Be Well and Green when Digital

"<< Background >>We applied for this project because we live in a technologically advanced world, where digital devices and smart gadgets are ubiquitous and despite the convenience they bring, the impact of excessive screen time on both well-being and the environment is often overlooked. The youth face issues such as social isolation, psychological distress, and anxiety. The long-term consequences of environmental ignorance, coupled with recently COVID – 19 pandemic crisis, exacerbate these challenges. We applied for this project because, although, basic health and environmental guidelines exist, they fall short in fostering comprehensive competence. Environmental risks, such as the carbon footprint of streaming services, and socioemotional and psychological health risks from excessive screen time are often neglected. It is crucial to develop the skills of high school teachers and students for the safe and responsible use of ICT, which are needs we want to address. Shift to digital classrooms added challenges, leaving the Safety aspects low on the priority list for teachers due to time constraints and lack of knowledge. The hybrid learning model adopted by most countries hinders proper pedagogical design for training within national curricula.<< Objectives >>We've established a Partnership for Digital Education Readiness to enhance proficiency levels up to 7, fostering a ""healthier and more responsible use of digital technology"" among High School Teachers and students. Aligned with the EU Digital Competence Framework (DigComp), our project targeted Competences 4.3 and 4.4 in Area 4 ""Safety"" - ""Protecting health and well-being"" and ""Protecting the environment."" Despite DigComp's widespread use for learning materials, a comprehensive training pack covering all 8 proficiency levels under Area 4 was lacking. Existing materials often focused on selected competences, primarily ""4.1 Protecting devices"" and ""4.2 Protecting personal data and privacy,"" up to proficiency levels 3-4. Our initiative aimed to fill this gap by providing thorough training for all competences in Area 4, with a particular focus on addressing the scarcity of materials for ""4.3 Protecting health and well-being"" and the almost non-existent resources for ""4.4 Protecting the environment.""<< Implementation >>The BeWEEN project adopted a bottom-up approach, involving high school teachers and students in a comprehensive process of research, analysis, piloting, evaluation, and policy making. Each partner committed a minimum of 15 teachers and 150 students. Over 24 months the project conducted research on competence and mind-set development needs, gathering best practices from Europe. These findings informed the development and piloting of BeWEEN's curriculum for teachers. Piloting activities empowered participating institutions by facilitating practice-related tasks. In the initial phase, the project developed the BeWEEN curriculum, created teaching and course materials, and integrated the training course into the BeWEEN eLearning platform. Tasks included establishing a helpdesk, translating materials, conducting pilot testing with teachers, adapting course content and co-creating teaching resources. In the second phase, the project focused on developing a badge evaluation system for an educational mobile game, collecting and creating game-based learning content, designing the game, and translating it. This phase involved pilot testing, necessary adaptations, and the final release of the educational mobile game.<< Results >>Concrete and tangible outputs created through the implementation of the project are BeWEEN curriculum which set the tone for the creation of training materials for module A. Protecting health and well - being and Module B. Protecting environment, teaching resources co-created with teachers ( total 30, 6 per partner country) and the BeWEEN educational mobile game available on the Google Play application. All outputs available on: https://www.beween.eu/As it was planned, BeWEEN project improved the level of key digital competences and skills among high school teachers, intending to transfer this knowledge to students by delivering innovative practices and results related to safe and responsible use of digital tehnology in the digital era. Also BeWEEN project promoted and strengthend the European lifelong learning area by contributing to the dissemination, multiplication and replication of the use of European transparency and recognition tools and project will have impact on EU policies concerning the safe and responsible use of digital technology."