KickOff Meeting of German Online Training
Last Monday, on September 07, 2020, the digital KickOff Meeting for the online training "Active Media Education For Disabled Youth" took place in Germany. It was the successful kickoff for the pilot phase of the training.
.Even though everything turned out a little different than planned due to the corona pandemic, the project was able to move into the next phase last Monday. That's because the media literacy training developed, which is aimed at educational professionals working with intellectually diabeld adolescents and young adults, was originally intended to be a blended learning format consisting of online self-learning phases and analog meetings. The KickOff meeting last Monday was supposed to be a face-to-face event in Berlin, where all participants could get together, get to know each other and exchange ideas. This coming together and getting to know each other was now shifted to the virtual space - but there was still a lively exchange.
In July 2020, Stiftung Digitale Chancen launched a call and was looking for cooperation partners to participate in the training during the pilot phase. For this, organizations or institutions were explicitly sought that work with adolescents or young adults with light intellectually disabilities and could provide several pedagogical professionals to participate in the training. With their help, the online training will eventually be evaluated, optimized, and tailored even better to the needs of the end target group.
The response to the call was overwhelming - to this day, the project consortium is still receiving requests to participate in the training. This response is also positive on another level: it shows that more and more institutions want to set out to use digital media in their daily work with young people with intellectual disabilities and, in this context, to address their opportunities as well as risks.
After many preliminary discussions in which the participation requirements and framework conditions were sounded out, a cooperation with a total of three organizations finally emerged: The Martinsclub Bremen e.V., the Wohn- und Betreuungsverbund Haus Sonne gGmbH from Bad Münstereifel and IN VIA Dortmund e.V.. From all three institutions, up to eight professionals will participate in the training and in the course of it, together with Stiftung Digitale Chancen, develop support strategies to support the young people, but also the professionals and the management level of the organizations.
At the KickOff meeting on Monday, the first priority was to get to know each other and familiarize with the online learning environment. But it also presented the overall goals of the project and gave a first glimpse of the content of the training:
What actually is cyber bullying and what can be done against it? What opportunities does a playful approach offer in educational processes and how can e-participation formats overcome stigmatization? The focus is primarily on putting what has been learned into practice. This and much more will be the topic of the online training, which runs until mid-October.