GIE - The Group for European Integration

onTrain

Title and acronym: Online training: the treasure within [onTrain]

Project type: Erasmus+ Project for Cooperation for Innovation and Exchange of Good Practices – Strategic Partnerships for Adult Education

Ref. no.: 2018-1-ES01-KA204-050702

Webpage: www.ontrain.eu

Promoter /Coordinator: Universitat Jaume I de Castellon, ES

Duration: 01.11.2018 to 31.10.2020

Actual stage: In progress

Total project grant: 274.960 Euro

Total expenditure (grant) for the University of Pitești: 30.800 Euro

Local coordinator for the University of Piteşti: Dr. Georgeta CHIRLEȘAN

Summary:

Online learning environments are widely used by training institutions but those tend to be used as delivery of content, still a huge capability of those environments and teaching method is missed. Also, a lot of practitioners are engaged with training activities not being educators (tutors, facilitators, coach, mentors, team leaders, human resources departments…). The necessary background of pedagogies and techniques is missed and theoretical manuals are not the best way to make that kind of people acquire the necessary skills. They need some effective and very practical way to learn. They have a lot of experience and expertise teaching face-to-face, but when having to do training on-line, they miss the digital skills and affordance of the technological capabilities.

We do not aim to create a manual for trainers, as there are a lot of already existing ones. We want to create an online course, together with a student's workbook to teach directly future online trainers. We will reduce the theories to a minimum while focus on exercises and practice so they will feel the online environment as a learner.

The title of the project “online training: the treasure within” makes reference of our target activity, that is “training”, and the treasure makes reference to all the benefits that can be obtained from online learning:

(1) learning the subject course

(2) new learning methods based on net-society

(3) applied ICT competences, including soft-skills and transversal digital competences.

Main target of this project are the trainers and educators (tutors, facilitators, coach, mentors, team leaders, human resources departments…) that want to start to offer their training using online platforms.

Objectives:

We aim to create a learners’ coursebook and an online course for trainers with low ICT skills and technological pedagogies so they can learn and feel by themselves the application of technology enhanced education methods, techniques and tools, so they acquire the necessary skills and competences to become successful online trainers (1st aim).
We want to support them and facilitate the transferability of the skills and competences learnt to their own subject (2nd aim).
Those skills include the use of technology for collaboration, creativity, problem solving, teamwork, etc. A tool will be made available (as online service), so they can use the lessons learnt in their own teaching activities (3rd aim)

Outcomes:

1) Trainers’ book:

A useful book for trainers (now becoming learners) without experience in ICT teaching, so they will learn about techniques, methods and tools they can apply during online teaching. Although pedagogy theories will be introduced, this will be done from a very practical way.

This guide will be used together with the ICT-based learning platform as a course that will help them to acquire the necessary skills and competences so they can later deliver their training by ICT-based means.

2) Online course:

An ICT platform the 8-10 online activities focused on the selected topics. We are not going to offer web-services for a specific topic or course (as arts, history, economy, science, etc), but we are going to create web-services as an educational activity, so trainers will be able to use and adapt in their own learning context, promoting by this way the transferability of our output.

We maximise the possibilities of transferability by facilitating trainers, after the course, the use of techniques and tools in their own courses and learning activities based on their own needs (the access of those tools and services will be free).

Partnership: