Digital Balance

Summary

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the digital transition within VET, leading to a steep rise in online/remote teaching. Despite the many positive aspects of this catalytic change towards digitalisation, the speed of the transformation has left little time to address the risks involved. Teachers in particular face a higher risk of digital overload or burnout than ever before. Long hours sitting in front of artificially lit screens, improvised home settings, the challenge of communicating effectively online and the constant flow of communications from bosses, colleagues and students present them with a radically new set of challenges.

Growing scientific evidence from workers in digital environments has shown that unconstrained use of devices can have strong negative consequences. Multitasking and constant notifications are associated with lower levels of creativity and concentration, the difficulty of effective interpersonal communication causes higher stress, while heavy screen use is linked to eyesight problems and headaches. Collectively called “technostress “these issues are caused both by the technology and by organisational expectations, and lead to deterioration in productivity/performance and in employees’ mental and physical health. Our Partner organisations report VET schools suffering staff shortages and increasing levels of absence due to digitally induced stress and it is not surprising that as far back as 2016 the influential JISC framework placed five other digital capabilities within the overarching capability of digital identity and wellbeing.

Many large corporations are already addressing digital overload via wellbeing policies within their HR/CSR work and some high-profile higher education institutions have also developed policies. However, our research showed that no VET providers had developed structured support for teaching staff on the topic.

TARGET GROUPS
For this reason, Digital Balance targets two groups:
1. VET teachers.
2. VET management and department heads.

OBJECTIVES & ACTIVITIES
Working with these two groups, our objective is clear: design, develop and implement a new approach to train VET teachers, leaders and managers in digital wellbeing. The result will be to improve educators’ own digital competences, while also boosting the capacity of VET institutions to manage the digital transition in a way that marries high quality teaching with the wellbeing of those involved.
Our specific objectives are:
a) Produce 3 new resources that enable the integration of policy and practice to support digital wellbeing for teachers and encourage proactive behaviour at personal level. Namely; IO1 Digital Balance Analysis Report, IO2 Digital Wellbeing Resource Park, IO3 Digital Balance Empowerment Programme.
b) Rigorously use, test and refine the resources in collaboration with 72 managers/department heads and 96 teachers, optimising their effectiveness and readying partners for immediate implementation.
c) Ensure strong uptake of the resources with a persuasive.
b) Rigorously use, test and refine the resources in collaboration with 72 managers/department heads and 96 teachers, optimising their effectiveness and readying partners for immediate implementation.
c) Ensure strong uptake of the resources with a persuasive dissemination campaign so that 840 VET managers, department heads and teachers use the resources in the project lifespan, with hundreds more after completion.


Project no.: 2020-1-DE02-KA226-VET-008184


Coordinator

  • Education Mobility Grid GbR (Germany)

Partners

  • Akmi Anonimi Ekpaideftik Etairia (Greece)
  • ACEEU GmbH (Germany)
  • European E-learning Institute (Denmark)
  • Momemntum Marketing Services Limited (Ireland)
  • EfVET (Belgium)

Duration

Start:  01/04/2021 – End: 31/03/2023


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