Abstract:

This paper presents an innovative approach to convey digital competences to adults. The method has been developed in the frame of the Erasmus+ project CICERO (2018-1-SE01-KA204-039051).

Digital competences are necessary to act as a citizen in society as well as to manage every day’s life. Digital competences are defined in Europe by the DigComp framework of the European Commission. The last DigComp report states that in average 56 % of the European inhabitants have the expected competences.

Observing pictures published in social media – especially in FaceBook – shows that many people take images, but the quality of these pictures is poor (from the technical point of view as well as from the stand of image composition). eMarketer states that there were approximately 452 million of smartphone users in Europe (2017). All these smartphones own a camera.

The CICERO project uses digital photography to teach digital competences in combination with image composing skills. The idea behind and the innovative approach is to use the smartphone cameras and to teach people in a course composition technique for creating pretty and attractive images. These images are used in context with social media. Since digital images are digital data people acquire digital competences in the use of data, image editing, legal issues, and the use of various platforms. On the one hand, the involved learners have fun by creating appealing images, on the other hand they learn to handle these images as digitized data.

The course was developed by defining a list of competences, taken from the DigComp framework, and by bringing these competences into context with taking and processing images. The first pilot course has been implemented in Porto in November 2019.

The addressed target group are older people (of the generation 60+) as well as young people and people on remote places.

The developed course will use a specific pedagogical approach called “sustained learning”, a method using micro learning, interactive and multimedia-based content, and self-directed learning.

In the project group four different adult educations work together, coordinated by the Informatics institute of the University of Stockholm.

References:
[1] DigComp report p. 20, available https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/publication/eur-scientific-and-technical-research-reports/digcomp-20-digital-competence-framework-citizens-update-phase-1-conceptual-reference-model
[2] Internet and Mobile Users in Europe: eMarketer's Country-by-Country Forecast for 2017–2021
https://www.emarketer.com/Report/Internet-Mobile-Users-Europe-eMarketers-Country-by-Country-Forecast-20172021/2002177

Keywords:

Pedagogy, innovation, digital competences, adult education, photography.