Introduction
The aim of this booklet is to help adult educators to learn how to be able to transfer their work online while maintaining its interactive element and ensuring high quality standards. This should serve as an introduction of adult educators to innovative digital methods and a great variety of digital tools they can use and apply in their work, along with a detailed description of how they can use them, where to apply them, what to avoid and how to resolve any upcoming issues, that will significantly raise their capacities in digital education and familiarize them with the digital transformation that our times require.
This initiative is implemented within the project ‘’Turning Digital’’ - building sustainable adult e-learning system working towards providing beneficiaries opportunity for skills development, which is implemented in partnership between Business Innovation Program, Connect Interna-tional and Backslash, within Erasmus + KA210-ADU - Small-scale partnerships in adult educa-tion action framework.
According to Eurostat[1] , in year 2021, 95% of young people in Europe used the internet daily, while 64% of young people use it to learn about different subjects. Between 2019 and 2021 the share of young people in the EU who did an online course increased 2.6 times from 13 % to 34 %.
These statistics point out that young people choose the internet for activities they have used to do in-person in the past. Global research data show that about half of online university students are millennials (ages 28-38), about one-third are from Generation X (ages 39-54), and the remainder is split between baby boomers (ages 55-73) and Gen Zers (ages 18-22). Many fac-tors impact re-enrolling adults’ decision for additional education including: courses and training that fit their schedule (61%), guaranteed employer outcome (ex: wage increase) (59%) and quali-ty online and distance learning opportunities (44%). Eight out of 10 adult learners are interested in pursuing online learning.
Adult learners over the age of 35 were more than five times as likely as learners under age 26 to say that online or virtual classes had always been their preference[2].
As part of this project, a survey was conducted among the education practitioners. It can be con-cluded that, in general, teachers and other training staff don’t have difficulties in utilizing digital sources for preparation of teaching material and the entire distance learning process. The biggest room for improvement is evident in the area of relevant learning theories and different methods in planning lessons/activities when it comes to digital tools. Majority of participants could still benefit from presentation and capacity development of the latest learning theories and methods. Implementation of the teaching process. In general, vast majority of educators rate their readiness to provide online education as high and are willing to participate in those activities. The results are somewhat different when it comes to utilization of specific online learning tools, so that shows room for capacity building in that regard, thus the clear need for a guide such as this.
Improvement is also needed in the monitoring interaction and communication between students in the distance learning process and possibilities for cooperation with colleagues when imple-menting the teaching process. In general, respondents report that they use digital tools when evaluating their work through reflection. Respondents were adult educators coming from various formal educational institutions and some non-formal education providers.
There are so many wonderful interactive tools available online, and many seamlessly integrate with other applications. But which tools should you choose for your participants and students? The results of the survey show that vast majority of respondents use almost all given platforms and tools when creating the content and implementing their activities. Traditional tools like Pow-er point and Moodle are still the most popular, while newest apps like Padlet and Quizlet are less known to the respondents. Video content is particularly popular and the majority uses smart phones and combination of in-class and self-study apps.
The answers show that the most common utilization of digital tools is for instructing students to use hardware and software for assignments and giving feedback. Also, the majority of respond-ents feel like they effectively organize activities in the digital environment, while they also strug-gle with maintaining positive atmosphere and working conditions during class while using digital tools.
This booklet should help educators make the right decisions on which applications suit their vari-ous online subjects the best.
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