DMC - Digital Menu Card)The main result is the Digital Menu Card, which is online learning environment created for vocational school teachers, offering active learning methods along with internet-based applications- including pedagogical recommendations, taking into account the different competence levels of teachers. The content is made up of easy-to-follow micro-learning elements, graded according to their level of difficulty. Teachers of partner schools studied the chosen elements of the contents (some compulsory and some optional), and then selected the methods and tools they are willing to work with in the following phase of digital content creation. Following the online Digital Menu Card activity and already being aware of the development needs identified in O1, participants identified specific action plans for some of the schools, respecting the strategies outlined earlier.
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DMC by Kacsur Annamária
The Digital Menu Card - developed in 3 languages: English, Hungarian and Slovenian - is intended to be a methodological toolkit and a repository of VET learning content.
Visit the website: https://dmc.prompt.hu/
The Digital Menu Card is a selection of 21st century active learning methods, tried and tested applications and pedagogical recommendations (including detailed guides and examples). The contents have been developed by synchronizing the supply (experts' knowledge) with the demand (teachers' needs). The content of the website has been developed after a preliminary assessment of the needs and along the results of O1.
A "one-stop-shop" where vocational trainers can:
- create online lesson plans, project plans, save them and share them with others;
- find out about teaching and assessment methods tried and tested by others and used successfully, creative techniques to stimulate innovation;
- learn about different digital tools and how to use them for educational purposes, supported by practical tips and examples;
- browse, evaluate, use and modify learning materials produced by others.
The Menu Card consists of micro-learning objects, built up modularly. It is flexible enough to keep up with changes: you can easily add a new device or remove one that is no longer supported. All elements of the Menu Card can be evaluated by users. The tools are classified based on their level of difficulty (beginners, advanced users, experts), similar to the recipes in a cookbook. Thus, a wide range of teachers can master the easy parts, while others can choose the intermediate or even expert level challenges to learn new skills.
Facilities offered by the site („one-stop-shop”):
- learning about teaching methods, lesson organisation and assessment methods, tried, tested and successfully applied by others;
- a collection of digital tools, supported by examples;
- the possibility for registered users to create online lesson plans, project plans, which can be then saved and shared with others;
- browsing through learning materials created by others, registered users can evaluate, use and duplicate them for their own use.
Online Training-Learning on the DMC (Digital Menu Card) Interface
The aim of the online training was to ensure the teachers taking part a possibility to modernise and enrich their knowledge, moreover, to expand the use of methodological and digital tools in order to equip their students with the knowledge and skills needed to enter the 21st century labour market.
In the period of 15th February and 24th April 2022, 10 teachers from each partner school (totalling 50) took part in this self-learning training, where they got acquainted with the DMC site and its elements, evaluated the uploaded "ingredients" and prepared the first lesson plans.
The topics of the three-week training course were:
- Week 1: The changing role of the teacher, active learning methods, assessment techniques, innovation in education;
- Week 2: Digital tools for pedagogical purposes;
- Week 3: Free content resources, lesson and project planning.
The training served as an active forum for teachers of the partner schools, being able to share their ideas on each of the above mentioned topics in an online environment. The training included both individual and group exercises, and a combination of these resulted in written summaries of each teacher's individual development plan and an action plan for the school's digital strategy. All tools, methods and collection pages were reviewed and commented on. The suggestions and comments of the testers helped fill possible deficiencies.
The most important result of the training was that the teachers prepared their individual development plans for the integration of innovative methods. Also, they created a school action plan based on the digital strategy already prepared.