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Blog: Digital competences in times of Corona

by TeDiCom - Teaching Digital Competences in Adult Education

When we started our partnership in the second half of the year 2019, we got together to discuss our capabilities to make our learners (and, last but not least, ourselves) more resilient against the disastrous effect of fake news campaigns in digital media. Each of us had lots of examples from their own daily practice, how and to what extent our learners were targeted by such campaigns. Little did we expect that less than half a year later, the number of fake news in digital media has exploded due to the corona pandemic.

Much has been said about the difference between the Spanish flu and corona, but there's one critical difference that is relevant for our project: back in 1918, there were no social media. As a matter of fact, the Spanish flu got its name from the one country that didn't ban information on the pandemic at the time. Our situation nowadays is completely different. Although official information from many countries may have been tampered with, the bigger impact seems to come from the overflow of false information and conspiracy theories that inundate the web.

We will jointly try to discover, what we as adult educators can do to help our societies through these difficult times. We believe, that critical thinking is a key competence not only in times of corona, but at all times in human history. Our goal as educators is not only to pass on knowledge and information to our audience, but (even more importantly) to help them to evaluate information and to make up their own minds as responsible citizens of European society. In this project, we will try to find out on a very practical level, just what we can do and how we had best do it. We will start our blog with some insight into how we, as institutions from the field of adult education, have been affected in our everyday work by corona. We will continue with insides into the topic of critical thinking and their relationship to digital media. Stay tuned and don't hesitate to contribute your ideas and suggestions!

Online volunteering - Creative digital skills in special times

This year will probably remain in our memories for a long time, especially for those who had to return home early from their stays abroad. Especially for our participants in our voluntary services, we have been thinking about how we can maintain their commitment to development policy and thus came across the topic of online volunteering. We think that online volunteering stands for a modern engagement that is adapted to today's world. In addition to your own skills, which you use and develop in your commitment, you also expand your digital competencies and enhance your own soft skills.

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Is there such a thing as "digital solidarity"?

It's remarkable how drastic occurrences bear the potential for change, for the better or the worse. When thinking about the current situation with the covid-19 pandemic, the changes to the worse are countless and they have immediate impact or long-term consequences which we may not even be aware of at the moment. Nevertheless, it is also undeniable that societal processes have started to bring positive chances for us all...

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Pandemic consequences in Slovenia and what this means for our work

The first case of infection with a new coronavirus was discovered in Slovenia on March 4, and the state declared an epidemic on March 12. Slovenia introduced a series of measures to curb the epidemic. As of 16 March 2020, all educational institutions were shut down, including kindergartens. The schools switched over to online teaching. There was also a temporary ban on public gatherings, public and other events ...

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Lessons from forced digitalization

When writing this, Sweden belongs to the countries with the highest Covid-19 infection quotes in Europe. Covid-19 is haunting us. But here, the Covid-19 pandemic has influenced only parts of society. For most people, daily life has been going on almost as usual for quite a while. (Especially since toilet paper and hand sanitizer is easily available, again.) ...

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Corona spring as a change in teaching methods

My name is Jukka and I work as educational producer at KSL Study Centre which is a leftist adult education institute in Finland. Here is my short reflection on the exceptional first half a year of 2020...

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Hoping for a 'going back to normal'

My name is Johanna, I’m 21 years old and I currently work as a volunteer at KulturLife where I will be completing my apprenticeship the next three years. In this following entry I’d like to report about how I personally experience(d) the corona pandemic situation.
I probably speak for the most of us if I say that I did not see that coming. I still remember the first time ever wearing a face mask to go grocery shopping and it was weird and uncomfortable ...

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Effects of corona on intercultural exchange and international mobility

I‘m writing this report in Germany in early June, and when I look back at our mailstore I find a very long list of mails that dealt and deal with the corona virus. Since I received the first email from an Italian colleague in the middle of February discussing the effect of corona on our mutual programs, my email program numbers about 1500 emails that I sent out or received in the last four months...

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Information Illiteracy as a Trap For Freedom

The President of the Republic of Lithuania Dalia Grybauskaitė has once said “Our freedom is fragile - we must strengthen it with the way we work and the way we live”. Her call to personally take the responsibility for fostering freedom is more relevant now than ever – now, in times of the uncontrolled flow of information and data chaos, when we can easily overlook and unrecognize the threats to our democracy and individual freedoms...

Read more: https://epale.ec.europa.eu/lt/node/145589


Related Content

  • <link ico-link>Online volunteering: Special times require creative digital skills
    Germany (Januar, 2021)

  • <link ico-link>Is there such a thing as "digital solidarity"?
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  • <link ico-link>Lessons from forced digitalization,
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  • <link ico-link>Corona spring as a change in teaching methods,
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  • <link ico-link>Hoping for a 'going back to normal',
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  • <link ico-link>Effects of corona on intercultural exchange and international mobility,
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