Introduction
The greatest health crisis experienced by the world in this century has radically changed the way we relate to each other. Face-to-face interaction has been reduced to a minimum and it is increasingly common to communicate through a screen. The same has happened to millions of students, teachers and families, who have seen that from one day to the next they went from a face-to-face educational system to online classes.
This change, unexpected and hardly planned, has caused numerous problems in education: 1) students who have lost their learning group and their mentors due to connection problems, lack of appropriate and sufficient devices or technological inability to keep up with the pace of online classes, 2) teachers who have had to abandon their face-to-face dynamics and adapt in a few days to huge videoconference rooms full of people who do not know the codes of conduct and communication of remote classes, 3) families overwhelmed by a situation that disrupts all their work and home planning, who find many difficulties to support and facilitate the online learning of young people, 4) school leaders are under pressure to make center-level decisions to address the pandemic and are often unaware of best educational practices in these cases and are going in blind.
In this rough sea, we aim to provide clear guidelines for sailors to deploy or retract their sails when necessary. The aim of this project is to provide students, teachers, schools leaders and families with tools to make appropriate decisions facing the conflicts that COVID-19 has caused in the processes of learning, communication and socialization of the school community.
The methodology proposed in this project aims to be radically different from previous attempts to raise awareness among students about good behaviour on the net, the management of their autonomy and appropriate and safe social relations. With this objective, we will develop a fictitious social network in which we will reliably represent the potentially dangerous scenarios that can occur in this context (IO1). This network will be used as a social sandbox where different automated profiles (social bots) will behave inappropriately and interact with the fictitious profiles created by the students. From the interaction with these social bots, students will be able to understand which behaviors are not appropriate or safe in a practical way.
The transnational consortium that has been created to carry out this project is the key to ensuring its success. The experience in the coordination of projects and the research that the team of UDEUSTO has been carrying out in the development of games and in the development of key competences is going to suppose a key piece to guarantee the success of SAILS. In addition, the experience of entities like EA and ESHA in their work with leaders in schools is going to allow that the changes and innovations are established at school level and that they transfer the barriers to the society. Besides, the experience of IPA and PPAA and their connection with several networks of families and other agents is going to allow to obtain an impact, not only in school environments, but at a higher impact level.
ESHA
ESHA, the European School Heads Association, is a professional organization for European School Heads. Members of ESHA are national organisations for school heads and deputy school heads within (pre-) primary, secondary and vocational education. Nearly all European countries (both EU and non-EU) are represented within ESHA by one or more organisations.
ESHA is an international community in which experiences, visions and views between members are exchanged and in which new ideas are born. ESHA connects school leaders, researchers and policy makers with the collective aim to learn from each other and improve education.
IPA
Stichting IPA (Parents International) is established with the mission of supporting parents around the world to become game-changers by helping their children to grow up happy and healthy 21st century citizens. By becoming the best parents of our children we can ensure the future of not only our children, but also the well-being of mankind. The UN Convention the Rights of the Child, the piece of legislation that establishes the rights and duties of parents for the best interest of their children, has been ratified globally, in all countries except the USA. European parents have 30 years of experience working for protecting the rights of their children by joining forces in a European organisation.
Global challenges, as well as local ones that may be faced knowing answers from other localities call for a wider cooperation among parents from all over the world. This is the reason why this foundation is calling working with experienced parents’ representatives (active and formal) and professionals, including teachers, social workers, researchers, psychologists, teacher trainers, economists, students, policy makers, youth workers, etc. who are interested in supporting parents, in a global parents’ alliance that works for the best interest and well-being of children all over the world especially by
- supporting parents to become the best educators of their children;
- increasing parental involvement in all forms of education, with special focus on formal education, for thinking and acting together for education suitable for 21st century children in the post-PISA period;
- fighting illiteracy, promoting reading;
- working towards equal opportunities for girls and women, education of girls and mothers;
- supporting parents in becoming the main advocates of the rights of the child;
- demanding that the right to mother tongue and mother culture, even for migrants is granted;
- supporting to raise digital literacy levels and thus and living in the digital age;
- providing for empowerment for active citizenship and participation;
- fighting xenophobia, hate speech, exclusion, supporting inclusion for a peaceful future
PantallasAmigas
PantallasAmigas is a Non Profit Organization based in Bilbao (Spain) since 2004 working with a global scope. It´s mission can be summarized as the improvement of digital education, citizenship and wellbeing for kids and teens, from a children rights perspective. Awareness campaigns and development of educational resources are two of its main activities.
University of Deusto
With a long and well established tradition, founded in 1886 as a higher education institution, the University of Deusto has a mission and educational goal firmly grounded in academic excellence and social responsibility, aiming at generating economic sustainable growth and making positive contributions towards the construction of fairer and more inclusive and humane societies. Academic excellence for the University of Deusto is reflected in its commitment to innovative methods of learning.
LearningLab, the research group at the Faculty of Engineering, works to improve STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths) learning and teaching in formal, non-formal and informal settings. We develop R&D projects to engage and raise the interest of young people in STEM related areas through innovative methods and tools.
Ellinogermaniki Agogi (EA)
Ellinogermaniki Agogi (EA) is an educational organization of private law, officially recognized by the state. Established in 1995, the Research and Development Department of EA provides the test bed for research applications for the design, development and implementation of the research activities in education. The R&D Department acts therefore as an interface between the pedagogical research, the technological innovation and the school community. It focuses on the design, implementation and support of pedagogical and technological innovations in educational practice, both through internal research as well as through collaborations with numerous educational, research and commercial institutions in Europe and the world.
EA is an institutional member of EDEN (European Distance Education Network), of STEDE (Science Teacher Education Development in Europe) and of ECSITE (European Network of Science Centres and Museums) network, as well as a partner school of the German Schools-Excellence Network.