal of the German natonal Schulen ans Netz initatve that wants to accompany young people with migraton background (but also others) in vocatonal orientaton and job fnding also found it difcult to atract and retain the target group in an online community. Seniorkom.at seems to fare much beter by not only providing seniors with a broad range of Web 2.0 functonality but motvatng and empowering them to self-organise. HiStory faced some reluctance by seniors to commit to personal contributons with ICT, which could be overcome by ofering workshops to explain the project approach and how to use tools. Sometmes project managers have too high expectatons of actve partcipaton by the users of a portal or community website. According to the widely accepted 90-9-1 rule for user partcipaton in online communites, 90% of users do not contribute at all, 9% from tme to tme, and 1% a lot and account for most contributons. Important is to retain and motvate the 9%, and probably more, of occasional contributors (Nielson, 2006). This may to the “stckiness” of a website. Some further issues in community partcipaton that relate to the special situaton of working with groups such as ethnic minorites are addressed in a separate secton below. Key lessons learned: Web 2.0 applicatons per se do not necessarily drive partcipaton and communicaton among members of the target community. Existng diverse interests of diferent potental users must be identfed and taken into account and the partcular needs and requirements of the users addressed thoroughly. According to the project objectves, third partes and multpliers such as schools, cultural organisatons, community and youth centres must be involved systematcally. Strong motvaton and empowerment of users may help to achieve self-organisaton, “stckiness” and growth of an online social community. In most cases, however, support by dedicated “community managers” will be needed. Web 2.0 applicatons invite “chatng”. This can be a startng point of peer communicaton and community building, but ofen there is need of moderaton and channelling the communicaton towards productve ends. Unwelcome and threatening contributons must be dealt with seriously.

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User needs and requirements User needs and requirements must be analysed thoroughly. Some cases seemingly were unable to identfy and address them untl later phases of the project. EduCoRe worked with people in the physical rehabilitaton process (hospital, rehabilitaton centre, home) and experienced that the inital training content and setng was not appropriate for the patents. Mundo de Estrellas seems to have achieved a well-balanced ofering of tools and services for learning, community and recreaton of children, integraton within hospital environment, and engagement of families and carers only afer some trial and error. Online learning and inclusion programmes using Web 2.0 tools and methods will ofen have to cope with lack of digital literacy of partcipants young and old. (cf. Breakout, Conecta Jovens, HiStory, Web in the Hood and others). Inital lack of e-skills in any case necessitates a “blended approach”, which also must tackle other barriers to learning and convince people that it is worth the efort. For example, Web in the Hood found that quite some tme of their „animators“ is necessary to convince people that they can make websites that support their own actvites and are benefcial in their daily life. Young people “at risk” in the frst place need a web of supportve social relatonships they accept and Web 2.0 approaches may provide elements of such as web. Breakout experienced that young people „at risk“ are unlikely to consult public services (e.g. drug misuse preventon), but a Web 2.0 environment may allow for providing a “self-help support culture” that is external to their normal paterns and vehicles of social interacton. Notschool proved that a constructvist approach with personalised, self-directed and community-supported methods can empower learners and remove many of the barriers to learning. Cyberhus found that providing more and beter online counselling (e.g. on how to face problems in school) required a Web 2.0 environment for rich input by, and interacton with, the youngsters. Key lessons learned: Identfying and meetng the needs and requirements of the target groups is one of the key success factors of projects that use Web 2.0 tools for e-inclusion and learning. The tools as such are not a panacea. The organisatonal frameworks and working conditons of organisatons such as hospitals, ofending and drugs services, schools and other insttutons of formal educaton must be taken into account. Such organisatons and their staf have their own needs and requirements. Inital lack of e-skills always requires a “blended approach”. In the frst place barriers to learning must be addressed and people convinced that engagement in learning and social actvity on the Web is worth the efort. If there are already some e-skills, they may stll vary considerably (level, selectvity, tools used) because of diferences in social background and cognitve factors such as learning styles. Use of a peer mentoring approach can drive learning gains as well as community building.

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Because Web 2.0 applicatons can be used to connect, communicate and co-create they are more likely to meet students’ needs and expectatons of new tools and allow for constructvist pedagogical approaches. A constructvist approach with personalised, self-directed and community-supported learning can remove many of the barriers to learning people young and old experience with formal educatonal setngs. Project-to-project work with hard to reach communites Some projects found it difcult to secure contnuous funding to allow for sustainability and potental extension of the actvites to other social groups and localites. These are projects that work with deprived communites and are funded by regional agencies, city councils, foundatons and individual private sponsors. Conecta Joven focuses on e-inclusion of adults in 23 Catalan community support centres. Young people are trained and then serve as trainers and motvators for the adults. The success of the initatve largely depends on ensuring contnuity of the work of the trainers and motvators on the local level. Roots & Routes works with talented young people from deprived communites in the city area of Roterdam and received funding by the city’s Art and Culture Service and EU Culture and Leonardo da Vinci programmes. The work follows a mixed approach that combines vocatonal internships, summer schools, etc. with Web 2.0 elements. Sustainability and impact depends on many factors, in partcular, role models of success as motvaton for the target communites, partcipatng organisatons and funding bodies and sponsors. FreqOUT! runs a similar project-to-project programme and experienced that funding regimes have signifcant impact: Small funding streams and strict output targets make it difcult to recruit and engage hard-to-reach groups, manage a number of fragmented projects that work with artsts, cultural centres and funding sources, and demonstrate the impact of the programme with hard data. Savvy Chavvy provided young people from the Gypsy community with a safe place online to share experiences and creatve expressions. The project found it difcult to gain trust and buy-in by the target community. In order to prevent racism, the social networking platorm had to be restricted to legitmate users and leaders from the community trained to administrate and moderate the site themselves. XenoCLIPse enabled members of ethnic minorites and migrant communites to produce and present online video clips about their culture. In order to get from community empowerment through media skills to societal impact a strong involvement of mainstream media organizatons and associatons would be necessary. Key lessons learned: Funding schemes ofen lack awareness of the difcultes in developing and sustaining skills development and social inclusion programmes. Longer interventon tme and differentated methods of involvement are necessary to reach, train and engage creatve people from deprived communites. Projects with communites that have faced racism and social exclusion in the frst place need to build trust and achieve buy-in by leading community members. Web 2.0 environments for such communites require strict management to prevent racist atacks or

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being taken over by hardliners of the community that do not commit to the objectves of the project. A series of projects that tend to fragment and become unmanageable needs evaluaton and mainstreaming of successful approaches and methods. Regular collecton of data on interventons and results over a longer period of tme is necessary to allow for demonstratng the impact of skills development and social inclusion programmes. A wider societal impact requires involvement of many organisatons and businesses. Media and other organisatons of the cultural and creatve sector can play an important role as young people are ofen trained in skills for a job career in these sectors. Issues of technology access and fexibility Several projects faced issues that had to do with technical infrastructure, implementaton of new tools and lack of sufcient technical support. The large-scale and long-term project Mundo de Estrellas found it difcult to upgrade ICT infrastructure in the hospitals for providing new applicatons, services and a wider range of content. Avatar@School reported some technical problems in schools that lacked up-to-date computers and because of internet frewalls or flters. Netlukio had to overcome some problems with virtual classroom and conferencing technology. HiStory found it difcult to customize their weblogs to allow for multlingual interfaces and contributons. TRIO and Cyberhus needed to implement a more fexible platorm to ofer new tools for enriching the interacton between users and tutors or counsellors. Schome Park noted that in work with members of deprived communites availability of state-of-the-art computers and fast internet connecton cannot be taken for granted. FreqOUT! reported about lack of state-of-the-art technical equipment and support in several of their projects because of low funding. Web in the Hood wanted to make it possible for everybody to create an own website very easily and developed a special web toolbox to achieve this goal. Breakout had to implement a hierarchical website structure in order to comply with demands of high security and confdentality, but the interface, navigaton and low interactvity was felt to be of-putng by young partcipants. RePlay developed and trialled a high-tech game platorm for simulatng consequences of ofending behaviour. The original plans for the Breakout project included using such interactve games, yet costs were found to be prohibitve. Avatar@School found that the students liked their OpenSim virtual world for role playing with avatars in social confict situatons, yet that the use of such technology should be embedded in a wider social integraton strategy.

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Key lessons learned: Appropriateness of partcular technical tools to the project purposes must be refected and in most projects the use of ICT can be but one element, e.g. as part of a blended learning approach. Projects that target deprived communites must be aware of lack of ownership or access to state-of-the-art computers and fast internet connecton in such communites. Web 2.0 projects that want to use a range of tools in an integrated and scalable manner may have to implement a robust and fexible platorm. Hierarchical website structures with of-putng interfaces, navigaton and low interactvity or barriers such as internet frewalls or flters can get in the way of Web 2.0 approaches. Large-scale and long-term projects will very likely face issues of technology obsolescence and increased user expectatons of connectedness, interactvity and richness in media.

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6

RECOMMENDATION FOR SUCCESSFUL PROJECTS IN WEB 2.0 LEARNING AND SOCIAL INCLUSION The sectons below provide recommendatons on how to realise successful projects in Web 2.0 learning and social inclusion. The set of recommendatons is not a comprehensive checklist of “to do’s” or meant as a project management tool. Rather the intenton is to emphasise and make productve important lessons learned by a larger number of projects which used Web 2.0 tools and methods for promotng learning and social inclusion of diferent groups of partcipants. Many of the projects focused on social inclusion by developing e-skills and Web-based actvites as part of a blended approach. Not every e-learning project will have social inclusion as a core objectve, but will certainly beneft also from recommendatons drawn from such e-inclusion projects.

6.1 Overcoming resistance of organisatonal cultures Expect facing resistance by organisatonal cultures to adopt a Web 2.0 approach of open collaboratve practces. Dominant paradigms, mindsets and practces of many organisatonal cultures, in partcular, hierarchical and bureaucratc ones, will work against such an approach. Be prepared that among partcipants who are willing to partcipate there can be considerable tensions because of professional rivalry, competton for resources among units, disciplinary diferences and disputes. Identfy objectves and practces of the organisatonal cultures that could beneft partcularly from using Web 2.0 tools. Demonstratng tangible benefts may be the trigger to impact on and achieve some change in organisatonal cultures. Also secure support by important intermediaries (e.g. school directors or social workers) who should commit to following innovatve and unconventonal methods.

6.2 Meetng user needs and requirements in e-skilling & inclusion Identfy properly the needs and requirements of the primary target groups of the project (e.g. students and teachers; young people “at risk” and their families). Meetng their needs and requirements is the most important criteria of success. Understand and take account of the specifc organisatonal frameworks and working conditons of the involved organisatons (e.g. hospital, probaton service, school or vocatonal training centre). Such organisatons and their staf have their own specifc needs and requirements. Consider thoroughly the appropriateness of partcular technologies to the project purposes. In most projects the use of ICT can be but one element, e.g. as part of a blended learning approach. Use a blended approach if there is an inital lack of e-skills by target groups and also other barriers to partcipaton must be overcome (e.g. lack of motvaton and trust). Consider also diferences in gender roles and paterns of behaviour in ethnic minorites and migrant communites that may determine levels of partcipaton and learning styles.

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Be aware that a project in a deprived community cannot expect ownership or access to state-of-the-art computers and fast internet connecton by the target groups. Also ICT in schools and other places of learning may be out-dated. Thus appropriate access to ICT must be organised and secured for the duraton of the project (and beyond). Be prepared that specifc sofware, equipment for creatve work, etc. may be needed and that tools may need to be customized (e.g. to allow for easy use, multlinguality, etc.). Re-evaluate the user needs and requirements in the course of the project. Some important elements may have been overlooked or not fully addressed in the frst phases of the project.

6.3 Promotng open Web 2.0 based educatonal practces in schools Be aware that open educatonal approaches that use Web 2.0 tools challenge the dominant paradigms and practces of schools, in partcular, teacher-student roles. Help teachers re-envision and change their professional role from dispenser of subjectbased knowledge to facilitator (coach, mentor) of students’ self-directed and collaborative learning. Address the issue of how to monitor progress in learning and assess learning outcomes allowing for formal certfcaton. Innovatve educatonal practces will not fourish if alignment with curriculum goals is missing and learning outcomes cannot be adequately assessed. Be prepared that teachers will fear loosing control and need insttutonal commitment and appropriate pedagogical as well as technical support. Demonstrate to teachers how to facilitate successfully self-directed and collaboratve learning of students. Also point out how the teachers can beneft new competences and skills they acquire themselves. Make sure that Web 2.0 initatves are not lef to individual teachers and that those who lead by example and share expertse are recognised appropriately. Provide boards and supervisors of educatonal insttutons with suggestons on how to scrutnise whether an insttuton is employing Web 2.0 approaches. That teachers and students use weblogs, wikis or e-portolios to document and communicate project results may serve as a good indicator.

6.4 Using appropriate e-learning & inclusion methods Convince people that gaining e-skills and engaging in social actvity on the Web is worth the efort (e.g. easier access to vital informaton and services, connect and learn together with peers, role models for job careers, etc.). Identfy already available e-skills and other competences which may vary because of diferences in social background, gender, and cognitve factors such as learning style. Combine face-to-face meetngs of partcipants (e.g. workshops, summer schools, etc.) with Web presence and actvity (e.g. Weblogs, social networking, media sharing on popular platorms such as YouTube or Flickr).

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Use a peer mentoring approach that can drive learning as well as community building. Privilege constructvist approaches of self-directed and community-supported learning that can remove many of the barriers to learning people young and old experience with formal educatonal setngs. Allow for relevant learning experiences, learning in which real world problems are addressed, learners work collaboratvely, and learning content and results are refected critcally. Suggest learners to use an e-portolio or weblog for documentng and refectng on learning progress and results as well as sharing creatve work they are proud of.

6.5 Driving partcipaton on community websites Be aware that Web 2.0 applicatons per se do not drive partcipaton and communicaton among members of the target community. Provide for a robust and fexible technical platorm partcularly if several Web 2.0 tools should work in an integrated fashion and the environment capable to scale and respond to new demands in the future. Consider that diferent users groups will have diverse interests and want to use the website for diferent purposes. Do not nourish the noton of “build it and they will come”, rather expect to not immediately achieve a high level of actve partcipaton of the envisaged target groups of the website. Gain trust and buy-in by leading members of the target user community. This is partcularly important with communites that have faced severe social exclusion (e.g. ethnic minorites or migrant communites). Identfy and involve people who are highly motvated to work on certain issues and help them to self-organise with Web 2.0 tools and achieve “stckiness” of the online communites. Empower website users to achieve something themselves and share experiences and own content. Websites that nourish a top-down approach of delivering content (e.g. learning material) typically show litle growth in terms of user base and contributon. Provide or train online community managers that are skilled to identfy topics of interest, understand online user behaviours, can engage users and moderate discussions. Moderate and channel discussions towards productve ends, e.g. mutual understanding of diferent concerns of partcipants, consensus about critcal issues, etc.). Address unwelcome and threatening contributons seriously. Provide a safe place for communites that have faced severe social exclusion such as racism. Such websites for social networking and sharing experiences require strict (self-) management and moderaton to prevent unwelcome visitors or being taken over by hardliners of the community that do not commit to the objectves of the project.

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6.6 Securing sustainability and impact Make clear to policy makers that ICT supported learning and social inclusion allows people to develop competences that are necessary to partcipate successfully in the knowledge society. Expect that policy makers and funding agencies will lack an understanding of the difcultes in working with hard to reach target groups. Explain what such work demands and provide eye-opening examples of problem situatons and how they might be overcome. Be prepared that small funding streams will make it difcult to develop and sustain a learning and social inclusion programme for such social groups. It may be hard to recruit and engage partcipants, longer interventon tme and diferentated methods of involvement may be necessary, and strict output targets not met. Identfy and involve systematcally third partes and multpliers that are important for achieving the core project objectves. Consider that a wider societal impact requires involvement of many organisatons and businesses. Media and other organisatons of the cultural and creatve sectors can play an important role as young people are ofen trained in skills for a job career in these sectors. But also consider a focus on less mundane occupatonal sectors and job careers. Collect regularly data on interventons and results (e.g. re-engagement of people in vocatonal training, partcipaton of talented young people in creatve actvites, media coverage, etc.) Identfy and present role models of success as motvaton for the target communites, partcipatng organisatons, funding bodies and sponsors. Observe if a series of projects that require working with several supportng organisatons and diferent funding sources become increasingly fragment and unmanageable. Evaluate the projects and try to mainstream partcularly successful approaches and methods.

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7

THE CASE STUDIES AND THE LANDSCAPE OF LEARNING 2.0 FOR INCLUSION 7.1 Introducton In this secton, we draw together the results of the profling and analysis of the LINKS-UP case studies in order to summarise their features and characteristcs, and set these within the ‘landscape of Learning 2.0 for inclusion’. We re-visit the key dynamics and processes that have shaped this landscape and asses the extent to which the cases covered refect these dynamics and processes. We consider the extent to which and in what ways the cases are supportng the major policies in the feld; the conceptual thinking around social inclusion and the needs of excluded groups. Against this background, we also re-visit the review of the ‘landscape’ of Learning 2.0 as portrayed in the LINKS-UP Report on ‘Review of State of the Art’, which was carried out in work package 1 of the project, and discuss what further contributon the case study analysis has made to our understanding of this ‘landscape’ and what are the remaining ‘gaps’ in our knowledge. The case studies provided in this Report can be seen as ‘exemplars’ of a ‘landscape of Learning 2.0 for inclusion’. This landscape is embryonic and stll-evolving. It represents diferent views on the causes of social exclusion and diferent positons on how exclusion can be addressed through the use of ICTs and partcularly the use of ‘Web 2.0 for learning’. As noted in our previous review of the literature and research in the feld, this ‘landscape’ of ‘Inclusive Learning 2.0’ in Europe is driven by four inter-connected dynamics or drivers, as illustrated in the ‘inter-connectvity map’ show in Figure 1. These drivers are: | the policy felds shaping programmes and interventons in the domain; | conceptual and theoretcal work in the feld, mainly derived from the academic literature and from research; | the ‘lifeworlds’ of excluded groups, which shapes their situaton and needs; | the world of ‘communites of practce’ where programmes and interventons are delivered to support excluded target groups.

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Figure 1: Key drivers in the ‘landscape’ of Inclusive Learning 2.0

7.2 The policy context State of the art In this secton, we draw together the results of the profling and analysis of the LINKS-UP case studies in order to summarise their features and characteristcs, and set these within the ‘landscape of Learning 2.0 for inclusion’. We re-visit the key dynamics and processes that have shaped this landscape and asses the extent to which the cases covered refect these dynamics and processes. We consider the extent to which and in what ways the cases are supportng the major policies in the feld; the conceptual thinking around social inclusion and the needs of excluded groups. Against this background, we also re-visit the review of the ‘landscape’ of Learning 2.0 as portrayed in the LINKS-UP Report on ‘Review of State of the Art’, which was carried out in work package 1 of the project, and discuss what further contributon the case study analysis has made to our understanding of this ‘landscape’ and what are the remaining ‘gaps’ in our knowledge. The case studies provided in this Report can be seen as ‘exemplars’ of a ‘landscape of Learning 2.0 for inclusion’. This landscape is embryonic and stll-evolving. It represents diferent views on the causes of social exclusion and diferent positons on how exclusion can be addressed through the use of ICTs and partcularly the use of ‘Web 2.0 for learning’. As noted in our previous review of the literature and research in the feld, this ‘landscape’ of ‘Inclusive Learning 2.0’ in Europe is driven by four inter-connected dynamics or drivers, as illustrated in the ‘inter-connectvity map’ show in Figure 1. These drivers are:

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| 75 % of the populaton aged 20-64 should be employed. | 3% of the EU's GDP should be invested in R&D. | The share of early school leavers should be under 10% and at least 40% of the younger generaton should have a tertary degree. | 20 million less people should be at risk of poverty. There are seven ‘fagship’ initatves specifed to implement the programme, and both educaton and ICTs are seen as key drivers in these initatves. Again, several of these fagships directly relate to ICTs, learning and inclusion. These are: - "Youth on the move" to enhance the performance of educaton systems and to facilitate the entry of young people to the labour market. - "A digital agenda for Europe" to speed up the roll-out of high-speed internet and reap the benefts of a digital single market for households and frms. - "An agenda for new skills and jobs" to modernise labour markets and empower people by developing their of skills throughout the lifecycle with a view to increase labour partcipaton and beter match labour supply and demand, including through labour mobility. - "European platorm against poverty" to ensure social and territorial cohesion such that the benefts of growth and jobs are widely shared and people experiencing poverty and social exclusion are enabled to live in dignity and take an actve part in society. The main EU E&T policy instrument is the strategic framework for European cooperaton in educaton and training ("ET 2020"), which sets key targets for educaton and training in the EU. The strategic framework takes a holistc approach of educaton and training, one that explicitly links educaton objectves to social inclusion, and which highlights the role that can be played by ICTs. ET2020 places ICTs at the heart of its eforts to link educaton objectves to social inclusion through initatves that: promote access to quality services, e.g., transport, e-inclusion, health, social services within the sphere of educaton and training; make efectve use of informaton and communicaton technologies to broaden and deepen partcipaton of a spectrum of people, partcularly young people; make new technologies readily available to empower creatvity and capacity for innovaton. The educaton and training policy feld is also one of the main sources of funding for programmes and projects aimed at addressing issues around exclusion – partcularly through the Lifelong Learning Programme. However, the emphasis placed on excluded people and those at risk varies across the sectoral and transversal sub-programmes of the LLP. Policies specifcally targeted at partcular excluded groups include ‘youth’ policies, policies for the unemployed and policies for older people. The key EU policy document on youth is the 2009 Communicaton "An EU Strategy for Youth – Investng and Empowering. A renewed open method of coordinaton to address youth challenges and opportunites". The new strategy forms the basis for the ‘Youth in Acton’ programme – a major initatve that will take youth policy forward to the year 2013. ICTs are ‘hidden’ rather than ‘up front’ in the Youth in Acton programme. Policy for older people is supported through the ‘Actve Ageing’ programme. The other EU policy felds where there is a focus on ICTs and excluded people are in employment,

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social afairs and equal opportunites; health and regional policy. These felds are less widely developed and the atenton and resources devoted to ICTs and inclusion at risk varies across them.

The case studies in the policy context Our earlier review of the policy context identfed fve key transversal themes in which the case studies could be situated: | Job and educaton mobility: Equipping people with skills to move across European borders and across jobs in line with the ‘fexicurity’ principles appear regularly across the policies and programmes. This entails equipping people – partcularly young people with e-skills, educaton and training in STEM subjects, language and other measures which support job and educaton mobility. | Modernised educaton and training systems: there is a policy focus on job and educaton mobility that emphasizes how educaton and training systems can support people to enter the labour market in their country of origin or elsewhere (e.g. the Bologna process, ongoing work on a European Qualifcaton Framework, Erasmus programmes etc.). Furthermore, the policies focus improving the quality of educaton systems and ensuring that young people are equipped with the right skills that make young people employable now and in the future (i.e. New Skills for New Jobs agenda and ‘fexicurity’). Finally, this also implies provision of apprentceships, lowering of drop-out rates/increased partcipaton rates and deploying new learning tools. | Modernised employment and labour markets are key to support the above and are at the heart of Europe 2020 and the majority of policy documents addressing people’s inclusion in society and the knowledge economy. This indicates a policy logic in which opportunites in life are closely associated with labour market partcipaton. | Cultural dialogue and awareness is at the heart of both educaton and training policies in the EU as well as culture policies. This component focuses on inter-cultural dialogue and cultural awareness. | E-inclusion has been on the forefront of European informaton society policies for the last couple of years, but the focus is stll mainly on economic aspects of inclusion: access to the ICT infrastructure and e-services as well as e-skills to make people able to partcipate and contribute to the European knowledge economy. This also supports the other components of the policy typology mentoned above (modernised labour markets, educaton systems and job/educaton mobility). The case studies show that the programmes and initatves currently being implemented in the EU that use Learning 2.0 to support social inclusion are making a contributon to all of these thematc policy areas. However, a number of gaps can be identfed. The policy gaps we have identfed come in two forms. First, the gaps in the actual provision of EU policies and policy instruments that can support the development and implementaton of Learning 2.0 to support social inclusion. Second, the gaps in policy agendas and priorites in the feld that are not currently efectvely supported and addressed by current practces. In the frst case, the following fndings can be summarised: | Although EU policy has in recent years grown more ‘joined-up’ and integrated, in line with what is known in the theoretcal and practtoner feld about the mult-dimen-

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sional nature of social inclusion, there is stll a sense that some areas of policy pursue ‘parallel lines’. Whereas educaton and training policy links key agendas and goals in learning with inclusion policy, e-inclusion policy and ICT policy, the same cannot be said for employment, health and regional policies. There is a case for more ‘joinedup’ thinking in and bridging between these policy domains to help address social inclusion issues. | The knowledge base of ‘Learning 2.0 for inclusion’ is embryonic, evolving, fragmented and contested. Litle is known about ‘what works’ and a culture of knowledgesharing has not taken root. Provision exists, for example, within the OMC, for supportng trans-natonal co-operaton between stakeholders in the feld. This needs to be built on to support beter co-operaton, disseminaton and knowledge-sharing and the cultvaton of a stronger evidence base. This could be done, for example, through publicising opportunites available to support knowledge sharing through the PROGRESS Programme ; working more closely with EU-funded European networks to build European resource/knowledge centres on specifc priority themes | Securing funding for start-ups and later securing further funding to ensure the sustainability of initatves is a common problem identfed by the cases. The evidence is that the major sources of EU funding in this feld – the Lifelong Learning Programme; the ‘Youth in Acton’ Programme; the ‘Ageing Well’ programme and the IST programme in FP7 – atach litle priority to ‘Learning 2.0 for inclusion’. Dedicated acton lines in this feld in these programmes would greatly increase the likelihood of innovatve initatves being developed and sustained. In the second case, the initatves currently being implemented in the feld suggest that further work could usefully be done to support the following policy priorites and objectves: | EU Strategy for Youth. Acton feld 1: Educaton – states that ‘Complementary to formal educaton, non-formal educaton for young people should be supported to contribute to Lifelong Learning in Europe, by developing its quality, recognising its outcomes, and integratng it beter with formal educaton.’ The results of the case studies suggests that, at present, initatves in Web 2.0 for inclusive learning focus on nonformal educaton as an alternatve to formal educaton, mainly providing support for school drop-outs and those who are not able to atend school. There has been very litle work in using Web 2.0 to complement and add value to formal educaton. In this case Learning 2.0 could provide a valuable contributon to reducing risk of exclusion by improving educatonal performance. | EU Strategy for Youth. Acton feld 2: Employment – states that “Employment policy acton in Member States and at EU level should be coordinated across the four components of fexicurity in order to facilitate transitons from school to work or inactvity or unemployment to work. Once in work, young people should be enabled to make upward transitons. Increase and improve investments in providing the right skills for those jobs in demand on the labour market, with a beter matching in the short term and beter antcipaton in the longer term of the skills needed”. Again, very litle work appears to have been done in using Web 2.0 to develop training that will develop ‘fexicurity’ and to link inclusion objectves to the changing needs of labour markets. | EU Strategy for Youth. Acton Field 6: Social Inclusion – aims to “prevent poverty and social exclusion among disadvantaged youth groups and break their intergeneratonal transmission by mobilising all actors involved in the life of youth (parents, tea-

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chers, social workers, health professionals, youth workers, young people themselves, police and justce, employers.” The case studies suggest that much of the current work targets ‘end users’ – i.e. excluded people. Although many initatves involve ‘intermediaries’ – for example youth workers – their representaton is lower than might be expected. In additon, not enough initatves work with the broader spectrum of inter-relatonships between at risk people and ‘mediators’ (family; friends; teachers etc.). | Europe 2020 Strategy – a key target in the strategy is “20 million less people should be at risk of poverty”. The results of the review of literature in the feld clearly highlight the signifcance of poverty as a key structural dynamic in the ‘causes’ of social exlusion. Although poverty is represented in Learning 2.0 initatves analysed in the case study examples, it is regarded as a ‘mediatng factor’ rather than a primary in exclusion. Initatves directly targetng poverty and using Web 2.0 to address it are not represented.

7.3 The theoretcal context State of the art Our review of the literature showed that the theoretcal and conceptual knowledge base is contested and contradictory; it is fragmented, and there is a lack of a sound evidence base on ‘what works’. In social inclusion theory, opinion is divided into three camps: the ‘structuralists’, who emphasise the operaton of structural inequalites, and the persistence of an ‘e-underclass’; the ‘social capital’ perspectve, which emphasizes community resources and the development of community resilience to combat exclusion; and the ‘life politcs’ approach, which emphasizes ‘risk’ behaviours and the cultvaton of individual resilience. The frst perspectve has long linked social exclusion to structural factors that lead to social deprivaton, albeit ofen mediated through family practces (Coleman and Hendry, 1999; Schoon and Bynner, 2003) This emphasizes the noton that the risks of social exclusion are mult-dimensional in nature. (Burchardt, Le Grand and Piachaud, 2002) Sustained and repettve exposure to social and economic ills – poverty; ill-health; upheaval; unemployment – itself saps the collectve spirit and therefore ultmately increases the vulnerability of those exposed to social and economic pathologies. (Elstad, 1998; Berkman and Kawachi, 2000) The second perspectve shifs the focus from an ‘underclass’ perspectve to a ‘social capital’ perspectve. The three main authors – James Coleman, Robert Putnam and Pierre Bourdieu – argue in various ways that social capital is achieved through the formaton of social relatonships built up over tme which enable individuals to achieve more than they would be able to achieve if they acted solely on their own (Coleman, 1988); that social capital is linked to a community’s capacity to tackle social and economic problems such as unemployment, poverty, educatonal non-partcipaton, and crime (Putnam, 1995); and that social capital, or the lack of it, is a tool of cultural reproducton in maintaining inequalites, for example through unequal educatonal achievement (Bourdieu, 1992). The third perspectve, exemplifed by the work of Beck, Giddens and Lash, argues that changes in post-industrial society have led to the emergence of ‘risk’ society. As the old insttutons of industrial society - family, community, social class - are undermined by

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globalizaton, each individual must learn to navigate society for themselves. The most vulnerable groups in this are the old and the young. (Giddens, 1999) On the one hand, this allows unprecedented freedom and opportunites. On the other, self and identty become fragile, and the pressures it generates in terms of having to achieve, conspire to promote sense of failure, marginalisaton and, for some, mental ill-health (Ruter and Smith, 1995; EGRIS 2001; Lash 2000; Tulloch and Lupton, 2003). In learning theory, the feld has been dominated by constructvism, and a focus on developing collaboratve systems that actvely engage the excluded as co-producers of knowledge. However, there is a counter-prevailing school which emphasizes context and ‘pragmatsm’. Our review of the literature on Learning 2.0 and social exclusion showed that there are two polarized positon around how ICTs and Web 2.0 link to social exclusion. The ‘Utopian’ perspectve suggests that ‘evolutonary progression’ and the increasing ubiquity of ICTs embedded within everyday social, economic and cultural life, are making the noton of e-inclusion more and more redundant. For example Redecker et al. (2009) cite numerous examples to support the view that projects using Learning 2.0 strategies have a high potental to re-engage excluded groups in learning. However, the ‘pessimistc’ perspectve argues that ICT access, use and quality of use is highly correlated with social exclusion. The overall conclusion from research is that we are now witnessing a new ‘exclusion dualism’ where the long-established structural factors associated with exclusion – family background; educaton; employment; income are being mutually reinforced through lack of access to ICTs and lack of access to digital skills. For example, the evidence suggests that access paterns for young people are shaped by ‘habitus’ and lifeworld. Eurostat shows, in 2009, that more than 90 % of young Europeans aged 16–24 who accessed the Internet within the past 3 months did so from home and almost 50% from a place of educaton, whereas a much larger proporton of the older age groups did so from work. This suggests that young people who are homeless, or NEET (not in educaton and employment) are much more likely to experience a ‘dual exclusion’. Data from EU Kids Online, from Eurobarometer 2009 and from natonal studies show a clear link between individuals' socio-economic background and their use of the internet. A report by Oxford Internet Insttute observed, “that technological forms of exclusion are a reality for signifcant segments of the populaton, and that, for some people, they reinforce and deepen existng disadvantages. Technology is so tghtly woven into the fabric of society today that ICT deprivaton can rightly be considered alongside, and strongly linked to, more traditonal twenteth century social deprivatons, such as low income, unemployment, poor educaton, ill health and social isolaton. To consider ICT deprivaton as somehow less important underestmates the pace, depth and scale of technological change, and overlooks the way that diferent disadvantages can combine to deepen exclusion”. (Helsper, 2008) There is a substantal body of evidence to suggest that actual usage of ICTs – and increasingly Web 2.0 – reinforces this process of ‘dual inclusion’. (Facer and Furlong, 2001; Facer and Selwyn, 2007) Danah Boyd, for example, argues that, in the USA, utlizaton of social networking technologies refects complex class and status stratfcatons in American youth. Whereas MySpace is the spiritual home for the culturally and socially marginalized, Facebook atracts “upwardly mobile hegemonic teens”. As she puts it; “MySpace is stll home for Latno/Hispanic teens, immigrant teens, ‘burnouts’, ‘alternative kids’, ‘art fags’, punks, emos, goths, gangstas, queer kids, and other kids who didn't play into the dominant high school popularity paradigm….. MySpace has most of the 59

kids who are socially ostracized at school because they are geeks, freaks, or queers.” (Boyd, 2007) Livingstone and Helsper (2007) suggest that even though increased access and usage to ICTs will increase opportunites for children, children from afuent backgrounds learn beter and faster, so that, in the long run, ICTs actually increase social disparites rather than decrease them.

Figure 2: e-exclusion spectrum Other studies show that, although social class and income are key determinant in shaping e-exclusion paterns, cultural factors make the picture even more complex. For example, women even in afuent households are less likely to use Web 2.0 because they are socialized into the percepton that ICTs are the territory of husbands and sons. (Cramner, 2008) Similarly, the EU Kids Online studies suggest that there is a growing ‘bedroom culture’ for teenagers and solitary use of the internet is increasing, partcularly for boys. These fndings suggest that the structural determinants of ‘e-inclusion’ are further complemented by cultural and behavioural factors. Figure 2 provides an illustraton of how this process might work. At one end of a polarity of e-exclusion are people who are excluded from ICTs by their socio-economic status. However studies suggest that a signifcant proporton of EU citzens are ‘self-excluding’ – they have no inclinaton to partcipate in the ‘Knowledge Society’, or who are ‘uninformed’ about opportunites. At the other end of the spectrum are people who are socially excluded because they are ‘always online’. The case studies in the theoretcal context The case studies have not provided much evidence to shed further light on the efcacy of these diferent perspectves on social inclusion and the role of learning and Learning 2.0 in it. The contnuing gaps in our knowledge highlighted by the case studies are: | How initatves using ICTs and Web 2.0 contribute to the producton of social capital and community cohesion. Most of the case studies we analysed focus on individual

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behaviour changes – even in cases, like TRIO, Conecta Joven and Web in the Hood, that are specifcally located within community environments. | None of the cases we analysed consider the ‘life politcs’ perspectve on social inclusion. The ways in which Web 2.0 changes how ‘identtes’ are constructed, and how these link to risk behaviours and risk scenarios, is not covered in the case studies. | Evaluaton and assessment methodologies – the evidence base in the Learning 2.0 feld is poorly-developed; fragmentary and contested. An evaluaton culture has not yet taken root. Robust and appropriate impacts assessment approaches, methods and tools are unevenly applied. | Much of the knowledge that is derived from the case studies is about ‘excluded groups’. The literature makes a strong case for ‘preventon’ rather than cure. Not enough is known about ‘risk scenarios’ – the factors that make certain groups in certain situatons more vulnerable to exclusion, and how ICT is being and can be used to support actvites that reduce risk. | What methodologies and tools can be used to engage excluded people more actvely in the design and implementaton of methods, approaches and tools supportng ‘Learning 2.0’ for inclusion? | The use of 3D and immersive worlds is growing and has produced some positve outcomes. Yet some of the case studies highlight issues about which litle is known. These cover: new forms of accessibility issues (since many of these technologies are ‘high-end’ and expensive); issues around accessibility for disabled people; issues around governance and partcipaton of users. | As noted above, the evidence base in this feld is poorly developed. More research is needed on how learning and practces can be efectvely disseminated and valorized. | The work on NEET and on early-school leaving and how ICTs can address this signifcant set of issues is currently under-developed.

7.4 The practces context State of the art Our review of the practces carried out in work package 1 showed that fve broad clusters of practces can be distnguished. To some extent these represent relatvely autonomous Learning 2.0 ‘spaces’, with litle overlap between them. They can be defned as follows: | Personalised Learning Environments - the evidence does suggest the embryonic development of ‘PLE’s’. There were a number of initatves identfed in the review that exhibit a highly individualized approach to inclusion through learning, employing social networking technologies to support self-directed learning. | Adult Learning – a primarily insttutonal learning space that targets adults with low educatonal levels and status, and which generally supports informal and non-formal learning albeit through formal setngs such as training centres. | Special Needs – a signifcant number of initatves target distnctve target groups with partcular profles – mainly covering immigrant and ethnic minorites; people

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with disabilites; ex-ofenders. The main inclusion approach aims at social re-engagement, using a variety of Web 2.0 tools and approaches. | Youth at Risk – young people have become the main focus of atenton for Web 2.0 for inclusion. The review identfed a signifcant number of initatves targetng a range of exclusion and at risk scenarios. A common feature of these initatves is the emphasis on cultvatng digital literacies. | NEET – a distnctve sub-category of initatves aimed at young people are those aimed at young people not in educaton or training (NEET). What is distnctve about this cluster is the more intensive use of novel forms of Web 2.0, like virtual reality environments, and the exploraton of innovatve forms of pedagogy, for example ‘Notschool’, that create new roles for both student and teacher. The case studies in the practces context The case studies analysed in LINKS-UP shed further light on how learning and social inclusion objectves are linked to the use of diferent combinatons of Web 2.0 approaches and tools. Figure 3 summarises how these practces are related together.

Figure 3: Inter-relatonships of the case studies As Figure 4 shows, there are four key clusters that refect how Web 2.0 use is seen as providing solutons to the complex social exclusion scenarios outlined above, and the key policies and measures that are being driven forward at the macro-level to support social and e-inclusion. These are: | Reducing social isolaton, | Promotng educatonal re-inserton, | Improving health and well-being, partcularly for people with disabilites, | Improving life-chances and opportunites, partcularly in the feld of employment. Analysis of the case studies shows that the expected outcomes derived from these interventons focus primarily on increasing various forms of capital: individual capital (for example the acquisiton of new digital skills and ‘sof skills’ like team-working); the acquisiton of ‘social capital’ (for example increasing the resilience of communites) and the ac-

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quisiton of technological capital (for example through improving access to technologies). Two dominant implementaton actvites are carried out by these interventons. The frst one involves delivering courses. These cover a spectrum of subjects and content areas – partcularly IT skills and digital literacy. The second main category, ‘social interacton’, focuses on developing and applying ways of getng people to share experiences, knowledge and skills. A number of initatves support people in ‘telling their stories’. The approach used refects a number of desired outcomes, such as encouraging sharing and interacton with others; getng people to valorise their life experiences; using their stories to create learning content; dealing with ‘otherness’ and promotng acceptance of diversity. A similar approach can be found with projects that use mult-media within a community context. In this way, dealing with diference and supportng interacton between culturally diverse groups is taken out of the personal space and expanded to the community and societal level. Less frequently found are implementaton actvites involving awareness-raising, counselling, personal development and networking and good practce sharing. With awareness-raising, the aim is to provide people with informaton that is seen as essental in providing them with tools to empower themselves, for example their rights under the law. A minority of projects provide specifc counselling or personal development. Personal development approaches can be seen in some ways as a ‘social’ variant on counselling, for example, by providing advice and counselling on fnances, social behaviour, mental health issues, physical conditon, motvaton, practcal skills and daily actvites. Finally, networking and good practce sharing is a small but important category of inclusion strategy operated by projects. The main focus here is not on direct end users, but on making available to the wider user groups and communites of practce resources, and evidence-based knowledge, that can support the development and implementaton of actons supportng social inclusion. The inclusion approaches adopted, and the pedagogic models applied, refect specifc ideas about which platorms, and which combinatons of Web 2.0 are likely to yield the best results. Virtually all of the cases analysed are web-based, though some use other forms of technologies, such as community-based broadcastng and mobiles. A number of initatves involve some form of audiovisual media, such as videos and videoconferencing. The applicatons most commonly used are social networking applicatons like Facebook and media-sharing, like YouTube. Blogs and wikis are becoming more commonly used, as is the use of virtual environments, like ‘Second Life’, to develop innovatve approaches to ICT-based support for at risk young people. Most projects use a combinaton of tools to support an integrated approach to inclusion. Overall, the ‘landscape’ of ‘Inclusive Learning 2.0’ shows many similarites. Indeed, a key fnding of the case study analysis is the extent to which initatves adopt a mult-dimensional approach to the use of ICTs and Web 2.0 to address social exclusion. Many of the initatves analysed are ‘composite’ enttes, drawing funding from a range of sources; incorporatng a range of platorms and tools; pursuing a mixed set of inclusion and learning objectves and mult-targetng strategies and implementng an integrated set of services and actvites to realise their objectves. This could refect the increasing recogniton in the feld that social exclusion is mult-dimensional in nature and scope, and that the needs of socially excluded and at risk people are complex and similarly mult-dimensional and require a holistc and integrated response.

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The case studies suggest that the main gaps in the provision of programmes and initatves in the feld of ‘Learning 2.0’ are as follows: | There is stll a strong focus on developing and implementng initatves aimed at specifc target groups – people with disabilites; the unemployed, and so on. This refects the persistence of a prevailing view that social inclusion is homogenous. However, it is clear from the evidence that social exclusion is complex and mult-dimensional; that people present ‘multple needs’, and that these needs change over tme and in diferent situatons. Initatves need to be more fexible and responsive to the fuidity of social inclusion. | Very litle atenton has been paid to the ‘cultural’ dimension of inclusion and learning, beyond the broad identfcaton of macro-cultural concepts for example the prioritzaton of Immigrant and Ethnic Minorites. Virtually no work has been done, and no initatves identfed that addresses, for example: women’s positon of e-exclusion within the household environment; the positon of ‘technophobes’ and ‘uninformed’ and ‘disinclined’; how ‘extremists’ – those who are ‘always on-line’ – are affected by immersion in the Web 2.0 world. | Few initatves address the role of organizatonal culture within the educatonal enterprise. There is some evidence, for example, in schools, that organizatonal resistance is inhibitng the use of Web 2.0 in teaching. There is also evidence that the use of Web 2.0 in the classroom is actually exacerbatng diferences in educatonal performance between students from higher status backgrounds and those from lower status backgrounds. | Many initatves take an individuated approach to inclusion. Few of them, exceptons are TRIO, Web in the Hood and Conecta Joven, consider the broader community and societal issues, and how Web 2.0 can impact on social capital and community cohesion. | As noted above, the role of multpliers, mediators and intermediaries is critcal in successful initatves. Very few projects address the need for training of these key actors. | Many initatves are ‘insular’ in the sense that they fail to bridge the gap between the inner world of the initatve and the harsh realites of the external environment. For example, initatves that provide training in e-skills for ethnic minority women can fail when these newly-acquired skills cannot be used within the local labour market because there are is no demand for them. There is a need for new initatves that take into account and address how research and R&D results in the feld can be efectvely applied to external conditons.

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8

A ‘THEORY OF CHANGE’ INTERPRETATION OF THE RESULTS 8.1 Introducton: Theory of change and impact assessment In work package 1, we developed an approach to assessing the ‘efects’ of initatves using Learning 2.0 to support social inclusion that was based on a ‘theory of change’ model. Theory of change approaches seek to identfy both the explicit and implicit paradigm of change that lies at the heart of a programme or initatve – in other words the ‘transformatve model’ that is embedded within it. Theory of change involves unpacking the theory behind interventons - i.e. the intended outcomes – that underpin their ‘vision’ and their ‘interventon logic’ (Weiss, 1995; Sullivan and Stewart, 2006). On the one hand, the theory of change method helps to identfy what are the intended outcomes and impacts of the policies and initatves that are being implemented using Web 2.0 to support excluded people and those at risk. On the other, it represents a methodological strategy that aims to solve some of the problems that crop up in research in trying to establish ‘cause and efect’ in complex and dynamic situatons – for example what kind of technology works best in supportng inclusion. It can be defned as a systematc and cumulatve study of the links between actvites, outcomes and context. It involves the specifcaton of an explicit theory of how and why an interventon is intended to or might have caused an efect. The focus of the theory of change approach is therefore on causal pathways. Theory of change is partcularly useful in situatons where impacts measurement data is variable, and where evaluatons of interventons have not followed ‘experimental’ approaches, for example using ‘control-comparison’ methods. This was the situaton with the LINKS-UP case studies. Some of the cases had not carried out impacts assessment at all. In many cases, the impacts assessment is based on ‘self-reported’ data provided by the projects themselves and based on, for example, the subjectve opinions of project managers. Following Jan Steyaert (2010), we looked at how the cases are positoned in terms of the approaches taken to impacts assessment in terms of the ‘efectveness ladder’ model. This has fve levels to refect the ‘robustness’ of the evidence used on impacts assessment, as follows: | Level 0: ‘Marketng informaton’ – spreading good news about how things are done. | Level 1: Expert opinion; descriptve studies; case studies. | Level 2: Cohort studies – surveys; correlaton analysis for example between partcipaton in an initatve and educatonal performance. | Level 3: Experimental studies – for example user surveys and baseline statstcal analysis done before and afer the interventon (pre-test/post-test). | Level 4: Randomised controlled trials. In relaton to the ‘efectveness ladder’, the majority of initatves are placed on the lowest level of the efectveness ladder – Level 0. This typically involves the use of ‘marketng informaton’ – spreading good news about how things are done; providing anecdotal evidence of positve outcomes. A small proporton use ‘Level 1’ assessment, which is mainly carried out through ‘external’ evaluaton done by experts; through descriptve studies, and through case studies. Around a third use ‘Level 2’ assessment, involving cohort studies – user surveys; correlaton analysis of statstcal data that measures the re-

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latonship for example between partcipaton in an initatve and educatonal performance. A small proporton use ‘Level 3’ approaches, entailing experimental studies – for example user surveys and baseline statstcal analysis done before and afer the interventon (pre-test/post-test). One example is ‘Replay’, which carried out extensive before and afer testng of the user game. We found no initatve that had implemented the ‘gold standard’ of assessment – randomised controlled trials. Most impacts assessment methods used in the case studies involves carrying out surveys with users. The other two most frequently used assessment methods involved ‘technology utlisaton’ data analysis and interviews. The analysis of the use paterns of platorms and tools used to deliver services to young people is a convenient way of fnding out how efectve the initatve is. A common method is to analyse website visits and hits using ‘Google analytcs’ or a similar monitoring tool. Analysis of Web 2.0 tools and applicatons is also ofen applied. This involves statstcal analysis of partcipaton and utlisaton rates in social networking sites, as well as qualitatve analysis of applicatons like podcasts and discussion forums, using techniques like content analysis. For example, Cyberhus registers and analyses each chat session when it is completed. This provides statstcs on duraton, age, sex, and topic. Most of the cases used ‘triangulaton’ – combining a number of methods in order to arrive at a more systematc evidence-based view of impacts. For example, Notschool have developed a very sophistcated monitoring system which enables them to track all progress made by students, from their actvity around the site, to emails from their tutors as well as their replies. Annual evaluaton includes: analysis of atendance rates; analysis of course completons; socio-economic profling of partcipants; user surveys. On the basis of the available data, we present below the results of our analysis of the ‘impacts’ identfed in the case studies.

8.2 Evidence on impacts As noted above, the impacts assessments carried out by the initatves selected for case study analysis vary considerably in approach, relevance and credibility. Many of them employed ‘self-assessment’ approaches and methods, rather than more objectve ways of evaluatng evidence. Against this background, we have applied ‘triangulaton’ to the data drawn from the initatves survey. This involves cross-checking of data to search for regularites in the research data. We have distnguished between the outputs, outcomes and impacts of initatves in our approach to reviewing the ‘efects’ of initatves. We have also reviewed the ‘expected’ outcomes and impacts as set against the actual outcomes and impacts as reported by the initatves themselves. Our analysis suggested two dominant implementaton actvites carried out by projects. The frst one involves delivering courses, for example Conecta Joven. These cover a spectrum of subjects and content areas – partcularly IT skills and digital literacy. The second main category, ‘social interacton’, focuses on developing and applying ways of getng users to share experiences, knowledge and skills. Some of the cases – for example HiStory and Pinokio- support people in ‘telling their stories’. The approach used refects a number of desired outcomes, such as encouraging sharing and interacton with others; getng people to valorise their life experiences; using their stories to create learning content; dealing with ‘otherness’ and promotng acceptance of diversity. A similar approach can be found with projects that use mult-media within a community context – for example ‘Web in the Hood’. In this way, dealing with diference and supportng interacton between culturally diverse groups is taken out of the personal space and expanded to the community and societal level. 66

Less frequently found are actvites involving awareness-raising, counselling, personal development and networking and good practce sharing. With awareness-raising, the aim is to provide people with informaton that is seen as essental in providing them with tools to empower themselves, for example the products and training available for disabled people, as illustrated by the Assistve Technology Wiki. Counselling services are either on-line one-to-one services providing support on things like self-harm, or services where ICTs are used to supplement other counselling methods, like group therapy, for example Cyberhus. Personal development approaches can be seen in some ways as a ‘social’ variant on counselling, for example EduCore. On terms of expected short-term outcomes, one group of cases aim to support inclusion through developing technical skills, primarily through providing courses, for example ICONET and Conecta Joven. Another group focus on addressing social isolaton. These cover a range of risk scenarios – from the estrangement of immigrant and ethnic minority groups from their ‘host’ culture through to issues associated with young people who have problems in going to school, for example Notschool and Schome Park. A third group aims to improve the social skills of partcipants, through team-working and social interacton, for example Avatar@School. A fourth category antcipates increasing partcipants’ chances of success in the labour market, for example FreqOut!. The actual short term outcomes reported by initatves are difcult to quantfy, since data are not readily available across cases. That said, the main areas in which positve outcomes were reported by the initatves were as follows: | Re-engagement in educaton and training – some initatves reported that partcipants had taken up further study. | Social skills and social interacton – some initatves reported improvements in partcipants’ social skills and social engagement. | Physical, psychological and emotonal well-being – most projects reported improvements in user confdence and self-esteem. | Technical skills and digital literacy – most of the projects reported improvements in the acquisiton of technical and ICT skills. | Employment – a small number of initatves reported that partcipants had gone on to fnd work. Examples of the outcomes reported include: | Schome Park – a virtual world for young people who have dropped out of the educaton system showed clear evidence that users developed their knowledge age skills throughout the project and included communicaton, leadership, collaboratve learning, creatvity, development of analytcal skills. | Notschool – the alternatve online school has successfully enabled 98% of young learners to re-engage in learning. Other evidence suggests: increase motvaton to learn; increase confdence and self-esteem; develop advanced technical skills; acquire qualifcatons. | MOSEP – an initatve using Web 2.0 to develop the competences of trainers engaged in supportng the inclusion of young people with poor educaton through e-portolios reported that teachers and trainee teachers involved in the project were able to develop their own e-portolios and help their students create e-portolios. Students involved in the partner insttutons learned how to collect and organise evidence for their e-portolio, make choices about what to select and omit, as well as refectng on 67

and evaluatng their own work as well as the work of their peers. 93% of students felt ‘proud’ of their E-Me portolio, 81% felt that it helped them to ‘record what I have learnt and done’, 64% ‘enjoyed’ working on their E-Me and 67% felt that they would contnue using and developing their E-Me without school involvement. | Avatar@School - aims to develop capacites in confict mediaton for young people through the use of a 3D virtual platorm as well as increasing ICT skills and indirectly improving intercultural and language skills. In general, according to the project managers the project seems to have achieved its aims. School peer mediaton and virtual role plays have proven to be excellent learning methods if combined together. In total, 94% of respondents said that they had a “very good” (36%) or “good” (58%) impression. | BREAKOUT – an initatve aimed at reducing youth ofending – reports that the areas in which BREAKOUT has worked partcularly well, and has had a ‘High impact’ for users include: raising awareness amongst young people of key issues around crime, drugs and how they efect life choices and life chances; providing e-skills and social skills training to serving inmates in prisons via a blended e-learning model. Areas where BREAKOUT has made a moderate contributon include: Contributng to improving ofenders’ personal relatonships, for example by raising self-esteem and social skills; contributng to improving the efectveness of service administraton. The expected longer term impacts reported by initatves refect three main visions: the vision of social cohesion and social capital; the vision of improving lifelong learning and the vision of increasing employment. These goals are consistent with current EU policies, as refected in EU 2020; the ET 2020 agenda and the renewed Lisbon goals. Less highly prioritsed are impacts in ICT access and skills; crime reducton; health improvement; reducing homeless and the integraton of immigrants and ethnic minorites. Virtually all of the cases had no evidence to assess whether these long term impacts are being realised. In almost all cases, the projects reported that ‘it was too early to say’. However, a number of the initatves reported evidence of ‘potental impacts’. For example, the Notschool project reports that 50% of students entered into further educaton, 26% entered college related employment and 18% entered fulltme employment. This suggests that the initatve has contributed investment to young people’s future. The FreqOut! project reports anecdotal evidence of ‘breaking down the barriers between diferent groups’, e.g. inter-generatonal; gang cultures.’ However, the initatves survey identfed a number of barriers to realising objectves. The key problems are: | Getng target groups motvated and then retaining their interest; | Accessing intermediaries with the skills necessary to deliver objectves; | Securing funding and ensuring sustainability; | Technical problems, associated with: poor equipment; technical support; the rapid obsolescence of ‘high end’ technologies; | Getng young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to engage with other young people from diferent cultures; | Managing initatves and promotng good governance; | Getng innovatve and unconventonal educatonal and training initatves accredited.

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8.3 Summary of impacts: general theory of change analysis In this fnal secton, we provide an integratve summary of the impacts identfed from applying the ‘theory of change’ approach to the case study analysis using a ‘logical model’. This presents the overall linkages across the case studies as a whole between: | Objectves and goals, | The actvites planned or being implemented to achieve the objectves and goals, | The expected outputs associated with the actvites, | The expected outcomes and impacts realized by using the outputs, | The indicators used to measure the outcomes and impacts, | The means of verifcaton – the data collected to verify indicators.

Key objectves / goals Reduce isolaton

Key actvites

Key outcomes

Key expected impacts

Awareness-raising and Improve social skills and Integraton of isolated communicaton social interacton and IEM Counselling & Personal development

Increase social cohesion and social capital

Social interacton Educatonal re-inserton

Training Counselling & Personal development

Improve well-being

Increase employability

Re-engagement in edu- Supportng and improcaton and training ving lifelong learning

Counselling & Personal Improve social skills and Improve health development social interacton Social interacton

Improve physical, psychological and emotonal well-being

Training

Improve technical skills Increasing employment and digital literacy

Counselling & Personal development Find new employment

Table 11: Summary of case study results based on ‘theory of change’ analysis As table 11 shows, the case studies have identfed four main clusters of objectves of ‘Learning 2.0 for inclusion’. These are associated with a set of implementaton actvites that are to some extent common across the diferent objectves clusters. The four sets of objectves are in turn linked to four main sets of outcomes and expected impacts. However, the case study analysis suggests that most initatves have not clearly identfed the indicators and means of verifcaton that are required to assess the extent to which and in what ways these outcomes and impacts are being achieved. Therefore these aspects are not included in the table.

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PART B

PART B

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9

NARRATIVE REPORTS

9.1

ALPEUNED

The Disability Ofce of the Spanish Natonal University for Distance Learning (UNED) manages an online community for students with disabilites. The purpose is to ofer an interactve student community where informaton on projects, approaches, methods, accomplishments, and proposals can be exchanged. This includes encouraging students to interact through a virtual forum, collaboratng with research projects, and increasing awareness of the range of resources available to support disabled university students. This community runs on dotLRN open source platorm for which the aDeNu research group at UNED is providing technical support, including quality control of the user experience. The communicaton between the user and the collaboratve platorm has direct infuence on the user experience with the online community. Interfaces and interacton procedures should be designed with the needs of all end users in mind, requiring high degrees of fexibility and a sound knowledge of the end users abilites and preferences. Usability and accessibility are addressed, as real accessibility demands appropriate levels of efciency and satsfacton in user-system communicaton. Case profle – ALPEUNED in a nutshell ALPEUNED

Website

htp://adenu.ia.uned.es/alpe/

Status

01/2007 – 06/2009 (18 months)

Interviewed person

Coordinator

Funded and promoted by…

No specifc funding was needed to set up the online community. This is an internal initatve of UNED technically supported by the research team of UNED,

Target group(s)

People with disabilites – who face challenges in fully making the most of University life.

Number of users

482 students

Educatonal Sector(s)

Higher educaton

Category of the Learning Actvites

No classic learning content, learning is informal

Web 2.0 technologies used...

Applies low level Web 2.0 via interactve forum; Personal Learning Environment

Methods to support inclusion

Supports peer counselling, provides a news service, and coordinates user involvement in related research projects.

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Short descripton and key characteristcs The community for atenton to disability was set up to take account of the requirements of students with disability at UNED. UNIDIS (the disability ofce) wanted to build this online community and its related services to students with disabilites to provide peer support and shared problem solving, to provide news services, coordinate the involvement of users and their feedback, to make learning accessible, improve academic performance and avoid drop outs. Disabled students should be enabled to share their experiences and make their views heard, to help understand the percepton and needs of students with disability, as well as to support the involvement of end users in research projects. All students with disability at UNED are registered at the disability ofce. The Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Student Afairs, who is responsible for the disability ofce, addressed a leter to each of the 4026 students with disability asking them if they would like to join the community and take part in aDeNu’s projects. They were given the choice to reply either by post or by sending an email to the community administrator. Two research projects about accessible, technology mediated learning: EU4ALL (IST- 2006034778) and ALPE (eTen-2005-029328) have been supportng the development of the online community. No specifc funding was needed to set up the online community. This is an internal initatve of UNED technically supported by the research team of UNED, aDeNu (htp://adenu.ia.uned.es). The UNED team consisted of 4 administrators from the UNED Disability Unit who coordinated the initatve and the aDeNu team providing the technical support. 482 students with disabilites were actve online this year. Lecturers and teachers were also involved. Dimension of learning and inclusion The web 2.0 tools used for this initatve from the wide range of web 2.0 tools available could be perceived as very low. The main tool is the online community and its learning platorm (AA compliance with WAI WCAG 1.0). Several technologies are nevertheless available (SCORM, IMS-QTI,IMS-LD). The community is using the latest dotLRN version. So predominantly, ALPEUNED uses social networking and online fora for peer counselling purposes.

Figure 4: ALPE (htp://adenu.ia.uned.es/alpe/)

The online community created a personal learning environment for the 482 disabled students (out of 4026 in total enrolled at UNED) fed by the peer counselling, debates in

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forums and partcipaton in research projects on accessibility so that disabled students could share their experiences and make their views heard. This informal learning did not happened through specifc learning actvites. The peer counselling was the basic core service of the platorm empowering the students to learn independently. The assumpton behind this is that disabled persons can beter support other disabled students, because of the frst person knowledge of the obstacles encountered by disabled students in studying at a distance university. The students learned about available support services at the University and also that they can be supported by their peers or support the others in return to solve a diferent problem. ICT based support services ofered them advice on Assistve Technologies and gave them a voice that was heard at the University. The service making use of an accessible platorm (AA compliance with WAI WCAG 1.0) was not previously provided by UNED or any other Spanish University. Although no specifc learning actvites have been carried out so far, students created heir informal personal learning environment. Additonally, due to the partcipaton in the European research projects, EU4ALL and ALPE, students had access to relevant documents via the fle management area of the platorm, which increased awareness on the projects’ actvites among the community members. The main asset of the community proved to be peer support: Students tended to search for other members studying the same courses, make new connectons, share materials and update informaton concerning events, funding opportunites etc. The community provided a source of practcal support at short notce, and as needed. This is partcularly benefcial for those students who experience feelings of isolaton because of their disability. The online community provides them with a fexible way to beneft from peer counselling. This support has helped students at diferent moments since the community was started. Up to now the most relevant areas of interest include: | Administraton: A third of the communicaton - 33.3% - within the community deal with issues concerning the university administraton. For instance, there have been many protests concerning a new regulaton that will be applied to 2nd session registratons fees (as these will stop being free for students with disability in 2008). This actvism is an example of the infuence the community might have as a lobby representng the interests of students with disability. | Accessibility and usability: About 10% of the messages are concerned with these issues. Users report having had accessibility problems or difcultes in using the platform. For example, some found problems when they needed to use a technical aid such as JAWS, or some inquired about using diferent platorm functons. It is other community members who reply to their queries providing advice. These reports are useful so that the community of UNED and dotLRN developers can solve the problems that arise. | Academic and library: 3.7% of the users’ postngs asked for course notes, inquired about dealing with subjects, accessible materials (books, notes) available and library loan procedures. Questons concerned deadlines and being able to send someone else to the library in order to collect the books. | Assessments: 3.6% of the messages deal with special exam adaptatons for students with disability such as diferent formats, extra tme etc.

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| Employment: Another 3.3% of the reports deal with employment opportunites for people with disability. They observe the difcultes they can fnd when trying to get a job and critcise the current situaton of the labour market. | Physical Access: 2% of the mails posted denounce the lack of accessibility to certain university premises. | Communicaton: There is a 0.8% of the messages that report having had communicaton problems with staf working at UNED or with other students (deaf students who are used to lip reading) | Miscellaneous: 43.3% of the community communicaton would be included here. Messages sharing and discussing more personal maters such as new member introductons, describing their disabilites and the problems these entail, poetry exchange etc. Also announcements concerning car tax reductons for people with disability, or problems when using the university web site appear here. ALPEUNED was a project were only low level/conventonal ICT skills were required since the accent was put on accessibility frst. In the next months, UNED is planning to use the platorm for training purposes, among others the subject “ICT skills” will be ofered. Furthermore citzenship is a sof skill induced by the online community. The peer counselling and shared solving problem method where the disabled student were receiving informaton but also engaging in guiding the other students boosted self-esteem and responsible and actve engagement in the learning society. The creaton of their personal informal learning environment and access to learning undoubtedly enhances their selfmanagement capacity. Personal sof skills such as being responsible, possessing sociability, integrity and honesty, interpersonal communicaton and actve listening skills were developed. Interpersonal sof skills such as partcipate as a member of the Team, teaching others, work with cultural diversity, motvates others are inherent to peer counselling. Innovatve elements and key success factors The main factor of success of this initatve was of course the technical accessibility of the platorm (AA compliance with WAI WCAG 1.0. Thanks to the user’s feedback, the platorm was constantly updated and e-accessibility was a big efort maintained by the Technical Team throughout the project. The real success factor has been the decision about the pedagogical model to follow: Online community supportng peer counselling and shared problem solving which empowered the disabled students and enhanced their feeling to being part of a wider community. The involvement in European Research projects does not have to be neglected giving students and UNED staf access to existng literature about e-accessibility. The community enabled UNED students with disabilites to: | Have at their disposal a peer counselling service about learning and assessment strategies, assistve technologies, accessible learning materials; | Be able to report accessibility problems at the university and in the elearning platform; | Access a news service; | Support the management of research projects related with e-Inclusion as end users;

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| Share their experiences and make their views heard, to help understand the percepton and needs of students with disability, | Support the involvement of end users in research projects; | Organise themselves to lobby against university rules directly afectng them. Apart from feeling part of the UNED community and even a Europe wide community, disabled students were given the opportunity to access learning by peer counselling and shared problem solving, but more importantly the platorm gave them the perfect opportunity to engage themselves in the role of guidance and advising as any citzen engaged in a learning community. Problems encountered and lessons learned The main problems and obstacles experienced in ALPE can be summarised as follows: | Motvatonal and user engagement problems: As pointed out only 482 disabled students out of 4026 in total enrolled at UNED joined the online community. In the feld of support to students with disabilites, there are many things to improve at UNED, as in most of the Spanish Universites (White Book on Spanish University and Accessibility, 2007). This may cause negatve attudes in students who are not willing to collaborate through the community. The issue has, of course, been addressed and the Managing Board is awaitng for the results of the evaluaton of the two research projects and the results of the evaluaton of the online community to draw conclusions, map problems and plan how to overcome them. The decision to add more services such as career guidance or training through instructonal design has already been taken, broadening the scope and services of such a platorm can only atract more people to join especially if training programmes are added to it. | The main interacton fow – 43.3% of all communicatons – covered personal maters, and not issues directly linked to accessibility. When it comes to analyse the content, it reveals an interestng fact, that only a bit more than 25% of the communicaton are related to course content itself. In detail the usage patern is as follows: University 85 Administraton: 33.3%; Accessibility and usability: 10%; Academic and library: 3.7%; Assessments: 3.6%; Employment: 3.3%; Communicaton problems with UNED staf or students: 0.8%; Physical Access to premises: 2%; Miscellaneous: 43.3%. The new envisaged services intend to reduce the personal and “chat”-like communicatons. As an interestng second side efect, the online community started to intensively discuss issues concerning the university administraton (33.3% of communicaton fow) and especially the new regulaton that was be applied to second session registraton fees for disabled students. Before, disabled students had been exempted from paying this fee. This actvism is an example of the infuence the community might have as a lobby representng the interests of students with disability. Furthermore the community is planning during this new academic year additonal services such as career guidance and IT training.

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9.2


The Assistve Technology Wiki is an initatve developed and implemented by AbilityNet. AbilityNet is a natonal UK charity that has been running for over 20 years. Their main mission and objectve is to promote beter design and difusion of ICT for people with disabilites, and to support disabled adults and children in using them. They contribute to developing adaptve and assistve technologies to do this. Adaptve technologies supported by AbilityNet include screen magnifers, on screen keyboards, voice recogniton and narrators, and predictve text. However, adaptve technologies are on their own not enough to support people with disabilites – educaton and skills is the major problem. So AbilityNet deliver online e-learning to get people to learn to use technologies and adaptve systems. This is where the ‘Assistve Technology Wiki’ comes in. Case profle – AT Wiki in a nutshell Assistve Technology Wiki

Website

htp://abilitynet.wetpaint.com/

Status

07/2008 – ongoing CEO of AbilityNet

Interviewed person

Director of Development at AbilityNet, AT Wiki creator and co-ordinator


The funding to start the initatve came internally from AbilityNet. Overall, it is supported by donatons (around 20%), government grants, fees earned from services provided, for example disability awareness training for employers, in-kind support from companies.

Target group(s)

The target user group for the wiki is anyone interested in the needs of disabled people. This includes equipment vendors, charites, public sector agencies and disabled people themselves.

Number of users

About 80 users but increases steadily


Vocatonal Educaton Lifelong/Adult Learning


Informal learning


Wiki, media sharing, Moodle


Open for everybody in order to get access to valuable informaton, as well as contact to the peer-community

&

Training,

Workplace

Learning,

Short descripton and key characteristcs The wiki aims to provide fexible, up-to-date informaton on all aspects of assistve technology, including the latest products available. The wiki allows its members to share knowledge and opinion on this informaton, as well as suggest and discuss new products and services. There are currently over 80 members in the AT Wiki community and it is steadily increasing. Most of these are Assistve Technology professionals. A minority are people with disabilites. Users also include equipment vendors, charites, public sector

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agencies, therapists, health professionals and parents. The target user group for the wiki is anyone interested in the needs of disabled people. From the results of the Self-Administered-Questonnaire, respondents identfed themselves as accessibility consultants, technology providers, some of whom are AbilityNet employees, web accessibility administrators, open source sofware developers, as well as carers and volunteer workers. Wiki member profles confrm that the wiki is being used by AbilityNet employees and interns, voluntary and charity workers, employees of other assistve technology organisatons or departments, for example BT’s Consumer Afairs and Inclusion Team, sofware developers, technology writers, IT trainers and consultants and relatves of people who use assistve technology. The wiki was launched in July 2008. The ratonale for the wiki comes from problems associated with the fact that the resource base used by AbilityNet – including training courses, informaton on new products, standards informaton, disability discriminaton act compliance checks – had become statc and was not developing as the state of the art evolved. The funding to start the initatve came internally from AbilityNet. Overall, it is supported by donatons (around 20%), government grants, fees earned from services provided, for example disability awareness training for employers, in-kind support from companies. The initatve involves minimal capital and operatonal costs since ‘wetpaint’ is open source and free to use. The initatve has only recently been launched, so exploitaton and sustainability plans are at an early stage. The stakeholders and partners involved are mostly vendors of assistve technologies (e.g. Agilent Technologies, Britsh Telecom, Microsof), disabled people, NGOs supporting disabled people. Dimension of learning and inclusion The wiki is accessed via the AbilityNet forum. It integrates a content developer and editor (‘Easyedit’) to create content and incorporates blogs and discussion forums to enable content to be reviewed. The platorm uses embedded YouTube videos that provide illustratons of the latest assistve technologies and how they are used. There are links to the wiki from AbilityNet ‘twiterfeed’. The main innovatve aspect of the Assistve Technology Wiki is its pedagogic model, which involves a collaboratve knowledge producton approach, based on ‘routes of desire’. This involves an ‘open pedagogy’ method – supportng people to fnd their own routes to learning through diferent systems and technologies, rather than a ‘didactc’ approach. AbilityNet’s ‘open pedagogy’ approach makes the most of the knowledge, expertse and experience of its users, whatever their background (e.g. disabled user, healthcare professional, AbilityNet employee), and provides them with a fexible knowledge system that can incorporate many diferent resources (including other AbilityNet services) to provide a tailored informaton source and learning experience for each individual user. From the Self-Administered-Questonnaire, it is evident that the AT Wiki is mainly used to share the latest informaton on assistve technologies (75%) and for networking with other interested partes (50%). Most of the respondents agree that the wiki helps to develop networks that provide opportunites; helps members to feel more involved in the community and provides beter informaton. Furthermore the user feel that the wiki is benefcial for: | “Getng to know new people” (Accessibility Consultant)

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| “Feeling part of a widespread community” (Technology provider) | “Sharing informaton…creatng an informaton resource” (Technology provider) | “Ensure people are aware of Open Source sofware solutons” (Open source technology sofware developer) The AbilityNet AT Wiki ofers real value and beneft for users in providing a comprehensive resource on assistve technology, including up-to-date informaton (ranging from Learning Disabilites to VAT exemptons), a detailed list of FAQs, a discussion opton on each page, and a series of fascinatng and informatve video tutorials and stories. The ‘Products in practce’ secton allows members to get informaton directly from vendors and/or other users of the technologies they are considering. It is incredibly useful for people in exploring all the optons and alternatves available to them.

Figure 5: Products in practce

The ‘Wetpaint’ wiki engine was also chosen by AbilityNet as it does not require users to have a high level of digital literacy and is relatvely easy to use. Users learn how to create and share content and use social networking functonalites. Members can edit or create wiki pages, post or make replies in the discussion forum, send messages, add friends, invite others and complement each other on interestng or useful posts. Indirectly, the wiki may help to develop ICT skills by ofering valuable informaton on developing ICT skills for disabled people through promotng access to advanced technologies. As the AT Wiki is predominantly used by professionals, improving the ‘sof skills’ of members is not a key outcome. However, partcipaton in the AT Wiki can have a positve 79

impact on user skills which, through the nature of the wiki environment, are difcult to monitor: | Social interacton: One of the key things about the AT Wiki is its networking potental through informaton sharing. Socialisaton tools are teamed with online knowledge producton, allowing members to make new friends and professional acquaintances and help them to feel part of a wider community. | Actve citzenship: Actve citzenship is also encouraged through sharing informaton that is valuable to others and can help them to improve their quality of life. | There is also evidence to suggest that it can help reduced isolaton of disabled users. The Disability Rights Commission advocates a society ‘where all disabled people can partcipate fully as equal citzens [… where] this new and powerful technology does not leave [them] behind” (Disability Right Commission, 2004). AbilityNet provides easy access to important informaton, useful tools, invaluable sofware and training, as well as a network of web users in a similar positon, all of which is expanded upon by the AT Wiki. Overall, this blended e-Learning model incorporates as many Web 2.0 technologies as possible, giving previously excluded groups access to the internet and the opportunity to partcipate in collaboratve learning, sharing their knowledge on what ICT technologies work for their disability, which may help other excluded users. This may help reduce disabled people’s isolaton. The positve outcomes which are already evident are that it contributes to raising awareness of the needs of disabled people and promotes knowledge sharing and technical development between AT professionals, leading to beter technology solutons for disabled users. Innovatve elements and key success factors The main factors contributng to the successful outcomes of the initatve are as follows: | The pedagogic model, with a ‘routes of desire’ approach, linking members to a value chain of informaton and services. Users have access to a wide range of Web 2.0 and non Web 2.0 services including traditonal training and consultancy, e-Learning, and AbilityNet’s YouTube channel, Twiterfeed and Myspace and Facebook sites. | Use of socialisaton tools within a wiki platorm to encourage networking between diferent agencies and develop a more informed resource database on state-of-theart technologies. For assistve technology stakeholders the AT Wiki is a valuable platform for collatng and organising existng informaton, enabling them to deliver better services to their clients. Moreover, since the wiki encourages networking between diferent agencies interested in assistve technologies it creates a pooling of expert knowledge, which in tme can be added to by the experiences of disabled people themselves, as well as their relatves and carers. As the wiki is updated and expanded by this interacton between members, it is able to ofer more informed and varied opinion on state-of-the- art solutons: | Accessibility: AbilityNet’s wiki has been designed with accessibility in mind and complies with WC3 standards. Many Web 2.0 tools can be alienatng to disabled users as they are not developed with disabled users in mind. AbilityNet’s Kath Moonan (2007) describes some common problems facing Web 2.0 and accessibility. The AT Wiki addresses these problems and demonstrates that it is possible to make Web 2.0 tools accessible to users with disabilites.

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| The AT Wiki is an innovatve use of a Web 2.0 technology which can involve end users directly in the development of Accessibility 2.0, as well as helping other agencies to ensure they do the same.

Figure 6: AbilityNet's YouTube channel

Problems encountered and lessons learned The main problems and obstacles experienced and facing the Assistve Technology Wiki can be summarised as follows: | Membership; | Actve partcipaton of a greater number of members; | Technical and design issues; | Balancing the needs of users; | Funding. Membership: As AbilityNet is already a successful organisaton, membership will steadily grow through promoton and word of mouth, informing people through training programmes, links with other accessibility consultants and assistve technology vendors. Social networking tools on the wiki itself, which, as mentoned earlier, allow members to invite other users to join. Expanding membership will also increase wiki actvity and generate further discussion. The problem here is that the partcipaton of new members in the forum and wiki is relatvely slow to catch up. Most of the forum and wiki content is generated and modifed by only a few key members, who have been partcipants since the wiki’s early stages. From the forum contributons analysis it is clear to see that nearly half (44%) of all forum actvity is generated by one user, and that just over three quarters (76%) of all forum actvity is generated by just three of the wiki members.

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Encouraging actve partcipaton is also addressed by Wetpaint features: A ‘Wiki Weekly Digest’ is emailed to members informing them of the latest developments and edits, as well as any new members and topics. Users can track threads and topics, send messages and complements to other users, add friends, and are emailed when they receive a message, which means that they are constantly aware of any updates relatng to their involvement in the wiki. The ‘Community Spotlight’, which introduces a member through the ‘Have you met…?’ header secton, encourages members to make friends and expand their network.

Figure 7: Weekly Digest emailed to members

Members also have actve involvement in improving the wiki, through providing feedback and suggestons. In this way technical and design issues can be resolved collaboratvely. The wiki is stll being used as a traditonal informaton source for the majority of users, which needs to be addressed by greater involvement of the expanding membership. Some issues mentoned by the SAQ respondents addressed incorporatng minor changes to improve usability: | “Removing wetpaint branding. Beter layout, clearer templates...Beter navigaton, specifcally, beter navigaton box split to just show real content. A litle usability study on it and modify layout accordingly? Think the challenge of wikis is making them clear/simple.” (AT Wiki member, technology provider) | “It’s labelling and associaton problem” (Accessibility Consultant) | “Logging in using an open id” (Technology provider) | Would like to see “short, entertaining and informatve tutorials” included on the wiki. (Web accessibility administrator) 82

Threads on the welcome page illustrate member opinion helping to change the design and structure of the wiki:

Figure 8: Welcome Thread page

At present, it is evident that the majority of dialogue and wiki actvity is generated by AbilityNet employees. As the membership expands, this existng live debate will encourage other users to partcipate and contribute. However, building up a sizeable and sustainable membership is an area where the wiki is stll developing. As one SAQ respondent states: “It will improve through beter promoton and wider awareness, thereby increasing in membership and growing in amount of informaton shared” (AbilityNet employee, technology provider) The innovatve use of socialisaton tools will further help to encourage this, as informaton becomes more accessible to users and people are made aware of where the informaton is coming from. Just like established social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook, users can ‘invite’ others to join and contribute to its development. ‘Feeling part of a widespread community’ (Technology provider) is achievable as the community is visible and users can see it evolve and partcipate in its evoluton. The main lessons to be learned from the case study are as follows: | Use of Learning 2.0 technologies can efect organisatonal change; | Web 2.0 applicatons can be easily adjusted to meetng the diverse needs of diferent users; | Usability of Web 2.0 applicatons are compromised to some extent in order to meet accessibility standards; | Opportunites for cross fertlisaton of content and successes can be achieved internatonally (Banes, 2008); | Web 2.0 applicatons can be used to reduce the costs and tmeframe of putng together expansive, collaboratve resources.

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Figure 9: AbilityNet’s twiter feed

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9.3

Avatar@School

School bullying and violence is an issue of serious and increasing concern all over Europe. Many empirical research works have shown that the pupils’ aggressiveness often infuences the learning environment in a negatve way, afectng productvity and success at school. In recent years, a growing atenton has been paid to the “school peer mediaton” approach, an innovatve and efectve method to enhance students’ capacities in confict mediaton, and therefore reduce school violence. The emergence of the Learning 2.0 paradigm have opened new scenarios to peer mediaton. The Avatar@School project is an interestng case of applicaton of this learning approach, which in a certain sense is innovatve in itself, through Web 2.0 technologies. Case profle – Avatar@School in a nutshell Avatar@School Peace at school: Mediatng together through the Internet state

Website

htp://www.avataratschool.eu

Status

Inactve (12/2006 – 12/2008)

Interviewed person

Thomas Jäger, ZEPF, University of Koblenz-Landau (Germany) Marinella La Placa, CINECA (Italy)


Project co-funded by the European Commission

Locaton of the Learning Actvites

Formal setng (e.g. schools)

Target group(s)

Pupils from 10 to 18 years of age

Number of users

Approximately 100 partcipants in 26 virtual role plays


Secondary school


Non-formal


Second Life-like environment


School peer mediaton and virtual role plays

Short descripton and key characteristcs The basic idea behind Avatar@School was to promote peer mediaton in secondary schools. At the very beginning, before the project started, the idea was that pupils practced confict mediaton within a virtual learning environment, which should have had the form of a chat room. However, in the frst phase of the project the partners found out that the beter soluton would have been creatng a “3D” environment, where pupils could interact in form of avatars, in the context of “virtual role plays” reproducing confict situatons that had to do mainly with school bullying and violence, and more generally with social exclusion. The Avatar@School project started at the end of 2006 and ended at the end of 2008. It was co-funded by the European Commission with an awarded grant of 274,000 euro on

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a budget of 398,000 euro. The transnatonal partnership included six organizatons from fve European countries. CINECA (Italy), a not-for-proft consortum gathering together 41 universites and other insttutons, was the project coordinator and the hostng organizaton of the project web server15. The project partners were organizatons with a high specializaton and qualifcaton in the several felds of interest for the project. More in detail, Actonwork (UK) is a world leading theatre and flm company dealing with bullying, violence, and empowerment16; Associazione Equilibrio (Italy) is a not-for-proft associaton with a strong commitment in the development of extra-judicial methods for dispute resoluton and in the creaton of mediaton centres17; the Centre for Social Mediaton of Sant Pere de Ribes (Spain) is a public body which undertakes the actvity of confict mediaton at the municipality level18; Project Wolf (Romania) is a form of “social theatre” addressing the needs of specifc community groups, working in collaboraton with other theatre groups such as Actonwork19; the Centre for Educatonal Research (ZEPF) of the University of Koblenz-Landau (Germany) is an insttuton undertaking research actvity within a wide range of felds, amongst which educaton20. The project was addressed to pupils, teachers, and mediators in secondary schools, and it was focused on actual or potental victms of school bullying or violence, which represented the main excluded group targeted. It involved approximately 100 persons, who partcipated in 26 role plays in the main phase. Dimension of learning and inclusion The main aim of Avatar@School was to help pupils in secondary schools, in partcular young people at risk of social exclusion, to cope with confict situatons and develop capacites in confict mediaton. The exclusion aspects specifcally addressed were those related to school bullying and violence, racism, absenteeism, vandalism, problems with multracial and gender integraton. The learning model was based on the combinaton of school peer mediaton and virtual role plays developed in the context of a 3D environment, within which the partcipants interacted in form of avatars (see Figure 10)

15

htp://www.cineca.it/

16

htp://www.actonwork.com/

17

htp://www.ass-equilibrio.it/

18

htp://www.santperederibes.cat/

19

htp://www.suejennings.com/

20

htp://www.zepf.uni-landau.de/.

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Figure 10: The learning model of Avatar@School21

The project staf developed 40 role plays scenarios and, for each of them, created avatars covering all possible roles in confict situatons at school, i.e. victms, bullies, mediators, etc. (see Figure 11). In this framework, the pupils had to fnd together and autonomously, although under the supervision of expert moderators22, the proper solutons for the confict situatons. In such a sense, as it was based on actve learning, the approach that stood behind the project should be seen as “constructvist”, and the learning content as “dynamic”.

21

htp://www.avataratschool.eu/?q=node/1

22

The project staf cooperated with the teachers in the schools involved. In most of the schools there were small teams, coordinated by a person, who was also responsible for the implementaton of the project. The aim was avoiding that pupils partcipated alone.

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M U

s e r ’ s

n a m

C

h a t

e

a n d

t e x t

e n u

b a r

r o l e

d i s p l a y

F

u n c t i o n s

b a r

Figure 11: An example of school confict scenario in a 3D environment

Besides the main intended “learning” outcome, i.e. the development of capacites in confict mediaton, the use of a 3D virtual platorm was also likely to increase ICT skills and indirectly improve intercultural and language skills, as it made pupils from diferent countries interact in English language. The enhancement of labour market skills was not among the main aims of the project, although it is easy to imagine that, in a very indirect way, it could have an impact in terms of an increase of opportunites on the labour market, i.e. through the development of interpersonal social skills. Innovatve elements and key success factors The Avatar@School project followed innovatve technological and pedagogic approaches, as it was based on a “Second Life-like” virtual environment, developed through an open-source sofware, and promoted “school peer mediaton”. As regards the technological approach, the inital idea was to implement the project on Teen Second Life23, a Second Life’s separate platorm for young people of 13-17 years of age. This posed an apparently insurmountable problem, as the policies of the company that holds the property of Teen Second Life did not allow to protect teenagers from adult harassment, what was not acceptable from an ethical point of view and potentally thwartng the efectveness of learning processes. Therefore, the choice was to create an entrely new virtual world based on Open Simulator24, an open-source development sofware, in order to have a safe place for teenagers. The use of OpenSim instead of Teen Second Life did not pose any partcular problem, even though OpenSim had actually some inital constraints. Every object in the virtual 23

htp://teen.secondlife.com/

24

htp://opensimulator.org/

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world had to be created from the beginning. For this reason, the virtual experiences on the frst version of the new platorm were not so various and dynamic as they could have been in Teen Second Life. Nevertheless, according to the project managers, this did not afect the success of the initatve. On the contrary, the limited variety of environments and situatons was functonal to the development of the role plays. In additon, as the platorm was hosted by CINECA, the project partners could have a more efectve control on it, and therefore were able to achieve a beter protecton of the partcipants’ privacy. In such a sense, the platorm could be seen as a separate and closed system: the “users” were listed and registered by the project staf, who also defned their roles within the role plays and assigned them avatars. The 3D virtual environment was sometmes used also by the project staf for holding project meetngs. According to the project managers, it seemed to be even more efective than more “traditonal” means of communicatons, such as mailing lists or chat rooms. The system also included a Moodle platorm, mainly dedicated to internal communicaton and training. In general, the use of Web 2.0 tools enhanced the “cooperatve” character of the project. The pupils were also involved in the frst phase of project development, specifcally in testng the 3D virtual environment and the role plays. From the pedagogic point of view, innovatveness was in the learning model itself (see again fgure 1, above), as it combined school peer mediaton and 3D virtual role plays. In partcular, the use of avatars had clear advantages, as it allowed pupils to see the faces of other pupils, even though they were “virtual” faces, what it would have not been possible in a normal chat; on the other hand, being in a virtual world made it easier for pupils to interact and perform their roles with no restraints, what made the role plays more realistc and efectve. This was confrmed to a certain extent by the analysis of a chat transcripton, which revealed the use of explicit language and the adopton of unconstrained behaviours, although always under the supervision of moderators. Other innovatve aspects were related to the creaton of opportunites of interacton between pupils from diferent countries – what allowed them to improve also their intercultural and language skills, since some role plays were held in English language – and to the promoton of school peer mediaton and virtual role plays in a country like Romania, where both these learning methods were relatvely new. Problems encountered and lessons learned The project staf had to face mainly “technical” problems in some schools, sometmes due to the use of up-to-date computers and more ofen to the presence of frewalls or flters. These problems were solved holding specifc technical support sessions. A major problem was related to the role of “mediator” in a virtual environment. The mediator helps the two or more partes involved in a confict situaton to communicate with each other and see each other’s point of view, needs to clarify any misunderstanding and explain any thing that people do not understand. Nevertheless, in a virtual environment the mediator is not able to see the body language of the “real-life” people, which instead plays an important role in helping the mediator to “mediate”. More generally, in a virtual environment people are not always who they say they are and this poses a problem for peer mediaton, which has to be necessarily a process between “peers”, in partcular when young people are involved. In such a sense, the choice of creatng a new virtual world on an OpenSim platorm allowed to overcome this problem and have a safe place for the partcipants in the role plays.

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In general, according to the project managers the project seems to have achieved its aims. School peer mediaton and virtual role plays have proven to be excellent learning methods if combined together. The evaluaton phase, based on an online questonnaire, has revealed a positve feedback by the partcipants. In total, 94% of respondents said that they had a “very good” (36%) or “good” (58%) impression. On average, they found the role plays “fun” and agreed that playing with pupils from other countries was “a good experience”; furthermore, they said that they thought it was easier for them to play their role in the virtual setng than it would have been in a “real” role play. In the words of the project managers, once again, the teachers believed that the initatve “had positve efects on the climate in classrooms”. Some schools asked for the possibility to use the platorm to carry out role plays afer the end of the project. In some cases, they did it autonomously, with the technical assistance of CINECA and the support of mediators from Associazione Equilibrio. No negatve impacts or unintended outcomes have been identfed from the point of view of either learning or inclusion. However, an impact analysis would be needed to evaluate these aspects more in depth.

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9.4

BREAKOUT

Case profle – BREAKOUT in a nutshell BREAKOUT Helping to break the cycle of ofending Website

htp://www.breakoutproject.odl.org/home

Status

Finished (2006-2008)

Interviewed person

Headteacher. Head of Year. 4 class teachers


The project was part-funded (70 %) through the EC ‘Grundtvig’ programme. The remainder of the funding was provided through resources commited by the partners, and through ‘in-kind’ resources provided by insttutons hostng the pilot experiments.

Target group(s)

The main target groups are young people ‘at risk’ of ofending and young people who are serving their frst custodial sentence.

Number of users

A total of 1329 users were involved in the project


Secondary School, Vocatonal Educaton & Training, Lifelong/Adult learning


Informal learning


Blog, podcasts, forum


Short descripton and key characteristcs BREAKOUT is an innovatve learning initatve aimed at addressing problems in ofending and drug-related ofending. It helps ‘at risk’ groups and ofenders, partcularly young offenders and ofending drug users, to ‘break out’ of a vicious circle of bad experiences and low expectatons of educaton, and hence limited life chance opportunites. It therefore extends conventonal concepts of adult ‘Lifelong Learning’ to include ‘societal learning’ and ‘social responsibility’. The main aim of the project is therefore to develop an interactve learning environment, which also helps ofenders, ex-ofenders and those ‘at risk’ to explore the implicatons of ‘life decisions’ that will impact on their ‘ofending career’. The overall project developed and tested learning approaches in ofending preventon, in re-skilling of serving prisoners, and in rehabilitaton of ex-prisoners and drug users. This was carried out in diferent pilot sites and scenarios, in diferent countries and with diferent target groups. This case study focuses on only one of these sites – in London, UK. This was the only site in the BREAKOUT project that developed Web 2.0 applicatons to support learning. The London site was itself split into three sub-sites, each of which had diferent scenarios, objectves, target groups and applicatons. These were as follows: | Scenario 1: drugs and crime preventon with students in a North London school;

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| Scenario 2: drugs and crime preventon with young people from ethnic minority groups in diferent communites in East London; | Scenario 3: supportng collaboratve working with drugs service commissioners and outreach workers in an East London local authority (the one serving the target groups in Scenario 2). Within the third scenario a ‘Commissioning Group’ was set up as a group of professionals responsible for commissioning drugs services who met regularly to evaluate service delivery and make recommendatons to improve it. The project builds on work carried out under a previous Framework 6 project called ‘HERO’ (Health and Educatonal Support for the Rehabilitaton of Ofenders), supported under the Informaton Society Technologies (IST) programme. HERO in partcular developed tools involving interactve games to model ofending support, rehabilitaton and ofending preventon scenarios that provided the basis for the ‘lifeswapping’ pedagogic model used in BREAKOUT, and the startng point for the use of Web 2.0 tools. BREAKOUT was launched to address partcularly problems and issues around low levels of numeracy and literacy; low levels of learning motvaton; previously bad experiences of educaton and negatve attudes to learning; labelling of ex-ofenders; language and cultural issues (for example in terms of the substantal numbers of migrants and asylum seekers in the prison populaton) as well as the lack of collaboraton and knowledgesharing between professionals working in the prison and rehabilitaton systems. The project was part-funded (70%) through the EC ‘Grundtvig’ programme. The remainder of the funding was provided through resources commited by the partners, and through ‘in-kind’ resources provided by insttutons hostng the pilot experiments. These included prisons; NGOs; local government agencies. The main user groups targeted were: | Ofenders, comprising two sub-groups, “frst ofenders” aged between 18 and 25 years old, typically awaitng sentence or on remand, and prisoners due for release; | Service and informaton providers working for external organisatons (comprising Public Administratons and NGOs, providing specialised staf such as trainers, teachers, guidance experts, labour market advisers); | Prison staf (comprising prison administraton staf; educators, medical staf such as doctors, nurses, psychologists, physiotherapists, social services staf, and resetlement support staf like probaton ofcers); | Young people ‘at risk’ of ofending. The user groups collaborated in 9 pilot sites in London, Athens, Erlangen, Girona and Tartu representng diferent Learning scenarios. The Table below shows the locatons, user groups and scenarios covered.

Pilot site and users

KETHEA, Athens

BREAKOUT services Counselling Centre Support; Re-entry Centre support; Family therapy; Support for special target groups (immigrants, refugees; Preventon; Legal Services Professional Training; Job Club

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Pilot site and users

BREAKOUT services

Lea Valley High School, London

Teachers’ Pack; Life skills’ workshops; Skills development/Entrepreneurship workshops and tools; Crime workshops; Drugs workshops; Drugs and crime informaton; ‘True stories’ and video library; Skills assessment tool

Tower Hamlets DAT, London

Commissioners Toolkit; Outreach workers Toolkit; Knowledge exchange

Tower Hamlets Youth Services, London

Drugs and crime informaton; Drug behaviours survey; ‘True stories’ and video library; Skills development tools and workshops

Natonal School of Public Health Athens

Natonal survey of prison staf; Informaton services regarding job issues (i.e. how to deal with inmates) and raise awareness regarding staf development (i.e. informaton exchange with other staf Unions in Europe Skills assessment tool supportng professional development

SOTHA correctonal unit Erlangen

BREAKOUT courses ‘COMPT’ ‘COMputer applicatons and Telecommunicaton’) and ‘TOP’ (Telematcs, Orientaton and Personal competences’)

Montlivi therapeutc insttuton. Girona

Creaton of pedagogical tools for job research IT course with 60 young people OSCOVE Vocatonal Courses adapted to virtual format

Tartu Prison,

Introductory course on use of informaton and communicaton technology in society

Murru Prison

Advanced course on use of informaton and communicaton technology in society

Tabelle 12: Partcipants in BREAKOUT

A total of 1329 users were involved in the project. The majority of these 65% were professional staf working in the prison and ofender and drug rehabilitaton domains. Around 5% of users were young people, involved in BREAKOUT ofending preventon actvites; around 10% were inmates serving sentences or in therapeutc insttutons, and 20% were clients of services providing support and rehabilitaton services. It should be noted that for the purposes of this case study we refer below only to those users who were involved in scenarios where Learning 2.0 approaches and tools were used, i.e. the three London pilot sites. These involved 110 young people (from schools and community groups) and 81 professional staf (teachers, probaton services, drugs services, youth ofending teams). Dimension of learning and inclusion The BREAKOUT project developed an online ‘Commissioners Toolkit’ to help their target group work together more efectvely and to help them improve services. This was supported by web 2.0 tools, including: content-co-producton and editng tools and an online forum, to further develop, disseminate and utlise the toolkit. The ‘Outreach Workers Forum’ was a similar organisaton composed of drugs workers who carried out ‘outreach work’ in the local authority communites (i.e. working directly with residents, young people and other stakeholders ‘on the ground’). The BREAKOUT project developed a web-based platorm, including: content-co-producton and editng tools and an online forum to help them work together more efectvely and to help them improve services. The IPTS case study explored the efectveness and outcomes of these three BREAKOUT initatves. The main platorm for the services was an Interactve Content Repository containing resources (text, video clips, ‘true stories’, discussions) that provided a basis for developing and delivering awareness-raising and educatonal programmes, in partcular in connecton with scenario 1. This was supported by interactve drama workshops that enabled students to develop and act out themes about crime and drugs that were raised during the programme. A key focus of the programme aimed to encourage students to explore and develop skills around ‘empathy’. A novel way of doing this was to use a ‘lifeswapping’ model that enabled students to communicate with inmates on ‘Death Row’ in San 93

Quentn prison, California, to collaboratvely produce content on ‘choices’ afectng young people in relaton to drugs, gun and knife crime.25 The choices identfed were then used to shape the drama workshops. The key objectves were: i) to develop a transferable learning and rehabilitaton model, standards and tools; ii) to test them in indicatve learning scenarios; iii) to build an ‘evolving’ European content resource for educaton professionals and support organisatons, and foster inter-professional collaboraton through the use of the resource; iv) to develop an evidence base on ‘what works, for whom and under what conditons’; v) to contribute to a common pedagogic model and standards for European prison educaton; vi) to disseminate the results to a wide consttuency of stakeholders. The platorm and tools used in the London pilot sites included the following: | An interactve content repository and management, search and navigaton tools (ICR), incorporatng a video library, a decision support tool based on an interactve game, a skills assessment tool, content modules on knife and gun crime, informaton and support on substance misuse (partcularly cannabis, alcohol and tobacco), a teachers’ pack, a commissioners’ toolkit for commissioning drugs services, and an outreach workers’ toolkit.

Figure 12: The Breakout interactve game

| A Web 2.0 platorm called ‘Infospace’ for young people. This included: an interactve discussion forum with moderated themes on drugs, gun and knife crime, skills and making the best of talent, an online ‘blog’, social bookmarking and tags to link users to relevant interactve resources (including ‘Riser’ – an interactve site dealing with crime – and ‘Talk to Frank’ – an interactve site dealing with drugs issues), media25

Young people under the supervision of the Hackney (London) Youth Ofending Team were involved in writng leters to Death Row inmates about how the inmates came to be in their situaton. These leters formed the basis of an exploraton of how crime and drugs afect life choices, and the capacity to make the most of people’s talents.

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sharing to YouTube (allowing access to video items on crime and drugs issues), a dedicated space on the website called ‘My Community’ which aimed to channel material gathered by young people using an innovatve ethnographic data collecton including blogging, podcastng, fickr and other new ‘knowledge sharing’ tools. The site also provides opportunites for young people to improve their skills and gain qualifcatons in research and evaluaton methods; video producton and music and to showcase their work.

Figure 13: BREAKOUT InfoSpace

Figure 14: My Community’ space

| A Web 2.0 platorm for two groups of professionals – commissioners of drugs services and ‘outreach workers’ working in the community with young people. This was centred on an Interactve forum enabling professionals to exchange good practces, provide updates on new legislaton and professional development, co-author content, and evaluate and rate resources in the repository.

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Figure 15: Professional's forum

At its broadest level, the overall BREAKOUT project aims to support the re-integraton of ofenders and ex-ofenders into society. This objectve targets inmates who are serving sentences – in Sotha (Erlangen) in Tartu prison (Estonia) and in Montlivi young ofenders insttuton (Girona). It does this by carrying out a learning and skills assessment audit, identfying learning and skills development needs, designing a learning plan for individual users, providing resources from the Interactve Content Repository (ICR) to enable users to collaborate with professional staf to improve their learning and skills. This objectve was addressed mainly by using conventonal technologies, not least because of the security constraints imposed in correctonal insttutons which inhibit the use of interactve tools and social networking. However, the e-inclusion model approach adopted by BREAKOUT involved a ‘holistc’ methodology that also considered ofending and drug use in terms of a ‘life cycle’ and placed emphasis on working with interactons between diferent stakeholders – including intermediaries like professionals, as well as young people ‘at risk’ of ofending. This is where Web 2.0 tools and approaches were deployed in the three UK sites (in London) involved in the project – and these pilots were the subject of the case study covered in this report. A key feature of this approach is its incorporaton of a ‘sensemaking’ methodology, a blended e-learning model, and a social networking model. Sensemaking as defned by Weick (1995) is an approach to thinking about and implementng communicaton practce and the design of communicaton-based systems and actvites within communites of practce. The social networking technologies used in BREAKOUT were intended to promote sensemaking in two main ways. Firstly, by getng ofenders, drug users and those at risk of ofending and drug use to ‘step into the shoes’ of key ‘signifcant others’ – victms, family, peers and friends – and to develop empathetc skills to enable them to identfy choices and work out their consequences. In turn, professionals were encouraged to step into the shoes of ofenders in order to experience their needs. In the BREAKOUT case, the sensemaking model centres on a ‘lifeswapping’ approach that aims to deliver a set of ‘points of view’ about crime and drugs. It incorporates the use of ‘true life’ narratves – video and audio – supported by other learning content, including text, social bookmarking and media-sharing links to relevant websites, chat rooms and blogs.

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The second area where Web 2.0 tools and approaches were extensively used was to promote sense-making between professionals – commissioners of services and outreach workers – both in relaton to their understanding beter the needs of clients and in cocreatng and sharing good practce. The intenton was therefore to make their role more efectve and hence contribute to more efectve ofending preventon and rehabilitaton. The development of the inclusion approach drew extensively on existng state of the art in theory, research and practce in collaboratve learning, group learning, communites of practce and ‘acton learning (Sumi, Nishimoto & Mase, 1997). Collaboratve learning was seen as a learning technique but at the same tme a personal philosophy of social interacton. It encapsulates a way of dealing with people based on trust, respect and individual group members' competences. The underlying assumpton of collaborative learning is consensus building through co-operaton by group members (Coomey & Stephenson, 2001), supported by the co-authoring. Given the short-term tme-scale involved and the restricted scope of the BREAKOUT interventon in schools, it is impossible to give a measured judgement on the broader impact of the programme on social inclusion. However, the positve outcomes identfed with regard to increasing young people’s awareness of ofending and drugs issues, developing digital literacy, developing social responsibility potentally will have a benefcial efect in re-engaging ‘hard to reach’ young people.26 For the work with student groups, the pedagogic approach used in the BREAKOUT Young People’s pilot sites involved a ‘blended e-learning’ model that combined the tools and services provided in the Content Repository with ‘acton learning workshops’. The Programme addressed ofending, drugs and skills issues with applying ICT skills to learn more about the issues. In the work with schools, content was delivered using a ‘Teachers Pack’ created for the BREAKOUT Programme. A key aim of the pack was to deliver a pedagogic ‘message’ aimed at getng young people to think about how they can make the best use of their skills and talents – including ‘hidden’ talents they are not aware of. A supplementary aim was to get young people to think about how issues around drugs and crime can hold them back and prevent them realising their full potental. The Programme was structured around four modules. The frst, introductory module, aimed to get students to think about the issues by focusing on three themes: choices, empathy and making the most of yourself and used a range of techniques, including the ‘lifeswapping approach’ outlined above, to support the key messages (for example a ‘Memory Game’ and leters from Death Row, St Quentn Prison).27 The results suggest that this blended e-learning model using Learning 2.0 tools had positve and tangible outcomes in raising awareness about the key issues involved in crime – partcularly knife and gun crime – and drugs, and how these issues can hold young people back from realising their talents and making the most of life opportunites. When asked how much the programme contributed to helping them fnd out about drugs, 42% of the 44 students from the North London school partcipatng in this study (under scenario 1) said ‘very much’ or ‘a lot’ compared with 19% who said ‘not much’ or ‘not at all’. The scores for the crime module were 49% and 18%, and for the skills module 31% and 26%. The relatvely lesser impact associated with the ‘skills and talents’ module appears 26

Data derived from SAQ survey.

27

The Memory Game involved showing students a slide with the photographs of 20 wellknown people. They were then asked to name as many of the 20 as they could remember. The people were selected to represent some of the issues later covered on crime, drugs and skills.

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to refect the difcultes a number of students had with linking drugs and crime with skills and opportunites. Whereas most students were able to easily relate to the issues around drugs and crime, and could identfy with the scenarios they were presented with, they found it hard to make a bridge between how drugs and crime could afect life chances, and to make future projectons about things like careers.28 In feedback focus groups, partcipatng students overwhelmingly responded to their experience of BREAKOUT in positve terms, using phrases like “It was really fun”, “Taught me about life” and “Made me realise how people get killed on the streets”. A partcular bonus for many students was that the BREAKOUT programme provided a welcome contrast with the routne of the conventonal curriculum. The majority view was that the ‘blended e-learning’ model – partcularly its use of Learning 2.0 mixed with drama workshops – was both interestng and instructve. Feedback from partcipatng teachers reinforced these fndings. The consensus of opinion was that it enabled students to learn about issues they would otherwise have litle informaton about. They agreed it provided an efectve way of engaging even ‘hard to reach’ and ‘disruptve’ students in learning. From the professional angle, the staf considered BREAKOUT to have been benefcial not only for the students but also provided a number of positve outcomes for them. These included expanding their knowledge of drugs and crime, and providing an innovatve model of how to link these issues to a developmental and skills-based teaching model, and providing an efectve and user-friendly teaching resource – the BREAKOUT ‘Teachers Pack’, and increasing the motvaton of students to learn.29 In the work with young people’s community groups, i.e. partcipants in scenario 2 (young people black and ethnic minority communites in East London), and among service professionals (scenario 3: the Commissioners Group and Outreach Workers Forum), the results were much less positve. Very few young people used the Web 2.0 tools provided in the ‘My Community’ area of the website, and atendance at the interactve workshops supportng the initatve was poor – with only 8 young people atending the three workshops implemented. The things that young people think are good about the service focus on two key areas: availability of clear and useful informaton; and empathy and non-judgemental support. The things about BREAKOUT and drugs informaton and support services that young people think could be improved cover: easier access; more efectve publicity; more engagement with the community – for example through youth clubs – more efectve support to help young people stop using drugs. In terms of the work with both the Commissioning Group and the outreach workers forum, the BREAKOUT initatve could reasonably be described as disappointng. Content development using the co-authoring tools and interactve discussion forum was minimal. Both the Commissioning Group and the outreach workers forum failed to motvate their members to develop and upload content, and to use the site for the purposes intended.30 A key objectve of BREAKOUT work with school students (scenario 1) was to improve digital literacy by embedding ICT use within interactve and collaboratve actvites, including drama workshops and video making. The deployment of Web 2.0 tools – including podcastng and blogs to ‘showcase’ young people’s talents – was also intended to pomote ‘higher level’ ICT skills development – including working with video, creatng inter28

Data derived from SAQ survey.

29

Source: Focus groups conducted through case study.

30

Source: Focus groups conducted through case study; utlisaton data from BREAKOUT project.

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actve Discussion Groups, fnding and using content, using YouTube to create content. However, this aspect of the programme was less successful. Although in general most students enjoy ICT classes and always look forward to working with computers, e-skills element was by far the least favoured by the BREAKOUT partcipants compared to the other two main elements – the drama and video workshops. Innovatve elements and key success factors The main factors contributng to the successful outcomes of the initatve are as follows: | The pedagogic model, and its incorporaton of a ‘sensemaking’ methodology; a blended e-learning model, and a social networking model, supported by: | Embedding the school programme within the everyday lives of partcipatng young people and refectng their interests; | Securing senior management buy-in for the schools programme. The holistc approach – bridging issues around ‘crime’ and ‘drugs’ with the idea of personal development – and linking this to the noton that young people have ‘choices’ (as exemplifed by the catastrophic choices made by inmates on Death Row) provided a powerful platorm to encourage young people to collaboratvely engage in actvely promotng social responsibility and social entrepreneurship. Similarly, the use of mediasharing tools like YouTube enabled the partcipatng young people to situate their work in areas relevant to their interests and lives. Within scenario 1, BREAKOUT successfully delivered awareness-raising and ofending and drugs preventon services to 44 students, involving 6 teachers in the programme, testng in parallel an innovatve pedagogic model based on ‘blended e-learning’ and including creatve workshops using video and drama. The programme was highly rated by the overwhelming majority of partcipants. 82% of partcipants ratng it interestng or very interestng compared with only 12% who found it ‘boring’ or ‘very boring’. Feedback from partcipatng teachers reinforced these fndings. The main positve outcomes associated with the programme were, for students: | increase in awareness of the causes and efects of ofending and drug misuse behaviours; increased competence in ICT skills (specifcally content creaton and content management); | enhancement of transferable skills (informaton management; team-working; metacognitve skills; self-presentaton)’ enhancement of life skills (identfying skills and talents; learning about diference; | learning about social relatonships; developing entrepreneurial skills). For professional staf: | expanding their knowledge of drugs and crime, and providing an innovatve model of how to link these issues to a developmental and skills-based teaching model; | providing an efectve and user-friendly teaching resource – the BREAKOUT ‘Teachers Pack’; | increasing the motvaton of students. The less positve outcomes were:

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| problems with usability of website and content management system; | disrupton to school tmetable and resource capacity; | issues around future sustainability of the programme. The case study added further evidence to current debates about young people’s digital literacy. There were signifcant variatons in students’ capacity and capability of performing ICT tasks. These are likely to be linked to factors such as social, family and cultural background, as well as cognitve factors such as ‘learning style’. The work with ‘at risk’ young people within community environments (scenario 2) did not achieve its objectves. The main reasons for this were: | the complex nature of the Web 2.0 tools provided, and the fact that actve engagement in social networking actvites (for example using blogs and podcasts) required commitment; | embedding the social networking model within a ‘formal’ space – the BREAKOUT web platorm - this refects he distrust by some young people of insttutons and previous negatve experiences of service provision. BREAKOUT sufered to some extent from the failure of previous initatves in the area to efectvely engage young people; | the fragmented cultural and social environment within which diferent groups of young people interact. The objectve of developing a collaboratve learning culture between diferent groups of professionals involved in commissioning and delivering drug-related services (scenario 3) was not realised. The main reasons for this were: | the inherent ‘territorial’ nature of professional life, with litle cross-fertlisaton of ideas and knowledge between diferent services; | tme pressures, leading many professionals to see the opportunites presented by BREAKOUT as a nuisance rather than a potental beneft. Problems encountered and lessons learned The main problems and obstacles experienced in the BREAKOUT London pilot sites can be summarised as follows: | Technical problems | Motvatonal and user engagement problems | Digital literacy factors | Cultural factors | Organisatonal issues | Financial issues The key technical issues focus on two main factors: usability issues and system complexity issues. For example, the dedicated BREAKOUT website and content management system was considered to be relatvely unfriendly in terms of its functonalites and user interface. The students thought that too many steps were required to carry out tasks; the security functons were too restrictve; navigaton tools were too text-based and insufciently interactve. Mainly for reasons of confdentality and security, the BREAKOUT technology incorporated a ‘hierarchical’ structure that necessitated a relatvely long se-

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quence of keyboard actons to perform tasks such as content uploading. Students found this repettve, complex and of-putng. However, it should be noted that the actual sequence of keyboard tasks does not difer signifcantly from that typically required to access familiar content like ‘YouTube’. The lesson here is that students fnd applying ICT skills more difcult when they are used in unfamiliar contexts. In turn, the more sophistcated elements of the Web 2.0 implemented in the programme – partcularly the podcastng and weblog functons – were seen to be too complex and too tme-consuming for users to comfortably master. These problems cannot be separated from motvatonal and engagement issues, digital literacy issues and cultural factors. The case study results showed large variatons in the partcipatng class in e-skills capability and capacity. As outlined above, in one of the eskills workshops, by the end of the 60 minute period allocated for the ICT tasks to be completed, around a quarter of the class had not got beyond the stage of logging into the BREAKOUT website. One major problem was that the class had been given passwords containing both upper case and lower case leters. Even this apparently simple and straightorward functonal atribute of the system caused severe problems, since many of the students did not distnguish between upper and lower case when logging in. The impression of a prevailing under-developed e-skills culture within the class was reinforced by data gathered on ICT experience. Whilst the majority of students in the class had access to a computer at home, the range of expertse and experience shown was very limited – for example none of the class had heard of weblogs. These results reinforce the conclusions of the research literature – for example the results of the ‘PISA’ studies on educatonal performance carried out by OECD – that learning outcomes are highly dependent on a combinaton of a supportve and high quality teaching environment, a supportve family environment and peer reinforcement. Other cultural barriers highlighted by the case study include the infuence of territoriality on social interacton and collaboraton. This is refected in the work with ‘at risk’ groups to some extent by the enduring power of cultural fragmentaton and socio-cultural ‘silos’ in young people’s everyday lives, with low levels of cross-cultural interacton between the diferent groups and cultures in the community. This militates against engagement in a social networking environment. Territorial boundaries were also identfed as a key factor in the organisatonal barriers that were experienced in promotng Learning 2.0 system with professionals. The culture within professional groups is highly territorial. Constant ‘turf wars’ are going on, not only between the various sectors represented within the ‘ofending and drugs environment’- social services; probaton services, police, youth services, drugs and alcohol services – but also within the sectors themselves, because the way most services are set up is hierarchical and encourages competton. The main organisatonal problems experienced in the school environment were associated with tmetabling issues and pressures on teaching staf. Two main fnancial constraints were identfed. Firstly, the high cost of developing interactve games and, secondly, and more importantly, the sustainability of the programme, in partcular fnding funding beyond the lifetme of the EC grant that supported it. Some of these barriers were too entrenched to address efectvely within the tmeframe of the programme. The organisatonal cultures of ofending and drugs services are highly bureaucratsed and strongly resistant to change. One of the strategies used to address this was to implement ‘acton learning sets’ with representatves of the diferent services in order to encourage them to ‘step into each others shoes’ and view positons and perspectves from the role of others. Whilst initally this strategy was welcomed, 101

and the Acton Learning Set provided a mechanism for knowledge sharing, the forum lacked an adequate level of commitment and partcipaton. To some extent too the organisatonal culture of the school exhibits similar problems of ‘silos’ and territoriality and hence resistance to change. The strategy adopted to address this centred on getng senior management buy in. This, together with the favourable perceptons of the programme expressed by partcipatng teachers, enabled these barriers to be largely overcome. The technical issues encountered were addressed frstly by a process of re-shaping the website design, secondly providing training for young people to use the tools and thirdly by promotng ‘learning by doing’ and ‘peer mentoring’ within the classroom. This had the efect of improving the performance of the partcipatng students in completng their ‘e-skills’ tasks, as the programme developed. Utlisaton rates of the BREAKOUT platorm as a whole were lower than expected, partcularly in the Erlangen, Athens prison, Oscobe/Montlivi and Tartu prison sites.31 Over a twelve month period there were 8,974 visits to the site, 51838 page requests and 123,834 fles sent back to the user. The relatvely low diference between the volume of ‘hits’ and volume of ‘fles’ suggests that a large proporton of users were repeat visitors. Two examples of ‘displacement’ and ‘multplier’ efects were identfed in the case study. Firstly, in the work carried out in school, the programme had to be situated within the school tmetable. This represented a signifcant disrupton to routne and caused some additonal burden of responsibilites for staf, as well as some ‘knock on efects’ for other subjects. This initally prompted lack of motvaton by the staf concerned, which was neutralised as the staf got involved. However, the resultant success of the programme generated some resentment amongst non-partcipatng staf that they were not involved in an interestng programme, and that they had to compensate for their colleagues’ absence. Secondly, the programme raised students’ interest and expectatons and has created a demand for further similar programmes which, if not met in the future, may lead to demotvaton. The main organisatonal change intended was to reduce the fragmentaton and lack of cross-boundary and cross-disciplinary interacton that existed between diferent agencies and promote collaboraton, co-producton of knowledge and ‘sense-making’. In efect, the introducton of a Web 2.0-supported collaboratve learning environment had no impact on organisatonal culture and practces, for two main reasons, (1) the inherent ‘territorial’ nature of professional life, with litle cross-fertlisaton of ideas and knowledge between diferent services, and (2) tme pressures, leading many professionals to see the opportunites presented by BREAKOUT as a nuisance rather than a potental beneft. Although promotng organisatonal change was not a specifc objectve of the work with schools, the introducton of Learning 2.0 tools and approaches did have an impact on organisatonal processes. Some of this impact was ‘negatve’ in that the programme disrupted existng tmetabling and put extra pressure on teaching staf. However, the programme was viewed very favourably by partcipatng staf and students, and the senior management team at the school made a commitment to exploring with school Governors how the programme could be integrated within the curriculum in the future.32 The main lessons to be learned from the case study are as follows: 31

Utlisaton data derived from BREAKOUT project.

32

Source: Staf interviews.

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| Young people’s e-skills are highly diferentated and highly selectve. Whilst most could very rapidly access and download video clips from ‘YouTube’, and one or two had the skills to unblock ‘blocked’ websites, students’ capacity to apply ICT skills to ‘curriculum-based’ tasks, for example informaton-seeking or applying informaton within a conceptual framework, was limited. Young people’s e-skills are highly contextualised, and need to be framed within the context of their everyday lives and practces. Applying social networking tools to ‘abstract’ concepts is likely to be difcult for them. As a result, learning and inclusion programmes using Learning 2.0 tools and methods need to be highly interactve and based on ‘constructvist’ pedagogic principles and methods. | The capacity for young people to proftably beneft from Learning 2.0 varies considerably. This capacity is likely to be linked to factors such as social, family and cultural background, as well as cognitve factors such as ‘learning style’. For 151 example, in the BREAKOUT school programme, the ‘visual learners’ in the class were identfed by teachers as those who were most engaged with the presentatonal element of the programme; the ‘auditory’ learners were those who did best in the ICT tasks, and the kinaesthetc learners were those who were most actvely engaged in the drama workshops. | The evidence suggests that initatves used in ofending and drug misuse preventon remain low on the list of support sources young people turn to for help. Most young people keep their problems to themselves, or go to parents or carers and friends. This has signifcant implicatons for using Learning 2.0 approaches and tools to support social inclusion in this feld. The efectveness of social networking applicatons – partcularly social computng, interactve discussion groups, blogs and wikis – is heavily dependent on users actvely partcipatng in a collaboratve and collectve culture that is external to their normal paterns and vehicles of social interacton. | This is linked in turn to the concept of ‘Public and private’ behaviours. Young people’s attudes and behaviours to ofending and drug use are refected in ‘frontstage’, i.e. public ways, but also in ‘backstage’, i.e. ‘underground’ and private ways which frequently confict with frontstage attudes and behaviours. The case study underlined the need to recognise and address both public and private spaces, being aware of the extent to which ‘social gatekeepers’ control discourse around crime and drugs in young people’s communites, and respect the importance of a ‘self-help support culture’ in addressing ofending and substance misuse problems. As yet, the evidence is that Learning 2.0 systems and tools – and the conceptual models around motvaton, engagement and collaboraton that underpin their use – do not fully recognise these complex issues and processes. | The use of Learning 2.0 tools and approaches to support collaboratve learning are stll signifcantly constrained by organisatonal culture and organisatonal barriers, linked to professional rivalry, competton for resources, inter-disciplinary diferences and disputes and fragmentaton of knowledge. Learning 2.0 initatves will not work unless supported by organisatonal change. The project changed in two main ways – frstly with regard to the technological platorm and objectves planned and, secondly, with regard to one of its key objectves of promotng transnatonal networking and knowledge sharing between professionals. The original plans for the project included a signifcant focus on using interactve games to simulate choices for ofenders and the potental consequences associated with these choices (for example choosing or not choosing to pursue an educatonal course whilst in

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prison, choosing to carry a knife or not to carry a knife), to provide learning on occupatonal and career choices, and to develop ICT skills. The development and implementaton costs of working with interactve games engines became prohibitve as the project developed, and the subsequent strategy entailed a shif from custom-made games to the use of social bookmarking – for example providing links to existng game-based and simulaton programmes using ‘Flash’ technology. In this sense, the growing availability of Web 2.0 tools – partcularly social bookmarking – enabled more cost-efectve solutons to be used. The second objectve BREAKOUT had of fostering internatonal co-operaton between diferent professional groups across diferent sectors in the criminal justce, prison and drugs service system, was only achieved at a low level, mainly through co-operatve actons between researchers. Professional groups themselves – for example the prison ofcers, counsellors, legal services, educaton providers – were not motvated enough to use the collaboratve knowledge functons of the BREAKOUT platorm and tools.

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9.5

Conecta Joven

The main problem with data collecton in this case was lack of co-operaton from key project stakeholders. The user SAQ was translated from English to Spanish and placed online via a link with the project website. However, the project co-ordinators failed to support the data collecton efort. The data sources used for the case study included the following: | Two key informant interviews with coordinators from the Esplai Foundaton; | Content analysis of Websites of Conecta Joven, Conecta Red and coordinatng body, Fundación Esplai; | Content analysis of project descripton documents (which included utlisaton data and details of partcipatng organisatons), news reports and slideshow presentaton material, video clips giving user perspectves and overall idea of how the project works. Furthermore, the evaluaton report conducted by CREA at University of Barcelona and commissioned by main funding partners Microsof Corp (CREA, 2007), the project rofle on the ePractce portal62 and further review reports (Peña-López, 2007; del Aguila Obra et al., 2002) were consulted. Case profle – Conecta Joven in a nutshell Conecta Joven

Website

htp://www.conectajoven.net/

Status

2006 –

Interviewed person

Director of Regional Coordinators and Catalina Parpal (Educaton Coordinator)


Microsof was and stll is the main fnancing body involved. The Esplai Foundaton provides some funding for the project as well as coordinatng it. The project has never received any EC funding.

Target group(s)

Excluded groups

Number of users

814 trainers, 4600 adult learners,


Workplace Learning, Lifelong/Adult Learning,


Informal learning


Blog, forum, co-authoring, media sharing

Short descripton and key characteristcs Conecta Joven is a project based in Catalonia, Spain and involving 23 centres throughout the country, which provides basic ICT skills to key target groups, including women over 45, older people and immigrant populatons. The classes are run by young people who have been recruited and trained by project motvators who in turn are trained by the

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project's coordinatng staf. The project, together with Conecta e-inclusion, is part of the Conecta Now intatve. Conecta Joven is run by Esplai Foundaton and the key fnancial stakeholder is Microsof Corporaton (under the 'unlimited potental programme'). Wrigley (the chewing gum manufacturer) is also involved. Government insttutons (the Ministry of Work and Social Afairs, the Ministry of Educaton and Science and Injuve - Insttute of Youth) and NGOs are involved in running the project. Learning content is developed by the coordinatng bodies and working groups and this process is facilitated by web 2.0 tools and services in partcular social networking using the networking tool 'ning'. Conecta Joven places emphasis on educaton for the citzen, intergeneratonal relatonships, narrowing the digital divide and community creaton using new technologies and synergies created in the environment where it operates. The project is based on the following principles: | Acquisiton of competences and knowledge which benefts young people and society; | Intergeneratonal collaboraton promotng citzenship among young people and older members of the community; | Educatonal methodology of service learning, which develops capacity in the relatonship between content, knowledge and social involvement for the young people; | Optmisaton of public spaces for training of basic ICT skills; | Networking, involving social initatves as key elements of the social fabric of citzens together with educatonal insttutons and public administratons. Esplai trains motvators in groups of 8 – 16 over seven sessions from Tuesday to Friday. They also receive 20 hours online training. Standards and training modules are produced by Esplai. New content for courses to be imparted by young people are developed during the process of training, as well as advice from real experience with classes. Development sessions take place with motvators and young people and content is developed on topics such as 'surfng the Internet'. Young people are then recruited by the motvators and trained the young people in groups of 16 – 30 over 20 hours. This is organised according to requirements of partcipatng organisatons. The young people then teach groups of 6 – 8 adult learners. There are normally two young people for each group of 6 – 8. This is because most centres have an average of eight computers. The young people actng as facilitators are involved on a voluntary level. This project developed from an existng project Red conecta and started in January 2006. The main aim is to facilitate access to ICT to as many people as possible using young people as tutors. The Esplai Fundaton had experience of working with new technologies in projects with young people and computers. It has been involved in Lifelong learning initatves and e-learning. Microsof is the main fnancing body involved. The Esplai Foundaton provides some funding for the project (it is unclear how much) as well as coordinatng it. The project has never received any EC funding. The Ministry of Work and Social Afairs and the Ministry of Educaton and Science are involved and provide some support but this is not always fnancial. Injuve, the Insttute of Youth run by the Ministry of Equality, is involved as well. The Internatonal Job Foundaton is involved and brought the chewing gum

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manufacturing company, Wrigley, in as funding body. There are sufcient fnancial resources for the project to contnue operatng at present capacity and the project is able to survive, though the ambiton is to increase capacity. In additon to the funding organisatons and stakeholders mentoned above the main groups involved at the delivery of courses other than the coordinators, motvators and young trainers are the partcipatng regional bodies. The groups targeted by the project include primarily adults, older people, women (without professional careers and mostly over the age of 45) and immigrant populatons. Each motvator has his own methodologies to be applied in partcular context with partcular user profles. Dimension of learning and inclusion Conecta Joven is directly aimed at supportng lifelong learning and social inclusion. Web 2.0 tools and services are used principally by the methodology working group to develop new course content and support their actvites and by the motvators to share knowledge and good practce with regard to the recruitment and training of young people to deliver the course to the target groups. There are some indicatons that the virtual platform could be more fully exploited partcularly by involving other users more, namely the adult learners being equipped with basic ICT skills. With the young people, blogs are used (conectajoven/blogspot). Motvators use platforms with discussion fora, they create work groups, chat and email and use social networking site 'Ning' where debates take place and content is elaborated. Apart from the training platorm used, the project uses an e-learning platorm and mobile platorm. These are used by motvators for trials, debates, collaboraton etc. The efect of the use of these tools has been positve. “It has changed the way we work. Now there are resources. People can make use of other peoples content and experience. They can express their doubts and access advice. In many ways it has helped.” One respondent (and key coordinator of the project actvites) emphasised the importance of the social network that has been set up using 'Ning'. “It is vital for the interacton of the working groups, where knowledge can be shared.” He regards it as “intelligent networking” and says: “it is not being used just for the sake of it. It is really practcal”. Resources can be shared and content can be created. The methodological group uses these tools as well as the motvators. It is constantly moving forward and Ning has provided the project with an efectve knowledge sharing network.

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Figure 16: Ning website search results indicatng presence of conectajoven online networking group

Conecta Joven is directly aimed at supportng lifelong learning and social inclusion. Involving young people with good ICT skills to provide training for adults and immigrant populatons promotes community cohesion, multculturalism and intergeneratonal learning as well as narrowing the digital divide. The virtual platorm supports the process at higher levels but does not involve the end users. Courses are delivered but no evaluatons are conducted by the regional centres. There are strong indicatons that the project is achieving its objectves and the results available suggest that a signifcant number of the end user group (4,601 in academic year 2007-2008) are using the skills provided by the training courses in their daily lives. In an external evaluaton on the Conecta Now programme (which includes both Conecta Joven and Conecta e-inclusion projects) commissioned by Microsof and conducted by the Centre of Research and Practces that Overcome Inequalites (CREA) at Barcelona University, it was found that 100% of Conecta Now users incorporated their acquired knowledge into their daily life. 64% use it to communicate through email, 69% use it to generate documents, 49% to communicate using instant messaging and 44% use it to look for a job. The main objectves of tackling social exclusion with the use of web 2.0 tools and services are being achieved in a broad sense but those responsible for running the project refer to areas where the project has succeeded and areas where things could be improved: “Our goal is to create a viable network for adults which will work as efectvely as those for young people and which they can access for collaboratve learning.” In remarking on the achievements of the project another respondent explains that “the objectve is not numerical. It is to promote intergeneratonal learning. There is no direct way to measure this.” The phases of the project are based around the academic year and follow a cyclical pattern with the training of the motvators coinciding with the beginning of the school year and the fnal actvites in July consistng of tutorials, sessions with the young trainers, tutorials and evaluatons. The main users beneftng from the initatve consist of groups with litle or no basic ICT skills including: adults, women with no career (typically aged 45 and above), older people and immigrant populatons. The young trainers beneft from partcipaton in the project in many ways: teaching experience, reinforcing and gaining higher ICT skills, developing skills around patence, commitment, solidarity and so on. In a video clip sequence on the website one motvator describes the young people's involvement in the following way:

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“Young people already have extensive technical knowledge. In fact, technical content is just an excuse; working on attudes and social skills accounts for 85% of the tme.”

Figure 17: Website videoclip posterframe referring to training of young people

Another describes the training of the young people in these terms: “We have trained them to understand the digital divide, the psychology of adults and how to work with them, communicaton and how to address them, social skills etc.” In what main ways did partcipatng in Conecta Joven beneft users? The main beneft to the end users is the acquisiton of basic digital skills and associated benefts. As well as teaching basic functons and fle management, the courses typically teach the adult learners how to undertake basic word processing tasks using programmes such as microsof word, also working with spreadsheets (excel); as well as browsing the internet and using email programmes. In additon to these benefts it is clear than many of those involved in receiving training experience a number of other benefts related to sof skills and social interacton with others receiving training and the young people providing the training. It is clear from the video clip sequence (which features two of the adult learners) that the benefts have been considerable both as far as picking up skills is concerned and interacton with the dedicated young people giving the training. The young people actng as trainers beneft by partcipatng in a number of ways and, in many cases, are keen to contnue being involved year on year. Apart from the valuable teaching experience this work provides (adding to CV and employability), there are numerous benefts in terms of sof skills and social skills such as commitment, responsibility and solidarity. Additonal ICT skills are described in following secton. A teacher involved in the scheme says: “I believe that these young people are learning things that will help them to be beter people in the long run.”

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Figure 18: Website videoclip posterframe referring to benefts for young people

The motvators have a crucial role in the process as described elsewhere and this group benefts in many ways including their own professional development and in many other aspects. Coordinators similarly carry a signifcant responsibility in ensuring that the project objectves are achieved and the sources available to this case study suggest that their contributon is highly efectve. The organisatons involved beneft (according to project documentaton and video clips involving members of local schools, citzenship bodies etc in partcipatng regions) in a number of ways including beter working relatonships and networking with other bodies, schools, insttutes, access to young people, collaboratve learning with other organisatons in the region, more recogniton on the part of the public administratons, experience in applicaton of new Service Learning Methodology, more publicity, and so on. What kinds of ICT skills and competences have been supported by Conecta Joven? Did these include ‘higher level’ ICT skills? The initatve supports basic and higher level ICT skills for diferent groups: The adults learners receive basic ICT training as described above (word, excel, internet browsing, emailing and messaging etc.); higher level skills associated with use of web 2.0 tools (social networking, blogs, discussion groups, collaboratve learning environments etc.) are likely to be developed and reinforced among the young trainers, motvators and coordinators. It has not been possible to ascertain for certain or explore in depth as this case study was not given access to any of the user groups or even those responsible for day-to-day work involving web 2.0 tools. It has only been possible to draw conclusions from the secondary data in conjuncton with the two interviews conducted with key informants. The video clip sequence available on the website suggests that the acquisiton of ICT skills is just a small part of the overall beneft to users; one adult learner commentng so favourably on the learning experience and the patence, preparedness of the tutors that she would happily go back to school. However, the acquisiton of skills and receiving recogniton in the form of a certfcate awarded in a public ceremony is regarded a real achievement for the partcipants.

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Figure 19: Website videoclip posterframe showing benefts for adult learners

Did the initatve help users learn other skills (e.g. ‘sof’ skills)? From the informaton available on the project website and from reported benefts, it is clear that all groups involved have benefted considerably, none more so than the end users: the adult users receiving the training. Video clips on the site show how important the experience has been for some adults, apart from the acquisiton of digital skills. Partcipatng in the classes and obtaining skills is a huge boost to the self-esteem of many adults who may never have had the opportunity to learn in this way. Both key informants remarked on the importance of the public award ceremonies held at the end of the courses and gave examples of adults who have felt an enormous sense of achievement in having atended the courses. The fact that the trainers are young members of the community means that the initative has clearly supported promoton of citzenship among partcipants and strengthened community cohesion. Tolerance among diferent social groups and towards young and old alike is also likely to be promoted by this sort of actvity. The young trainers gain valuable experience and develop competences related to partcipaton, solidarity, patence, group work, commitment etc. Their sense of social responsibility and cooperaton is strengthened and leadership skills improved. They are put in the shoes of their teachers and this 'lifeswapping' experience is likely to have positve outcomes. One young trainer says: “I have learned to be patent, to explain myself beter, to have more confdence in myself.” Another young trainer describes the experience in this way: “You see others doing something to learn and then you think that they are giving you the opportunity to learn. This helps me beter use the opportunity I have to learn what they teach me so I can later teach others.” The motvators and project coordinators are likely to beneft from contnued involvement in the project and engagement in collaboratve working and knowledge sharing. Good organisatonal and working practces are likely to be reinforced and shared amongst those involved.

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Did the initatve equip users with skills that will increase their labour market opportunites? The main objectve of the initatve is to tackle the digital divide by equipping adults with ICT skills which will improve their employability, as well as providing other benefts associated with the acquisiton of ICT skills. It goes without saying that obtaining skills in these areas will increase labour market opportunites, even in labour markets where use of computers is limited such as the agricultural sector. Access to diferent jobs depends more and more on the ability to conduct online searches of job markets and enter details relatng to one's suitability for certain types of work. The young people conductng the training clearly improve their chances of fnding the employment they want by partcipatng in such a project. Not only do they improve their own ICT skills, they also develop communicaton and teaching skills and the other sof skills referred to above. The CREA report gives details of the degree to which the users in Conecta Now projects incorporate their newly acquired skills into their daily life. All of the users include the use of ICT in daily life. In what ways did the use of Learning 2.0 contribute to insttutonal and organisatonal changes? In terms of the project itself and the Conecta Now initatves some observatons can be made: | The diferent phases of the project follow a clearly defned cycle. The organisaton of the diferent groups involved in the delivery of the courses to the adult learners needs to be carefully coordinated in order to efectvely deliver the course materials to the end users; | Use of web 2.0 tools and services (including social networking, online discussion groups and blogging facilites) has facilitated dialogue and aided the collaboratve process required to produce new course content and train the motvators and the young trainers in turn; | The impact of the relatvely recent engagement in social networking is regarded as positve; | The evaluaton (of the Conecta Now projects) conducted by CREA at Barcelona University at the behest of the main funding partners Microsof makes partcular menton of the organisatonal model developed by the project. This is regarded as a main contributor to the success of the project together with the fnance model. Overall, to what extent were the intended learning and inclusion outputs, outcomes and impacts of the initatve realised? | Both key respondents and main project coordinators are satsfed that the project has achieved what it set out to do in broad terms. There are areas where improvements in use of web 2.0 tools across a wider range of users would be benefcial. There is also a need for increased funding in order to contnue to develop and scale up the actvites. | The report of the evaluaton by CREA on the Conecta Now projects indicates that in many areas the project has been successful in realising the intended learning and in-

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clusion outputs, outcomes and impacts. Figures relatng to the increased use of newly acquired skills are convincing. | Evidence on the web site (video clips etc.) suggests that at a personal level a number of adult learners are satsfed with the training they have received and the way in which the project has delivered the courses. This is supported by the testmonies of all stakeholders interviewed for the video sequence on the website. | It is also clear that the events organised by the project are well-atended and atract partcipaton of a large range of stakeholders and interested partes. | The less positve aspects reported included the fact that that the web 2.0 tools and services were only used by certain groups (motvators, young trainers etc.) and it was hoped that in the future a web platorm could be developed for user by the adult learners. This is antcipated for the next phase of development of the project. | Development of a collaboratve learning culture among motvators and coordinators has been realised to some extent and is said to be functonal and practcal in improving work practces. Clearer indicatons might have been provided by some utlisaton data from the project website. In additon the user self-administered questonnaire adapted, translated and put online specifcally for this case study was not completed by any users despite the repeated requests to project coordinators of those undertaking this case study. This, together with user interviews (also requested), would have provided valuable data as to outputs, outcomes and impacts mentoned above. Innovatve elements and key success factors The main factors contributng to the successful outcomes of the initatve are as follows: | The adaptability of the young people which has helped to improve intergeneratonal contact and strengthened community cohesion. | The CREA report praises the project for its 'model of fnance and management'. | The use of the social networking site, Ning, has been infuental in creatng 'a truly practcal collaboratve working environment' for the motvators and the young trainers. Use of other web 2.0 tools such as blogs and discussion forums has also had a positve impact. | Undoubtedly there are many examples of good practce and success factors which cannot, unfortunately, be identfed or explored due to lack of access given to this case study. | Many of the most positve aspects of the project are refected in the personal testmonies of the people interviewed for the video material from the web site. There is no easily accessible informaton with regard to shortcomings or less efectve aspects. The project is able to contnue functoning at present levels with existng funding but the aim is to scale up the operaton to include a greater number of partcipatng bodies. This may be achieved if additonal funding can be secured from the commercial sector. The difculty with this is in atractng business to invest in groups which have very litle.

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Problems encountered and lessons learned It should be noted that data collected on problems and issues has been limited and largely refects the ‘ofcial’ view of the initatve. Due to the success and popularity of the project from the young trainers point of view, many of those involved have been keen to contnue working with the project and providing contnuity of these individuals has presented a challenge to the project. Because the project is relatvely new this is not a problem that has been repeated year in year out, but nevertheless would beneft from being addressed at the earliest opportunity in order to maintain the level of involvement and given the initatve a degree of sustainability at a local level. Another obstacle that has been reported is the difculty of atractng funding in order to extend the reach of the project and its actvites to other localites and regions. The project is able to contnue functoning at present levels as it makes use of existng classroom facilites in the 23 partcipatng regions and relies on the voluntary involvement of the young trainers and motvators. All stakeholder and user groups will beneft from increased capacity and provision. The number of people who are not digitally literate extends to many diferent sectors and can sometmes include people who would have been expected to have some basic ICT skills at least such as businessmen and women in their 40s (for example) who somehow have missed out the digital revoluton but are more and more required to use these technologies. In some cases these individuals have to overcome personal and cultural obstacles to engage in the process and atend courses such as those held by the project. The use of the web 2.0 tools by motvators to facilitate communicaton, knowledge sharing and course content creaton is mentoned in positve terms. Lack of a functonal web platorm in which the newly trained end users can engage is regarded as a negatve aspect and one that will be addressed by the project.

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Figure 20: Table extracted from CREA report on Conecta Now projects

What lessons can be learned? The main lessons to be learned from the case study are: | Importance of ‘motvators’ in e-skills development. | Partnerships with business, local councils and third sector crucial for sustainability. | Volunteers pivotal to success | Adequate funding difcult to obtain when main benefciaries are less well-of members of society. 115

| Other than by reference to limited interview material and secondary data such as the CREA report and website content, it has not been possible to identfy and explore the key areas of success and failure of the initatve from the user groups point of view. Nor has it been possible to identfy good practce in order that it may be shared among other projects working to narrow the digital divide and promote intergeneratonal and lifelong learning. The project has not been running for a long tme and so the aims of the project and the target user groups have not changed since the outset. The organisatonal structure and processes have not been altered. The project stll addresses the same social problems (namely tackling problems arising from the digital divide) in the same way, using the same training methods and groups of coordinators, motvators and young trainers to de liver the basic ICT skills courses. Some new materials are being developed as the project progresses. The diferent phases of the training process can be described as follows: The project phases follow the academic year and this has remained unchanged. The project is now in its third year and development has been constant. Good bases have been established and are being built on. The groups of young people are being consolidated. Many of the previous groups of young trainers want to be involved in current projects as well, which is a measure of success and also presents a challenge to the project, as to how to accommodate this demand.

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9.6

Cyberhus

Cyberhus is a Danish 100% non-proft organizaton located in Aarhus. Cyberhus was founded in 2004 as a partner charity under the youth charity, Ungdommens Vel ('Youth Welfare') and is today stafed by more than 70 people - mainly volunteers. Cyberhus is a virtual house or club that ofers online counselling for vulnerable children and teens. Counselling is undertaken mainly by volunteer chat-counsellors, all with relevant educatonal backgrounds, such as teachers, pedagogues, social workers and psychology students. In December 2008 Cyberhus was ranked among the 5 best European websites for marginalized young people (E-inclusion). From September onwards Cyberhus has been chosen as the Danish helpline in the European network INSAFE. Cyberhus is organized within the 100-year-old natonal associaton Ungdommens Vel ('Youth Welfare'), which run youth shelters, children's homes, insttutons for at-risk children, therapy groups, youth hostels and contnuaton schools throughout Denmark: www.ungdommens-vel.dk 96% of Cyberhus’ users are children and teens aged between 9 and 18. They have more then 9000 unique visitors every month. From the startng period in 2004 there were 4421 online one on one chats consultatons / sessions. Case profle – Cyberhus in a nutshell Cyberhus Online counselling and more

Website

htp://www.cyberhus.dk

Status

Actve/running (since May 2004)

Interviewed person

Kristan Lund


Cyberhus is a 100% non-proft making online youth service supported by the Ministry of Social Afairs, private funds and the local authorites.


Formal setng

Target group(s)

Vulnerable children and teenagers

Number of users

More than 4000 children and parents since 2007


Therapeutcally based


Informal


Social bookmarking, feeds, Blogs, Online chat, peer-to-peer debate forums


Social networks, skill development

Short descripton and key characteristcs Cyberhus is frst and foremost an anonymous online counselling service, ofering chat, queston and answer columns and forums to provide kids and young people with help and encouragement. They focus on excluded and vulnerable young, but believe that everyone can be vulnerable at some point in their lives. They mainly use volunteers for

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direct online contact with kids and young people, but have their own moderators and supervisors to support and ensure the quality of the counselling. In additon, Cyberhus helps schools and parents tackle new challenges brought on by ubiquitous computers and phones, and they are involved in natonal and European initatves that deal with vulnerable youths and the 'new media'. The Danish non-proft Ungdommens Vel (‘Youth Welfare’),that runs a wide variety of youth homes, counselling services, schools and drop-in youth clubs started Cyberhus, based on an idea by Anni Marquard, who was and is the main force in startng and operatng Cyberhus. Apart from the Ministry of Social Afairs, a few countes and foundatons have helped out Cyberhus fnancially. They are stll organisatonally part of Ungdommens Vel. Cyberhus forms partnerships on a project basis, and the core counselling functons run almost entrely in-house. A few organisatons such as Centre for Voldtægtsofre i Århus and Børnetnget do some of their counselling through Cyberhus' queston and answers-columns. Dimension of learning and inclusion Cyberhus its counselling services do not provide learning per se, the focus also lays within their school service, Cyberskole, and related actvites. Cyberskolen visits classrooms to inform and discuss web ethics and netquete. Initally, this was for the 14-16 year age group, but by 2008 it was mostly kids around age 10-12. They have found that this is the age where kids are beginning to use the net, have the most to learn and are most open to discussion. They have also done workshops centred around a forum theatre show which they helped to develop, and will soon begin a shoot-your-own-flm campaign (called Mobiler Mod Mobning, or Mobiles Against Bullying) against online bullying. Furthermore they have follow-up parents evenings where they inform and discuss children’s online life and the parents' role in guiding and helping. They do not use a partcular pedagogic model but they focus on user partcipaton and discussion rather than getng a certain curriculum across. The topics they cover are far too vast to cover in any comprehensive fashion, so enabling discussion of the topics that are most relevant and interestng to the group at hand works beter. With a normal school visit they deliver over two standard lessons (2x45 minutes), they present their selves and the topic, the kids answer predefned questons in their online forums, two and two together, and afer a break they have a discussion for the entre class, based on those answers. For parents evenings, they have a list of points, facts and topics they want to cover, but encourage as much discussion as the group can and will in between delivering this. Most of the tme is spent reactng to and controlling the discussion. Apart from being specially geared towards the excluded and vulnerable, they hope to help those with decreased social abilites in using the net positvely. Their Mobiler Mod Mobning project is directly aimed at bullying, and hence towards inclusion. Everyone and every problem is welcome at Cyberhus, and they have been able to foster this outlook in their user forums, with very litle need for adult moderaton. They are more involved with alleviatng problems, than in helping towards some positve goal. To some extend, these cannot be separated, and they obviously encourage seeking help, staying in school, partcipatng in social and work life, etc. as part of counselling.

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Innovatve elements and key success factors Other initatves now ofer counselling, but mostly in additon to other services and always to a specifc group or with regards to a certain kind of problems. Cyberhus is unique in ofering general help to any problem, even if you cannot artculate what that problem is! This enables them to help those with the least understanding of their situaton, or the most fear of it - ofen those most in need. It also means early help for those with seemingly lesser problems, that can be alleviated more easily before they begin to seem or become bigger. Cyberhus' innovaton is based on a positve outlook on the new media. Kids and young people are socialising and living their lives 'out there', and it seems the most natural thing in the world to reach out for that, teach and involve ourselves in that life. Cyberhus ofers help and encouragement to those who are in need of inclusion in society in order to take the steps they need towards a beter life, including beter inclusion. They also 'mix' users of very varying backgrounds and problems; users may give and receive advice from others that are very diferent from them selves, or just see that others have the same sort of problems, despite their social and economic diferences. They are an anonymous service, despite they have a few opportunites for collectng statstcs they know how many answers they provide, and how many chats they ofer per year. And they frmly believe that encouragement, advice and being able to discuss your problems is helpful – they have many successful sessions that end with Cyberhus being able to suggest a next step in resolving a difcult issue.

Figure 21: Das Clubhaus auf Cyberhus htp://www.cyberhus.dk/

The frst fgure shows the homepage of Cyberhus with resent videos, upcoming events. If you click on the front door of you will get access to four environments / stages with diferent locatons according the visitor’s interests and needs.

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Figure 22: An online room at Cyberhus htp://www.cyberhus.dk/

The second fgure shows an online room with the possibility to choose want you want to do. For instance if you click on the sofa you are able to chat functonality, containing the schedule and the chatrooms. Problems encountered and lessons learned Cyberhus' original and core service is ‘counselling’, primarily ‘chat counselling’. This has changed litle in structure or form, except from longer opening hours and contnuous improvements as their experience and knowledge grows. When they changed to a modern CMS system (Drupal) in January 2009, they saw an explosion in use of our forums and queston and answers columns, which led to an increased focus on moderaton and ensuring the quality of their answers. This meant bringing in more volunteers and partners, and learning to guide and help a larger number of same. Since the launch in 2004, the Chat counselling staf has completed more than 3600 online conversatons with children and young people. They have also gathered a lot of knowledge about young people and their use of the net, and they are currently making the move becoming more of a knowledge centre on these issues. Cyberhus is focused on the moderaton and the netquete of their users directly; a social blunder or outlash from a user is less of a problem and more of a learning opportunity - if nothing else, for the other young who learn to adapt and see how such issues can be dealt with positvely by other youths or adults

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9.7

EduCoRe

A lot of patents with physical defciencies afer an accident or illness sufer afer this traumatcally experience from isolaton and exclusion from a normal life as well as access to learning during their long stay at medical rehabilitaton centres. The aim of rehabilitaton is to improve and recover the patent’s lost skills (physical, mental, job-related and social) again at the highest possible level, so that they are able to take part on the life of the society as broad as possible. Rehabilitaton is a huge feld within health and it is important to understand and identfy the patent’s rehabilitaton learning needs. Therefore it is necessary to develop recovery-oriented services for rehabilitaton patents with a restricton in their mobility which can be supported by e-learning approaches. E-learning and blended learning can help here to open a window to the outside world and eases the reintegraton into normal life for patents. Therefore e-learning has a great potental in this specifc educatonal context. Case profle – EduCoRe in a nutshell EduCoRe Educatonal Counselling during Rehabilitaton

Website

htp://www.rehab-counselling.eu

Status

Actve/running 12/2008 – 11/2010 Elisabeth Frankus

Interviewed person

die Berater (htp://www.dieberater.com/) e-mail: [email protected]


European Commission, Lifelong Learning Programme - Grundvig


hospital-home-rehab centre Addresses people who sufer from physical defciencies afer an accident or illness that threaten their employability and partcipaton in society. The main target groups which get trained to implement the EduCoRe project are:

Target group(s)

Trainers, programme developers and managers of adult educaton insttutons, staf in career and educatonal counselling agencies, rehabilitaton centres and the bodies which fnance and maintain them, authorites, social security and insurance organisatons, and other actors in the health sector as well as researchers on educaton, counselling and e-learning.


Adult educaton


e-learning and blended learning, informal learning andnon-formal


Weblogs, community platorm, online courses, wiki

Short descripton and key characteristcs “EduCoRe (htp://www.rehab-counselling.eu) builds on the experience gathered in the Grundtvig project eHospital (htp://www.ehospital-project.net). This project investg-

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ated the potental of hospitals as places of informal learning and of informaton and communicaton technologies for patent educaton. Seven pilot e-learning courses for diverse target groups were developed and tested in six countries. During these courses a target group with specifc educatonal needs was detected: Patents who sufer from physical defciencies afer an accident or illness that threaten their employability and partcipaton in society. As soon as they have lef the hospital these patents spend several weeks or months in medical rehabilitaton centres to receive long-term treatment which aims at removing or at least minimising their physical impairments and thus allowing them to re-enter the labour market and normal life (EduCoRe, 2010).” The main learning outcomes of the EduCoRe-project for the patents of rehabilitaton centres in the context of personal counselling and training is to support them to make refected career decisions, to identfy the types of further educaton they need in this specifc life situaton, to improve their employability and partcipaton in society and to develop necessary social and personal competencies to put their professional and educatonal decisions into practce. Key characteristcs EduCoRe (12/2008 – 11/2010) has been funded with support from the European Commission in the Lifelong Learning Programme Grundtvig. The approved budget is € 383,898 and thereof an amount of € 287,923 was granted. The coordinator of this project is “Die Berater” Unternehmensberatungsgesellschaf GmbH in Vienna, Austria which is responsible for the development of materials and the face-to-face interviews. There are fve other partners working on this project namely Social-og Sundhedsskolen Aarhus in Denmark, Training 2000 in Italy, BUPNET GmbH – Bildung und Projektnetzwerk GmbH in Germany, Donau-Universität Krems in Austria and Glota Nova in Slovenia. EduCoRe addresses patents who spend several weeks or months in a medical rehabilitaton centre. During this period they can use the ofers of the project. From each partner country 15 patents are involved in the pilot phase. Altogether the project has fve direct target groups which include trainers, programme developers and managers of adult educaton insttutons, staf in career and educatonal counselling agencies, rehabilitaton centres and the bodies which fnance and maintain them, authorites, social security and insurance organisatons, and other actors in the health sector as well as researchers on educaton, counselling and e-learning. This direct target group got informaton on how to support the rehab patents and how to implement the e-counselling and e-learning course. Dimension of learning and inclusion In the course of the EduCoRe project a tailor-made educatonal and computer-assisted career counselling process for rehab patents was developed and tested. It is supported by e-learning and e-counselling elements. Thus, rehab patents are able to reintegrate more easily into the labour market and to actvely partcipate in society afer the period of rehabilitaton. “The project’s counselling and training approach is a blended one: Elements of e-counselling and e-learning are integral parts of the service, as informaton and communicaton technologies have a high potental for people who are restricted in their mobility or

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who change their locaton several tmes in the process of a medical rehabilitaton (e.g. hospital-home-rehabilitaton centre-home).” (EduCoRe, 2010) Innovatve elements and key success factors To get an overall picture of the specifc educatonal, emotonal and social demands patents as well as rehab stafs have, a needs analysis in rehabilitaton centres in Austria, Germany, Italy, Denmark and Slovenia was carried out. On the basis of the needs analysis and with actve partcipaton of the target groups the counselling concept and the training materials have been developed. To get additonal know-how and to ofer an ideal support for the patents in the future, EduCoRe provides training courses for the staf members of the direct target groups e.g. rehabilitaton centres which should realise the concept with the patents in their daily work. Only the staf members really know if a patent is ready to start with the courses or if he/she needs more tme to rehabilitate or to handle the new situaton. Due to the short project period of 24 months, external trainers ofer the courses for the patents and test the materials with them in the pilot phase. In the process they can beter decide if the materials are to complex, the actvities to difcult or if the patents have problems with the e-learning platorm in general. The project website can be seen as an informaton portal which provides on one side details to the project itself, interestng links as well as informaton on learning during rehabilitaton in general. On the other side the open-source platorm ofers an interactve area which contains tools for e-counselling and e-learning where patents can learn independently and also with support from peers and a tutor. For the courses a moodle platorm is used. Patents can login at htp://educore.q21.de/. Presently from each partner country 15 patents were selected and they can login with their username and password.

Figure 23: EduCoRe e-learning platorm Source: htp://www.rehab-counselling.eu

The platorm for the learning patents was set up and flled with e-learning materials. Patents of rehabilitaton centres are able to have access to all course related documents

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and training materials, communicate and work with other patents and to learn and practce new ICT related knowledge. Furthermore during the EduCoRe project users get support and help from experienced trainers which encourage the patents to identfy educaton and training courses to extend for example their computer skills and communicaton competencies and learn how to deal with confict situatons, how to cope with strong emotons as well as get to know their personal strengths and weaknesses and behaviour in stress situatons. The e-learning platorm was adapted to the needs of the project and its target groups and ofers besides the fve courses 1.) Self-Evaluaton, 2.) Personal Planning, 3.) Development of Interpersonal Skills, 4.) Applicaton Strategies and 5.) Process Evaluaton also a (help) forum for discussions. In each course the partcipant has to fulfl and run through diferent actvites (e.g. tasks, questonnaires, cloze texts, exercises, lessons, tests). In some of the courses a wiki is used to create collaboratve content, to support the patents involved in a common task to achieve their goals and for personal note taking. The course “Process Evaluaton” ofers each user the possibility to open a weblog. Weblogs or blogs are a form of online journals and are used in this special case as a learning diary in which the patents can record their awareness and experiences from the learning processes as well as to express themselves.

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Figure 24: Overview of course 1.) Self-Evaluaton Source: htp://educore.q21.de

In the course of the EduCoRe-project altogether a kit for rehab counselling and training was developed which consists of counselling guidelines, the training curriculum, the materials for face-to-face training, the learning objects for the e-learning part and the trainer’s manual. The experiences and evaluaton results from the pilots that will be gained in the six partner countries during the EduCoRe-project will be documented and summarized in a good practce brochure in fve languages (English, German, Italian, Danish and Slovenian) for educators who wish to work in this feld. The brochure describes achievements as well as pitalls, and points out how counselling and learning actvites may have an impact on the rehabilitaton process of patents. Problems encountered and lessons learned During the eHospital-project each partner has developed or chosen a diferent course programme (e.g. language course, ECDL-course (European Computer Driving Licence)) for their target group. The problem in this case was that it was not possible to compare the diferent materials and courses. Therefore it was clear for the EduCoRe-project that

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the partners develop together only one kid of training materials for professional orientaton and translate them in the diferent languages. However it was not as easy as it seems. The partners suddenly found out that the developed materials were not appropriate for the target group of the patents with physical defciencies which need e.g. less tme-consuming materials because of the lack of concentraton. So they had to change their concept and had to develop new materials as well as adapt the existng materials. Unfortunately the patents in the pilot phase don’t use the platorm as much as they should and the project partners have to wait untl the patents have completed the questonnaire and the responsible partner has evaluated the reasons. At the moment except of the wiki and weblog functonality no additonal Web 2.0 tools are used. Depending on the evaluaton report and the interviews made with the patents in the eHospital-project, further Web 2.0 tools are implemented if there is a special need or desire from the target group of the EduCoRe-project. Furthermore another problem in some countries especially in the rehabilitaton centres is the existng sceptcism and the lack of acceptance of the project because for the staf members it is additonal work at the beginning. It is necessary to convince the staf members that the project brings an additonal value for the patents.

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9.8

FreqOut!

For marginalised young people living in some of London’s most deprived communites, access to technology, educaton, skills development and employment can be hindered by barriers to learning, which may include low literacy levels; low numeracy skills; short atenton spans; unidentfed learning disabilites; issues faced when living in care or leaving care; care commitments; domestc violence; alcohol misuse; drug abuse; fnancial difcultes; homelessness; lack of male role models and lack of health educaton. Vital Regeneraton community regeneraton is an independent charity which aims to promote economic development through programmes in learning and skills, and employability. One of their projects, FreqOUT!, is an initatve which focuses on the potental of new technologies to enrich and empower communites. Case profle – FreqOUT in a nutshell FreqOUT! - Using emergent technologies and social media to help young people tell their stories

Website

htp://vitalregeneraton.org/our-projects/freqout

Status

Actve/running (2005 – 2010)

Interviewed person

Jenny Irish, Project Manager


Managed by Vital Regeneraton. Funding providers have included Westminster City Council, Arts Council, CityWest Homes, BT, NESTA


Combinaton, community-based (informal)

Target group(s)

Marginalised young people (13-25 yrs), not in educaton, employment or training (NEET), young ex-ofenders and Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) groups, refugees, immigrants.

Number of users

541 (2005-2009)


Primary educaton, secondary educaton


Non-formal, informal


Social networking, media-sharing (YouTube, Vimeo), mobile technology, blogs


To give excluded young people a voice through the use of social technologies. To improve learning and employment prospects of young people.

Short descripton and key characteristcs FreqOUT! is an initatve which aims to help young people from marginalised groups overcome the barriers to learning by using emergent technologies and social media. The initatve works with infuental artsts on a project-by-project basis to provide engaging and innovatve workshops which use technology creatvely to engage disadvantaged

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communites and sign-post them to learning and employment. The FreqOUT! vision is to push the boundaries of technology in order to: | Establish learning and enterprise opportunites for young people | Break down barriers between industry, communites and the arts | Improve social cohesion and quality of life | Explore new possibilites for the arts | Consult meaningfully with young people | Innovate public service delivery33 FreqOUT! targets young people aged 13-25 years old from marginalised groups in the local area: young people who are not in educaton, employment or training (NEET), young people from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) groups, ex-ofenders, those at-risk of ofending, refugees and immigrants. The initatve also helps young people below the age of 13 and adults. From 2005-2009, FreqOUT! has worked with 541 young people, which has increased from an inital 31 benefciaries reached during the initative’s frst year. Some of the projects have an intergeneratonal focus, bringing together socially excluded people of all ages in the community. FreqOUT! is based in Westminster and works with communites and initatves in the local area. The initatve currently operates throughout London on a project-by-project basis working in some of the top 20% most deprived neighbourhoods natonally 34. So far, the project has focussed on the boroughs of Westminster, Hammersmith, Fulham, working with partners including Marylebone Bangladeshi Society, Churchill Gardens Youth Group, the Cardinal Hume Centre (for homeless and temporary housed young people), the Centrepoint Charity, the Stowe Youth Centre, North Fulham New Deal for Communites. The project team have also worked on a natonal level through projects with BBC Blast. FreqOUT! is managed by Vital Regeneraton, an independent charity working with deprived communites in London, and partners such as City of Westminster Council, CityWest Homes, corporate partners, such as Vertex, Capgemini and BT, as well as a number of new media artsts. It is funded by City of Westminster Council and The John Lyons Charity, and by commissioning agencies such as The Science Museum, The Natonal Portrait Gallery and North Fulham New Deal for Communites. Since 2007, funders have included Vertex, Capgemini, Paddington Development Trust, BBC Blast, Firstlight Movies and Watermans Arts. Inital funding for the project was obtained from the Arts Council in 2005. Dimension of learning and inclusion The learning and inclusion aims of the project are to reach out to marginalised youth and other socially excluded people in deprived communites across London and engage them in creatve learning actvites through the use of emergent technologies and social media. Using a mix of social networking tools and digital technologies, FreqOUT! supports users in developing narratves of their experiences. The actvites are mostly informal, but the project links to Learning Centres in Westminster and provides access to technology and computers. User-generated learning is also supported through work33

htp://vitalregeneraton.org/our-projects/freqout/about

34

FreqOUT! Impact Report 2008

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shops. Some of the courses lead to bespoke, ‘light touch’ OCN and AQA accreditatons, for example level 1 accreditatons in ‘introducton to video cameras’ or ‘midi keyboard skills’. In total, 100+ accreditatons have been achieved from 2005-09 35, which can be used by young people on their CVs and help them to identfy their skills and creatve strengths. Some of the barriers to learning faced by benefciaries include: low levels of prior learning, with low numeracy and literacy and ICT skills levels; short atenton spans; unidentfed learning disabilites; issues faced when living in care or leaving care; care commitments; domestc violence; alcohol misuse; drug abuse; fnancial difcultes; homelessness; lack of male role models and lack of health educaton. At an individual level, evidence suggests that involvement in FreqOUT! projects can lead to improvements in ICT skills; sof-skills and hard-skills (self-esteem; confdence; planning; team-working; public-speaking; project-management); bridging to formal learning partcipaton. The project has grown into a much more sustainable community-based regeneraton initatve from its inital roots, focusing on getng artsts to work with the community. It has gained a reputaton for proving that innovatve things can be done in deprived communites. At present, anecdotal evidence suggests wider social impacts in terms of: reducing ‘silos’ between groups in estates, promotng greater respect and tolerance; raising awareness of issues around things like crime; developing community networking; inter-generatonal learning; awareness of issues around crime. Innovatve elements and key success factors From its beginnings, the FreqOUT! project has atempted to access and utlise both existng and emergent technologies. In 2005, the initatve made use of an existng wireless network implemented by Westminster City Council in 2005 originally intended to allow street-based employees such as housing ofcers and trafc wardens to access the council’s server whilst not in-ofce. Vital Regeneraton saw the potental in this technology as a tool for learning, to provide marginalised young people with less traditonal and more creatve learning experiences.

35

FreqOUT! Impact Report 2009

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Figure 25: Image from LDA Transitons, a flm made by young people without school places

The initatve implements a series of specialised creatve media and technology projects which most young people, regardless of their background, would not usually have access to, for example: mobile movie making; urban biomapping; sound recording; radio transmiter building; flm-making. Crucial to the success of these projects is contact with experts in these felds, and the workshops are centred around the expertse of artsts who use emergent technologies, rather than just existng digital and social media. This diferentates the project from other similar initatves and gives young people the opportunity to work alongside creatve professionals working in non-traditonal felds. One of the key fndings of FreqOUT!’s 2008 Impact Report states that providing young people with specialist knowledge, such as skills in Web 2.0 technologies and advanced ICT skills (eg. editng skills in specialist programs such as Final Cut Pro), or other technologies such as GPS, helped to improve self-esteem and confdence in their learning ability and helped them to overcome feelings of inadequacy in traditonal subjects learned at school. Alongside the practcal work undertaken in FreqOUT! projects, using mobile phones; video cameras, MP3 players, Bluetooth and CCTV to tell their own stories, young people are also taught to use social media and technologies, uploading content onto the FreqOUT! website and other media-sharing sites, e.g. YouTube. The project team has found that this social media has given marginalised groups real power to artculate their opinions and experiences to a wider audience. Project fndings also revealed that the use of social media and technology could enable young people who were confned to a partcular geographic area (especially inner-city youths) to learn about communites outside of their area and encourage integraton into wider society. Equally, they could be used to demonstrate the everyday experience of these young people in their own community, as was illustrated through the GPS drawing project in which young people worked used GPS receivers to map their journeys around

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their own housing estate. This data was mapped onto Google Maps (see below) and also programmed into an animaton program to create a visualisaton of the project.

Figure 26: Using GPS receivers to map journeys around the Churchill Gardens estate in Westminster

The use of Web 2.0 in the project has mainly been to allow users to distribute their work. There is a FreqOUT! Facebook group to encourage networking amongst benefciaries, Google Maps and GPS encourage users to get ‘out and about’, the Broadcast Machine is an online, open-source platorm used to disseminate flm, audio and other media that convey narratves about users lives, the FreqOUT! blog is also used to distribute work that has been produced and enable feedback and commentary on it. The focus of the initatve is using media creatvely to get users to communicate their experiences and Web 2.0 is mainly used in a facilitatve capacity to disseminate and review work. Viral marketng and social networking have been used to help raise the profle of the project, and which helped Vital Regeneraton to secure funding from NESTA. Problems encountered and lessons learned Funding: One of the main problems for the initatve has been fnding sustainable funding, especially from sources that would support ‘exploratory’ educatonal work and would not “constrain learning potental through innovaton”36. The co-ordinators found that smaller funding streams (below £15,000) put pressure on staf resources and had a negatve impact on the efectve delivery of learning aims, whereas larger funding streams (above £15,000) could facilitate learning and allow partcipants tme to bond with the project team. Recruitment and ‘buy-in’: Strict funding output targets also had signifcant impact on recruitng hard-to-reach groups, as the project team feel that longer interventon is needed to reach these groups. The project team found that forming partnerships with 36

FreqOUT! Impact report 2008

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existng youth groups and outreach programmes could facilitate access to hard-to-reach young people. Young peoples’ ‘champions’, key support workers or mentors, were also invaluable in engaging them and marketng the projects through one-to-one contact. The project also used lots of advertsing campaigns to reach the target audience, although older people were reached more by word of mouth. Barriers to learning: Project staf have sometmes faced difcult challenges in helping young people to overcome their barriers to learning. Strategies to overcome these barriers involved using diferentated teaching methods, using qualifed and experienced support staf and employing multple session objectves at diferent levels. Demonstratng impacts: It has taken fve years to collect enough relevant data to demonstrate the impacts of the initatve. Funding from NESTA enabled a systematc evaluaton of the project to be undertaken in 2008 and 2009. Fragmentaton: FreqOUT! involves lots of bespoke project, working with numerous different artsts and freelancers, project partners and funding sources. This has been difcult to co-ordinate. The funding from NESTA enabled this fragmentaton to be synthesised and the most successful projects to be mainstreamed. Technical: Lack of funding has meant a reliance on equipment that is ofen second-hand, outdated and subject to technical malfuncton so there have been quite a few technical issues which have hindered development on some projects. There is also a lack of technical support to help users overcome these problems.

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9.9

HiStory

Learning processes of senior citzens are of high priority in the framework of the ageing society in Europe. Psychological and pedagogical fndings show that learning in higher ages is possible and worthwile when some partcularites of the target group are taken into account. The project HiStory – Seniors tell about History - met these partcularites by choosing a subject, the personally experienced history, which is highly relevant and motvatng to the target group of seniors, and by integratng the subject into an easy-tohandle weblog learning environment with the potental of integratng multmedia elements such as pictures, audio and video fles. The methodological approach of the project was a narratve one and combined the approaches of Oral History, Biographical research and storytelling. Senior citzens told stories about their individual experiences within the European history in the 20th and beginning 21st century. The learning process can be both the telling itself, because it means refectng and working up of personal experiences, and the listening to/reading of the tales of others which leads to widening the comprehension and understanding of the history of other persons from diferent countries and cultures.

Case profle – HiStory in a nutshel HiStory Seniors Tell about History

Website

htp://www.history-project.eu

Status

Closed (2007-2009)

Interviewed person

Ms. Renate Hahner, Senior Researcher, ILI - Innnovaton in Learning Insttute, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg


Lifelong Learning Programme, Grundtvig, EU


Informal setng

Target group(s)

European senior citzens, European youngsters, Senior’s associatons, insttutons dealing with intergeneratonal learning

Number of users

More than 350 “writers”, about 750 “readers” (estmated)


Lifelong learning, adult learning, learning in higher age, intergeneratonal learning




Weblog


Giving seniors the opportunity to share their experiences in historical setngs and learn from the experiences of others; support of citzenship; connectng the senior and junior generatons

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Short descripton and key characteristcs The aims of the HiStory project were various: Besides the objectve of European approximaton and cohesion HiStory wanted to address the social inclusion (and eInclusion) of seniors and to advance actve citzenship in terms of awareness of historical contexts and, as a consequence, responsible politcal and cultural actng in the presence and future. The learning process of the seniors in HiStory was not only a collecton and repetton of data, but aimed at advancing meaningful, emotonally and socially relevant knowledge. Besides the specifc content, being of high relevance for the target group, the pedagogical approach carefully respected the needs and constraints of the senior target group, based on the current state of the art of learning psychology. The learning process and the learning environment was carefully adapted to the needs of seniors and, moreover, was designed in a way that advanced communicaton and (intercultural) exchange and thereby made a signifcant contributon to a socially integrated and more fulflled ageing. As an additonal perspectve, the project integrated the aspect of intergeneratonal learning by including, during the second half of the project’s lifetme, European schools and youth organisatons carrying out pilot projects on experienced history. The content of the HiStory weblog was used for enriching school lessons about certain historical periods with the personal experiences of temporary witnesses.. Thus, a communicaton process with the aim of intergeneratonal exchange, communicaton and learning was actvated. In additon, a storytelling contest in France with “tandems” of senior and junior persons was organised and launched a very lively exchange betweeen the generatons. The seniors shared their historical experiences, whereas the juniors supported them regarding the use of new technologies. Key characteristcs HiStory (10/2007 – 09/2009) was funded by the EU-Lifelong Learning Programme, subprogramme Grundtvig, with approximately 300.000 Euros. The target group were mainly European senior citzens, in the second project year additonally young people were addressed by an intergeneratonal approach. The project was coordinated by ILI (Innovaton in Learning Insttute, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg). Furthermore 8 partner insttutons from 7 European countries (Spain, Greece, Slovenia, France, Belgium, Germany and Italy) contributed to the project. Appoximately 1100 users (more than 300 “storytellers” and about 750 “readers/listeners”) could be addressed by the project content presented within an online platorm with a weblog environment, accompanied by further informaton and resources. The project was implemented on European level. . Dimension of learning and inclusion One main aim of the project was to advance learning processes of seniors – and therewith lifelong learning processes and the inclusion of the target group - in an adequate and informal way and, in doing so, to provide both a subject and a learning environment meetng the interest, the motvaton, the competences, experiences and demands of older people. Numerous psycho-gerontologist studies have proven the positve efects of learning in later life for the maintenance of physical and mental health. For instance the WHO model of healthy live identfes actvity and educaton as core factors of preventon from age

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related handicaps. Despite these fndings, customised learning opportunites for seniors which also address relevant and motvatng subjects are very rare. By developing a customised eLearning environment for the subject of experienced history the project contributed to increase the partcipaton rate of Seniors in educaton as well as their societal inclusion. Specifcally older people, who have experienced various historical periods and events, in the framework of the project had the opportunity to refect and share their experiences as well as to learn from the experiences of others. The informal learning approach is connected to the special needs of the target group. The project was based on a narratve approach, combining the methodological advantages of oral history, biographical research and storytelling in order to reach the objectve of transportng holistc and meaningful knowledge. A long-term objectve of the project was furthermore the aspect of intergeneratonal learning. It was assumed that seniors who have refected their own biography and found a broader perspectve of historical experiences and contexts share this knowledge with younger generatons in the framework of informal or non-formal educaton and learning. Innovatve elements and key success factors The innovatve educatonal approach of the project was implemented by means of a web 2.0 weblog environment. So, beside the dimension of content, the project made a contributon to familiarise older people with innovatve ICT-tools like weblogs, which were adapted to the specifc needs of the target group. They were ofered in an interestng and motvatng connecton to the subject, and provided more confdence in the handling of web based learning opportunites. This enhancement of familiarity with the handling of new media is a relevant factor of social inclusion and e-inclusion of seniors, contributes to overcoming the digital gap between the generatons and is contributng to actve ageing and contentment in higher age. The HiStory project claims to have applied an innovatve approach to the process of learning in ageing populaton groups by meetng the partcularites and demands of seniors in a sensitve way | regarding content by choosing a subject being of high relevance and motvaton potental for the target group, | regarding methodology by combining three relevant methodological approaches (Oral HiStory, Biographical research and storytelling) from psychology, sociology and history research in a new way, | regarding technical didactcs by creatng a learning environment new for seniors and customising it according to their specifc needs and constraints, | regarding pedagogical didactcs by taking into account psychological fndings on learning in higher age and by integratng this knowledge into the didactcal approach. The main outcome of the project is an appealing, easy-to-handle weblog environment (www.history-project.eu) with a structured and categorised story collecton comprising more than 300 tales, connected to a website containing all necessary informaton on the project.

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Figure 27: Example of the storytelling area in the weblog (English secton) Source: htp://www.history-project.eu/category/english

Problems encountered and lessons learned Partnership: Although the partnership within the project altogether worked very well, an amendment had to be made referring to partner 9 (Foros per la Memoria) that showed too less commitment during the frst months of the project. The problem could be solved by replacing the inactve partner by a partner with a lot of expertse in the feld of educatonal processes of seniors and intergeneratonal learning (i2cat), using their close connecton to the target group in a very efcient and successful way. Multlingualism: Due to the European level of this project in the weblog area of the HiStory project it was from the beginning a very important aim to ofer the functonality of multlingualism. However the realisaton was not easy: the use of “wordpress”, a weblog applicaton, allowed on the one hand the handling of diferent European languages. On the other hand there were the following disadvantages: | It was not possible to automatcally translate the content inside the respectve blogs, thus translatons had to be done manually. | The functonality of multlingualism was realised by using “language” as a category. In consequence no other category could be used. | The most relevant weakness of the wordpress applicaton was the fact that the navigaton could be chosen from many languages, but once defned it could not be changed any more. As a consequence, the weblog navigaton stayed in English, a hurdle especially for the target group of European seniors. Thus, for future projects it would be very relevant to fnd technical solutons providing real multlingualism. The development of recent versions of weblog tools should ofer beter opportunites to handle the multlingualism problem.

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9.10

ICONET

Young people tend to acquire a range and variety of skills and competences through processes of non-formal and informal learning. These skills may be developed when they take on certain responsibilites within their own family, when they meet up with friends, or when they get involved in sport, music-making, through involvement in employment or indeed as a result of voluntary or community work. These skills may be related to being able to work in a team, being able to organise things, being fexible, and being reliable. Young people are ofen not even aware of these skills themselves. These competences that have been acquired therefore may well be extremely relevant in terms of the formal arena of vocatonal educaton and training. These skills and competences however cannot be used systematcally, because these competences tend to be invisible. This is especially the case for disadvantaged young people, for whom the experience of engaging with the formal environment of the school or training centre has not been successful. Case profle – ICONET in a nutshell ICOVET Informal Competences and their Validaton ICONET Informal Competencies Net Website

htp://www.icovet.eu htp://www.iconet-eu.net

Status

Both closed (Icovet: 2004-2006; Iconet: 2007-2009; but websites stll live)

Interviewed person

Dr. Randolph Preisinger-Kleine, Project Manager, p&w praxis und wissenschaf projekt gmbh


Leornado da Vinci programme of the European Union


Combinaton of formal setng (e.g. schools) and informal setng (e.g. home)

Target group(s)

|

disadvantaged young people at transiton stage between school educaton and vocatonal training,

|

experts working in insttutons and policy makers

|

human resource departments of companies, chambers and similar insttutons

Number of users

n. k.


Secondary School, Vocatonal Educaton & Training [VET]


Combinaton of formal, non-formal, informal


Online tools, forums, additonally face-to-face workshops


Validaton and certfcaton of informal skills gain inside or beyond the regular educaton system

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Short descripton and key characteristcs The ICOVET (and the later ICONET) project examined strategies to make these informally or non-formally gained competences visible in order to enable disadvantaged young people to beter understand their own competences and to learn how to use them in engaging with the formal world of vocatonal educaton and training, give teachers in schools of general educaton a beter understanding of pupils` competences acquired outside schools and enable teachers to systematcally use these competences in preparing for VET, give disadvantaged young people beter access to training and employment in companies, likewise enable companies or training insttutons to systematcally use these competences in VET. The target group of this project is on the one hand disadvantaged young people at transiton stage between school educaton and vocatonal training, i.e. adolescents that have been excluded from regular, vocatonal qualifcatons due to unsuitable school educaton, social disadvantages, or structural discriminaton and have not risked to fnd support matching their partcular conditons and requirements. Secondly, the project targets experts working in insttutons that ofer relevant opportunites, and policy makers of the educatonal sector, social welfare, labour administraton on a regional, natonal and European level responsible for the design of such support programmes. The third target group form human resource departments of companies, chambers and similar insttutons. Target sectors are insttutons that ofer specifcally support programmes for disadvantaged young people. In Germany these are: polytechnics, youth welfare service, companies; Together these insttutons share the desire to reconditon the support for social disadvantage, to develop and build on social and personal skills, tackle learning defcits and ofer opportunites to catch up on missed educatonal qualifcatons, helping to fnd suitable professional perspectves and relevant training, mediaton of basic skills necessary for successful learning. Key characteristcs Icovet and Iconet are funded by the Leornado da Vinci Programme of the European Union (Icovet ca. 300.000 Euro; Iconet ca. 400.000 Euro). The project is internatonal, partners involved are: | Ausbildungs- und Kulturcentrum Berlin (Germany) | BFI Peters GmbH & Co. KG (Germany) | CRED Centre for Research and Educaton Development (United Kingdom) | Deutsches Jugendinsttut e.V. (Germany) | Ergon Kek (Greece) | INDOR (Spain) | Insttute of Educatonal Sciences Bucharest (Romania) | Knownet (United Kingdom) | Nexus Research Co-operatve Dublin (Ireland) | p&w praxis und wissenschaf projekt gmbh (Germany) | Waterford Youth Service (Ireland)

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whereas diferent countries pursue slightly diferent objectves and target groups. This case study focuses only on the German objectves and outcomes of the project. Exact number of user are not available due to the fact, that the project’s approach focuses on train the trainer system, means, that provides tools and informaton guidelines for the interviewer (most cases teacher) how to use the validaton tools and how to conduct the interviews with the actual target group. Far that reason no exact numbers of users are documented. Dimension of learning and inclusion The aim of ICOVET was to develop and test validaton procedures for vocatonal skills of young people gained outside the framework of insttutonal educaton. Research of the Deutsches Jugendinsttut on vocatonal integraton of disadvantaged young people has shown, that integraton can be successful if the funding and support network is matched to the requirements and background of the young people in queston. One of the obstacles here is the lack of reliable informaton on the skill level of individuals. School leaving certfcates in partcular at the level of lower educaton ofen don’t accurately validate the factual skill level of individuals in partcular neglectng the level of basic skills and procedural knowledge. Furthermore there ofen is an extreme diference in achievement within one level of certfcaton as well as high uncertainty whether one’s basic skills can be matched to vocatonal and business requirements. In partcular there is a lack of informaton on skills gained during extra-curricular experiences (e.g. employment, voluntary work, the use of new media). According to Deutsches Jugendinsttut these are very relevant for increasing someone’s employability. For young people the lack of specifcally tailored support for their individual skills ofen results in negatve understanding of their abilites and low self-esteem that can infuence further learning. Educatonal insttutons on the other hand are not aware enough which young people would ultmately beneft most from their programme i.e. to which it would neither be over nor under challenging. With the validaton and documentaton of informal skills the young people increase also their prospects on the labour market. Most of them have – due to bad school leaving certfcates - low changes to fnd apprentceship or a job. Innovatve elements and key success factors Icovet/Iconet follows an innovatve, train-the-trainer, blended approach. The project therefore focuses on diferent levels. On the one hand it provides a training and guideline for the interviewers and a best practce how to use the validaton tool. On the other hand it is also possible for individual students to access the website and validaton tool to record their informal skills:

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Figure 28: Online tool for the validaton of personal (informal) skills Source: htp://www.pw-projekt.de/validatontool/login.php?lang=en

With the help of this tool, students can validate their skills and abilites step-by-step on their own and by doing this, they become aware about their capacites. One example for validated and documented skills:

Figure 29: Example for a validaton of actvites Source: htp://www.pw-projekt.de/validatontool/example.php? lang=en&PHPSESSID=802cf32b8ceb21d86e270499cac1bb95

One of the difcultes for the students during the process of validaton was the problem of verbalisaton. Some of the students needed the help of a teacher or a mentor with putng actvites and abilites into words. The produced data are document and can be transferred into the EuroPass (htp://www.iconet-eu.net/), a certfcate, which can help to increases the students´ prospects on the job market. But Icovet/ Iconet also focuses on the opposite site of the interview: the teacher or interviewer. There is a Best Practce Guide available, which has been designed to help those who wish to use the validaton tools. The term ‘best practce’ is perhaps something of a misnomer. It could be beter stated as a guide towards appropriate and effectve practce. There can be no single blueprint for best practce: rather, practce has to be guided by the individual purposes and contexts of actvity. The guide is based on a series of studies of the use of the validaton tools with socially disadvantaged groups of

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young people: with young people form the Roma populaton in Romania and in Greece and with young people from the Travellers community in Ireland. The guide is intended to help practtoners in adaptng and using the validaton tool as part of their own practce. Another important tool is the Train-The-Trainer Module37. The partcipants of the course are to learn in the facilitator training - based on already existng knowledge, abilites and hands-on skills – basic methods and techniques, with the help of which informal competencies of disadvantaged young people can be made visible. Partcipants/target group of the course are teachers, social educaton workers and other members of the community of practce who want to support in their job young people during the transiton from school to work. On the one hand the specifc objectves comprise the impartng of the educatonal policy background, the pedagogical principals, the pedagogical process and the normative- ethical principles of making competencies visible, as on the other hand of skills and abilites which build the basis of a successful realizaton of the procedure proposed here to make competences visible. The contents were assigned to specifc levels, which on the one hand permit a change and rhythm, so care for the fact that the partcipants are not uninterruptedly and in all topics preoccupied to the same extent, lay down the relaton between self-learning and atendance stage, as well as facilitate the future evaluaton of the realizaton of the course and the results by transparent instructons referring to learning objectves to be achieved. Problems encountered and lessons learned There were no major problems encountered during the project. The project received wide acceptance and was a success and therefore there will be a succeeding project focusing on the insttutonal and politcal level. One objectve will be to develop a validaton procedures or standards which are valid in general, e.g. same tool used in all schools.

37

Informal Competencies and their Validaton (ICOVET) – Train the Trainer Curriculum – htp://www.icovet.eu/Downloads/Cur_en.pdf

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9.11

Mixopolis

A lot of projects in the feld of promotng migrants deal with the defcit oriented approach e.g. in which feld are the weaknesses located or in which area do we have to train and promote pupils. This kind of approach very ofen leads to frustraton and demotvaton of adolescents with a migraton background. A lot of adolescent with migraton background have a great interest in their educatonal biography or professional orientaton and want to actvely organise, create and personalise their life and career panning but very ofen they get thwart because of language problems and cultural diferences. Approximately two-thirds of students with a migraton background visit the secondary modern school. Although they have mostly the same educatonal qualifcaton as adolescent with no migraton background, they experience signifcant disadvantages especially at the labour market and in the course of professional orientaton for the beneft of others. Case profle – Mixopolis in a nutshell Mixopolis Intercultural online portal for adolescents to promote professional orientaton

Website

htp://www.mixopolis.de

Status


Interviewed person Funded and promoted by… Locaton of the Learning Actvites

Mag. Susanne Hehl Schulen ans Netz e.V. Ministry of Educaton and Research, DE European Social Fund, DE Combinaton of formal setng (e.g. schools) and informal setng (e.g. home) young migrants from 14 years upwards

Target group(s)

multpliers and trainers (from schools, associatons, youth welfare) which support the adolescent person in their professional orientaton

Number of users

250 multpliers and 1000 adolescents as members




combinaton of formal, non-formal, informal


Wiki, blog, chat, forum, social bookmarks, social networking tools


(Peer) e-mentoring

Short descripton and key characteristcs The project idea of Mixopolis builds on the useful experiences of other projects of Schulen ans Netz e.V. especially the project LIFT (Lernen, Integrieren, Fördern, Trainieren;

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2005 – 2007) with a strong defcit approach and LizzyNet (htp://www.lizzynet.de; 2000 – 2007) where a lot of experiences in this feld could be collected during the last years. Furthermore the project bases on surveys and studies. Schulen ans Netz e.V. was founded in 1996 and is a non-proft associaton, which promotes the further development of innovatve and sustainable educatonal concepts in the area of digital media. Key characteristcs Mixopolis (01/2008 – 12/2010; htp://www.mixopolis.de) is funded by the Federal Ministry of Educaton and Research (BMBF) and the European Social Fund Germany (ESF) with approximately two million euro and wants to avoid with its online ofers the vocatonal and educatonal disadvantage and discriminaton of adolescents with a migraton history. There are a lot of further partners involved in the project for example co-operaton partners (e.g. schools, universites, organisatons, other projects) and media partners which support the project in diferent ways38. The Webdesign and technical implementaton of Mixopolis was realised by DigiOnline GmbH. Mixopolis is a licensed version of WebWeaver® 3.4 Suite. Dimension of learning and inclusion The aim of Mixopolis is to accompany adolescents in the phase of educaton and professional orientaton. It promotes the educatonal partcipaton of adolescents with diverse ofers e.g. e-mentoring service, discussion forum, training centre with online courses and a magazine that counteracts the various constraints. The project focuses on the “empowerment strategy” where adolescents are empowered to develop confdence in their own capacites. They should identfy and recognise their strengths to beter visualise them to other partes in the school sector or at the labour market. The intercultural online platorm of Mixopolis ofers a possibility for these adolescents to exchange with others and to create a place of interest where they can contribute. To use all functons of the online portal the users have to register for free. In the frst place the project addresses students with a migraton history from 14 years upwards, but integraton and migraton cannot work if other groups are excluded and not involved. So it is also important for Mixopolis that adolescents in general can cross-link and network at the platform with all community members. Mixopolis stpulates clearly and precisely the thematc backgrounds in the community with topics like professional orientaton and intercultural competencies. They provide topics the members can really talk and exchange about. In additon to this informaton and community portal, Mixopolis ofers also a training area where students can on one side try and fnd out what their strengths are and on the other side build on them. Innovatve elements and key success factors Mixopolis follows an innovatve approach and provides a peer e-mentoring service. This means that not only on e-mentor is responsible for one member (tandem mentoring) but all e-mentors take care of all members. Therefore the portal ofers the opportunity to discuss specifc issues and professional development optons with various e-mentors in the community also from an area other than their own. E-mentors of Mixopolis are young (experienced) adults which have already started a vocatonal training or an academic study and have completed successfully parts of their own professional career. The 38

More informaton about the involved network partners are available under: htp://www.mixopolis.de/ww3ee/2516560.php?sid=72529894215927599427537603811540

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currently eighteen e-mentors help with words and deeds and they answer questons and give advice, tps and suggeston about school, career choice, academic study, media as well as intercultural contents. To qualify as an e-mentor it is necessary to be between 18 and 29 years old. The co-ordinators of Mixopolis try to have a balanced proporton between female and male mentors, to have mentors with a migraton background, to get mentors with diferent educatons and vocatonal trainings and to cover the regional provinces. The members can get in contact with the e-mentors via MixMail or Quick Message when they have a personal queston or via the forum, chat or diferent clubs on Mixopolis. E-mentors take care on clubs with diferent special topics and adolescents can enter them afer a short confrmaton and discuss and work together on documents with likeminded people. Mixopolis also provides the possibilites for multpliers (e.g. school insttutons) to open a private/closed club (Figure 1) so that they can generate outputs in the clubs. It is also important that Mixopolis provides a guideline for multpliers, how to use the online portal and the tools as well as how to use the materials, otherwise they wouldn’t use it. Very soon multplier will be able to develop their own learning objects and units within the club and they will be able to check if their target group of adolescents have already completed the assigned tasks given by them.

Figure 30: Examples of some open and private/closed clubs at Mixopolis [06/2010]

The clubs include a lot of varied tools and functonalites like blogs, forums, wikis for collaboratve working, a media centre for uploading and downloading fles, a calendar and notes functon and bookmarks (e.g. del.icio.us, digg…). Furthermore if a user wants to know what others are thinking about a special topic, it is also possible for him/her to use the survey tool and to start a poll. Each responsible club administrator can adapt the structure of the club and can remove tools and functonalites (e.g. calendar, chat…) according to the requirements and also to make it less complex for the users (Figure 2).

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Figure 31: Club: Abi & Studium

Besides the clubs, members can partcipate also in the ofcial Mixopolis forum outside the clubs, take an actve part in the chats where diferent topics are discussed from tme to tme, partcipate in courses provided at the training centre or read and write for the magazine. Adolescents can actvely partcipate and write contributons (e.g. book reviews, interviews) for the Mixopolis magazine which is administered by an editorial. This also ofers a change that the members can show their strengths to a large audience in the Web. For Mixopolis it is important that the stories get a face otherwise the users acquire the basic informaton from diferent other places in the Internet. Outputs from the clubs and forum discussions give a hint about hot topics for the magazine and get linked. At the training centre of Mixopolis, the adolescents can subscribe for diferent courses to the main topics applicaton, competencies, academic study & job and trade. The courses are also listed in a special personal area called “Mein Mixopolis” (My Mixopolis) where users can organise their training plans, can also manage their profle, photos, calendar, notes, friend lists, blogs and can upload and download documents in the media centre. Future plans to expand the service of “Mein Mixopolis” for the users will be the possibility to manage their own contributons, writen assignments or artcles as well as game and test results of the Citygame Mixopoly and Mixopolis quiz and further to present or make the knowledge they have identfed, acquired or expanded during their actvites at Mixopolis transparent to third partes. The online portal with its rich ofer of multmedia possibilites is designed this way to support non-linear learning that means it ofers a combinaton of an informaton area, a communicaton and a learning area and the adolescents are able to use and select the parts they fnd helpful and suitable. The implementaton and mixture of these three

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parts was a very challenging task for Mixopolis and for the technical providers of the portal, because the possibilites of cross-linking between these areas have to be given. Mixopolis engages the users in every part of the portal and help them to develop their sof skills like self-esteem, self-confdence, mutual appreciaton, intercultural competencies, to take responsibility for their own actng, the capacity of teamwork and the ability to communicate. Problems encountered and lessons learned Since the start of Mixopolis in January 2008 the project has passed through some changes. In the original concept the project coordinator wanted to address the adolescents in an instant as a direct target group on e.g. exhibitons and fairs. But afer a while they had to admit that it is very difcult to approach the crowd of youngsters straightforward with learning ofers while there are other platorms which provide more interestng content and have a greater marketng budgets and promotonal frame. It is always difcult to address people with educatonal oferings and therefore Mixopolis had to change their strategy. Now the target group is addressed over third partes and respectvely multpliers like teachers, trainers, migrant organisatons, and youth welfares etc. who work with the adolescents and support them in their professional orientaton also with diferent materials from Mixopolis. This strategy works much beter for Mixopolis because via this way on one hand for example teachers recommend the portal to their students and work with them on it, so students get to know how they can use it and on the other hand much more members get generated for the community. Currently Mixopolis has about 250 multpliers and 1000 adolescents as members but there is always a kind of fuctuaton (e.g. semester has ended; the need of the student is fulflled).

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9.12

MOSEP

“Young learners, between the age of 14 and 16, fnd themselves at transiton points in their lives at which they have to choose between going into upper secondary educaton or entering vocatonal training. It is a tme when they have to make decisions and need to be supported in making the best choices for their future careers. Adolescent research suggests that students at the transitonal stage of development between childhood and adulthood need specifc forms of learning support (Bandura, 2006; Pajares et al., 2006). This is the case especially for developing personal competencies, such as goal setng and accomplishment, self-organisaton and self-confdence, and developing a vision of professional life” (MOSEP, 2008). Case profle – MOSEP in a nutshell MOSEP More Self-Esteem with my e-Portolio

Website

htp://www.mosep.org/

Status

fnished/closed (2006 – 2008)

Interviewed person

Project coordinator: Mag. Wolf Hilzensauer, Salzburg Research


European project – Leonardo da Vinci programme


Combinaton of formal setng in the frame of further educaton (workshops, courses) and informal setng (e.g. materials for selfstudy) MOSEP addresses the growing problem of adolescents (aged 14 to 16) dropping out of the formal educaton system around Europe. | Teachers and Vocatonal Counselors working with 14-16 year old students.

Target group(s)

| Teacher Trainers, who are responsible for the training of either in-service or student-teachers. | The indirect target-group will be 14-16 year old secondary school students, preparing for the next phase of their educaton or training.

Number of users

80 trainers and 120 students


Vocatonal Educaton & Training


Combinaton of formal (courses, workshops) and informal (materials)


(Semantc) Wiki, Video podcasts, Mahara E-Portolio Sofware Forum, Platorm: www.mosep.org


Electronic portolios (e-portolios) as a means of supportng both young people and the teaching and counselling staf

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Short descripton and key characteristcs “The project idea of MOSEP (htp://www.mosep.org/) is to develop a set of measures for the use of e-portolios39 in diferent contexts in order to strengthen the self-esteem of young learners. The e-portolio concept is a learner-centred model allowing a greater degree of personalisaton of learning and motvatng and empowering students to acquire the skills needed to succeed in today‘s knowledge economy and become confdent and competent 21st Century citzens. The e-portolio is a powerful tool to aid inclusion in both social and educatonal terms as it encourages the celebraton of achievements – the wide pallet of skills and interests that a young person has gained both in and out of school. The focus of the MOSEP project lies on ensuring that all school students – partcularly those in the critcal transiton stage of 14-16 years – will be enabled to develop and demonstrate their full potental” MOSEP targets early school leavers by improving the skills and qualifcatons of their teachers and career counsellors (MOSEP, 2008). Key characteristcs “The EU project MOSEP (More Self-Esteem with my e-Portolio) is an innovatve project being funded under the European Commission’s Leonardo da Vinci Programme (08/2006 – 08/2008). The total project budget was € 489.895. MOSEP addresses the problem of early school leavers at the stage at which young learners are in danger of dropping out of the formal educaton system, in adolescence. A strong European partnership – from Austria, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Lithuania, Poland and the UK – is working closely with a network of experts across Europe to produce an e-portolio ‘toolkit’ specifcally designed for inital and in-service teacher trainers and vocatonal counsellors to help to prepare teachers and trainers to work with learners who are using ePortolios” (MOSEP, 2008). Dimension of learning and inclusion “MOSEP is harnessing the power of electronic portolios (e-portolios) as a means of supportng both young people and the teaching and counselling staf who work with them. During the MOSEP project a set of measures for the use of e-portolios in diferent contexts was developed in order to strengthen the self-esteem of young learners. The so-called MOSEP-Toolkit consists of the following products and services which are freely available for use by schools and teacher training organisatons: | A study40, identfying and outlining the specifc qualifcatons and skills required by teachers/tutors working with adolescents, | a MOSEP train-the-trainer course for teachers/tutors and counsellors, | a teacher-training package providing guidelines, assignments that teachers can use with the adolescents as well as accompanying materials for beter understanding of e-portolios as a method for self-organised and competence oriented learning and 39

E-portolios can be defned as "a purposeful collecton of student (or teacher) work that illustrates eforts, progress and achievement in one or more areas over tme. An electronic portolio uses digital technologies, allowing the portolio developer to collect and organize portolio artfacts in many media types (audio, video, graphics, text)." (Barret, 2005)

40

The MOSEP-Study and a descripton about it is free available for download under: htp://www.mosep.org/images/stories/atachments/mosep_study.pdf

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| an online forum for the teachers/tutors on how to use this material and also how to select, install and implement an open-source e-portolio tool for use with their students. The materials developed in the MOSEP project are open learning materials and actvites that can support face to face, blended learning or online delivery. Although the materials concentrate on the learning and development processes and not on specifc tools” (MOSEP, 2008). Innovatve elements and key success factors The move towards personalised learning and a desire to harness the available tools and technologies to support learning and engage learners have raised the profle of the ePortolio and the ePortolio process. The MOSEP course (wiki.mosep.org) developed for e-portolio teachers/tutors, career advisors and vocatonal counsellors consist of fve modules and are divided into 23 sessions/topics with one or more practcal assignments each. These sessions and the related materials can be used as an online material and data repository as well as a structured face-to-face course. All materials, videos and Screencasts are available in 5 diferent languages (EN, DE, LT, PL, BG). The MOSEP-tutorials have been designed to be either used as they are, or adapted and customised to meet individual training needs. They support refectve, personalised learning and employ a variety of methods including: | Internet based actvites | Presentatons and video podcasts | Group work, discussions and peer review for face to face delivery | Online collaboraton and networking for individual study They are stored in an innovatve (semantc) wiki (htp://wiki.mosep.org/), which means that they are in the public domain and available/accessible to anyone who wants to use them. The wiki allows teachers or trainers to select the individual actvites or actvites that they need, and to assemble them into the sequence that meets there learners' specifc training needs. In this way, they are able to customise their courses before make available to their trainees. The MOSEP wiki can help teachers or trainers to design and resource any course that they might want for introducing the e-portolio process to their learners. The content is therefore dynamic and relies on the community for contributons and moderaton once the MOSEP project fnishes (Hilzensauer, Prokoph & Ulrich, 2007).

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Figure 32: Mosep Tutorial Source: htp://www.mosep.org/index.php/lang-en/tutorials

The MOSEP modules provide teachers and trainers with teaching and learning resources that can be used to support trainees who are focussing on any aspect of the e-portolio process. The modules consist of a foundaton module and four other modules, each of which covers one aspect of the e-portolio process. The modules are sub-divided into a number of sessions. Each of the sessions includes a sequence of actvites that, in additon to providing suggested ‘things to do’ for both the trainer and the trainee, also provides links to materials, such as online artcles and audio-visual content. | Session 1: Introducton focuses on e-portolio purposes from the young learners' perspectve. | Session 2: Working with young learners explores methods that can be used to motvate young learners, especially these with difcultes. It helps to develop approaches to encourage young people to use modern media in their learning for their personal development. | Session 3: Digital Technology in the constructon of identty focuses on the contributon of digital technology to the constructon of learners' identty. Privacy and security issues are discussed about the online presence of adolescents. | Session 4: Tools and implementaton explores the diferent sofware possibilites and is furthermore extended by interactve tutorials on the Mahara e-portolio system (htp://eportolio.mosep.org/) | Session 5: Validaton is intended to support personal development planning with the view to e-portolio development The MOSEP course was tried out in six European countries (UK, DE, AT, LT, PL, BG) with diferent target groups (HEI teachers, teachers in secondary educaton, vocatonal coun-

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sellors) and in diferent target insttutons (university, university of applied science, secondary school, career centres, student counsellor centres). Problems encountered and lessons learned For the MOSEP project it was important that a comprehensive evaluaton study, indicating the use of e-portolios in diferent educatonal setngs was carried out. The results of this survey as well as the pre-test led to the fnal refnement of the MOSEP course according to the identfed needs of the teachers. Furthermore, a project evaluaton took place and indicated the positve progress of the project during the project lifetme. The technical support is vital in a multmedia rich environment and also a new collaboratve teacher role is essental. Afer the sofware analysis phase in the frst project year, the project consortum agreed to use the existng sofware Mahara rather than to develop a new system. Due to the very heterogeneous project consortum, a very broad picture of the e-portolio processes, requirements and necessary processes needed top be drawn. A great variety of aspects had to be taken into account, dealing with the diferent educatonal cultures and backgrounds, the requirements of the insttutons, the requirements of the tutors and, last but not least the requirements of the learners.

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9.13

Mundo de Estrellas

Case profle – Mundo de Estrellas in a nutshell Mundo de Estrellas

Website

htp://www.juntadeandalucia.es/servicioandaluzdesalud/principal/documentosAcc.asp?pagina=gr_sabermas_yademas1

Status

1998 – ongoing

Interviewed person

ICT director at Andalucía Department of Health


The project is funded almost exclusively by the Department of Health in the community of Andalucía though there was some inital funding provided by EC funds.

Target group(s)

Aimed at young people in hospital

Number of users

11,300 young people involved

Category of the Learning Actvites Web 2.0 technologies used...

Integrates formal learning, recreatonal learning, normalisaton of illness through shared stories. Uses interactve games, text, video, interactve forum, Personal Learning Environment

Short descripton and key characteristcs The Mundo de Estrellas (MdE) Programme in its original version (which is stll in operaton in all the partcipatng hospitals) was initated in 1998 in Hospital Virgen del Rocío in Seville and was rolled out to all 32 public health service hospitals in Andalucía in the year 2000. The objectves (as stated in project informaton documentaton) was to give all the hospitalised children in SSPA hospitals the opportunity to get to know each other, interact with one another using virtual worlds, voice, images, texts, etc., and develop recreatonal actvites whilst at the same tme opening up their experience of intercommunicaton with any child with an internet connected PC at home or in hospital. The project also aimed to exchange experiences and didactc content with other systems being developed around the world including Starbright (US), Sterrikind (NL) and Cyberhosto (FR). Countng on insttutonal solidarity and public/private co-partcipaton, the project delivery focusses on the hospitalised children and those with chronic conditons. The system provides the means to create characters and stories using avatars and virtual worlds, choose spaces to act, promote friendship and company by recreatonal and educatonal actvites, use new technologies for informaton and communicaton, use games in a restricted and limited context, and promote normalisaton of illness using classroom and virtual consultatons.

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The principle technologies used are virtual worlds, 3D images, video conferencing, wireless connecton, internet technologies, personalised sounds, multmedia equipment, chat rooms etc. This informaton (extracted from project documentaton) provides an overview of the original system which was technologically advanced for its tme. The 3D worlds were created by Electronic Arts using 3D modelling sofware achieving results not dissimilar to Second Life type environments. The use of virtual consultatons and other interactve tools also indicate how advanced it was. The fact that it was rolled out to all 32 SSPA hospitals is signifcant. In 2004 it was decided that the system needed to be renewed: the infrastructure was becoming outdated with the servers running on old operatng systems and the networking needing upgrading. The sofware used to create the 3D worlds was obsolete so that producing new content of this type was not possible using the same providers and sofware. Content needed adding to and updatng in order to prevent long-term patents becoming bored with existng material.

Figure 33: Homepage of Mundo de Estrellas

Hewlet Packard became involved in the design on the new system which would dispense of some of the tools used in the old system such as virtual consultaton (which are in use 65 in other telemedicine projects in the region) and replace them with tools more suited to the end users and their families by providing virtual visitng. The Portal has been redesigned with a clear branding strategy. New areas have been created for user groups such as adolescents. 3D worlds have been substtuted with more cost efectve fash animatons. The focus of the new MdE is less on providing educatonal material and more on recreaton. The educatonal content has less dominance but is nevertheless stll present. The new system is to make use of the content developed in other SSPA projects and managed by a dedicated system. The new MdE has been in development stages for some tme now and is at 55% completon according to coordinators at the Department of Health and HP representatves. Its aim is to contnue the philosophy of the old system to 153

use new technologies to get the best level of health educaton amongst the target populaton, provide diversion for hospitalised children, and educate patents and others in and outside the health system. How and why was MdE started? The original project began in 1998 in pilot phase and was rolled out to the partcipatng hospitals in 2000. The project grew from an idea of an individual, Jose Antonio Cobeña, from the Public Health Service in Andalucía (SSPA), who was convinced that new technologies could have a key role in the development of health provision. The existng (old) system was intended to provide educatonal support to those patents who would be missing out on school work. It was also designed to provide recreatonal actvites which would help keep spirits up while in hospital and also to provide a means of taking away the fears and doubts of those who were experiencing hospital for the frst tme and coming to terms with illness requiring hospital treatment. The new system is focussed more on the recreatonal dimension and the educatonal material will be delivered in less explicit way. Informaton for patents and their families and carers will be provided using interactve technologies. The design for the new system and plans to relaunch MdE began in 2004 and was under way by 2005. It coincided with the developments of digital technologies in the health sector. The speed of development and realisaton was infuenced by a number of politcal and insttutonal factors, as well as the parallel development of other initatves such as 'Diraya: the digital health history of the citzens' in Andalucía. Other projects run by the Department of Health include Informarse.es salud,41 Salud Andalucía 24hrs42 and Opinarse.es salud.43 In what ways has MdE changed? With regard to the existng system, statstcs suggest that usage across the 32 hospitals has remained fairly constant over the last seven years averaging out at 12,657 estmated children using the system per year and a yearly average of 30,554 connectons to the virtual worlds being logged. The new system aims to reach a potental target populaton of more than 1.4m children and teenagers as well as families, carers, professionals, schoolchildren etc. There will be 390 access points throughout the 32 partcipatng hospitals and 292 multmedia terminals. The technical infrastructure and server sofware is to be updated to address issues around obsolescence and deal with the projected demand and increased variety of content. Most of the difcultes reported by the users completng the survey related to technical issues:44 | 'The computer is really slow in some games...' | 'Sometmes the connecton drops and all the games load really slowly.' | 'The system hangs a lot.' | 'Yes, there are technical problems every day.' 41

htp://www.informarseessalud.org/.

42

htp://www.andalucia24horas.com/.

43

For an overview see: htp://www.juntadeandalucia.es/salud/principal/.

44

Data from SAQ survey conducted by Arcola Research, 2008.

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From a user perspectve there are many diferences between the old and the new system. For example, the new system will not use complicated 3D environments and favours fash-based programmes to create the virtual worlds. The emphasis is now on recreatonal actvity and the learning is delivered in a quietly didactc way once the user is engaged (the old system was more explicit in delivery of educatonal materials). There will be a virtual visitng area to provide families and carers with more possibilites to engage. Links with schools will be established and there will be a dedicated area for adolescents with content and learning materials aimed at them. Tools such as online consultatons will form part of other more specialised initatves. The programme will seek to make use of content and services provided by other projects such as 'Informarse.es Saludable' and 'Opinarse.es Saludable' amongst others. How is MdE funded? The project is funded almost exclusively by the Department of Health in the Community of Andalucía though there was some inital funding provided by EC funds for the original MdE system. MdE has been implemented in 32 hospitals so costs of infrastructure, maintenance and administraton are signifcant. The department of health funds the initatve relying on the considerable fnancial resources of the Junta de Andalucía. The new version of MdE is likely to make use of services and content developed in other projects and will use technical support staf at individual partcipatng hospitals to undertake maintenance of the equipment and networking infrastructure. Monitors on call at the partcipatng hospitals are trained and employed by the programme. The central server coordinaton as well as the sofware design and development is being undertaken by HP, the technical partner in the project. 54 Data from SAQ survey conducted by Arcola Research, 2008. Who is involved? The programme is part of a range of health informaton and technology projects run by the Department of Health in Andalucía, which provide digital and non-digital competences at individual and community level. The original MdE project was piloted in the Virgen del Rocío Hospital in Seville and was rolled out to include all 32 hospitals across Andalucía. The programme has been functoning successfully for some years and there are unlikely to be signifcant organisatonal changes associated with the new version. The new system will be implemented in these hospitals.

Figure 34: Children's Wing of Virgen del Rocío Hospital in Seville

The programme provides a set of resources for a large target user group. At present the system is in operaton throughout the region and aims to reach a target populaton of

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1.4m children in its new incarnaton, as well as a signifcant number of other users such as parents, families and carers, professional, schoolchildren and the general public. Dimension of learning and inclusion What Learning 2.0 tools and approaches are used? The web 2.0 applicatons in use and to be used are extensive. They are accessible to a large user populaton and are designed to promote motvaton, self confdence, increased technical skills, and communicaton with others. The degree of access given to such a high number of users is one innovatve aspect of the system in use and the new one being developed. The use of advanced sofware applicatons (3D virtual worlds) as part of a dedicated suite of tools and services to a large number of users has supported the process of innovaton and integraton with other healthcare initatves in the region. The tools which have been most accessed by users have included the video conferencing and chat facilites, very ofen used in conjuncton with visits to the virtual worlds or accessing games involving other players in remote locatons.

Figure 35: Survey response ratng usefulness of video element in user experience

In an online survey of 56 current users of the MdE system 67% agreed highly that their experience of using the chat facilites was useful and 50% felt the video element was useful. Many of the survey respondents said the best part of the MdE experience for them was chatng to other children, sometmes while accessing the virtual worlds (partcularly the virtual discotheque). Whilst a number mentoned the more didactc and informatve content, the most popular tools and games were clearly the recreatonal and interactve ones.

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How does MdE promote social inclusion?

Figure 36: Classroom facilites using MdE at the Children's Wing of Virgen del Rocío Hospital in Seville

Social inclusion benefts are promoted at individual and community levels. The applicatons in use in the existng MdE and to be used in the new MdE are aimed at reducing exclusion of hospitalised children and those who are unable to atend school due to illness for, sometmes, extended periods of tme. Exclusion from a formal educatonal setng due to illness is addressed by the programme by providing educatonal material, as well as reducing the stgma associated with certain health conditons. In the new version this educatonal content is delivered in a quieter didactc way than previously where the delivery of this content was more explicit. MdE is also about raising general levels of awareness in the community about illness and those living with long term illness. Normalising the process of being admited into hospital for treatment is of signifcant beneft to the target users and their families. Providing the resources to this group while undergoing treatment and the wherewithal to communicate with others in similar circumstances promotes levels of confdence and understanding and reduces anxiety and fear. Specifcally the users and their families beneft in many ways: apart from the educatonal materials (for example games providing nutritonal educaton and web pages etc.) the patents have the opportunity to step outside a difcult situaton by entering the virtual worlds. This escapism has a positve efect on their well-being and therefore their health and can promote speedier recovery. They can step into other patents' shoes and this 'lifeswapping' actvity can lead to a more positve outlook with regard to their own conditon/ illness. The monitors control the video conferencing to make sure that the likely outcome will for both partcipants be positve. This promotes a greater level of understanding about illnesses and can help to eliminate myths and misunderstanding about certain illnesses. The new system hopes to be able to expand this dimension by providing links with schools etc. which will lead to greater social cohesion. There can also be indirect outcomes and there have been cases where two children have established relatonships and the families have then maintained this long afer the children have been discharged from hospital. Other benefts have been observed whereby a user will be given the opportunity to talk confdentally about problems they

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might be having at home. They have the chance to get things of their chests in a nonthreatening, non-judgemental, secure environment. There are both public and private chatrooms meaning the user can have a confdental chat with one person or take part in a discussion involving a number of users. The results of the online survey of 56 current users of the MdE system indicated that using the system had a positve efect45: | 'Afer using Mundo de Estrellas I felt really good because I forgot about the pain I had and enjoyed myself' | 'I was accompanied during my stay in hospital and I laughed a lot with the monitors and friends.' | 'Afer using MdE I felt normal, more entertained...' Outcomes and impacts What was the extent and patern of user involvement? The project involves 32 partcipatng hospitals from the public health service of Andalucía (SSPA), the main one being the Virgen del Rocío Hospital in Seville. The target populaton for the new Version of MdE is 1,420,000 hospitalised children and adolescents as well as their families and carers and schoolchildren partcipatng in collaborative networking actvites with the hosiptalised children. The programme provides 390 access points and 292 multmedia PCs. Access points are located either in dedicated schools/classrooms within the children's wing of hospitals such as Virgen del Rocío, or in specifc units such as the oncology ward in the same hospital or wireless enabled PCs that can be taken to the wards when the users are unable to use the other facilites. Monitors employed by the programme are based at each of the partcipatng hospitals and are on hand to supervise and facilitate sessions according to demand. Most access in the classroom areas will take place on a daily basis before and afer mealtmes. On wards where treatment might afect access (such as patents with cancer receiving chemotherapy) sessions take place on demand. Where patents are bed-ridden or being treated in isolaton wards the equipment is taken to the bedside or ward. In the new version of MdE access will be increased to involve additonal groups of users such as schoolchildren taking part in awareness and networking actvites, there will be improved access for families and friends with internet enabled PCs at home, there will be a dedicated area of the web portal for adolescents, thereby increasing numbers of teenagers using the system, and there will be some facilites for professionals. In what main ways did partcipatng in the initatve beneft users? In short, benefts include positve contributons to self-esteem, personal well-being, health, educatonal, recreatonal. In the Oncology unit on the children's wing at Virgen del Rocío, one young patent undergoing treatment was partcipatng in one of the virtual worlds (birthday party). His father who atends daily, spoke very positvely about the benefts he sees in his son becoming immersed in a world that is diferent from the harsh reality of his situaton.

45


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Other patents spoken to seemed very happy with their partcipaton. They were observed using the system with enthusiasm. The monitors were providing motvaton and encouragement where necessary and facilitatng in all actvites online. In an interview conducted with the teacher in the oncology ward, she describes the most important aspects as those related to animaton and motvaton. She gives an example of a six-year old whose use of recreatonal tools has given him energy to deal with his treatment. There are no courses delivered online but the original system was conceived as a means to provide complementary educatonal content to children who may not be able to attend school due to illness. The new system will also provide suitable educatonal material but the focus will be on the recreatonal and communicaton possibilites. Awareness raising will also be an aspect of the new system and links between the hospitals and local schools will be created. Health educaton content will be delivered and tailored to the diferent user groups such as informaton about drugs and STDs for teenagers. Practcal and general informaton about the hospital system and layout of partcular hospitals will also be provided for those going into hospital for the frst tme. In a survey conducted by the project coordinators in 2004, the users and their families assessed the partcipaton in the project in positve terms. These results are supported by the results of the user survey conducted during this case study.

Figure 37: Survey responses indicatng ICT skills improvement (self-rated)

When asked about a range of benefts respondents tended to score positvely for improvement of ICT skills, using tools for social networking and meetng people online. There were very few negatve ratngs for any of the potental benefts of partcipatng. (see Figure 37).46 What kinds of ICT skills and competences have been supported? Did these include ‘higher level’ ICT skills? The initatve supports basic and higher level ICT skills associated with social networking, online gaming and communicaton. A key area of reported improvement for the main user group (school age children who typically have a relatvely good level of basic ICT skills before becoming involved in the initative) was in higher skills related to using computers for social networking. In an online survey 32% of current users identfed this aspect as a key result of partcipaton.47

46


47


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The preferred actvites tended to be recreatonal rather than explicitly educatonal and partcipatng in 3D virtual world games involving more than one user while simultaneously using chat and videoconferencing facilites were reported to be highly popular. In the present system provision for adolescents in terms of content, tools and services has not been sufcient at all tmes to cater for their needs. Most of the actvites have been aimed at younger users. This is being addressed in the new MdE system which will have a dedicated part of the portal for this user group. The new system will also increase access to families, friends and carers and positve outcomes in obtaining ICT skills within these groups can also be expected. Did MdE help users learn other skills (e.g. ‘sof’ skills)? Self-esteem leading to improved personal well-being and enabling the key user groups to deal with their situaton could be regarded as one of the most direct benefts in this respect. Awareness raising will also be an aspect of the new system and links between the hospitals and local schools will be created. This will lead to the development of skills related to tolerance and understanding and communicaton in general. The initatve could reasonably be regarded as promotng community cohesion and involvement. Raising general levels of awareness in the community about illness and those living with long term illness is benefcial in promotes self-confdence and understanding while reducing anxiety and fear. The programme is part of a range of health informaton and technology projects run by the Department of Health in Andalucía, which provide digital and non-digital competences at individual and community level as well as promotng partcipaton of citzens. Did MdE equip users with skills that will increase their labour market opportunites? MdE is principally aimed at school age children and the focus is more recreatonal rather than the acquisiton of marketable skills. The educatonal content is nevertheless being delivered in a subtle way. The revised MdE will look at new ways of getng educatonal material across without sacrifcing the recreatonal dimension. For those children that are excluded from formal educaton due to illness, the benefts are clear. The programme goes some way to addressing this and will beneft the children when they leave school. Other benefts include those for families, carers, professionals and the wider public and this is expected to increase when the new version is implemented. What has been the contributon of the initatve to broader social inclusion objectves? Exclusion from a formal educatonal setng due to illness is addressed by the programme. Providing educatonal material to those missing out, as well as reducing the stgma associated with certain health conditons, means the target users are less excluded. Raising general levels of awareness in the community about illness and those living with long term illness is benefcial. Normalising the process of being admited into hospital for treatment is of signifcant beneft to the target users and their families. Providing the resources to this group while undergoing treatment and the wherewithal to communicate with others in similar circumstances promotes levels of confdence and understanding and reduces anxiety and fear.

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Links between diferent user groups antcipated in the new MdE will promote understanding, social responsibility and partcipaton in social issues like health and educaton. In what ways did the use of Learning 2.0 contribute to insttutonal and organisatonal changes? The implementaton of the programme relies heavily on the public insttutons involved and the individual hospitals. Organisatonally, the operaton of the programme is governed by the systems in place in the hospitals. There does not appear to be any difculty in maintaining present levels of operaton which depends on the presence of the monitors to facilitate patents' sessions. The staf appear to be fexible in their approach to running sessions which take place according to need. The level of implementaton of the new system and the amount it will be employed depends a lot on the professionals in the individual hospitals and to what degree they decide to engage in promotng the programme as a positve health initatve. The new system will require a new publicity campaign for the professionals in the hospitals. It needs to be sold on the inside so that all professionals involved buy into it. It must be adapted for individual hospitals so that there is feeling of ownership. There are forums to establish professional requirements with respect to system. Much work stll needs to be done for the new system and the new infrastructure will be costly, but there are substantal resources available to the department of health in Andalucía and the new system is likely to rely on volunteer staf to undertake the work done by the monitors and it will leave maintenance up to technical staf at the individual hospitals. Overall, to what extent were the intended learning and inclusion outputs, outcomes and impacts of the initatve realised? As far as achieving objectves is concerned, the present system has been in use for a number of years and the users like what it has to ofer. Despite competton from other forms of entertainment, patents contnue to use MdE encouraged by the monitors. Surveys conducted in 2004 among users and their families indicate positve impact of the initatve in achieving its objectves.48 The survey conducted with current users supports these fndings. Results of the survey indicate a high level of satsfacton on the part of users in most areas, partcularly using the recreatonal actvites and those tools and services used for communicaton with other children in similar circumstances such as chat facilites and videoconferencing. There were many positve results reported (other than those related to specifc content types) connected to feelings of enjoyment and wellbeing resultng from MdE actvites. Professionals engaged in the system supported these results in their comments in interview. Entertainment and recreaton were the principal reasons for engagement and benefts from partcipaton in MdE actvites and these aspects are to be further developed in the new version. The main problems identfed with the present system relate to technical issues and, to a lesser extent, variety of content. Many users were frustrated by the slowness of loading games and applicatons, the connectons being dropped, computers locking up and other problems related with the age of the system. Most users were able to identfy the nature of the problem and cause of dissatsfacton. These issues are being addressed by 48

Data from evaluaton carried out by Department of Health, Andalucia.

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the technical providers of the new system, Hewlet Packard. The original system is now old, the games engine used to build the 3D environments is obsolete and no longer in use, so they cannot be added to, the infrastructure is out of date and the content is limited for some user groups like adolescents. The new system antcipates an overhaul of the technical infrastructure, new programmes, applicatons and sofware tools, improved content and more choice, partcularly for certain user groups. In general there will be a greater variety of content for an increased number and range of users. The reach of the project, level of accessibility and the fexible and efcient nature of this access as well the degree of integraton with other healthcare initatves is clear. The challenge will be to optmise use of the new system among the target group and to extend the reach of the project to other users. Much will depend on the professionals within the insttutons buying into the idea and recognising the positve impact of this system to the health and wellbeing of the target audience and also on the contnued dedicaton of those already working on the project who have made it the huge success is currently is. Success factors and barriers What kinds of problems and obstacles have been experienced and how have these been addressed? The problems experienced by all groups of users, partcularly the target group of hospitalised school-age children, almost exclusively relate to technical issues. The system has been in operaton across a number of partcipatng hospitals throughout the region of Andalucia in Spain for a number of years. The technical infrastructure is in need of renovaton and the new system will be redesigned to support the new applicatons, wider range of content, services and tools. The present system is slow and outdated leading to technical difcultes for the users partcularly because many of the sofware applicatons require relatvely modern equipment to run them. Expectatons of users have increased and people are less willing to wait extended lengths of tme for programmes to load, and are frustrated when sofware applicatons lock up due to technical hitches. Results of the survey conducted by this case study of 64 current users refected this dissatsfacton and indicated that these were the key problems experienced. Since there are other forms of entertainment available which may be preferred if unsatisfactory user experience occurs a lot, (such as DVD players, games consoles, TVs etc) it is incumbent upon the project to address these technical difcultes with the appropriate solutons. The technical specifcatons for the new version of MdE are set out in the project documentaton and cover all aspects of the infrastructure, making partcular menton of key components such as the virtual worlds, the videoconferencing facilites and the present ISDN communicaton infrastructure. Changes will also be made at many levels and the technical support covers functonal, technical and economic aspects giving examples of those areas where changes are required. Other than technical issues, very few problems have been reported or observed by this case study: there appear to be no fnancial obstacles as the resources available to the SSPA are signifcant and this project is one of a number of technology and health initatives running in Andalucia.

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Politcal will and the organisatonal and insttutonal response to the development and implementaton of the new system is likely to positvely afect the way in which the new version is adopted. The new system is dynamic and connected in a way the old system was not. It refects the current technological climate and will use a multchannel delivery method in line with other projects in operaton in Andalucia and described above. Has MdE created things that were unexpected, or things that have had negatve outcomes? Few of the unexpected aspects reported or observed have been negatve or had negative consequences. In general partcipaton in the project has been a positve experience, both from the user point of view and the staf and professionals engaged in organisaton, delivery and facilitaton or actvites. Whilst there are aspects that can and will be improved in the new version, the classic system has been a huge success for the many users accessing it over the last eight years. The project has achieved in general what it set out to do though it appears to be have been used most in the originatng hospital and the other main hospital in Seville, suggestng that its usage in outlying areas could be improved. What factors have contributed to the success of this initatve and what lessons can be learned? The main factors contributng to the successful outcomes of the initatve are as follows: | Successful implementaton of a technologically advanced suite of tools, services and content types to a high number of end users in a large number of public hospitals over a wide geographic area. Due in large part to substantal public funding. | Dedicated staf of monitors and coordinators responsible for facilitatng and encouraging the engagement in project actvites by patents on a regular basis, sometmes in situatons where motvaton can be difcult. Also the recogniton of benefts by other health professionals not directly involved in MdE actvites. | Integraton of the project in a wider programme of initatves where crossfertlisaton and technology transfer can take place. Shared content and administraton and management of content will be exploited more fully in the new version. | The frmly held belief that innovatve technology can have a huge impact in health initatves and partcularly on the lives and well-being of young people in hospital. The reach of the project and the ambitons of the new version to target 1.4 million users are a result of the considerable resources of the Andalucia Health Service (SSPA) and the politcal will required to roll out such a scheme throughout the region. While it is clear that some hospitals have partcipated to a greater extent, it is important to engage a large number of insttutons to make the system worth implementng and running. The coordinators and monitors involved in day to day actvites of the project are based in the hospitals and are key to the success of the initatve in each of the public hospitals involved. Their work is highly praised and the amount of access and quality of access is dependent on their contnuing presence. Contnued success of the project and partcularly the launch of the new version is dependent on other professionals recognising the health benefts of partcipatng in the actvites, enabling patents to deal with their hospitalisaton beter, respond to treat-

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ment quicker and be discharged earlier. The new system will make use of content developed for other public health programmes and will make full use of content management strategies, methodologies and teams engaged in work on related initatves. Some of these programmes are listed above. The use of ICT, and partcularly, entertainment and recreatonal actvites to relieve boredom, provide amusement and increase levels of well-being in young patents has been shown in this project. The 3D virtual worlds and the communicaton tools have been highly popular and benefcial for patents, their families and professionals. Educatonal content has also been delivered and will be updated and expanded in new version. The main lessons to be learned from the case study are: | Insttutonal buy-in is necessary to success of the project; | Adequate funding will ensure that project objectves can be met; | Integraton within hospital culture supports success; | Integraton with related projects can favour TT and knowledge exchange; | Dedicaton of key staf is crucial to how actvites are approached and received.

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9.14

Netlukio

Netlukio ofers a comprehensive Finnish upper secondary school study programme online, using a learning platorm, virtual classroom technology, wikis and blogs, which is aimed at adults aged 17-75. In exceptonal circumstances, younger students are also accepted, for example Finnish students living abroad. The initatve started out as an ESF-project, which lasted from 1996 - 1999 and was then additonally supported by natonal funding. The frst priority was the development of web-based learning material, with partcular emphasis on upper secondary school content. In 1997, the online study opton was established in order to bring educatonal possibilites to students in remote parts of Finland who were unable to travel long distances. The initatve is now fully and ofcially integrated in the normal natonal school programme and fnanced by the natonal support for schools, which means that students have free access to the school. Case profle – Netlukio in a nutshell Netlukio

Website

htp://www.netlukio.f

Status

actve/running (1996 - )

Interviewed person

Taru Kekkonen, Project Manager Simon Heid, Senior Researcher


Started as an ESF funded project (1996-1999), but established as part of Otava Folk High School later on


Online virtual classroom platorm

Target group(s)

Students, who cannot partcipate in the regular school system (parents, shif-worker, disabled persons)

Number of users

500




Blended learning


Virtual classroom, Forum, blogs,


Time fexible and not statonary online studies suitng the student’s preferences

Short descripton and Key characteristcs The initatve is based on a concept of pure online learning with no obligatory traditonal classroom teaching sessions, although it is possible for students to atend classroom sessions in Otava. There are no periods or semesters and the courses are always open. Students can pick courses freely to suit their schedule and can start at any tme in a nonstop course subscripton system. This means that students have more autonomy and

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can determine their own learning paths, rather than being governed by school rules and structures. For some courses, however, there is a fxed schedule and communicaton between students is facilitated by greater teacher involvement. Contents and courses for all subjects are available, with about 100 courses altogether. Students must take a minimum of 44 courses in order to pass the programme. Throughout the duraton of the programme there are no tests, which shifs the focus away from performance and accreditaton based learning, to individualised learning. The idea is to trust the students instead of controlling learning through test structures and adding additonal pressure. Students build up a portolio of coursework through completng courses and supplement this by writng learning diaries/journals. Usually it takes about 3 years to study the programme and at the end of their studies, students have to take the normal natonal test for upper secondary school level. The initatve opens up classroom teaching to the web and enables online communicaton between students, providing them with the opportunity to create collaboratve content through wikis and blogs. An example for the use of blogs is a project that allowed the students to document the presidental electons (htp://mahtavin.blogspot.com/), in which students took turns to follow the current developments and make contributons to the blog. Through working collaboratvely, the students were able to build up a picture of and thereby understand the development of an important politcal and historical phenomenon. wikis are used to similar efect in history, mathematcs and biology. A virtual classroom was also established at the end of last year. At the moment around 450 students take part in the programme. Within individual courses, group sizes vary. Most of the student groups are very mixed and the partcipants have diferent reasons for studying with the programme: some are living abroad, some have shif-working jobs (e.g. in hospitals), some are parents of small children and some may travel a lot, such as business people and athletes. There are also people with physical and mental disabilites, including those who have difcultes interactng face-toface with others, yet who may be very sociable on the internet when the physical barriers are removed. Users may also include people with negatve experiences from earlier schools. For all these groups of people the school ofers more fexibility than a traditonal school as most of the partcipants are working full-tme or part-tme, a lot of them study during evenings and weekends, some even during nightshifs. The project covers Finland, in individual cases also students from abroad (e.g. Fins working/living outside Finland for a certain period of tme) Dimension of learning and inclusion All the course materials and social communicaton tools (e.g. discussions forums) can be found in the learning platorm for self-learning and students follow personal learning plans. Web 2.0 technology has opened a window to the outside and has enabled communicaton between the school and other organisatons. The students have access to the wikis and the blogs from the learning environment, but these tools are also available to non-school members. Every student belongs to a group of 20 students with a mentor/tutor who is responsible for that group. The mentor does not teach the subjects, but helps the students to develop personal learning plans, and will also contacts students who have been “invisible” for some tme to ask if help is needed. Whenever students face a problem they can ask the teacher via email, although during the daytme it is also possible to call. If the teacher is online, students can ask questons

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directly by chat. Some students use also Skype. The role of the teacher becomes more important at the end of the course when they assess the portolio of the student and provide feedback. The online platorm was designed within the Folk High School by technical experts among the staf. Teachers and students planned the learning environment together in order to make sure that the needs of the students would be met. Overall, the platorm is a standard LMS (Learning Management System) with some minor diferences, including the use of Virtual Classroom technology, wikis and blogs. Recently, the project has introduced a virtual conference room where students have the opton to atend classroom teaching through the web in a synchronized online learning approach. This can be accessed simply by entering a web address. There are web cameras in the classrooms, which enable students to listen, watch, share documents (students see the same display as in the classroom) and talk via headset or online chat, all as they would do in a normal classroom. There has been some technical issues with the virtual classroom, such as the tme it takes to load up and some problems with voice chat, but overall it is running successfully.

Figure 38: Homepage of Netlukio Source: htp://www.netlukio.f/f/sisalto/

Innovatve elements and key success factors The motves of students partcipatng in the project are varied. Some students want to maintain their learning skills, broaden their educaton or simply enjoy learning, others are atracted by gaining formal accreditaton and obtaining a diploma. Motvatng students throughout the 3-4 year process is a challenge for both staf and the students themselves. Some students fnd it difcult to commit themselves to distance online studies as they have to manage their own tme and “no one sets the clock”. The initatve is running successfully with high partcipant rates and it has been fully integrated in the natonal school system. Special skills are acquired by the learners through partcipaton. ICT skills overall improve and students learn to be self-organised and to take responsibility for their own learning.

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One of the main challenges encountered by the initatve is communicaton between students because of the high level of self-organizaton and tme scheduling the system ofers. As a soluton for this problem, the school encourages communicaton and partcipaton at a wider school level rather than simply on an individual course level. Through introducing the virtual conference room, eforts are being made to remove the communicaton barrier between students present in the classroom in Otava and the online students, in order to create the feeling for the students that they all study together. Results of the case study survey among students: 70 responses of students to our questonnaire have been collected. Overall, students see high benefts in taking part in the initatve. A signifcant result of the survey was that the learning platorm and conventonal communicaton tools are comparable in terms of user ratng of usefulness as the Web 2.0 tools The learning platorm in general (3.95/5, n=37) and E-Mail (4.63/5, n=35) have been rated as important tools. E-Mail apparently is regarded as the most important tool for communicaton within the programme. The wiki is seen as a useful tool for learning (4.00/5, n=37), whereas blogs are regarded as less useful (2.81/5, n=36) in comparison. Partcipants overall see very strong personal benefts from taking part in the initatve. The highest ratngs received were “Improved my general knowledge” (4.64/5, n=33), “Improved my knowledge about partcular subjects” (4.42/5, n=33) and “Improved my writng, reading or foreign language skills” (4.64/5, n=33). Additonally, the improvement of computer skills and sof skills has been seen as a beneft. The additonal qualitatve feedback demonstrates that students reported increased motvaton. This is strongly associated with the benefts of using E-Mail communicaton: “E-Mail was the best, cause everything has to be asked by e-mail and everytme I got the answer back very soon.” “The best thing for me is that I can fnd all the materials regarding my studies from internet and that I can adjust my studies to my schedule.” “I am very motvated and motvaton has been growing more during the actvity.” “I was especially motvated in the end. In the beginning I did not have so much motvaton.” “I was extremely motvated cause I have found a way to educate myself without leaving my job. Motvaton stll keeps in place.” One success factor is certainly the full integraton to natonal school system. The programme is ofcially recognized as a way to study in upper secondary school in Finland and partcipants can obtain a degree just like at a normal school. This certfcaton aspect ensures good motvaton of the partcipants and leads to higher number of partcipants in the programme. This popularity makes it more likely that the single courses reach a critcal mass of actve members, which is a preconditon for successful online communicaton and collaboraton. Another point is, that the students are fexible in shaping their personal learning plan. There is a mix between an open course subscripton system and scheduled courses. In general, there are no semester periods or fxed startng points for single courses. Students can subscribe to a course at any tme they want and compose an individual course

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and tme schedule. However, for some courses which require greater input from tutors, there are fxed start dates. This makes it easier for teachers and tutors to provide support, especially in the inital stages of a course. Outcomes, which are produced: Personal learning plans, learning portolios (e-portolios) and learning diaries. Student survey reports show clearly that the individual freedom the programme ofers to the students is the most important factor in its success. This teaching and learning style is especially efectve for target groups with special needs. The individual scheduling of studies is supported by individually generated online learning portolios and personal learning diaries and journals. There are no tests at the end of single courses. At the end of the programme students take part in the natonal test for graduaton. Teachers take over teaching and tutoring roles alternately and are supported by mentors. Teachers fulfl both teaching and support roles, responding to problems raised by their students through email and providing regular feedback, as well as assessing portolios at the end of the course. Mentors help students to create learning plans as well as keeping students focussed. The learning material and all the social communicaton such as discussions forums in the learning platorm are open only to students and teachers and are password protected for privacy reasons. Now Web 2.0 technology has opened a window to the outside world from the learning environment and students also have access to the WIKIs and blogs from outside of the learning platorm. This means that non-students can also partcipate in the WIKIs and blogs, and contribute to the collaboratve knowledge base. Very important for successful learning is good balance between communicaton among students vs. self-organized learning schedules. The school recognises the importance of balancing student autonomy and self-organisaton with the need to encourage and maintain communicaton between students in order for successful collaboratve learning to take place. As students are following paths of self-directed learning, it is important that communicaton between students does not sufer. To achieve this, the school supports communicaton between students on a wider school level, instead of just focussing on communicaton between students within course groups. Virtual classroom technology can successfully bridge the gap between diferent locatons Virtual classroom sofware is used to connect learners in classroom sessions in Otava with online learners. Online students can optonally atend the classroom teaching through the web in a synchronized online learning approach. Listening, watching, document sharing, communicaton between students and chat are possible. The virtual classroom helps to remove the communicaton barriers between students present in the classroom in Otava and the students present online. The case study demonstrates that it is possible for teachers to fulfl the role of the teacher and tutor at the same tme. Due to the freedom aforded by virtual learning platorms, staf are more easily able to balance their roles as a teacher (e.g. to give content related feedback) and as a tutor (e.g. to help with questons). In case of Netlukio Internet Upper Secondary School there is additonal support by others taking over a mentoring role (e.g. to contact students who have not taken part in learning actvites for a while).

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Problems encountered and lessons learned In the beginning some technical problems with the virtual classroom technology occurred, but they could be solved sufciently. One major aspect for successful learning is to keep up the student’s motvaton for the period of studies. For some students it is difcult to commit themselves to distance online studies as it is a challenge to stay motvated throughout the 3-4 year course period. A supportng factor is adoptng mentors to take responsibility for groups of students and ensuring that they encourage them and support them to contnue their learning. Personal learning plans further help to keep students on track.

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9.15

Notschool

Notschool is a virtual online learning community which seeks to provide alternatve educaton for young people who have become disafected in traditonal school environments, cannot partcipate in school for reasons of pregnancy or ill health, and who have no alternatve. For those whom all other schooling optons have failed, Notschool provides a platorm for re-engaging students in their learning and increasing their motvaton to learn. 70% of students come from inner-city LEAs with Behavioural Improvement Programmes, ‘which are typically areas with high social deprivaton and families in poverty, as well as high rates of crime and truancy.49 The online school community promotes actve partcipaton in learning communites, which enables young learners to form and develop their ideas and reengage in the educaton process, take ownership of their learning and build the confdence and self esteem they need to progress onto college and employment. Notschool describes its core aims as: | To re-engage teenagers in learning; | To provide a secure, non-threatening environment without fear of failure; | To rebuild confdence, self-esteem and social skills; | To provide a bespoke pathway into further educaton, life-long learning and further qualifcatons. Case profle – Notschool in a nutshell Notschool

Website

htp://www.notschool.net/

Status

2000 – ongoing

Interviewed person

Project director and Technical director of Notschool.


Notschool.net started out as a government funded research project, part-funded by England and part-funded by Scotland. In 2005, it became a self-supportng charity under the Inclusion Trust and has contnued to expand.


Notschool provides an online platorm for re-engaging students in their learning

Target group(s)

Young people who have become disafected in traditonal school environments and who cannot partcipate in school for reasons of pregnancy or ill health, and who have no alternatve.


Podcastng, blogging, e-portolios, social networking using their ‘homepage’ which has similar functons to Myspace and Facebook, stckies, musical stckies, hotlinking (like social bookmarking), sharing videos.

49

Notschool.net Evaluaton 2005

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Short descripton and key characteristcs Notschool began in 2000 as a DfES commissioned research project to design a new Key Stage 4 curriculum at Ultralab, the learning and technology research centre at Anglia Polytechnic University. The inital focus of the project was content delivery and agencies like The Science Museum and the WWF were asked to develop content. Students were working in isolaton on computers at home and retred teachers were employed as tutors to visit them at home. Afer it became clear that this method wasn’t working, the students were brought in and asked how they thought the model could be improved. A more learner-focused online community evolved, using a model designed by the research team based on the views of the young people involved. The frst local authorites covered in the research phase were Essex, Glasgow and Sufolk and the pilot was extended in 2001 to include over 20 local authorites in the next few years. Through this period Ultralab developed a ‘successful model for engaging disafected teenagers’,50 which could be disseminated throughout the country and in Ireland and New Zealand. In what ways has Notschool changed? The inital focus of the project shifed from being about content delivery to developing a dynamic online learning environment, which the students can take ownership of and contribute to. The technical platorm also changed from Oracle’s Think to OpenText’s FirstClass, which ofers a completely secure environment where students can learn through textchat, conferencing, email, notceboards, making ‘homepages’ and using other collaboratve working tools such as debatng polls which help to encourage partcipaton. Equally, FirstClass enables Notschool to monitor the progress of its students more efciently. Afer this model had been established, the two key changes in the way Notschool.net operates have been curriculum and qualifcatons, both of which have been greatly affected by the policy changes of the UK government. The curriculum has changed largely due to health and safety legislaton, which has become more restrictve. Popular subjects, especially practcal technology subjects, have become more limited in scope. Notschool has also changed its view of qualifcatons. Whilst providing the students ‘hard currency’ from their Notschool educaton was initally an ‘aferthought’, 51 in recent years it has become more of a central focus. The students need recognisable qualifcatons in order to have equal standing with their non-Notschool peers in the further educaton and job markets. Traditonally this has been geared very much towards GCSEs and NVQs, for which Notschool has developed its own formally recognised equivalent. Whilst many students are stll keen to atain certfcates as valuable indicatons of their progress, many are not able to cope with traditonal testng methods or feel unnecessary pressure at the prospect of formal exams. To combat this, Notschool have developed a very sophistcated monitoring system which enables them to track all progress made by students, from their actvity around the site, to emails from their tutors as well as their replies (even if unsent), in a process that blends formal and informal learning. Mentors also write weekly reports on a student’s progress, which is made easier for Notschool tutor as they are responsible for fewer students. It normally takes a student about three months to become actvely involved in Notschool, but from their frst tentatve steps to a more confdent partcipaton in the system at later stages, Notschool can monitor a students learning journey, ‘mapping a learning experience of formal and 50

Inclusion Trust website, htp://www.thecademy.net/inclusiontrust.org.

51

Jean Johnson, Notschool Director (interview).

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non-formal skills, of very academic and vocatonal skills’52 which can be modeled to ft a set of qualifcatons on the Natonal Framework and measure hard and sof skills. This ensures that whilst students develop their selfesteem and confdence, they can stll achieve. This serves to further motvate them in the crucial early stages. The government’s recent shif in attude away from traditonal qualifcatons like GCSEs and ALevels towards a points and credits system is more favourable to learners, and is more in-line with Notschool principles. How is Notschool funded? Notschool.net started out as a government funded research project, part-funded by England and part-funded by Scotland. In 2005, it became a self-supportng charity under the Inclusion Trust and has contnued to expand. The average cost of an individual placement in Notschool.net is £5000 in Year 1 and slightly less in Year 2, which is nearly equal to normal school provision and is half as much as the £10,000 required for a Pupil Referral Unit. In England, basic equipment costs £750. Notschool uses an expensive broadband provider as this reduces disengagement due to technical difcultes and frustratons with slow download tmes, etc. In Year 2, equipment costs £500. Mentoring costs are about £1000 and accreditaton, experts and visits about another £1000. Funding for individual places on the program can be provided by a schools inclusion budget, but this is not always the case. As a charity, TheCademy ofers some bursaries and there are some government initatves to ofer funding for places.53 Who is involved in Notschool? The main groups targeted are young people, normally between the ages of 14-16, who have not been able to cope in a traditonal school environment due to reasons of sickness, pregnancy/motherhood, phobia, disafecton, exclusion or travelling. Those eligible for Notschool will have been outside of educaton for an extended period of tme and have not responded well to other methods such as home tutoring or pupil referral units. As Notschool is working with children for whom all alternatve forms of educaton have failed, it is vital that Notschool distances itself from these formats and the focus on being ‘not school’ is further enhanced by the structural arrangements and semantcs. Rather than the traditonal student-teacher-headteacher structure, learners are given the role of ‘researchers’, which gives them more autonomy and responsibility for their own learning, as well as a stake in the successful operaton of Notschool as a learning platorm. Researchers are guided and supported by ‘mentors’, who devise a learning plan for each researcher and communicate regularly with them, setng learning goals and targets. Researchers and mentors usually communicate via email, although sometmes researchers may phone mentors (this is normally when a researcher is unused to communicatng via email in the early stages of their involvement in the project). There are currently over 130 actve mentors and the rato of mentors:researchers is about 1:6. Notschool have decided that this rato ensures that researchers are treated as responsible learners by their mentors, rather than simply ‘a child in their class’.

52

Jean Johnson, Notschool Director (interview).

53

TheCademy is the physical locaton of the charity that operates Notschool.

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Other stakeholders in the learning chain include ‘experts’, who are specialists in their felds and develop dynamic learning content, and ‘buddies’, ex-Notschool pupils who choose to remain in the system providing encouragement and advice to younger researchers. The central team regularly monitor student progress. This support network, which was established as the most efectve system during the pilot phase, guides pupils through the learning process. Dimension of learning and inclusion What Learning 2.0 tools and approaches are used? Notschool’s secure FirstClass learning platorm allows mentors and researchers to incorporate Web 2.0 technologies into the learning process and students will use and encounter podcastng, blogging, e-portolios, social networking using their ‘homepage’ which has similar functons to Myspace and Facebook, stckies, musical stckies, hotlinking (like social bookmarking), sharing videos. They can use any format that they like to record work but traditonal methods such as word documents, Powerpoint presentatons and emails are stll favoured by most students: “We use blogging and podcasts, so if they want to podcast their work they can upload it and I can download it with the RSS. This works quite well but we haven’t had so many as it’s quite new to the FirstClass client. ” (Mentor, Music and ICT) Most of the Web 2.0 tools used by young people within the Notschool community are for social networking purposes: “Lots of young people will use these Web 2.0 tools all the tme as part of their social networking and not really recognise this is part of their learning. Everyday they log in they may want to update their homepage, update their blog, they want to update their e-Portolio, they want to update their podcast.” (Jonny Dyer, Notschool Director) As every piece of work by researchers is tracked and monitored, students quickly build up a body of work, which can be seen as their e-Portolio. For some students, the majority of this portolio evidence will be from their homepage, where they can share items with mentors and peers and pick up feedback. Others work hard to build up their own ‘community spaces’, which they may manage individually or collaboratvely with other students. The content of these spaces can be used as evidence for their portolio. Once students leave Notschool, the e-Portolio can be an extremely valuable in helping students to gain acceptance on college placements, work experience or in jobs, giving potental employers and tutors the opportunity to see a detailed multmedia portolio of informal and formal skills and achievements. This can help students to present themselves with confdence and reduce the stress caused by a formal interview situaton. Students are also given iPod shufes to transport this portolio to interviews or college via mp3. However, whilst Learning 2.0 technologies certainly facilitate the teaching and learning process, Notschool are very clear that it is not the technologies themselves that enable learning, but the way in which they are used and managed. It is important to have qualifed adults who use them to stmulate learning, rather than focusing learning around the technologies.

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How does Notschool promote social inclusion? Notschool aims to re-engage young people in the learning and enable them to reintegrate into society at the level of further educaton or employment. As is the case for most Notschool pupils, a traditonal school environment is simply not suitable for them and without the Notschool platorm as a ‘last resort’, they would ‘slip through’ the system. Notschool works hard to help its students fnd a style of learning that works for them, based around subjects that interest them and model their qualifcatons around these interests and skills: “Every bit of work we do with young people is bespoke to them and in order for that to happen you have to have young people involved in the process; they’re defning where they want to go next, they’re defning how they want to learn.” (Jonny Dyer) “Our approach is learner-led…we try and get them IT, literacy and numeracy skills and we build those skills around the subjects that they are really interested in. If they are engaged in one area, we can bring in all the strands of learning.” (Mentor) Through such an approach, Notschool enables users to be empowered by their learning and encourages them to develop their confdence and self-esteem as well us build up technical skills and a set of qualifcatons (See benefts to users). These facilitate Notschool’s main inclusion aims.

The other area where Notschool promotes inclusion is in building up a community and encouraging collaboraton. As previously mentoned, students may work together to create ‘community spaces’ in which they build up a collecton of resources on an area of interest to them, more than one student and they share the responsibility of running it together. Adult involvement in these communites is kept to a minimum: “Early on we discovered that if there were too many adults taking part in a community then the youngsters would not respond.” (Mentor) Through being an online community, there are many benefts for students who have been ‘excluded’ from other forms of educaton: | Students who cannot atend normal school because they fnd face-to-face learning difcult. | Students who don’t feel comfortable working in groups can beneft from working one-to-one with a mentor and can join in groups when they want to. | Students who cannot focus for long periods of tme can choose when they want to learn. Outcomes and impacts What was the extent and patern of user involvement in the initatve? In total since May 2000, over 5000 students have been a part of Notschool.net. In the academic year 2000/1, 92 students were involved in the project. By the academic year 2004/5 this fgure had increased to 933 pupils. On average, students stay at Notschool for about 1-2 years. Over 80% of pupils are from the lowest economic groups. In the UK, the core group of pupils are identfed by the school as ‘white working-class’. In its pilot stage, Notschool.net had four target inclusion groups: phobic, disruptve (or excluded), ill and pregnant, with a male:female rato of 50:50. Evaluaton shows that of

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these groups, the phobic and the sick were the most successful in quickly achieving their learning goals, since they were deemed to be willing to learn, yet prevented by circumstance.54 However, afer the pilot it was decided that target groups of students should not be categorised. Notschool’s current learner profle includes pupils who are unable to atend school for the following reasons: illness (9%), pregnancy or motherhood (1%), phobia (22%), travelling (1%), disafecton (32%), exclusion (24%) and other reasons such as statementng, bullying and reluctance to learn (11%). The male:female rato has remained the same. There are over 130 mentors who partcipate in the Notschool scheme and the rato of Mentors to researchers is about 1:6. Nearly 75% of mentors are female and they are from diferent teaching backgrounds, 51.5% are secondary trained, 45.5% are primary trained and 3% are further educaton trained.55 In what main ways did partcipatng in the initatve beneft users? Through its informal approach where students have access to learning at any tme and can begin to build responsibility for their own learning goals and progress, Notschool has successfully enabled 98% of young learners to re-engage in learning at some level and make observable progress. Empowerment: Learners take control of their own learning through their ‘researcher’ role, contributng to a learning community which has a greater signifcance than their own personal achievements and failings, which increases motvaton to learn: ‘The partcipant is given the role of a “researcher” because they are actvely partcipating in determining what works for generatng and sustaining an online learning community.’56 Confdence and self-esteem: The non-threatening, confdental and safe environment allows learners to gradually build or rebuild confdence in both their learning abilites and their communicaton and social skills. Postng informaton and ideas on community spaces encourages others to learn and discuss their interests and gives researchers the ability to network and make friends, which ofen translates to increased confdence outside of the notschool.net environment: “Afer a few months he decided he would like to run his own community devoted to hard to produce stmulatng content which excites responses from other young people. He now feels he is ready to do some work experience.” (Team Leader comment)57 Accessibility: As an online community, learning is always accessible and researchers can always make the most of their motvaton and inspiraton to learn. The use of podcastng and blogging are potentally less laboured learning tasks which can capture the informal element of learning. Creatve computer applicatons such as Garageband and Photoshop further engage learners. 24/7 access to the Web allows students to research learning topics independently via the internet, ‘an investment [otherwise] well beyond the resources of many if not most households involved in the programme’ (Jean Johnson, Director)

54

Notschool Report (December 2001).

55

Figures from Notschool website.

56

Notschool Evaluaton (2005).

57

Notschool Evaluaton (2005), p.21.

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Technical skills: Through using computers, digital cameras and printers as their main learning tools, together with high-speed internet connecton and bundled sofware, Notschool researchers quickly develop advanced technical skills. Broad curriculum and self-directed learning: With over 150 subjects available, the breadth of curriculum and freedom of choice allows students to explore their own interests. Traditonal subjects such as writen English, Arithmetc and Basic French are complemented by less conventonal subject choices such as Car and Motor Mechanics, Hairdressing and Script-Writng for Soap Opera. Students can also build communites based around their own expertse to inspire interest in others and develop their own sub communites within the Notschool environment: “As the community has matured, more new areas have been added, frequently by the researchers themselves providing a strong sense of ownership, provoking interest in a way which rekindles the desire to learn.”58 Qualifcatons: It is also recognised that whilst these students need the freedom and space to learn at their own pace and within their own interests, they also need to leave Notschool with ‘hard currency’59 which will prepare them for college or employment. Traditonal accreditaton such as GCSEs and NVQs are ofen unatainable for Notschool pupils due to the breadth of study involved, or the coursework elements required. Whilst some students stll show interest in following these routes, most are keen to achieve through Notschool’s own formal accreditaton scheme, which is recognised by the Qualifcaton and Curriculum Authority (QCA): | Level 1 is equivalent to a GCSE grade D to G | Level 2 is equivalent to a GCSE grade A* to C | Level 3 is equivalent to an A Level Within this accreditaton scheme, 96% of the ‘04/’05 cohort received at least one Level 1 certfcate, 50% achieved at least one Level 2 certfcate and 8% achieved at least one Level 3 certfcate. This helps students identfy their learning progress and situate themselves in a context with non-Notschool peers, as well as help formal external insttutons such as colleges and companies to recognise their achievement. What kinds of ICT skills and competences have been supported by Notschool? Did these include ‘higher level’ ICT skills? At the start of the programme, Notschool provides each student with a mini Mac with bundled Mac sofware including Garageband, iMovie, iPhoto, and Keynote. Specialist applicatons such as Adobe Photoshop and Cinema 4D can be provided to cater for specifc needs. Students also receive a printer, a digital camera and 24/7 ADSL internet access, which enables learners to choose when they learn. These state of the art tools remove many of the potental barriers to learning. All Notschool students will be fully profcient with basic applicatons, word processing, email, internet applicaton, as well as keyboard skills. For most students who did not have access to a computer at home before, the progress in ICT skills is normally very fast.

58

Notschool website, htp://www.inclusiontrust.org.

59

Jean Johnson (interview).

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Many students also have the opportunity to develop more advanced digital skills, including podcastng, blogging, digital flmmaking, audio and music fles using Garageband and sometmes Cubase for more advanced skills, as well as creatng other multmedia and electronic projects. Students are encouraged to establish their own special topics communites within FirstClass and are also responsible for maintain their home pages, ofen employing tools like stckies, musical stckies, scrolling text, hotlinks, image sequences and embedded videos and soundfles. These developments in digital skills encourage researchers to try new things themselves, such as exploring Second Life and bringing the elements that they felt were useful into the Notschool environment.60 Other students put together flms, which they post on You- Tube. Many are also clearly competent in using social networking sites such as Facebook and Myspace, although this is discouraged by Notschool in the interests of child protecton61. Since technology and ICT form the foundaton of the researcher’s learning environment, any technological problems are dealt with quickly through a 24/7 help and support service. Pupils are encouraged to take responsibility for their equipment and rectfy any problems through email/telephone contact with specialist technicians, so they develop technical skills too. Did Notschool help users learn other (sof) skills? Through Notschool and the use of its Learning 2.0 technologies, learners are able to develop a range of ‘sof’ skills to prepare them for lifelong learning and employment: | Self-esteem and increased confdence in their abilites; | Actve citzenship through developing communites designed for the use of others, as well as the popular ‘buddy’ scheme; | Meta-cognitve skills: informaton seeking through internet research; | Socialising and networking skills encouraged through communicaton with other researchers, as well as a positve learning relatonship with mentors and experts; | Observable improvements in literacy; | Problem-solving skills. These skills are demonstrated by students through their involvement in actvites in the VLE, through ‘real-life’ expert days (such as the ‘E-baby’ day), emails to mentors, individual and collaboratve project work, and are closely monitored by Notschool to ensure progress is recorded. Did Notschool equip users with skills that will increase their labour market opportunites? One of the core aims of Notschool is equipping learners with the skills and confdence to allow them to progress onto further educaton or employment. With increased confdence, improvements in literacy and communicaton skills and formal accreditaton, Notschoolers are beter equipped to re-enter educaton or employment at a more independent level. Advanced digital skills and use of e-Portolios also gives Notschool pupils 60

Notschool Core Team member.

61

Notschool Mentor.

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increased labour market opportunites. They also have the opportunity to collaborate with students from around the world. Of the 2004-05 cohort, 50% of students entered into further educaton, 26% entered college related employment and 18% entered fulltme employment. What has been the contributon to broader social inclusion objectves? By re-engaging young people in their educaton, Notschool is providing a real alternatve for many students who cannot cope in traditonal school environments and the standardsdriven educaton system. At a wider level this is helping to: | Lower the number of young people who are not in educaton, employment or training (NEETS). | Raise the profle of learner-focused, learner-driven educatonal approaches, which is now also recognised through the government’s ‘personalised learning’ agenda. Community development and the Notschool value cycle: ex-pupils of Notschool ofen want to give something back, staying on or returning to the community as buddies or experts. Their involvement in the network and their development of/partcipaton in community pages during their tme as Notschool pupils encourages them to develop confdence in their own learning as well as recognise the importance of building a successful, collaboratve community and learning with others. One student, for example, went on to achieve a frst class honours in photography at university, is now studying for a Masters and is also contributng expert content to the Notschool photography area. She has just undergone some training with an exam board to allow her to award certfcates to other researchers. Other pupils ofen stay on in Notschool afer completng their studies to volunteer as buddies. In what ways did the use of Learning 2.0 contribute to insttutonal and organisatonal changes? Learning 2.0 has enabled Notschool to build a successful and efectve online learning platorm for young learners who could not engage in traditonal learning environments. Through switching from Think to FirstClass, Notschool now has a more secure and dynamic platorm where students can build homepages including videos, images, photos, stckies, hotlinks, blogs and podcasts alongside word documents.

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Figure 39: Notschool structure62

The structure of educaton is much less hierarchical, allowing researchers to take a central role in how their educaton is organised. There is also much more communicaton between the key stakeholders to create an efcient feedback loop which facilitates progress and monitoring. The key factor in building this successful community is equality of input into the community. Researchers are taught not only by mentors and experts, but also through peer learning. Equally, researchers can sometmes take the role of ‘mentor’ by building a community where other researchers and mentors may learn from their expertse. This creates a more dynamic, collaboratve structure which encourages learning. The success of the ‘mentoring’ approach is illustrated through the popularity of the buddy scheme, where learners feel they can lend their newly found social skills and increased confdence to help other Notschoolers new to the system: “N. has moved from a very isolated young man to one who has collaborated with two other researchers (from other LEAs) to run their own community. In additon he has asked to become a buddy, afer asking how demanding the role was.” (Mentor)63 Overall, to what extent were the intended learning and inclusion outputs, outcomes and impacts of Notschool realised? The Notschool model proved successful for many students with 98% of students making observable progress and achieving some form of qualifcaton. Only a small number of students drop out and this is normally due to incorrect referrals by local authorites. Notschool has developed a sophistcated monitoring system which can record both formal and informal achievements. Through doing this, they can measure the progress of students who are not ‘obvious’ achievers and help all pupils to build self-esteem and confdence in their own learning. Many students report positve experiences of their tme at Notschool. Equally, Notschool’s NVQ equivalent qualifcatons and the certfc62

Notschool Evaluaton Report (December 2001), p.5.

63

Notschool Evaluaton Report (2005), p. 29.

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ates given to recognise theses achievements help learners to formalise their progress and see their ability to learn in a diferent light. From including only three local educaton authorites at the start, in Essex, Glasgow and Sufolk, it is a model which has successfully expanded throughout the UK and to Ireland and New Zealand. Notschool has managed to reduce the per capita cost of the scheme to £5000 in year 1 and £4000 in year 2, which is nearly equal to a placement in a regular school and is half the cost of placing a student in a pupil referral unit. Staf at Notschool feel that whilst they are achieving their aims, they could do more but feel that they are hindered by the government’s ‘standards-driven educatonal policy’ which awards funding on the basis of high formal achievement and high atendance records. Staf at Notschool would like to see beter ways of working with marginalised students within schools. Innovatve elements and key success factors The success factors of the initatve can be seen as follows: | Notschool’s constructvist learning approach, with bespoke learning programmes for each student and the freedom given to learners to direct their learning in ‘routes of desire’ and choose topics that interest them. | The mentor/researcher/buddy/expert system and the development of a genuine learning community. This enables researchers to feel as though they are contributng to something ‘greater than them’ and reaching a wider audience, which is empowering and motvatonal. | The use of state-of-the-art technology and sofware and 24/7 access to the community, which empowers learners and removes many of the barriers to learning. Problems encountered and lessons learned Recruitment, referrals and funding: The main issues with the Notschool arrangement are problems with recruitment and referral from LEAs. The key intermediary between home and school, the LEA contact person, must be dedicated to following Notschool’s innovatve and unconventonal methods. Inappropriate referrals are sometmes a problem as is securing funding for individual placements from LEAs. Assessing learning gains: Developing an online community, which is considerably more informal than a traditonal school community, also creates difcultes in assessing measurable learning gains and formal accreditaton that are recognised by others. This has been addressed by Notschool through their own qualifcaton scheme. However, at school leaving age, Notschool pupils are, in the mainstay, stll not equal to their schooleducated pupils, where 62% of the populaton leave school with 5 GCSEs grades A*- C. This is a problem of natonal attude and government focus on atainment. Not a model for all disengaged pupils: It is recognised that many Notschool pupils have an unsuccessful history in traditonal educaton, unable to break out of a cycle of disengagement and non-achievement. In this respect, any steps towards re-engagement in educaton are considerable learning gains. The fact that 98% of students make observable progress is a testament to the success of the model. However, it must be noted that it is a model which does not work for all disengaged learners. Students who are unsuccessful at Notschool include those in short term care and those who come from extremely dysfunctonal families and will receive no support at home.

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The lessons that can be learned from this case study are as follows: | Allowing students to choose their own curriculum and develop content improves motvaton to learn and helps collaboratve learning as students seek to share interests with others; | Disengaged students perform beter when taken out of a standards-driven school environments as there is no fear of failure or pressure to achieve; | Virtual Learning Environments such as FirstClass can be used to monitor student progress and record both informal and formal achievements; | Student-led community spaces and student ‘homepages’ for displaying work encourage peer assessment; | Electronic portolios can assist students in an interview situaton by reducing stress and helping students to present themselves, their skills and achievements; | Web 2.0 technologies are valuable tools for stmulatng learning and helping students to work collaboratvely, but they need to be managed by qualifed teachers in order to be benefcial; | Many of the success factors of the Notschool model are transferable and could be employed in traditonal school environments to help marginalised learners.

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9.16

Pinokio

The use of children’' literature for implementng intercultural projects is not so difused in Europe. Besides, there is not an European network on pupils' literature, though several countries are actve in this feld. A fairy tale or a fable can enhance the intercultural approach as an actve and creatve processes. The combinaton of more fairy tales and fables can enhance intercultural and learning dialogue. ICT’s can be used to support a work on literature in creatve way, which ultmate goal is that the literature of diferent countries, including that of migrant children, is compared, combined and (re)created according to cultural contexts, personal experiences and moral landscapes that are transforming fastly and need to be shaped in a more positve way. Case profle – PINOKIO in a nutshell P.IN.O.K.I.O.- Pupils for INnOvaton as a Key to Intercultural and social inclusion

Website

htp://www.pinokioproject.eu

Status

actve/running (10/2009 – 09/2011)

Interviewed person

Cinzia Laurelli - Fondazione Nazionale Carlo Collodi (Italy)


Lifelong Learning Programme – Comenius Multlateral Project


Combinaton of formal setng (e.g. schools) and informal setng (e.g. home)

Target group(s)

Pre-school and school children and teachers, migrant children and their parents.

Number of users

5 schools with 10 classrooms in each country; in total 150 classrooms. The classrooms are selected according to socio-cultural criteria such as the presence of a large group of immigrants.


Pre-school and primary school




Podcasts, movies, ebooks, blogs, games


Teachers are the main tutors; ebooks, podcasts, movies and blogs become spaces and objects that children and teachers can manipulate to lead to the creaton and learning.

Short descripton and key characteristcs P.IN.O.K.I.O. aims at promotng intercultural dialogue against social exclusion, using fairy tale characters as a ‘way’ of communicaton for pre-school and school children, migrant children and their parents. In this regard the project is focussed on the development of some of the eight key-competences recommended by the EC as “those which all individuals need for personal fulflment and development, actve citzenship, social inclusion and employment” (Rec.2006/962/EC). The project ‘core actvites’ are the producton of online tools for teachers and children; teacher training; the testng of methods and tools with children, migrant-children and

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their parents focusing on intercultural dialogue that addresses social exclusion; testng 'Creatvity Labs' for the development of expertse in combatng poverty and social exclusion. Key characteristcs P.IN.O.K.I.O. (10/2009 – 09/2011; htp://www.pinokioproject.eu) is co-funded by the Lifelong Learning Programme – Comenius Multlateral Project with approximately two hundred ffy thousands euro and wants to promote intercultural dialogue and creatvity against social exclusion. Selected children’s stories characters and situatons are used working with children to: | support their motvaton for learning and transmit cultural, civic and social values such as: equality and gender equality, civil rights and non discriminaton, awareness and respect of diversity, | promote children literature as a ‘tool’ for combatng social exclusion through intercultural dialogue, | create a sense of European citzenship, | help promotng creatvity, compettveness and the growth of an entrepreneurial attude, | enhance the quality of European dimension of teacher training startng from the European countries involved. The schools engaged cover four countries (Italy, Portugal, Switzerland – as silent partner- and United Kingdom) and the partnership covers also Greece and Belgium. The implementaton of P.IN.O.K.I.O is supported by the partner CIRDFA for teacher training methodologies and e-learning support – The Interuniversity Centre for Educaton Research and Advance Training for the University of Ca’Foscari in Venice (IT). Dimension of learning and inclusion The constructvist learning approach used consists in allowing children and teachers manipulatng stories which aim is to create and learning. Podcast, ebooks, emovies, . slideshare etc. as ways to Plan, produce and share stories. Blogs as Virtual Learning Environment to collect class narratves. Become the actvity that channels the energy and the process of learning and creaton of children through utlizes the fable. There are learning outcomes represented by the key competencies; fables characters and situatons are associated to key competences. The main contents are the metaphors, images and characters of fables. The idea is to use the fable as a resource and the technology as a means to tell the story of involvement and sense making on a community that has diversity, fragmentaton, human drama that must be resolved through this actvity. For example, where there is difculty dialogue for the presence of immigrants or bullying. Innovatve elements and key success factors Technologies allow training children on skills and facilitatng the processes of interpretaton, appropriaton and creaton. It is a botom-up model; “we give only inputs and tools to use the semantc resources of the fables. The teacher recast tool and resources for in-

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volving children in the process of creatng meaning, which becomes unique and authentc” (Interview with a project partner). Example: § KC5 Sindbad is a boy who was rich and lost all his money. He managed to sail all over the world, and learned many things about life and about himself. All his life is a series of learning. § KC6 Sindbab is sociable: he acts nicely with people of diferent cultures, ages and social groups. § KC7 When Sindbad falls in poverty, he decides to travel on his own to make a life for himself; besides, even when he becomes rich again, he stll wants to work and travel because he enjoys adventures and learning. § KC8 Sindbad travels in many seas and countries, and learns about diferent customs (clothing, housing, eatng…) and becomes aware of the cultural diferences. A learning community has been set up and an extensive efort is made to support the learning process especially through training actvites and newsleters, while the development of the web site, which will also represent a learning channel, has been recently restyled.

Figure 40: Example of wall poster

“In the teacher sessions, academics/researchers intend to work collaboratvely by resortng to stories form diferent authors and natonalites which represent quite diferent worlds/world views from the ones children are used to interact with. Diferent stories allow children to express their own feelings and anxietes towards a world displaying divers aspects and situatons as well as easily identfable characters who allow children to use their imaginaton and develop both a sense of safety and self assurance” (Pinokio Newsleters 3, June 2010; see Fig.2)

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Figure 41: Ideatonal Text and Human Values (Pinokio Newsleters 3, June 2010)

The method used to support inclusion integrates Web 2.0 tools, which becomes in itself a tool for bringing people together. This is possible because they are simple to use. The blog is such a learning environment where the teacher can tell what happens in the classroom. For example, children make a drama about Pinocchio, the teacher can now upload pictures and tell what happened. The parent can immediately see what has happened, may be invited to partcipate by children or even they themselves can decide to do so. Then the environment allows the actors involved in the new history of being integrated: “We know there is a strong component of immigraton, in all countries and we know that foreign children are carrying pictures of symbols and stories that may came in confict with those of natves. Meetng each other through input comes from the fable and technologies as a tool to access the story, creates opportunites to create a new history, where the stories of children joining and are integrated. It is not only a process of dialogue, but it also created ‘the new’ that happens through a narratve of a story. The children use the resources for expressing their own reality”. The end goal is to create an educatonal and social impact. Children should achieve greater social inclusion with peers and this extends to other families. Problems encountered and lessons learned At this stage of the project we can not say much on problems. The only element we can quote has to do with a cultural aspect of the organizatonal dimension: as it has been reported by an interviewee, “integratng the web 2.0 logics into the organizaton of the project is stll an hard job; if we want actually enhance co-creaton actvites we must overcome the struggle between the ‘new world’ and the ‘old world’, which is stll there”.

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9.17

rePlay

Interactve gaming technology is hugely popular amongst young people today: The vision of rePlay is to use this technology as a mean of motvatng young people into a better awareness of how and why they behave the way they do and encourage them to take greater responsibility for the consequences of their decisions and behaviour. Case profle – rePlay in a nutshell rePlay: Gaming Technology Platorm for Social Reintegraton of Marginalised Youth

Website

htp://www.replayproject.eu/

Status

actve/running (09/2008 – 09/2010) Dr Francisco Ibañez,

Interviewed person

Project Coordinator of rePlay Head of Research & Development Unit Brainstorm, Spain


European Commission under the 7th Framework Programme Brainstorm, Spain


Early interventon support tool used in preventve antsocial behaviour programmes in schools in deprived areas and in re-educaton programmes in specifc centres for young ofenders.

Target group(s)

Children from 10 to 14 who are at risk of becoming marginalised as a result of ant-social behaviour as young ofenders in centres, gifed students and students from schools where the populaton is coming from deprived areas.

Number of users

120 (40 children in 3 European countries – UK, Spain and Romania)


Secondary School, centres for young ofenders


Combinaton of formal, non-formal and informal


N/A Gaming Platorm

Short descripton and key characteristcs rePlay uses video game technology to provide young people who are at risk of becoming marginalised as a result of ant-social behaviour with an interactve learning environment. The rePlay game is not, in itself, a therapy. Rather the technology provides the teacher/professional in charge of monitoring and assistng their rehabilitaton with a

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useful tool through which the rehabilitaton process can be assessed and managed more efectvely. The rePlay game focuses in creatng a highly interactve and engaging environment within which players react to their surroundings, face dilemmas and make moral choices. The game content (the actvites embedded in the game) focusses on understanding the values and motvatons of the player in relaton to a series of tasks. The actvites are not designed as tests with a right or wrong answer. Rather, they have been developed to address and explore emotonal reactons like empathy and to look at concepts like consequental thinking. In doing so, the content actvites provide a context for a discussion within which specifc aspects of the player’s responses can be explored. This exploraton happens during the ‘REPLAY’ phase of the game: following the completon of a game ‘run’ (within which the player has been in control and has reacted to a series of actvity challenges) the teacher/expert sitng with the player takes control and replays the actvites (and the player responses) back to the player. At this stage, discussions ensue around the reasons partcularly optons have been taken. This discussion is a signifcant opportunity to explore and beter understand the issues that player are facing. rePlay (09/2008 – 09/2010) is funded by European Commission under the 7th Framework Programme. The overall cost of the project is 1,2 million Euro for the work carried out by 7 partners involved in the Project Consortum. The European Commission is supportng the initatve with 915.000 Euro funding. The rest of the cost is self-fnanced by the partners: | Innovatec is a Spanish technology based company, which main actvity is the development of technological products for the improvement of the social welfare. | The Toy Research Insttute (AIJU) is a Spanish non-proft making organisaton designed to provide support to companies within the toy sector and related industries. | White Loop, UK is a communicaton agency specialising in the health, educaton and broadcastng sectors. | Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi is the oldest higher educaton insttuton in Romania." | El Cerezo" is a Social Inserton Day Centre in Spain. | ROTALENT is an Romanian NGO specialized in educaton improvement. rePlay is a early interventon support tool to be used in preventtve ASB programmes in schools and in reeducaton programmes in specifc centres for young ofenders. The target Group is children from 10 to 14 who are at risk of becoming marginalised as a result of ant-social behaviour as young ofenders in centres, gifed students and students from schools where the populaton is coming from deprived areas. The main technologies developped and integrated in the rePlay Gaming Platorm are: | 3D Immersive VideoGame integratng multmedia content/actvites related to antsocial behaviour | Interactve and wireless balance board (‘human joystck’) to control the gameplay | Range of interacton systems for playing sessions (wireless board, PAD, Joystck, keyboard, etc…)

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| Mark Recogniton system to enrich the interacton with the system and increase the playability and engagement of young people. Dimension of learning and inclusion The learning features are addressing low ant-social behaviour. A 3D environment has been created, highly playable, and involving an interactve play 'board' that enables the player to travel at speed through a futuristc world, against the clock. Interspersed with the 'play elements' are a series of embedded actvites that have been developed within a sound pedagogical framework and that focus on the values and decision making of the player. Every actvity has to be completed before the player can contnue. The multmedia actvites are addressing categorisatons, associatons, emotons / images and consequental thinking. e.g. one “exercise” is to throw with a canon words like love, bright, cold to targets like family, school, friends, home Having completed the game, and all actvites, the applicaton moves in replay mode. This allows the expert sitng alongside the player to discuss the specifc responses the player gave to each actvity and creates the opportunity for an open and honest dialogue about values and behaviours. The gaming platorm consistng of a video game (sofware) and an interactve balance board as the primary user interface, is installed in schools and run as a part of preventive ant-social behaviour programmes and as well as in day centres for youngsters involved in re-educaton programmes and is conceived as a support tool for professionals (i.e. social workers). The teachers, social workers and professionals working in these programmes manage the gaming platorm in terms of content, gaming sessions, review of answers and selecton of the educatonal actvites included in the game, etc. The implementaton is carried out jointly with the school or centre and the Public Administraton is a key component for the success of rePlay, promotng the use of it in schools and Youth Centres and acquiring the gaming platorm to support and improve the preventve and re-educatve programmes in schools and centres. All end user centres have been fully engaged in the game development as well as the testng and validaton. Signifcant training is also given and ongoing technical support is available to ensure the efectve running of all gaming sessions. Testng has passed through a number of phases to ensure the initatve works on both a practcal and pedagogical level: before the gaming sessions begun, all end user centres have spent considerable tme pre-testng the platorm and the contents to ensure that when young people come to play the game, the game itself is pitched at the right level in terms of playability and the content is calibrated correctly for the specifc user groups being tested. Signifcant feedback mechanisms have been put in place to ensure any issues arising from the early testng sessions can be addressed quickly, thereby ensuring that testng is not held up or results diminished in any way. Communicaton between end user testng centres and the game developers is managed centrally via project partners to ensure the technological success of the project. There are a number of inter-related success factors which will impact on the project trajectory. First, the key challenge is to ensure consistent testng and validaton is carried out in the three end user testng centres. For this, a robust methodology has been developed and communicated to all partcipants. Second, the technology soluton presents the possibility for many problems in terms of efectve running of the game in each centre. Were any of the main component technologies to fail, the testng and validaton will sufer. To counteract this, signifcant pre-testng has taken place within each testng

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centre and open communicaton channels set up between the testng practtoners on the one hand, and the game developers on the other. Finally, it is vital that the testng and validaton of the product generates usable and meaningful data that can be implemented into the next version of the game prior to commercialisaton. This will be achieved through careful implementaton of feedback mechanisms via the main project partners and through a close analysis of the collated data. The game has been extensively tested in centres in Spain, Romania and the UK as well as being deployed in other sites across Europe. in the fnal stages of the project is currently at fnal stage which involves running demonstraton sessions with interested partes across partcipant countries and beyond. Innovatve elements and key success factors This game is used by therapists to interact with young children with ant-social behaviour. The child plays. It is a race with interactve challenges and you are creatng a world while making choices and taking decision. To go the next level you have to complete quizzes or questonnaires. At the end, the therapist and the child replay the game, discussing the child’s decision or choices. The project is innovatve for two reasons. First, using a 3D videogame as central tool which includes the learning and educatonal and psychological content. You can compare the game to the Sim’s. The children compare it to the Play Staton 2 games which is a real compliment for the developers. Sensors are atached to the body and the moves in reality are replicated in the virtual world. The diference here is that the game is in the centre with the content hidden in the game and not the other around which you usually can fnd when the learning is rewarding with is a game to keep children motvated. And secondly, it is very easy to customise. The experts involved in the project found that rePlay is a perfect platorm to engage young people in any educatonal applicaton. Some proposals from Europe and USA for adaptng the applicaton to include diferent educatonal contents like regular primary and secondary school learning contents or specifc preventatve programs like alcohol and drugs have been made. Problems encountered and lessons learned The initatve did not change drastcally. The project was designed to focus on young offenders but rapidly the Consortum realised that it ofered more possibilites. It could support preventon in schools for instance. So the target groups were enlarged. The inital plans were to have only one game for children from 10 to 14. During the preparaton phase and methodological discussions, the partners decided to go for two different sets : 10 to 12 and 12 to 14. The main problems were : the lack of robustness of the prototype and the sensing system developed for the prototypes that were broken during the transport to the three validaton sites in UK, Romania and Spain. To solve this problem we had to re-build the electronic device (inclinometer) used as a sensing system in the balance board and to send them again to the testng site. This delayed a bit the beginning of the validaton phase of the project but, in some way, was positve for the project because we get a very robust sensing system.

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the videogame was very well rated by the boys partcipatng in the validatng session. For the girls, the design (colours, music, landscape...) was not very appealing for them and we had to include some customisaton propertes in the game in order to do it more appealing for the girls. One important aspect to be taken into account for the future versions is to create diferent 3D environments more adapted to the girls' preferences. Results, sustainability and exploitaton One interestng unexpected output, based on the opinion of experts, was the improvement of the relatonship between the young people and the psychologist in rePlay, obtaing a maximum degree of openness and interacton between the expert and the youngster. This type of good environment created in the playing sessions and the satsfacton expressed by the experts was one of the main unexpected and positve results of the project. We get a list of possible improvements. The most important were: an interface for teachers and psychologist to include new contents and to adpat them to diferent users' profles, create more 3D environments, to include more specifc contents related to specifc preventve and interventon programs (like alcohol and drugs consumpton)... At this stage of the Project is difcult to be specifc in terms of return on investment, the estmaton of the Consortum is that the videogame will be acquired by schools and reeducaton centres in two versions: with the interacton system (wireless balance board) and without it (using a standard Game PAD, Joystck or iPhone as interacton system). This will depend on the budget of the centre or school and the fnancial capacity to acquire the complete gaming platorm or only the videogame. In the estmatons, the ROI will be achieved within 2 years, once 3.000 licenses of the game have been sold around the world. Other income will come from the customisaton of the game with contents adapted to the needs of diferent insttutons/customers, complementng the income generated by the sale of licenses. The main commercial strategy is to set up exploitaton alliances with the main European companies of educatonal material like Pearson – Edexcel, Santllana etc… Additonally natonals and regional governments from the three partcipatng countries (Spain, UK and Romania) have expressed interest in the applicaton to be implemented in schools, so, a parallel strategy is to present the applicaton to the educatonal departments of the local, regional and natonal governments of Europe. On the other side, they are in discussions with important educatonal contents providers in order to include the “paper” materials of educatonal programs in “multmedia” format as embedded actvites in the rePlay applicaton

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9.18

Roots & Routes

A lot of projects in the feld organize social actvites to display the skills of social, economical and cultural disadvantage people. The projects organize an actvity where young and talented people can perform and show their talent to the public. But most of the tme, afer the performance, the actvity stops and there is no follow up for the partcipants to develop their talent to a professional level. Most of the talented people need help to get their skills to a professional level. The gap between the art of the street and the vocatonal educaton is to wide. Therefore its hard to become professional for people with social, economical or cultural disadvantage. This also shows in the conservatory where 80 to 90% of the students are white and wealthy. This is not a proper refecton of the populaton. Case profle – Roots & Routes in a nutshell Roots & Routes Celebrate cultural diversity

Website

htp://www.rootsnroutes.eu

Status


Interviewed person

Jeroen Marcelis


Community Roterdam, Service Art and Culture. Leonardo da Vinci, EU programme of educaton and culture.


Combinaton of formal setng (e.g. school internships) and nonformal/informal setng (e.g. summer schools, home/online)

Target group(s)

Target group are young people between 15 to 25 years who do not have the same chances as most people because of social, cultural or economical circumstances.

Number of users

858 online users/profles.


Vocatonal Educaton (Internships)




Learning blogs, social networking tools, video/audio sharing tools.


(Peer) e-mentoring, displaying talent of users ofine and online.

Short descripton and key characteristcs Roots & Routes gives talents of mult-ethnical cultures and internatonal backgrounds the opportunity to enrich their knowledge and skills and take part to an professional existence within the creatve industry, also by ofering the opportunity to get notce of any relevant secondary vocatonal educatonal program or an higher educatonal program. Roots & Routes is funded by Community Roterdam , Service Art and Culture (Roterdam was elected cultural capital of Europe in 2001) and Culture and Leonardo da Vinci, EU programme of educaton and culture. For the implementaton there were three partes

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involved. Miramedia (Social cohesion and intercultural dialogue), NPS (TV programme maker) and the programme staf of Roterdam cultural capital had the goal to involve all layers of the populaton on a cultural level. The frst project was televised by the NPS with the help of young media makers. The website is created and run by JFC Medienzentrum Köln. Roots & Routes is actve in 12 countes. In those countries there are 13 partner organisatons who organize actvites under the Roots & Routes fag. Dimension of learning and inclusion Roots & Routes accompanies young talented people who want to come become professional in music, dance or media. By recruitng young talented people R&R gives them a change to enhance there talent in a internatonal and cultural group under guidance of professionals. These groups are as well ofine as online. The social networking tools makes it possible to keep in touch with internatonal partcipants and follow each others progress by uploading own material or writng a learning blog. Another aim is to bring the art of the street closer to the vocatonal educaton for people with a economical, social or cultural disadvantage by getng more experienced through feedback and training by professionals and the compositon of the groups they gain knowledge being a artst. The competence development makes sure every partcipant experience a certain form of personal and/or professional growth. The knowledge is given by the professionals and the user are able to put it into practce at the same tme by festvals. The festvals are a part of the learning cycle but are also a way to create role models in the target group who can encourage other talents to partcipate. By putng a young talent on the stage with big names where talents can display his skills, the partcipants sets a good example for people from his own neighbourhood. Partcipants are also stmulate to become peer coaches. The online audio/video sharing tools makes it easier to comment on each others work. Innovatve elements and key success factors Roots &Routes is innovatve in creatng a link between the street art and the formal educaton so partcipants can re-engage in educaton to give them a chance to become professional in their discipline. Where other initatves stop afer a performance, Roots & Routes lays more emphasis the next step to professionalize of partcipants. By focussing on the professionalizaton of partcipants a close connecton with the art educaton is necessary to ofer partcipants a opportunity to develop. In the Netherlands Roots & Routes works very closely with the art educaton feld including two Conservatory Codarts Roterdam, the Albeda College in Roterdam. The approach is that users frst experience and learn by doing. Afer that Roots & Routes provide the theory. The educaton material online can support the actual learning by giving new ideas and good examples in practse. Roots & Roots also follows an innovative approach as it comes to sharing knowledge. By using the learning blogs and social networking tool the tme where knowledge can be exchanged is expanded. The knowledge can be shared faster because the possibility to ask questons online about workshops for example. There is also more peer to peer educaton. Users can upload audio/video for other users to comment on. Users can listen to each others beats or view music videos. By peer to peer educaton online the knowledge transfer expands.

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Figure 42: Homepage of Roots & Routes with a short introducton of R&R, news and resent videos

Figure 43: Online profle of a user64

Problems encountered and lessons learned 64

The discipline of the user is displayed in the upper lef corner. The projects and actvites that the user partcipate in is displayed on the lef side. When partcipated in an event or actvity of Roots & Roots the user can become member of a group. The groups have a own environment where they can ask questons and ask advice at the (peer) coaches.

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The frst projects, tll 2003, focussed on users meetng the professionals and each other and develop their talents. It were short projects of about a week and were very intensive. Workshop, master class, performance at a festval and project was over. Partcipants were clear in that the projects were very cool, but everyone was back at home because there was no follow up. That was the startng point for Roots & Routes to think about the next step in this learning chain. This leaded to the development of summerscool and afer that a close partnership with the vocatonal educaton. To reach to target group has been an issue for a long tme. The word summerscool is not appealing by itself for the target group. This is addressed through working on branding and the deployment of users as ambassadors. Also working with professionals who are idols for the target group is an important strategy.

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9.19

Savvy Chavvy

According to the GRTHM, there are approximately 300,000 Gypsies, Roma and Travellers in the UK and the populaton has been established for over 500 years. The Children’s Society reports that nearly 90% of children and young people from a Gypsy background have sufered racial abuse at some point, and nearly 70% have sufered from bullying or have been physically atacked because of their background. The Department for Children Schools and Families recognises that the educatonal achievement of Gypsy Roma and Traveller youth is the worst in the country65. ‘Chavvy’ is the old Romany word for youth and the Savvy Chavvy project is atemptng to reclaim the word ‘chav’, which has acquired negatve connotatons in UK society, by providing young Gypsies and Travellers with a positve social networking space to communicate online. Other social networking sites, such as Facebook, provide no protecton from racial abuse for Gypsies and Travellers, and there are even Gypsy hate groups. The Savvy Chavvy network addresses this oversight and goes someway to translatng the strength of community existent on Gypsy sites to the web. Case profle – Savvy Chavvys in a nutshell Savvy Chavvy A social networking platorm for young Gypsies and Travellers

www.savvychavvy.ning.com) Website

htp://savvychavvy.blip.tv) (htp://www.onroadmedia.org.uk/)

Status


Interviewed person

Nathalie McDermot, Co-ordinator, Programme Delivery


On Road Media, UnLtd


Online, informal setng (e.g. home), community setng

Target group(s)

Young Gypsies and Travellers: young people from the Gypsy community who experience racial abuse on other social networks.

Number of users

3800 users


Primary school, secondary school


Combinaton of non-formal, informal


Social networking, media sharing (Blip.tv), blogs, podcasts


Users ‘own’ the site, and leaders from the online community are trained to administrate and moderate the site.

Short descripton and key characteristcs Savvy Chavvy began in 2008 as a training programme for young people from the Traveller and Gypsy communites in citzen journalism and social media, to enable them to tell 65

Figures and informaton from Gypsy Roma Traveller History Month (htp://www.grthm.co.uk/)

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their own stories. Its main functon now is to provide young Travellers with their own space to network, as previously there was nowhere for them to do this safely. Savvy Chavvy encourages members to use media as a democratc means of self-expression through which they can control how their community is perceived by others. Combining social media with web 2.0 technology, Savvy Chavvy gives young members of an ofen misrepresented and marginalised community the opportunity to take control of how they are portrayed. Supportng social life as much as social purpose, with much of the gypsy traveller community no longer able to move around, social networking is viewed as a way to counter declining community cohesion. Initally, the citzen journalism training initatve was funded by Mediabox (a government funding programme for initatves for young people), Unltd and Media for Development. Unltd provided funding for On Road Media to train fve diferent Gypsy groups in citzen journalism, enabling them to direct, shoot and edit their own short flms. Five groups were selected by On Road media and given one-week training courses to produce ten flms each. Both Unltd and Mediabox provided £1000 each per group for media training, with additonal funding for equipment (Gibson, 2009). Up to the end of 2009, the initatve has been provided with £82,000 funding. Even though external funding for the project has now ended, the online community has become self-sustaining, with trained members passing on knowledge and skills to new users. In the frst phase of the project, On Road Media worked with groups in Kent, Cambridgeshire and Surrey, and 50 young people were trained in citzen journalism. At frst it was difcult to reach young people and engage them to partcipate in the project, as many were wary of involvement of ‘outsiders’. Consequently, On Road Media recruited a Traveller journalist who was able to garner interest in the project amongst young people. The project was advertsed in ‘Traveller Times’ and was subsequently covered by the BBC. As the focus of the initatve shifed towards social networking, Savvy Chavvy expanded into a natonal online community, which had registered 2200 members by the end of 2008. It now has over 3,800 users, mainly recruited through ‘viral communicaton’ (i.e spreading word online). Dimension of learning and inclusion In the frst phase, the learning and inclusion aims of the project were to train young Travellers in citzen journalism and social media, and 50 young people partcipated in informal workshops to gain skills in these areas. Access to media equipment is stll available for young people who wish to contnue to make flms about their community, but the main emphasis of Savvy Chavvy is to allow young Traveller voices to be heard and provide a space online where the user group as a whole learns it can collaborate without fear of victmisaton. This enables young travellers to socialise online and share culturally relevant informaton. Innovatve elements and key success factors On Road media provided users with social media training, setng up a social network for young Gypsies and Travellers, and teaching them how to create video blogs and podcasts. Providing young people with the skills to produce their own videos enables them to fnd a voice for the stories that are unique to the Traveller community. Young people have made videos addressing serious topics such as migraton, bullying and racism, as well as topics of interest, such as Romany history, boxing and Slovakian hip-hop. These

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videos can be viewed on the Media for Development YouTube channel and are searchable by the public, although comments have been disabled.

Figure 44: Videos made by young Travellers about their interests, posted on YouTube

Whilst the frst members of the Gypsy and Traveller communites were engaged in the project through the citzen journalism workshops, the popularity of the Ning site with other members of the Gypsy community dictated the new directon for the project, and social networking became the main focus of the initatve. On the Ning site, users are able to share photos, post videos, fnd out about local or natonal events (e.g. horse fairs) and start or sign up to campaigns. Some users have emerged as natural leaders in the online community, and these are ofen young people who are not necessarily ‘realworld’ community leaders. These members are identfed by On Road media and provided with training to help them become administrators of the site and moderate content. This allows the site to become self-sustaining. In this way, the learning provided by Savvy Chavvy is indirect, functoning predominantly as a space for young Travellers to exchange ideas. The majority of content is user-generated and user-directed, although learning providers can use site to advertse courses. For the most part, content on the site focuses on linking up with family; exchanging informaton on events; moderated discussions on Roma issues; language; hobbies; uploading of photos.

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Figure 45: The Savvy Chavvy Ning platorm

The initatve has been hugely successful since it started out in 2008. By the end of its frst year, membership to the Ning site had reached 2200 users and now has over 3,800 users, which is representatve of a large proporton of the young Traveller community in the UK. In July 2008, the project was received the Catalyst Community Award for innovatve use of social technology to support communites and it was also nominated for the Community Actvism category in the New Statesman New Media Awards 2008. The real benefts are enabling young travellers to communicate with each other and to promote themselves and share their culture. They can now have discussions they couldn’t have had before without incurring racist abuse. The online community also allows users to stay in touch with other Travellers who have relocated or who have stopped travelling altogether. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the site has increased networking and has reinforced social tes. One of the key success factors of the initatve is its ownership by the users. Afer the frst phase, where users were trained in citzen journalism actvites, the initatve evolved into a private social networking space for young Travellers, and it was the users who determined this new directon. Their ownership and investment in the site allowed it to fourish and become a credible space for young travellers. The project co-ordinators believe that whilst the initatve is not technologically innovative, Web 2.0 tools help to support the inclusion of marginalised Gypsy and Traveller communites in the space of social media, which would otherwise be another area from which they are excluded. It provides the only social networking space for young travellers and uses a ‘listening and responding’ approach to young travellers’ needs. However, On Road Media take the view that ‘individual’ skills are a minor aspect of the inclusion outcomes of the programme. The bigger picture is that marginalised groups are able to access the same ICTs as mainstream groups so that the web doesn’t become ‘ghettoised’ and colonised by the mainstream.

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Problems encountered and lessons learned In the early stages of the project a Facebook group was set up to encourage young travellers to communicate online. Unfortunately, members of the group experienced racism and On Road media therefore set up a dedicated network using Ning. However, there were similar problems with racism at the start due to open registraton on the site, which allowed non-Gypsies to register. There is now a more complex registraton system which means that only young Gypsies and Travellers are permited to register and use the site, and leaders of the online community have been trained how to moderate the site and deal with any problems which may arise. As the site gained in popularity, there were some issues with hard-line travellers trying to take over site for their own politcal or ideological purposes. Again, these problems were dealt with within the community itself by the newly skilled administrators. The co-ordinators also had to address an inital lack of interest in the project and struggled to create a substantal user base at frst. They encountered user resistance to ‘another worthy project’ and had to work hard to get buy-in from the community itself to make it credible. There was also a degree of ‘culture clash’ between project co-ordinators and target users which caused further diferences. These issues were overcome by involving a ‘champion’ (the Traveller journalist) and building on the inital focus groups of young travellers who partcipated in the citzen journalism workshops.

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9.20

Schome Park

Schome Park was an element of the Open University’s Schome research initatve, and was actve from 2006-2008. It was established as a means of putng into practce some of the new learning theories and pedagogies proposed by Schome research staf at the Open University. The Schome initatve aims to overcome some of the problems of the current educaton system by building upon evidence from existng sources: learning theory (partcularly socio-cultural theory); cultural-historical actvity theory (CHAT); evidence from educatonal research (including practtoner and acton research) in areas such as motvaton, leadership, and the management of change .Ultmately, Schome hopes to bring together children, parents, policy makers, academics, students, home educators, employers, teachers and other practtoners from around the world as part of a community who will collaboratvely devise a new educatonal system. Case profle – Schome Park in a nutshell Schome Park Exploring the educatonal potental of virtual worlds

Website

htp://www.schome.ac.uk/ htp://www.schome.ac.uk/wiki/Main_Page

Status

No longer actve, running from 2006-2008

Interviewed person

Peter Twining, Project Director


The Open University, the Natonal Associaton for Gifed and Talented Youth, the Innovaton Unit, Becta


Combinaton of formal setng (e.g. schools) and informal setng (e.g. home) Young people aged 13-17. Whilst the project was not aimed solely at marginalised groups, the target group included: | students from the Natonal Associaton for Gifed and Talented Youth (NAGTY), who are deemed ‘gifed’ or ‘talented’ but who are underachieving in school

Target group(s)

| students from socially disadvantaged or ethnic minority backgrounds who are currently under-represented in higher educaton (GOAL) | students from Pupil Referral Units (PRUs) who have difcultes in mainstream schooling | students on the Autsm spectrum

Number of users

149 users


Secondary School




Virtual world, wiki, blog, chat, forum, social networking, mediasharing (YouTube, blip.tv, Flickr)


Co-learning, peer mentoring

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Short descripton and key characteristcs The Schome Park teen Second Life Project aimed to use virtual worlds to explore new educatonal possibilites. Through co-learning, the project sought to establish a genuine and inclusive learning community where students and teachers are able to learn from each other and contribute to developing a vision of what ‘the educaton system of the learning age’ should be like. The main goals of the project were: | To explore the educatonal potental and pitalls of Teen Second Life (it was the frst project in Europe to do so) | To develop the knowledge-age skills of partcipants, specifcally: communicaton, confdence, creatvity, leadership, motvaton, problem solving and teamwork | To try out alternatve approaches to supportng learning to inform thinking about visions for Schome (an educaton system for the informaton age). As part of the wider Schome program, (not school – not home – Schome) Schome Park aimed to develop ideas about future educaton through using virtual worlds to explore scenarios that would be difcult or costly to establish in ‘real-life’. The planning stages of the project began at the Open University in late 2006. There have been three phases of the project so far: | Phase 1: The Schome/NAGTY Pilot, January – May 2007. Members from NAGTY were asked to join and NAGTY actvely sought to recruit members who were underperforming at school. | Phase 2: June – December 2007. It included some of the original NAGTY students plus new students who were more representatve of the student populaton as a whole. During Phase 2 the frst group of students from the USA joined the project. | Phase 3: January – May 2008. It included some of the original students from Phases 1 and 2, and introduced more students from the USA. Phase 1 was funded by NAGTY and the Innovaton Unit. Phase 2 was funded by Becta. Phase 3 was funded by The Centre for Research in Educaton and Educatonal Technology, and the Pedagogy, Learning And Curriculum Research Group (both at the Open University). Dimension of learning and inclusion Schome Park is accessed through the Teen Second Life grid and all learning takes place in-world. Throughout the project, a wide range of actvites were organised around the three core strands (physics, archaeology, and ethics & philosophy) as well as a range of others led by staf (e.g. research methods, artfcial intelligence and machinima – making flms within Second Life) and by students themselves (e.g. a regata, a wedding, governance meetngs, a murder mystery evening, low prim building, chess matches, etc). Students did not undertake tests or courses as such, but they created material in-world and organised and atended scheduled actvites. Actvites were nornally arranged and published via in-world notceboard or on the wiki and forum. Students were able to attend the actvites that interested them, which usually took the form of an informal discussion, rather than a lesson. Communicaton in-world was usually via chat. Schome Park was designed to be an asynchronous learning environment which students could access, develop and build upon whenever they wanted to.

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Figure 46: An area of the Schome Park virtual learning platorm

The learning focus of the project was on ‘co-learning’, where each partcipant was able to direct and contribute to learning, regardless of their age or role in the project. Schome Park staf took on a mentoring, rather than a traditonal teaching role. They taught actvites yet were equally willing to learn from students and atend sessions organised by students. There was also a ‘buddy’ system, whereby older SParker students would support and advise new members. Most learning that took place was peer-learning and students were encouraged to ‘tap in’ to the expertse of the staf members and PhD students. The project team found that giving the students the opportunity to work alongside professionals and academics as a ‘researcher’ of learning in virtual worlds was a good incentve for most users to partcipate. Evidence suggests that users were able to develop their knowledge age skills and improve confdence and self-esteem, leadership, management, problem-solving, team-working and decision-making skills. Many users also developed advanced ICT, social media and Second Life skills. Whilst the focus of the project was not on inclusion, the team actvely recruited students from the Natonal Associaton for Gifed and Talent Youth (NAGTY) who are underachieving in school. Of these students, 23% were from ‘socially disadvantaged or ethnic minority backgrounds who are currently underrepresented in higher educaton’ (GOAL). In the second and third phases of the project, Local Educaton Authorites referred students from their Pupil Referral Units (PRUs) with behavioural problems at school. Consequently, a signifcant majority of the students involved in the program were marginalised to some extent by the mainstream school system and were ofered an opportunity to further their learning in a diferent environment. The project was especially successful with students who sufered from low self-esteem or experienced difculty communicatng in social situatons, as well as young people on the Autsm spectrum who might have difcultes with face-to-face learning. By using the Second Life platorm, learners do not have to deal with things like physical appearance or problems of social interacton, and this gives them more freedom to learn. The initatve was also valuable for learners who found it difcult to concentrate for long periods of tme, as they were able to decide when and for how long they used the Second Life platorm and take responsibility for their own learning. Unfortunately, the project team

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found that the initatve was less successful with their GOAL cohort, the young people from deprived backgrounds who were less likely to have access to the technology at home. Innovatve elements and key success factors As well as being one of the frst projects to research the educatonal potental of virtual worlds, the initatve was also innovatve for its use of several Web 2.0 technologies to support the learning programme. Additonal Web 2.0 tools included the Schome Park wiki; the Schome Park blog; SLogs (efectvely a blog which allows users to send messages and photographs to a web page from inside Schome Park so the students could blog as their avatar); blikis (collaboratve blogs which are not necessarily chronological); some students set up a radio staton which streamed music into the island and played over the internet. Students also created a series of Machinima flm projects, which they shared on YouTube and Blip.tv. Additonally, some students uploaded Second Life snapshots of their experiences of Schome Park to the project wiki, as well as to their own photostreams or Flickr.

Figure 47: The Schome Park ‘bliki’, a combinaton of a wiki and a blog.

One of the main successes of the project was establishing a genuinely collaboratve learning community. Staf notced that students initally had a very individualistc attude to their learning and what they could gain from the project. They worked on their own to create Second Life objects and took personal ownership of these objects. Staf gradually encouraged students to shif their focus away from what they wanted to do as an individual, to identfying the community needs and how they could work together to achieve them. Students were given greater control and responsibility over the governance of the island. In Second Life, users are allocated a limited number of ‘prims’, which are the objects that make up the environment, and students had to work collaboratvely to manage the number of prims and setle disputes about what was most benefcial to the community. There was also strong evidence of peer support amongst users, with SParkers ofen helping each other to learn how to achieve things within the virtual environment. Users

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were also able to leave each other feedback on the forums and blogs, for example ‘barn stars’ for good work. The project had a very positve impact on the personal development of its students. As mentoned above, many users were able to improve their self-esteem, confdence and teamworking abilites. Through using forums and the wiki, they were also able to develop empathy and refect on the opinions and ideas of others. One Schome Park user noted: “Because I've got as much tme as I want to compose a reply on the forums, I've become much beter at diplomacy, and it's pushed my empathy a long way, improving it in doing so. Generally speaking, I can get on with people a lot easier on the forums and inworld, and that's carried over into my social skills in the wider world.” The project also advocated the importance of diversifying learning and provided its students with an unconventonal curriculum. Through involving PhD students from the Open University and volunteers from other establishments, Schome Park was able to ofer a 125 diverse range of actvites, such as Artfcial Intelligence sessions. Students were able to correspond directly with specialists in the feld, giving them a wider view of educaton. Signifcantly, the initatve was able to reach beyond the achievements gained by students in-world, to link with real-world compettons and events. Some students had the opportunity to take part in the UKSC satellite competton, another group of students came second in the Learners Y Factor competton and met each other face-to-face in London to give a presentaton on their experiences of Schome Park archeology lessons. Problems encountered and lessons learned Technical: Second Life demands high bandwidth usage, which can potentally exclude users without a sufciently fast internet connecton and also requires users to have their own computer at home. These factors could be said to contribute to the “digital divide”. In Schome Park, this is thought to be why the GOAL cohort did not engage in the initative as much as other users. Students with basic or very poor ICT skills would struggle with the interface and some of the Second Life skills, although it has a ‘gaming’ aspect which is appealing and facilitates ease of use. Social/behavioural: Invariably there were disputes between students in the virtual world. These confict were usually resolved without the need for staf interventon. Schomers stated that the forum provided a benefcial environment for the resoluton of such issues. Organisatonal issues: Some staf members felt that there was lack of support for staf development and they sometmes lacked the necessary technical knowledge to achieve more ambitous tasks. Some staf members expressed the need for greater coordinaton and directon and development of understanding of the Schome Initatve and strategic development of publicatons. These problems were atributed to a lack of funding. Challenging cultural norms: Some staf and students found it difcult to adapt their thinking to a new way of structuring educaton and re-imagining teacher-student roles. This was especially evident in the third phase of the project when established groups of students and their teachers joined the community. These students found it difcult to

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experience what Schome Park was really like as they were stll behaving as if they were in a traditonal school environment. Measuring learning gains: Another issue involves formalising the informal aspect of learning in the project. It is difcult to monitor learning and improvement in-world as the expectaton is that students have more freedom than in a traditonal learning environment. Some staf felt that the project needed to establish links to the curriculum.

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9.21

Seniorkom.at

The phenomenon "digital divide" has been present since the coming up of the computers, informaton technologies and IT-related products and services. There always have been groups with a beter access to the new technologies than others. The divide can have many forms and includes for example: young vs. old, male vs. female, rich vs. poor, advanced societes versus less developed countries, etc. Especially the age related digital divide is excluding a big part of the populaton from digital literacy. The elderly populaton contnues to represent an increasing proporton of Austrian residents. It is estmated that 23 percent (1st quarter 2010, 1.926.845) of Austrians citzens are over the age of 60 years (Statstk Austria, 2010). This is 2 percent more than in the 1st quarter of 2002. Untl now it is difcult for seniors due to the lake of ofers and the limited atenton which has been paid to this important group in terms of access and use, to enjoy free access to informaton, knowledge and know how in the networked world. This circumstance recesses also the divide between the generatons. The consequences are exclusion and a growing lack of understanding between young and old. Technology can be an enormous help here in reducing isolaton and depression among the elderly. Case profle – Seniorkom.at in a nutshell Seniorkom.at

Website

htp://www.seniorkom.at

Status

Actve/running (2003 – ongoing)

Interviewed person

Mag. Gerlinde Zehetner, Manager, seniormedia marketng ges.m.b.H


Österreichischen Seniorenrates (AT), ECHO Medienhaus (AT), Telekom Austria (AT), Microsof Österreich (AT) and other partners like Die Grünen SeniorInnen Österreich (AT), Österreichischer Seniorenrat (AT), Österreichischer Gewerkschafsbund (AT), Österreichischer Seniorenring (ÖSR – AT), Pensionistenverband Österreichs (AT) und Österreichischer Seniorenbund (AT).


Combinaton of informal setng (online-presence e.g. at home and formal setng (presence workshops in all provinces of Austria )

Target group(s)

Mainly young oldies and retree between the ages of 40 to 80

Number of users

149 users


Lifelong/Adult Learning




Platorm, weblog, chat and discussion forum, web radio, social networking


face to face schooling programmes, mentoring

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Short descripton and key characteristcs Seniorkom.at (www.seniorkom.at) is a politcally independent initatve and one of the biggest and largest barrier-free platorms for seniors in the Internet and ofers informaton, services and a lot of latest (regional and natonal) topics as well as functonalites in the German language. It is made for elderly people who want to enjoy the Internet and don’t want to worry about it. The initatve Seniorkom.at was founded in 2003 and is an ongoing project of the Österreichischen Seniorenrat, the ECHO Medienhaus, the Telekom Austria and Microsof Österreich. There are a lot of other economic partners like Die Grünen SeniorInnen Österreich, Österreichischer Gewerkschafsbund (ÖGB) PensionistInnen, Pensionistenverband Österreich, Österreichischer Seniorenbund and Österreichischer Seniorenring which are supportng the campaign against the digital divide in Austria. The intended long-term impact of the initatve is on the one hand an increased awareness of this digital divide, on the other hand an increased number of elderly people interested and trained in ITskills. A lot of elderly citzen believe that they are too old for the Internet and to old to learn how to use a computer. This is not really surprisingly because the media illustrate the Internet to be made mainly for young people. Seniorkom.at provides awareness training in this area and tries to show the manifold possibilites. Therefore the aim of Seniorkom.at is to enable and facilitate the access to computer and Internet for seniors and to inspire elderly persons in new technologies also with intergeneratonal work. Seniorkom.at combines a lot of sustainable actvites for the multpliers of senior organisatons, policy and economy (awareness phase) as well as for the target group of the seniors (acton phase). Seniorkom.at is also a platorm for seniors from seniors and has made the 3rd place for the Constantnus Award 2004 in "Kommunikaton und Netzwerke" (Communicaton and Networks), has won the Jury Award at “The Federal State Award for multmedia and eBusiness” in 2005 and was awarded for the “European e-Inclusion Award” in 2007 in the category “Aging Well in the Informaton Society”. Therefore the interacton and actvity of the users is very important for Seniorkom.at. Since December 2009 Seniorkom.at has more than 13.300 actve users and catches the interest of more than three million visitors a year and 4.600.000 page views a month (Seniorkom.at, 2010). The target groups are mainly young oldies and retree between the ages of 40 to 80. The website is barrier-free and therefore also suitable for people with a handicap (e.g. blind persons). Seniorkom.at uses standards-based technologies and mainly (or only) open standards as well as an accessibility-compliant of minimum WAI AA (Web Accessibility Initatve htp://www.w3.org/WAI/) and additonally the barrier-free functonality tool easy2see, which ofers the possibility to increase and scale the text size, to change the colour contrast and to get navigatonal aid for Braille display users. The funding source comes from the private sector. Dimension of learning and inclusion The project contains a series of initatves such as face to face schooling programmes and learning events to inform the elderly about the benefts of computers and the Internet. The online portal provides relevant informaton on diferent themes for older people. Users can create their own content, communicate via forums, weblogs, chats and partcipate in creatvity contests.

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The main social politcal aim of Seniorkom.at is bridging the digital divide in Austria and to make sure that senior citzens are not lef out of the Informaton Society and are fully empowered to enjoy its benefts, which will contribute to improving their quality of life. Innovatve elements and key success factors Seniorkom.at provides the user an informaton and communicaton platorm with a member area, a ratng system and a search engine. The member area or club area ofers users the possibilites to partcipate interactvely and work actvely on their own user generated content like photos, videos and texts and to integrate them at Seniorkom.at. The users are the heart of Seniorkom.at with their various artcles, entries and photos. They can write comments, rate content, upload photos and videos (1) or take an actve part in rafes, games and votng’s as well as to communicate with others in the chat area. Seniorkom.at ofers informaton in the feld of health, well-being, love of life, security, recreaton & travelling and a lot of other topics. There are a lot of actve seniors who are contributng as hobby editors and are helping to create their platorm Web 2.0 with user generated content, weblogs (Tagebuch) (2), forums and Internet radio, to strengthen the community and to provide broad regional informaton and entertainment. Seniorkom.at ofers a newsleter service and games as well as a regional calendar for Austria. The platorm has an e-learning and edutainment area in which seniors can partcipate on knowledge games and memory trainings. The seniors are no longer only media consumers, but also more and more media designer and their own programme directors. The club area works like a virtual common room. In the forum (3) Seniorkom.at users can inform and exchange experiences as well as show their profle page to other users. Registered members can discuss in the forum to new and interestng topics and also the possibility to use the chat functon (4). Both the forum tool and the chat room allow members of Seniorkom.at to communicate with each other. Communicaton in the forum occurs not in real tme (asynchronously) which ofers a more structured dialog and communicaton through the chat room takes place in real tme (synchronously). Seniorkom.at registered for 2009, all together 516.895 forum contributons, thereof 117.365 have been new artcles.

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Figure 48: Part of the profl of a Seniorkom.at member

Registered users can also collect points at Seniorkom.at (5). The more points the users generate for their actvites the more possibilites they have and functonalites they can use at Seniorkom (e.g. photo album, own forum, chats etc.). The point system is divided into four levels. | Level 1: afer successful registraton: The frst level allow users to give inputs in the forum, to write entries into the guest book of other users, to create its own guest book, to write and publish comments on artcles, to use an own Seniorkom e-mailaddress, to administrate a friendship list and to atend on games and rafes. Furthermore it is also possible to notfy the staf about the breach of rules within the community. | Level 2: 1.000 points and more: In level 2 users can additonally open their own photo album and send in suggestons for crossword puzzles. | Level 3: 5.000 points and more: Level 3 ofers the opportunity to manage its own dairy (weblog) and to administer it in its own profle. The owner of the weblog can enable only her/his friends or all community members to read the dairy. In additon members of this level can open up and name chat rooms. | Level 4: 10.000 points and more: Is the highest level and user can also manage their own forum. Users can earn 20 points by visitng the website once a day. Furthermore the users get one point credited with nearly every click they make in the system and for every visit in their own profle. Depending on the level each member collects 1 to 4 decoratons, butterfies, stamps or cubes. The members can decide which of the badges they want to show next to their profle (6).

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It is also possible to add new friends (7) and members with the same interests to the profle. And if somebody wants to leave a note, this member can write a message in the guestbook (8). Mostly you get a lot of warm welcome greetngs at the beginning and that makes it easier for new members to overcome the inhibitons to reveal something from you personally. Since October 2009 Seniorkom.at launches its interactve Internet radio for members called “Radio Seniorkom.at – Wir drehen auf” (Engl. Radio Seniorkom,at – turning on). The service is presented in form of a nostalgic transistor radio (see fgure 1 below). One simple click on the replay buton and the user can hear the daily generated programme.

Figure 49: Radio Seniorkom.at – turning on.

Members can choose the music for the radio programme with „Wünsch dir was“ (What do you wish) as a fxed component of Radio Seniorkom.at. In the future, Radio Seniorkom.at will further develop the programme with special broadcasts and contributons (e.g. expert interviews…) where the users are strengthened involved in the design. It should be possible that members can become a programming director too. Seniorkom.at ofers cross-generatonal training courses free of charge in whole Austria. Elderly people learn from adolescents how to use the PC and the Internet and both sides beneft from this idea. The aim of the successful courses is mainly to release the computer barriers and to enable senior citzens to learn how to use the Internet in a useful, practcal and relevant way. Some of the courses are e.g. First steps in the Internet; Searching and fnding in the Internet; E-Mail, Skype & Co; Security in the Internet. Seniorkom marketng uses Logfles as well as Google Analytc (a web analysis service) to analyse the behaviour and usage of the users of Seniorkom.at and the website actvites itself. They steadily work with focus groups to improve their ofers and applicatons. Steadily the use of new technologies is being considered. Problems encountered and lessons learned “Lesson 1 - Connectng the generatons: By learning together with the help of the new technologies, the present barriers between the elderly and the young are reduced. Only

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those who understand the others' problems accept the interconnecton of the generatons, both virtually and in interpersonal relatonships. Lesson 2 - Sustainability and utlity of the internet: A major aim of the initatve is its durable efect. The communicaton of the young with the elderly will be promoted afer the "ofcial" trainings. Smaller groups are thus formed and they may get together afer the training sessions to ofer mutual help. A snow-ball efect thus occurs and it transcends the "teacher and pupil" framework. The knowledge transmited through the training will help the elderly not only to have access to the Internet, but also to improve their life standards with the help of the possibilites ofered by the digital world. eGovernment-Features help them to avoid travelling, they may overcome their loneliness in chat groups and they may take part in online bids. Lesson 3 - Enhancement of the elderly´s actvity. Seniorkom.at provides many features of interactvity. Users can discuss with others in the chats and panels. They fnd new friends, and they are blogging. They organise creatvity contests: users send pictures, videos and literacy and create a "website for senior citzens to senior citzens“. Seniorkom.at creates virtual communites as well as real possibilites of connectng people: natonal, internatonal and intergeneratonal.” (epractce.eu, 2010)

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9.22

TRIO

Social cohesion and inclusion are fundamental values expressed by the common vision that lies behind the so-called “European social model”, and primary objectves of the EU policies. Educaton and training are crucial factors to help to promote the integraton into the labour market of disadvantaged people at risk of marginalizaton. Furthermore, the advancements of ICTs changed deeply the basic knowledge and skills to meet the requirements of the labour market, and the way we think about educaton and training as well. The EC itself has recently drafed a new strategy for jobs and growth (Europe 2020), going far beyond Lisbon 2010 and focusing on knowledge and innovaton. It follows that learning can no longer be constrained into the boundaries of traditonal school and training rooms. The TRIO project, started twelve years ago, caught the frst signs of these changes and, in a certain sense, antcipated them. Case profle – TRIO in a nutshell T.R.I.O. Tecnologia Ricerca Innovazione Orientamento (Technology Research Innovaton Orientaton)

Website

htp://www.progetotrio.it/

Status

Actve and running (since 1998), in the third phase (since 2009)

Interviewed person

Luca Santoni, Regione Toscana (Italy) Alessandro Campi, Giunt Labs (Italy)


Regional administraton of Tuscany, through the ESF


On-line from home, in learning centres (“tele-training poles”), or at the workplace

Target group(s)

Employed/unemployed persons, persons in search of frst job

Number of users

About 180,000 registered users, 65,000 actve users


Adults, public/private organizatons


Formal


Moodle, other tools to be implemented in the next future (i.e. podcasts, virtual rooms, video sharing, etc.)


Traditonal e-learning courses

Short descripton and key characteristcs TRIO (Technology Research Innovaton Orientaton) is the system of distance/web learning promoted and owned by the Regional administraton of Tuscany66. It is a public portal giving free access to a wide variety of contents and services, and ofering learning

66

htp://www.regione.toscana.it/.

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opportunites to a large and heterogeneous audience at both the regional and natonal level67. The inital aim of the project was to face digital divide allowing citzens to access the contents provided through the TRIO portal. In the second phase, the project was developed involving a wide range of users, both individual users and public/private organizatons; to the later, in partcular, TRIO gave a support for the development of vocatonal training and requalifcaton programmes. In the third phase, the atenton was drawn to the critcal issue of competences certfcaton, regarded as a key factor for success in the labour market. The specifc mission of the project is lifelong learning. In the words of the project managers, “we tried to keep the focus on vocatonal training, which is our specifc mission. Our mission is to connect with the themes of work, both on general knowledge and specifc cross-cutng areas”. Key characteristcs The TRIO project started in 1998 and entered its third phase in 2009. It is funded through the European Social Fund by the Regional administraton of Tuscany, which is also the property owner of the web learning system; as such, the Regional administraton of Tuscany defnes strategies, draws guidelines, and carries out monitoring actvities. In the course of ten years of actvity, the project funds have been progressively reduced; this decline should be seen as physiological, since in the frst two phases the project had to face high implementaton costs, related to the set up of infrastructures and to the defniton of the catalogue of courses. Then, the system seems to have reached an equilibrium between costs, services provided, amount of users. In the current phase, TRIO is managed by a temporary associaton of three companies – i.e. Giunt Labs (head)68, Tecnofor69, and Brain Technologies70 – cooperatng with other companies identfed as sub-contractors (mainly high-tech, publishing, and consultng companies). The budget, in the three years contract period (2009-2011), amounts to a total of 5 million euro. At the very beginning, also provincial administratons, universites, trade unions, and private foundatons played an important role in the implementaton of the project. TRIO is mainly addressed to adults, either as individuals or as belonging to organizatons. In such a sense, two types of user groups can be identfed: i) “individual users”, who can have free access, although afer registraton, to the contents and services provided by the portal, either from home or from access points managed by the provincial administratons, so-called “tele-traning poles” (poli di teleformazione); ii) “web learning groups” (WLGs), i.e. groups of users belonging to organizatons, mostly private companies. It follows that there are three diferent locatons of the learning actvites, i.e. home, learning centres, and workplaces. The excluded group targeted is very wide,

67

Over 57% of users are from Tuscany, the rest are mostly from other Italian regions, while only a small part are from other countries – these are mainly Italian citzens resident abroad – as the portal is in Italian language

68

htp://www.giuntlabs.com/

69

htp://www.giuntlabs.com/

70

htp://www.brain.it/

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hence it could be further divided in two sub-groups: i) employed or unemployed persons; ii) persons in search of frst job. In the period from 2002, July 1 to 2010, March 15, the number of “registered” users has been 167,917, out of which 65,198 are “actve” users, who have atended at least a course in last 24 months. Dimension of learning and inclusion The main aim of TRIO is to increase the employability and enhance the basic knowledge and skills of persons excluded or at risk of exclusion from the labour market. Thus, the intended learning outcome is requalifcaton. To pursue this aim, the project is focusing more and more on the issue of “certfcaton” of learning actvites and competences. Another important concern for TRIO is the so-called “digital citzenship”. In partcular, there is a high demand for ICT and language courses. Most of accesses of individual users to the portal are for partcipatng in these kinds of courses. For this reason, TRIO is working on the certfcaton of ICT and language skills as well. The users belonging to organizatons, instead, are interested in a wider range of courses and services. Untl today, TRIO has provided about 450 courses, organized in 13 diferent thematc areas. The catalogue has been recently improved through the creaton of “didactc series” (collane didatche) and “learning pathways” (percorsi di apprendimento). The contents are assorted and diversifed. The 13 thematc areas are further subdivided in topics that gather together a range of specifc didactc modules. From this point of view, the system is developing along three axes, through the implementaton respectvely of: i) an “infoteque” (infoteca), dedicated to insttutonal informaton; ii) a “didateque” (didateca), a Moodle-based environment devoted to e-learning; iii) a “mediateque” (mediateca), for the collecton of pre-recorded virtual room events, podcasts, and video resources on the model of YouTube. It could be afrmed that TRIO is going beyond the borders of traditonal learning, although the courses – which are stll the core learning outputs – will contnue to be delivered through traditonal e-learning tools, such as e-books, html texts, Java and Flash applicatons, etc. In efect, the users are not involved in the producton of contents, and the courses are part of a publishing plan, defned year by year on the basis of the guidelines drawn by the Regional administraton of Tuscany. Hence, the provision of learning contents is a top-down process, and the learning approach that lies behind TRIO should be seen mainly as “transmissive”. From an operatve point of view, individual users are involved directly, with no intermediaton, in learning processes, whereas the users belonging to organizatons are supported by tutors. The TRIO project staf itself includes: i) “tutors” that support the users both online – through the portal – and of-line; ii) “trainers”, involved in the programmed events of virtual rooms. Very important, TRIO has been recently integrated in the “income support fund” programme (cassa integrazione guadagni) as a means for the requalifcaton of workers at high risk of unemployment, what can be seen as a case of efectve combinaton of passive and actve labour market policies.

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Figure 50: The TRIO home page

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Figure 51: A list of courses

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Innovatve elements and key success factors The case is innovatve in the natonal context. Innovatveness has to do more with political and insttutonal aspects rather than with technological aspects. Indeed, TRIO was one of the frst atempts in Italy to make a public policy on web learning on a large scale. In the words of one of the project managers, “at the very beginning, thinking that a public body could have been a provider of free web learning contents and services was itself innovatve”. At present, TRIO is a key component of lifelong learning, and of labour market policies on the whole, at the regional and provincial level. This pushes on the insttutonalizaton of technology-based innovatons in the feld of e-learning. In such a sense, public ownership and the mobilizaton of the main insttutonal, economic, and social forces in the territory should be seen as added values. Insttutonal innovaton is of primary importance to promote inclusion in the labour market. To do this, TRIO is now working on the issue of certfcaton. As pointed out again by a project manager, TRIO is now moving “from a system based on qualifcatons to a system based on skills. […] a system to certfy skills and all other key components of professional life, not only formal and insttutonal learning paths. […] a system that facilitates communicaton between diferent pathways, through which the professional life of people can be easily reconstructed startng from small bricks”. Moreover, this recogniton system should represent a motvatonal factor for the users: “they make sense of staying in front of a screen”. Another innovatve aspect of TRIO concerns the choice of planning and investng in learning actvites at the workplace, through the development of dedicated environments. The WLGs beneft from the customizaton of the portal according to the needs and characteristcs of the organizaton that is going to use it. From the point of view of technology, TRIO was initally designed as a web learning platorm based on a proprietary sofware (SABA). In 2010, it has moved to a new platform, based on an open-source sofware (Moodle). This choice was made by the Regional administraton of Tuscany for ethical, economic, and organizatonal reasons, since an open-source sofware is low-cost and requires no licence fees, is easily customizable 71, and allows the project staf to have fexibility and autonomy in the management and further development of the system. This is also coherent with the idea of developing TRIO maintaining “accessibility” as one of its basic features. In fact, no specifc ICT skills, but only basic e-skills – such as browsing, e-mailing, etc. – are required to use the platorm. In partcular, to access the courses the users have only to register and log in, either from home or from any other place. The TRIO system includes forums and chat rooms, and is now implementng Web 2.0 tools – such as podcasts, virtual rooms, video resources, and “wiki” tools, which will allow the users to produce own contents – thus moving a step towards a more “collaboratve” understanding of learning, even though the contents produced by the users will remain in the context of a social-networking environment, not being regarded properly as “learning” contents. Problems encountered and lessons learned In general, no negatve or unforeseen impacts have been identfed from the point of view of learning and inclusion. The major concern is for the high “school mortality”. Nevertheless, the project managers have pointed out that, from 2002 to 2010, about 71

The sofware has been partally re-adapted to meet the specifc needs of the project.

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84% of actve users have atended a second course and that, in 2010, TRIO has provided an average of about 28,000 training hours per month. Another critcal aspect is that the collaboratve tools – e.g. forums – are not frequently used. According to a local tutor, most of users are not skilled or motvated or, more simply, do not need to use this kind of tools. In such a sense, the role of a human tutor/facilitator remains central. Conversely, the forum for practtoners – e.g. tutors – is more and more used. The problems faced by TRIO were mainly ordinary, related to the defniton of the catalogue, the design of courses, and the creaton of learning support services. In the current phase, the key issue is the development of a certfcaton system.

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9.23

Web in the Hood

Trust between inhabitants in a neighbourhood is not something that is naturally anymore. People in the neighbourhood know each other less, move more ofen, have different backgrounds and spend more tme in places other then the neighbourhood. Yet, everyone wants to live in an comfortable environment. But: Who takes care of our houses if we are on vacaton? Who checks if everything is ok? These are common matters that were we need trust for between people. The queston is how we can support this trust in a neighbourhood. This trust depends on what we know from the neighbourhood and its inhabitants, what we do together and what we share. This trust we can build by informaton and social cohesion and cultural actvites. And this is what Web in the Hood is all about: Use internet as a tool to create more trust in the neighbourhood. Case profle – Web in the hood in a nutshell Web in the Hood Self organizing ability supported by ICT in the neighbourhood.

Website

htp://www.webindewijk.nl

Status


Interviewed person

Else Rose Kuiper


Commissie dag indeling, EQUAL-ESF.


Digiroom. Physical locaton in the neighbourhood for non-formal (courses) and informal actvites (social networking).

Target group(s)

All neighbourhood inhabitants.

Number of users

In Emmen and Almere combined there are approximately 800 users who actvely use the web toolbox.


Adult educaton.


Non-formal and informal actvites.


Social networking tools, blog, media tools.


E-skill courses for people who have a distance to ICT.

Short descripton and key characteristcs Web in the Hood is a project that builds trust between inhabitants in a neighbourhood by meetng and under take actvites with other inhabitants. Inhabitants can use the internet to support three functons. Inform, communicate and organize. Key characteristcs Web in the Hood is funded by the commission day schedule. The commission day schedule is an initatve of the ministry of social maters. There were three partners during the 219

implementaton. The informaton workplace (informatcs) , Emmen revisited (Neighbourhood development) and Breaking dishes (Concept development). The web-design and technical implementaton of Web in the Hood was realised by natonal foundaton Web in the hood and Q42. Dimension of learning and inclusion Web in the Hood is an approach that uses ICT to stmulate social processes in the neighbourhood. Web in the Hood focus on people who have a distance to ICT. The aim is to let inhabitants use ICT in their daily lives to make contact with other people in the neighbourhood by showing the benefts of ICT in basic e-skill courses. The easy sofware let inhabitants make websites in a easy way to give the inhabitants a voice in the neighbourhood to empower inhabitants and the enhancement of networks in the neighbourhood. The enhancements of networks is done by the animator who connect the inhabitants behind the websites and stmulate people to undertake actvites together. This leads to more connecton between people and so more social cohesion, more understanding, inclusion and collaboraton between groups and a increase of employability. Innovatve elements and key success factors Web in the Hood follows a innovatve approach and provides a website toolbox. With this toolbox inhabitants can make a website in 4 easy steps so that all diferent strata of the populaton can make a website with the content they desire. Animators are the social professionals who stmulate the inhabitants of the neighbourhood to make a website and helps the inhabitants to fll in their own content. Animators are the driving power in the neighbourhood and are physical present in the neighbourhood to make inhabitants enthusiastc and assist the inhabitants. They also create physical meetng places (digirooms) as their home base and a meetng place for inhabitants. Inhabitants can use the digirooms to socialize, exchange ideas and use the devices that they don’t have their available at home. One of the key success factors of Web in the Hood is that allot of tme is invested to convince inhabitants that they also can make websites to support their own actvites and can be benefcial in their daily life. Further more Web in the Hood always look for other initatves to cooperate with.

220

Figure 52: Make a website with the toolbox

The pictures show how easy it is to make a website with the toolbox. The frst step is to select the nature of the website, a website to make your own content or a website to organize a actvity. The second step is creatng the name of the website and create the URL. The third step is the choose the layout of the website. Now the website is done and online. The fourth picture is the toolkit where you can edit the website and fll the website with your own content. Problems encountered and lessons learned At frst the Web in the Hood approach was focussed at: For inhabitants by inhabitants. Inhabitants can make the websites themselves and inhabitants can organize Web in the Hood all by them selves without the help of insttutons and animators. This is stll a utopia but it isn’t realistc in most cases. Web in the Hood realized that the social professional (animator) is very important for the trust of the inhabitants.

221

9.24

XenoCLIPse

The empowerment of minorites and migrants as media agents is a key issue since these groups have been rarely actvely involved in the process of representaton in the mainstream media. In the global informaton society, new technologies represent a fundamental tool for poor-resource communites in order to engage in communicaton and representaton processes. However, the quality of contents the we ofen meet online are quite poor, fragmented, isolated and this limit the possibility to link or to represent an alternatve to mainstream media. The provision of high technological skills may facilitate the empowerment of these groups. Case profle – XenoCLIPse in a nutshell XenoCLIPse Digital video clips by ethnic minorites

Website

htp://www.xenoclipse.net

Status

Finished (2007 – 2009)72

Interviewed person

Cilia Willem – Laboratori de Mitjans Interactus, University of Barcelona (ES)


European Commission, eLearning Programme


Combinaton of formal setng (university) and informal setng (home; streets)

Target group(s)

Cultural-ethnic minorites and migrants, associatons and intermediaries, individuals (every person since the access to the web tools was free)

Number of users

The ofine courses engaged 15 persons in each country (Spain, Belgium, Germany, Norway), so a total of 60 persons. In Barcelona, half of the students belong to Roma minority. In Germany, Turkish people were the main target. The online courses are used by more people.


Not relevant, though university students were engaged for the experimentaton of the tools.


combinaton of formal, non-formal, informal


Videos are produced by students but are uploaded through the mediaton of the project stuf. Web 2.0 approach can be found mainly in the geo-referental database, which provides journalists with personalized ways to reach referees around the world.


Tutors and mentors

72

The online training tool is stll actve since the Universitetet i Stavanger, which is a partner of the project, decided to maintain the service on their server.

222

Short descripton and key characteristcs XenoCLIPse is an acton-research, a project about race, media and empowerment. Afer the successful experience of the consortum’s frst collaboraton, eCLIPse, this new project envisaged empowerment through creatng access to new technologies for immigrants and minorites. The main tool is digital video and its distributon on the net. The idea is to allow people who have difcultes accessing new media and technologies to make and distribute their own informaton in an easy way and to pass on this knowledge and skills to their peers. To achieve this, the project opted for a double approach: 1) Face-to-face and on-line training for target group, and 2) Development of a directory/address book. Key characteristcs XenoCLIPse (2007 – 2009; htp://www.xenoclipse.net) is funded by European Commission through the eLearning Programme with 200,000 euro. The partnership includes the Laboratori de Mitjans Interactus, University of Barcelona (ES; coordinator), XenoMedia Comunicació-Mugak (ES), Universität zu Köln (DE), Universitetet i Stavanger (NO) and Universiteit Gent (UG) Gent (BE). The network is extended to a number of associatons such as MiraMedia (Utrecht, The Netherlands), Cospe (Florence, Bologna, Italy), JFC (Cologne, Germany), Media Educaton Centre (Serbia). The project addresses cultural-ethnic minorites and migrants; associatons and intermediaries as well as individuals (every person since the access to the web tools was free). The ofine courses engaged 15 persons in each country (Spain, Belgium, Germany, Norway), so a total of 60 persons. In Barcelona, half of the students belong to Roma minority. In Germany, Turkish people were the main target. The online courses are used by more people.73 XenoCLIPse share good practces with other projects such as Roots&Routes (www.rootsnroutes.org), eMigra (htp://www.e-migra.org/) and Chicam (htp://www.chicam.org/) Dimension of learning and inclusion XenoCLIPse is a project for the empowerment of minorites as media agents. Its aim is to improve the naturalisaton of the image and representaton of ethno-cultural minorites in the media partcularly, and in society in general. The online course has been developed through a collaboratve approach and using audiovisual resource (i.e. several video interviews were made in Barcelona; Online: htp://www.xenoclipse.net/all_videos.php?act=4). Adaptve on-line courses are delivered through de-structuring the access to learning modules. A voice accompanies the interacton between the user and training tools. This technique makes the content more accessible, especially for those not used to read or having difculty in understanding. For example, the entry 'narratve' is very helpful for immigrants who are familiar with a European language but not with reading.

73

A proxy indicator of online users is represented by the number of evaluaton's questonnaires that were flled online. At the end of the frst round experimentaton of the online course were collected 52 questonnaires. In total, 188 questonnaires were collected from 2007 to 2010. The questonnaire is accessible to the following link: htp://www.xenoclipse.net/evaluaton/index.html

223

Figure 53: The online course of XenoCLIPse

Media Literacy for cultural and ethnic minorites who have migrated to or are resident in the European countries involves two diferent dimensions: | 'reading': being able to (critcally) analyse media messages | 'writng': being able to produce media messages and distribute them It is especially the second dimension ('writng', producton) that the project wanted to enhance, by creatng a basic but thorough online module on audiovisual producton: www.xenoclipse.net/online_course.php. This course is freely accessible on the web and is promoted and disseminated addressing associatons and organizatons related to the feld. In the ofine actvity, each partner can adapt contents to its selected contexts and issues. The fnal goals is to teach people how to produce an interview in a professional way. The (e)inclusion approach can be found also in the second actvity of the project: the producton of a data base of contacts between journalists and people from minority groups or diferent ethno-cultural backgrounds. This ‘address book’ aims to improve the visibility of minorites in the media on one hand, and promote the involvement of minority groups as media makers on the other.

224

Figure 54: The online course of XenoCLIPse

A directory for each partcipatng country is being created thanks to the involvement of associatons and non-governmental organisatons, who have been working on these issues for the last few years. Partcipants can subscribe at: htp://www.xenoclipse.net/address_book.php See also Address book (htp://ad.mugak.eu/) Innovatve elements and key success factors The project combines the sociological dimension (analysing media in society), the educatonal dimension (use of new technologies for educaton), the technological aspect (digital video for the web) and the psychological dimension (impact of images on the way people think). The project facilitates media appropriaton by immigrants. Video clips are made by the ethnic minority groups involved in the project (short flms, documentaries, news items… clips) and distributed on the net through a streaming server. The on-line course is adaptve and accessible. A geo-referental database was implemented and used to empower immigrants in terms of their visibility in media; this applicaton is very original. The projects has efectvely contributed to increase the mainstream media awareness about ‘diversity’. The involvement of migrants groups and associatons and high skilled persons (in technology and journalism) was a key success factor. Another key success factor was the awareness campaign that addressed the mainstream media. Indeed, the projects has efectvely contributed to increase the mainstream media awareness about ‘diversity’. In the second phase, the project organized several seminars and conferences with local media, which have shown high interest and partcipaton (i.e. TV3). The project thus demonstrated how mainstream media can play a key role as ‘transformatonal agents’.

225

Problems encountered and lessons learned The project was designed social networks start to widespread but they weren’t so common in Spain and in other target countries. Besides, the project’s aim was to address empowerment through providing high media skills and it was not so clear how to do this through experimental web 2.0 applicatons. Furthermore, implementng the online course in Flash 9 arose some doubts. On the one hand, this choice meant that a plug-in had to be downloaded by users. The fact that the course is online already implies a certain level of digital literacy in the end-user, though this is a widespread technology. On the other hand, the advantage Flash ofered was a high degree of interactvity, needed for the kind of actvites the prjoject wanted to include in the module, most of which are self-corrected exercises. The project manager thinks that at the end of the day, the trade-of for Flash implementaton was positve. A last point regards the insttutonalizaton of the innovatons developed with the project. XenoCLIPse has become an essental tools for training actvites in the feld. The tools and approached used best match the idea of blended learning.

226

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