In spring 2020 the globalised world was severely hit by the pandemic spread of the Coronavirus. In particular, Adult Education and cVET institutions suffer from shutdowns and hampered direct learning opportunities.
DEAL promotes the acquisition of competences needed for Adult Educators. Especially in the times of hampered face to face education, professionals in AE need advanced skills and competence to design and deliver open online learning and digitalised learning.
Hence, the major objective of the DEAL project relates to the improvement of digital literacy and digital teaching skills on the one hand to the educators but also to adult learners.
DEAL at the REVEAL14 Conference
Digitalisation plays an increasingly important role in all educational domains. However, there is a special responsibility and meaning in the Adult Education sector since it reaches citizens outside educational institutions in non-formal or even informal learning contexts, and those citizens who are particularly vulnerable regarding digitalisation and who need to acquire “digital literacy”.
Have a look at our partners
blinc eG, Germany
The blended learning institutions’ cooperative is a European network with long term experiences in the field of digitally supported education and competence validation. blinc has developed the LEVEL5 validation system in European partnerships since 2005 and applied it in more than 40 projects in different domains, among them four projects on the professionalisation of educational personnel. It is (as indicated in the name) specialist in blended learning and comes with a large educational network (REVEAL).
Apricot, UK
Apricot is an adult education provider from the UK with a long record of collaborative projects related to promoting and facilitating learning, training and development in and for the workplace. Apricot is a specialist partner for age-sensitive learning and will put a focus on data literacy and digital education modules respecting and recognising the special needs and preferences for this target group of aged adult learners.
PLATO, Netherlands
PLATO is a small research centre owned by the University of Leiden, working for educational research and development both in regular education and in Continuing Professional Development for AE staff. Research and development of training and learning programmes, training materials and other educational arrangements, like simulations and new media, are included in the portfolio of projects of the centre. Plato is the co-writer of the study “Key Competences for Adult Educators” published in 2006. It has a long term record of cooperation projects with blinc and was invited in the project due to its vast experience in various fields of adult education in connection with digital learning and constructing educational assignments, assessments, exercises, simulations and games.
CVNO, Slovakia
CVNO is a small adult education institute which has collaborated with the group for nearly a decade. It’s speciality is political adult education and it will focus on the anti-racism and anti- fake-news programme part for the Digital Experts in Adult Education.
Centro Libenter
Centro Libenter is the youngest partner in DEAL. The association was founded in Torino in 2015 to tackle health and food issues in society and provides adult education in the health field with informal and non-formal learning. Already prior to the Corona crises, Centro Libenter started online-supported health and food courses for adult learners in the region of Lombardia.
FU-Uppsala, Sweden
FU-Uppsala has a long tradition of successfully introducing new teaching methods into adult education including the latest developments in ICT. FU-Uppsala offers both formal and non- formal education for public authorities, enterprises and individuals. FU organizes specific training programs and/or training courses for various disadvantaged target groups such as unemployed, low-skilled, immigrants, refugees, people with physical and mental disabilities, youth drop-outs and NEETS.
Volkshochschule Region Kassel, Germany
The Volkshochschule Region Kassel is an Adult Education institute with a 100 years tradition, covering the area of the city of Kassel and Kassel county, targeting approximately 450.000 inhabitants. It offers courses in the fields of society, languages, culture, health, IT and basic education. Apart from these “traditional AE fields” the VHS Kassel is also active in certain areas of cVET and has gained a strong focus on integration courses for refugees. The VHS Kassel has developed offers relating to digital competences at a very early stage and is actively using the central AE offers provided by the VHS cloud, including synchronous online collaboration. However, our team is fully aware that there are shortcomings related to digital competences both on the Adult learners’ side and on the side of the adult educators.