A meeting of the international partners of the ‘Heritage for Digital and Literacy Learning’ project took place on 5-6 June 2024 at the Centre 3.0 – Gliwice Social Action Centre. The host of the meeting and at the same time the project coordinator was the ARTeria Foundation represented by Ewa Grynicka and Wenancjusz Ochmann, vice-president.
The meeting was divided into two parts – the first was to review the progress of the tasks, as well as to summarise the activities already completed and discuss those ongoing and planned until the end of the project. The ARTeria Foundation presented the results of the first activity ‘Heritage as gateway for developing skills’ – a guide presenting the project methodology. Logopsycom, as leader of this part of the project, then presented the status of the second work package – a guide with practical instructions, tips, templates and ideas to enable students to create their own ‘city tours’ based on local heritage. Examples of tours planned to be realised by partners in the form of e-books were also discussed as an integral part of this guide and an inspiration for future users. The objectives for the school testing phase and for the creation of the final outcome, the ‘white paper’, were agreed upon.
In the second part of the meeting, the partners focused on governance issues – including quality, monitoring and reporting, as well as green practices in project implementation.
The ‘Heritage for Digital and Literacy Learning’ project is not only a wonderful and inspiring partnership involving schools in Lithuania and Bulgaria, a Belgian organisation experienced in preparing content for people with special learning difficulties, and the ARTeria Foundation as an initiator and implementer of innovative activities at the interface of cultural heritage and education, but above all an interesting response to the problems of students’ poor performance in writing and reading (according to PISA 2018 results, in Europe, about one in five 15-year-olds (21.7%) performs poorly in reading with a tendency to deteriorate – the rate in 2009 was 19.2%). Literacy challenges can arise in the early stages of education, as these skills are most often used as assessment tools rather than tools for development and creation. On the other hand, in 2021, only 54% of 16- to 74-year-olds in the EU have at least basic general digital skills (Eurostat), while more than 90% of job roles require a basic level of digital literacy (as well as basic literacy and numeracy).
Creativity, imagination and inspiring alternative methods of teaching literacy can improve the overall performance of pupils, so through the project outcomes we want to provide engaging tools to develop these skills among primary school pupils – through their perspective on the European heritage around them. The use of storytelling as a literacy tool is highly effective – storytelling promotes listening skills, develops imagination and creativity, improves pupils’ vocabulary use and writing technique and more. At the same time, showing these stories through digital formats (e-books) develops students’ digital competence.
It is noteworthy that the use of an alternative method to develop literacy and digital skills also increases motivation, engagement and inclusion, especially for pupils with specific learning difficulties.