PLACEDU – Digital social place for the next normal in education

PLACEDU aspires to help HE institutions manage their shift toward digital education.

Grant Agreement Number: 2021-1-LT01-KA220-HED-000023512

Funded by: Erasmus+ Duration: 01-11-2021 – 01-11-2023

Challenge

After the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, one of the main challenges that the majority of higher education institutions had to face was to offer added value when teaching remotely, lacking thus the aspects of physical learning. To stay relevant and provide added value to students, higher education institutions should reinvent the models they use when dealing with complex online learning challenges.

Innovation

The goal of PLACEDU is to provide higher education institutions with the necessary skills to address challenges related to remote learning, while supporting them to create as much social value in the digital environment as they do in in-person settings.

Action

The Mobile ethnography focuses on the understanding of the educational aspects that are challenged the most when the learning process is shifted to the digital environment. The mobile ethnography tool provides observations in new ways, laddering insights up to different opportunity spaces — all things that may have been missed previously. Furthermore, a best practices analysis and desk research aim to identify what are the actual needs of teachers and students.

The Digital Social Place platform is designed for educators who want to enhance the human and inclusive aspects of e-learning. It provides tools to promote online interaction among students, blend traditional and digital learning environments, and monitor the signs of students’ isolation. It also enables peer-to-peer activities to facilitate learning.

The training course provides teachers with skills on how to deliver fulfilling education for students via e-learning and how to address challenges such as students’ isolation, lack of communication.