ABOUT PROJECT
The COVID pandernie has brought about dramatic changes in society; education specifically has been greatly affected. Educators were asked to drastically adapt their pedagogies and methods in order to ensure continued access to education. Unfortunately this exacerbated the effects of inequality, highlighting the Iack of access and know-how to essential digital tools for online learning for students with fewer opportunities ( laptop/internet/use of technological tools etc.).
Our project, Arts4AII, is informed by the research showing that performing arts can provide students with fewer opportunities a creative space for exploration and expression of identities, for challenging discrimination and social exclusion, whilst also tostering integration into culture and society; arts have beneficial effects on youth like challenging discrimination, mitigating social exclusion and fostering intercultural dialogue.
As such, the Arts4All project will adopt an integrated art pedagogica l approach to enhancing the use of arts for social inclusion, using digital means. Given the adverse impact of the digital environment for all students, we aim to contribute to a growing anthology of digital tools and combine creative arts learning with distant learning, to promote social inclusion and integration, through an innovative mobile application. For more information on our objectives check out our website.
WHAT WE ARE WORKING TOWARDS …
The Arts4All Curriculum
Experts in music, theatre, and visual arts will develop a curriculum targeting adolescents, and especially those with fewer opportunities, that incorporate formal learning environments (school, in-person educational environments) with home environments. A manual will be developed alongside the curriculum to ensure deep understanding and ease of use for educators, art teachers, and youth workers.
The Arts4AJI Mobile App and Open badges
The curriculumwill be adapted to a free, innovative, and research based mobile app led by consortium partner Center for Social Innovation. The app other than being available in all partner languages, will also provide inter-cultural opportunities for sharing artistic creations between users. Users of the app will be able to accumulate badges that can be used to collect various certificates as weil as networking tools. For more information on our outputs check out our website.
KICK OFF MEETING
Our kick-off meeting took place online on August 27th, 2021 focused on establishing
the research methodology, quality assurance, valorization and technology frameworks for successful project implementation. This meeting was also used to ensure that all partners clearly understood their role and function in the project and that the reporting and recording responsibilities are outlined and agreed.
WHAT WE HAVE BEEN UP TO…
Since our project aims to promote social inclusion and integration through an innovative mobile application targeting adolescents, we implemented a Focus Group to report the suggestions of experts in the fields of arts, education, social work, and integration. The experts’ opinion is critical for us in order to develop a user-friendly, attractive, and influential application to have the greatest possible impact on young people. All country representatives organized focus group discussions; we are in the
process of analyzing the findings and summing up the findings.
