Portable Video Conferencing Toolkits and Online Applications for Engaging Learning Experience Design in Higher Education Classroom

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Erasmus Plus programme, grant agreement 2021-1-DK01-KA220-HED-000023313 https://erasmus-plus.ec.europa.eu/projects/search/details/2021-1-DK01-KA220-HED-000023313

Grant: 369.569,00 €

Objectives
1. Two prototypes for online conferencing toolkits.
2. Online training modules and material on video conferencing for learning educators, trainers, and students

Aims
1. Improve online and blended teaching
How: (1) Collect best practice scenarios of educational video conferencing around the globe and identify challenges
(2) Design two toolkits for educational video conferencing

2. Improve quality and efficiency of education across the globe
How: (1) Produce materials on educational video conferencing as open educational resources, (2) Involve stakeholders in Europe and Asia as partners and participants, (3) Disseminate project’s result and ensure their sustainability

3. Facilitate capacity building among educators to become professional online and blended tutors or teacher’s trainers
How: (1) Design and evaluation of teacher training materials on video conferencing
(2) Present technological and pedagogical best practices through educational material and the competence matrix
(3) Organisation of two educator training workshop and summarise them in a reproducible model

The motivation for EdViCon was sparked by the experience with online teaching shared between students and education, who endorsed problems of engagement and participation due to technical issues, absence of social norms and requirement of higher level of motivation.

No one was prepared for the sudden shift from physical to online teaching during the COVID pandemic. Nonetheless, we can derive from the experience that facilitation of online teaching that enables the same interaction and engagement of a physical classroom requires fundamental rethinking of how online teaching is designed. Online and blended teaching must be designed to accommodate the different teaching and learning styles of educators and students alongside their preferences – whether they are mathematics students in a classroom, designers in a studio, or freshmen in a laboratory.

The ultimate goal of EdViCon is to enable and disseminate an educational experience that uses a portable video conferencing set-up for online and blended teaching. Furthermore, to ensure that the experience is designed to accommodate the pedagogical needs of teaching and learning in various settings, i.e., classroom, studio, laboratory, etc.
EdViCon is motivated to address the digital transformation by development of digital readiness, resilience and capacity. EdViCon will address the digital transformation by supporting the digital capabilities of the higher education sector through stimulation of innovative learning and teaching practices.