Wednesday 5 October 2011

What did we do during the project?


Happy DETVET delegates in Olomouc.
Loreta Staškūnienė on left

The purpose of the project – to form an international sustainable partnership in order to improve VET teachers’ competencies in education techniques – was fully reached and the results gained both at national and international levels. There were six meetings organized, each of them having it’s clear objective and outcomes defined. Before and between the meetings the work was done mostly in the national teams: dissemination, discussions, survey, validation of the chosen technique within local VET teachers, preparation the material for publishing, reporting, etc. At the international level there were carried out such activities as: exchange of methods and state of art analysis, blog design and development, creation and implementation of the investigation tools, announcing of the investigation results and recommendations, etc.
Every participating institution picked the most relevant theme for the teachers’ educational needs in approach (technique) and discussed it with teachers and students in local education environment. The pivotal outcome of the common share is mutual trust and appreciation in the partnership, the brought together competences, contribution of all partner countries disseminated at the European level.

What have we got from the partnership?
After the surveys were made in all countries, there was the clearly defined picture that our teachers need to gain more skills in use of social media, ICT tools, coaching as a method and education in entrepreneurship and innovation. It is well seen in each partners’ Conclusion chapter - different education cultures in countries and different types of institutions suggest different solutions for teachers’ qualification improvement. However, all the partners agree that they have gained from the partnership a lot of experience and know-how that encourages them to meet new challenges and promote institutional development. There are some general outcomes that partners have concluded:

  1. Much more attention should be given to the shifting paradigm. The Finnish partner (as well as other partners) raises a question of the educational use of social media – the change of culture of teaching. The education phenomena should be released from the closed classrooms and better applied to the workplaces, other surrounding environment; and teachers are supposed to be well prepared for that challenge. 
  2. Higher vocational education and training must be developed, and be maintained more in cooperation with companies and working life. 
  3. Not only pedagogic development is needed but also development of networks (working in teams, coached by a professional trainer) in order to gain efficiency in education and training. 

Without the international partnership there wouldn’t be such an effective outcome achieved –new ideas and well applied practice under different circumstances ¬– that brought a lot of creativity and new know-how into our institutions.

Having the chance, I would like to thank all the partners that they were really dedicated to the DETVET project and we – all together – have had great time!!!

Loreta Staškūnienė
The author is the Project Manager of the DETVET Project

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Tuesday 4 October 2011

Read the DETVET book


What is the book about?

DETVET METHODOLOGY FRAMEWORK is a place where the DETVET (Development of Educational Techniques for Vocational Education and Training) project partners have decided to summarize all the experience and findings from the project. They consist of the parts represented by the six participating countries: Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Lithuania and Sweden that are laid by the alphabetical order.

Each country has summarized their project activities and ideas in four articles that show to what extent the partners have approached the project aims. The themes of the articles are:

  • VET system in a country,
  • The educational technique (approach, method) brought into the partnership by each country,
  • Results from the survey received by the questionnaire (the questionnaire – in Annex 1),
  • Conclusions.

Download the book (Adobe Reader 2MB)

Loreta Staškūnienė

Friday 27 May 2011

Last DETVET meeting in Tampere

You can find a similar family photo on the first port of this blog:
It was from the first meeting in Klaipeda 1½ years ago.

 The last DETVET-project meeting took place in Tampere yesterday and today. We have been busy making the last decisions and preparing the project book and final report.

 The meeting took place in the old Cotton mill Finlayson, the home of TAMK Art and Media programmes.

DETVET participants and the biggest steam engine in Noric countries

We also made a Finlayson tour which introduced the Textile Museum and the Steam Engine Museum.

The roof topgarden of Art and Media
We will be soon back with a more detailed report of the meeting and project results.
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Sunday 20 February 2011

DETVET at TAMK Learning Environment Conference


DETVET-project was present at the New Learning Environments Conference on February 10th at Tampere University of Applied Sciences (TAMK).

The conference with 700 participants was composed of a plenary and parallel sessions, demonstrations and workshops dealing with new solutions and environments of education and learning with the internet generation.

DETVET-project board member Cai Melakoski introduced in his presentation "Blogs and Wikis as learning platforms" materials produced by the TAMK team of the DETVET project.

Friday 28 January 2011

DETVET Olomouc

DETVET partners discuss their experiences of the project in Olomouc, Czech Republic.

Monday 17 January 2011

Czech VET questionnaire

The Czech part of the VET questionnaire
The Czech part of the VET questionnaire was set up at the Institute of Education and Social Studies, Palacký University in Olomouc.

19 VET teachers at the Institute filled in the questionnaires with the questions about andragogue techniques, coaching, entrepreneurship and innovation, distance form of learning and self- study, social media and web 2.0 tools, and ICT tools for learning and networking.

The profiles of the Czech respondents are :
- they teach social sciences, social psychology, IT and communication, pedagogical sciences
- 18 of them have a background with vocational training and a pedagogical education
- 17 of them have a university-master degree
- 5% have been working as VET teachers for 1 year
- 47% up to 5 years of practice
- 16% up to 10 years of practice
- 32% more than 10 years of practice
- about 11% are male
- about 89% are female
The most remarkable results and figures from the Czech part of the questionnaire are:
2.1
- nearly 53% knows methods or other means to define learning needs but they don´t use them
- more than 68% use means for monitoring of a course quality – which is surprising !
- everybody knows Activating methods in realization of a study programme
2.2
- 58% develop individual action plans with their students based on the study plan
- it´s very common to have individual discussions with the students to follow up their
results and progress
- 68% of the respondents use Problem Based Learning and Case methodology
2.3
- 100% use different methods of stimulation to motivate and encourage the potential of the students, even 42% use them frequently !
- everybody knows about E-portfolio but 42% don´t use it
- on the other hand 37% use E-portfolio in their work very often
- the same number of respondents either use tools for creating ideas or don´t know them
- 74% have no experience with cross professional/cultural innovation courses !
- the same number don´t know anything about participating in competitions
but there are few who want to learn it !
- more than 73% teach core skills in marketing and business planning
- 1/2 of respondents want to learn how to promote competencies for co-responsibility
or co-employment
- about 2/3 of respondents would like to have innovation classes or courses
- nobody uses external contact(mentoring or coaching related to business)
but more than 1/2 want to learn it !
2.4
- more than 84% use self-study or distance texts
- 74% don´t know about off-line correspondence or off-line phone
- more than 1/2 use on-line e-mails, there are only few who don´t know about it
- 3/4 of respondents use Learning Management System, a half of them very often
- more than 1/2 use tutorial in groups
2.5
- 1/2 knows some of the blogs and uses them
- 1/2 knows they exist but they don´t use them
- only 1 respondent wants to learn LeMill
- more than one half don´t know anything about Twitter !
2.6
- everybody uses e-mail and word processor, more than a half uses them very often
- 100% knows Power point presentations but 1/2 don´t use them !
- 3/4 of respondents don´t use Smartboards even if they are available !
- a pretty big number want to learn photo and sound editor + web conferencing !
- more than 1/2 don ´t use E-portfolio, only 2 respondents want to learn it
At the last question the respondents choose an area of education approach to improve - the
Czech respondents are interested in the two areas of Coaching and Social media + Web.
They show the least interest in the area of Andragogue´s practice.
The most surprising answers
The questionnaire has pointed out the fact that most of questioned respondents were women as itś usual even at the Academic field.
Surprisingly big number of respondents at least have heard of different blogs although they don´t use them but they would like to know it.
Aproximately half of respondents use techniques based on coaching but there are a lot of them who want to learn much more about Problem Based Learning or individual action plans.

Saturday 15 January 2011

DETVET in Olomouc, part II

Happy DETVET delegates on their way to session

The second day of the DETVET meeting in Olomouc focused on the tasks of the project. We also made a summary about what the project has given the participants by now:
  • sharing of skills and expertise
  • networking
  • new ideas
  • learning
  • comparison
  • inspiration
  • self confidence
  • sharing of problems
  • research resources
  • surprise
  • joint effort
You can soon see the minutes and the documents of the meeting on the Meetings page of this blog. A photo gallery of the meeting is already there to see.

The next and last meeting of DETVET will be in Tampere, Finland May 26-27. The host will be Tampere University of Applied Sciences, TAMK.

Story and photos: Cai Melakoski
Head of TAMK Degree Programme in Media

Read the DETVET session report on TAMK's Artmedia-blog

The Programme also featured a visit to Hitrádio Apollo, which adds value to broadcasts with
social media. On left Milena Hobzová introducing the studio.

Friday 14 January 2011

DETVET Meeting in Olomouc

In the hearth of Olomouc
The fifth and second but last meeting of the DETVET project started yesterday in the beautiful Moravian city of Olomouc, Czech Republic.

The day started with a guided tour around the city center hosted by Eva Kaněčková. The participants were welcomed by Helena Grecmanová, Kateřina Vitásková and Jana Poláchová Vašťatková.

The participants got familiar with the Czech practice and experience with Role of Tutor in Distance Education and Selfstudy, e-learning:

Afternoon session about to begin

Pavla Mrůzková introduced the Czech school system and Luboš Valenta gave a presentation on the VET sector and its current issues. Iveta Bednaříková and Milena Öbrink Hobzová demonstrated tutorship in adult education.

Today the focus will be on DETVET project issues. 

Sunday 9 January 2011

The Danish part of the questionnaire

The Danish part of the questionnaire was settled at the Centre of Visual Communication at SDE,
Odense. 18 VET teachers at the Centre filled out the form with the questions about andragogue
techniques, coaching, entrepreneurship and innovation, distance learning and self-study, social
media and web 2.0 tools, and ICT tools for learning and networking.

The profile of the Danish respondents is:
-    they are teaching in IT programming, graphic design and communication at VET level?
-    6 of them have a background with vocational training and a pedagogical education
-    7 of them have a teachers education, shortcycle and BA
-    5 of them have an university-master degree
-    61% have been working as VET teachers in more than 5 years and 22% in less than 1 year
-    61% are more than 45 years old
-    about 72% are male
-    about 28% are female


The most remarkable results and figures from the Danish part of the questionnaire are:
-    nearly 50% knows and uses the mentioned methods and techniques for teaching adults
-    less than 20% don´t know any of the andragogue techniques

-    surprising big number knows and uses elements and techniques based on coaching
-    very few don´t know anything about coaching

-    E-portfolio is wellknown, but still far from 100% in use
-    about 1/3 of the respondents knows E-portfolio, but do not use it

-    less than 1/3 don´t know anything about tools for innovation
-    surprising few uses or promote competencies for selfimployment and for preparing businessplans

-    about 1/3 don´t know anything about distance learning and self-study

-    very few of the respondents uses Facebook and Twitter in their lessons
-    about 20% uses Facebook og no one uses Twitter

-    more than 75% knows blogs, but only 10% use it frequently
-    another 10% don´t know anything about blogs

-    surprising little use of web and online communication in the lessons
-    more than 65% uses e-mails and more than 10% don´t use it at all
-    Power Point is well known and widely used with 50% of the respondents as users,
and less than 50% as frequently users
-    82% of the respondents doen´t use Smartboards, even if the Smartboards are available

At the last question the respondents choose an area of education approach to improve, and the
Danish respondents shows a big interest in the two areas of coaching and IT tools. The lowest
interest was given to the social media.


The most surprising answers
At our presentation for the members in the DETVET project, we in particular emphasized the surprising results at five areas:
-    We were surprised that coaching turned out to be a well known concept. A big number of the Danish respondents are using coaching elements, and less than 10% don´t know anything about coaching.
-    We were surprised that we are not near to 100% on the use of E-port folio. Around a third of the respondents know E-port folio, but don´t use it.
-    We were surprised that a third don´t know anything about distance learning and self studies
-    We were surprised that so few use web and online communication in their lessons. Only a fifth use Facebook and no one Twitter. More than three fourths knows blogs, but only 10% use it regularly, and another 10% don´t know anything about blogs.
-    And finally we indeed were surprised that a fourth of the respondents point out coaching and IT tools for improving, and very few (less than 10%) takes an interest in the Social Media

Something in common – cross culture and cross nationality

At our presentation in Italy we compared the Danish answers with the Swedish results, and we noticed some identically tendencies. In the Swedish questionnaire we recognized the same big interest in coaching, and exactly like the Danish respondents, the Swedish teachers show a low interest in E-port folio, online communication and Social Media.

The Swedish respondents have more females (46,66%) than the Danish, and the Swedish respondents are older (46,66% more than 55 years old) than the average age of the Danish respondents. With all our prejudices we could use sex and age to explain the great Swedish interest in the (humanities-like) coaching, and less interest in the field of online communication, distance learning and social media. But with the Danish results, the prejudices won´t do. The Danish respondents are younger and more males. The Danish are even teaching in the field of IT and communication, and still they are pointing out coaching and takes less interest in online communication and social media - Here we saw a challenge and a task to work with.

The tendencies in the answers from both the Danish and the Swedish respondents, show us an opposition among the teachers to the online communication and the social media. At the meeting in Italy, the countries presented their results and figures from the questionnaire, and all six countries saw and agreed on the need for working with the online communication and the social media. All six countries have different ways and attitudes to the everyday pedagogical practice, and still all six questionnaire indicated a kind of cross-nationality opposition to the new medias. We all have a struggle with – our personally, as well - attitudes and scepticism towards changing methods and practice.


To do is to develop and to learn 

We all have learned that the social media is more than just another technology. The social media is a question about changing behaviour and way of doing. One of the important headlines in the Finish presentation about social media at the meeting in Italy, emphasized that to learn and develop the social media is to use it. There is no “teach,” there is only do, it says in the presentation (see photo below) In other words you have to learn and develop your own use of the media, and the only way to learn it, is to use it. In the DETVET group our difficulties in using and communicate via our blog, demonstrate clearly for us the need of doing!!! The challenge to learn by doing, is to cross the barriers to the doing. The question is: Do we know the barriers and how do we cross them?

There is no “teach,” there is only do
– The Finnish presentation, Italy, spring 2010

Quantitative and qualitative researches
The questionnaire has pointed out the task, and it is to define and cross the barriers to the use of the social media. But we still don´t know how to do it. The questionnaire, as we have formed it, can´t give us any ideas to handle this task. Our questionnaire tells us how many of the questioned teachers knows or wants to know a certain method or technique. But our questionnaire is quantitative oriented, and can´t tell us how to approach a new technique and how to start a new practice.

In a way our DETVET project is qualitative oriented. The spirit of the DETVET project is to inspire cross the boarders, and our meetings are not a question about e.g. number of participants, but more like a question about how we exchange experience and ideas. To support this exchange of experience and ideas we could have choosen a qualitative research (like e.g. focus group interviews), instead of our quantitative questionnaire. However, we didn´t take the discussion and the consideration about quantitative versus qualitative in advance, and at that time we probably haven´t been able to point out or agreed on the main themes and main questions for an qualitative research. In a way it is what our questionnaire has given us: A theme and a task. Next step is to work with the qualitative content and make use of our common experience and ideas to cross our barriers to the social media. Much easier to say than to do, I think?

Look at the figures

Kaare Jørgensen

Please find the Finnish figures here
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