Abstract:

Schools have been acknowledged as critical agents in the integration of digital technologies in their practice. As such, they are requested to take as part of their role, the adoption of a critical and strategic stance towards the integration of technologies in their practice. There are several tools designed to facilitate this process of critical thinking [1]. In this category of tools belongs SELFIE (Self-reflection on Effective Learning by fostering the use of Innovative Educational Technologies) [2] which is a customizable self-reflection tool designed to help schools to identify what are their weak and strong points in the use of digital technologies. The report generated by SELFIE is meant to be used as a basis for discussion and action towards the digital development of the schools.

Feedback from schools using SELFIE [3], has shown that data interpretation of the report and action taking based on this data is not a straightforward task. The difficulties relate to aspects of expertise but also to allocation of resources. In a piloting of SELFIE in UKR with 94 schools and 20.845 participants in total, data interpretation and action planning were supported by a data masterclass and a hackathon respectively. Hackathons have been described as collaborative development events where people with different backgrounds work together on development projects in a specific period of time [4]. There two elements encountered in hackathons, which make them appropriate to support schools in designing their digital development plans: Hackathons being a form of innovation crowdsourcing, are appropriate when knowledge in a domain is in its infancy which is the case for the schools as we showed above. Furthermore, the structure of a hackathon can facilitate ideation and rapid knowledge generation combining the expertise of different people and taking advantage of collective intelligence. The second element is that hackathons are also sprint production events, which means that at the end of the hackathon there is not only a clearer idea but also a concrete output. This addresses one of the key problems for schools and teachers, which is the lack of time [5]. In this paper, we present the implementation of a school hackathon in Ukraine in 2021 with 60 schools and we analyse the key outputs of this experience showing how these kind of events can play a critical role in schools’ digital capacity.

References:
[1] P. Kampylis, Y. Punie & J., Devine, (2015); Promoting Effective Digital-Age Learning - A European Framework for Digitally-Competent Educational Organisations; EUR 27599 EN; doi:10.2791/54070
[2] SELFIE https://education.ec.europa.eu/selfie
[3] T. Nanaieva, A. Brolpito & N. Giannoutsou (2021). SELFIE Pilot Ukraine - Country Report. European Training Foundation and Joint Research Centre. https://bit.ly/3yxMMkr
[4] Kollwitz, C., & Dinter, B. (2019). What the Hack? – Towards a Taxonomy of Hackathons. In T. Hildebrandt, B. F. van Dongen, M. Röglinger, & J. Mendling (Eds.), Business Process Management (pp. 354–369). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26619-6_23
[5]Castaño, M. J., Weikert, G. L., & Herrero, R. C. (2021). Analysing the digital capacity of Spanish schools using SELFIE (No. JRC125197). Publications Office of the European Union. https://doi.org/10.2760/947402

Keywords:

Technologies in teaching and learning, whole school approach, hackathon, digital skills, digital capacity of schools.