APPLYING THE POTENTIAL OF ICT AS A MEAN FOR SOCIAL ACTION AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

Name of the participant and other supporting staff if relevant 

Gemma Abellán Fabrés  

Name of the module and discipline, level and  year of study and any useful background info 

Digital social dynamization, an optional subject of Social Education Degree.  

The aim of this subject is to know and apply the potential of ICT as a mean for social action and community development, encouraging the acquisition and development of digital and media skills for citizens, in order to enable their appropriation according to their needs and / or interests, taking into account the contexts of the different social groups.  

Name of community partner and/or any other supporting partners (public or private sector) 

MITHRA e-mithra.org  

CERL project title(s) 

The challenge of the Digital social dynamization 

What they changed about their programme/course in relation to CERL.  

The aim is to provide students with real case studies with experiences of digital social engagement developed by this organization, applied in different social contexts, especially with people at risk of social exclusion, such as older people, seniors, immigrants… Based on this, discussion activities will be proposed, so the students will be able to contact members of the organization directly to ask questions and promote discussions. Based on the work done, students will prepare their proposal for digital social engagement at the end of the course, taking into account the factor of virtualization. 

The students will also be able to access the resource “Toolkit for the digital transformation of social entities” where they can find different approaches and good practices of other social entities in the  field of digitization in social contexts. 

The fact of being able to carry out activities in collaboration with a social entity can facilitate the contact with professionals and their practices. On the other hand, the knowledge that can be generated in these sessions can also be useful for the organization.  

 

How was it taught:  

  • number of students  
  • student groupwork or individual,  
  • how they worked with the partner,  
  • how the project proceeded,  
  • any reflection done with students, 
  • evaluation or formal assessment of their learning,  
  • Could or should we follow up with students? 
  • tech used 
  • Anything else interesting? 

The project is as follows:  

  • This is a bi-semestral and optional subject (Social Education Degree) developed with a group from 20 to 40 students. 
  • Students will work in small groups (about four people). Work at a larger classroom level will be also developed, specifically in the discussions. At an individual level, they will also develop reflection-based activities through a blog. 
  • The work process in small groups will be monitored using collaborative tools such as Google Drive; this will allow to keep track of group activity. At the large classroom group level, classroom discussion spaces will be used, and the reflections that students have made on individual blogs will also be shared on the Forum classroom to stimulate collaborative learning. 
  • The assessment will be based on rubrics 

What did your students learn or how will they benefit? 

The main benefit is to have direct contact with professionals in the field, and also with experiences of other entities, in order to approach students to situated learning. 

What do you think the benefit was to the partner? Do they have any feedback from the partner? 

We hope to be able to contribute to the organization, with the reflections and proposals carried out by the students. 

How could/will you improve your CERL teaching practice next time? 

The subject is optional, and has a concrete duration, so our contributions will be limited. The ideal scenario would allow us to work on these challenges in coordination with other departments, such as computer science and / or communication. This collaboration is now complicated due to the structure of the degrees. However, the different proposals that arise in this initiative and their implementation can continue to nurture the “Toolkit for the digital transformation of social entities” and provide possible ways to approach this issue.