The Iberoamerican University Foundation (FUNIBER) participated in MEITAL’s 19th Annual National Online Conference “Teaching and Learning Technologies that Accelerate Higher Education: Trends and Developments» on Wednesday, June 30, within the framework of the LOVEDIST@NCE project that the Foundation participates in.
LOVE.DIST@NCE, a three-year Erasmus+ project, aims to promote inclusive education in Israel and Georgia by broadening access to higher education for students from vulnerable and marginalized populations, e.g., religious groups, rural populations, ethnic minorities, and special needs students.
After the training period for the partners, a task organized by FUNIBER, the partners from Israel and Georgia are undergoing the application phase of the acquired knowledge with the development of first pilot courses.
During the conference, the leaders of the project, the Polytechnic Institute of Porto, presented an overview of the project: objectives and goals, scope, stages, and importance, especially during COVID-19 and the emergence of e-learning.
At the same time, FUNIBER presented its work related to emerging pedagogies in online education.
“A new type of learning is emerging on the web,” stated Thomas Prola, FUNIBER project manager, reminding us that to include digital technologies in learning, we must ask ourselves: “How are people learning with digital technologies? How does digital technology help us?”
The FUNIBER team’s participation recalled that it is common to talk about the loss of the teacher’s centrality after the irruption of new technologies, and pointed out that, precisely because of the constructive use of ICT in education, professionals and a clear pedagogical approach are needed to transform information into knowledge. The role of the teacher is based on 3 key aspects: (1) Building the student’s relationship with technologies; (2) Teaching how to address the volume of information; (3) Working on other ways of presenting, organizing information.
On the other hand, national reports analyzing the digital competencies and perception of distance education of students and university professors from Georgia and Israel were presented. This work was fundamental in defining the first pilot courses of the project, which were addressed in their interventions by the Israeli institutions, offering the attendees a complete overview of the project’s current status.