Skip to main content

Author: Stavri

Empowering Young Disadvantaged Individuals to Trigger Change in their Communities – You.Change.Com

 The world is gradually becoming witness to the disenfranchisement of youth. This is partially due to a global unrest in relation to the economic system creating a more complex societal equilibrium, placing young people at a disadvantaged socio-economic position with heightened youth unemployment, and also due to political distrust, a decline in values and socially-oriented causes as well as reduced belief in bottom-up social change. At the same time, the role of youth in development and decision-making is marginalised and/or undervalued and so the gap between local, regional, national and international development and youth engagement widens. The purpose of YouChange is to recruit young people with fewer opportunities to act as ‘change makers’ in their communities to conceive and carry out local strategies for socio-economic development, utilizing disused spaces (land recycling).

Visual/Video Literacies

 In Higher Education, online learning, and particularly the innovative approach taken in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), are making increasing use of video technologies to support teaching, learning, and assessment. MOOCs have the potential to make learning open and accessible to all, irrespective of institutional boundaries, national borders, or educational context. Continuing professional development for educators, which focuses on improving competences in video digital literacies, has the potential to improve the quality and relevance of online education, MOOCs and Higher Education, and can particularly support learners and those who prefer visual communication. The project will enhance the digital competences of educators by training them in video/visual thinking strategies (created from an analysis of current practice), delivered in a MOOC designed for Higher Education educators, that is open to others. Participants will learn about new ways of thinking on screen and visual thinking strategies to enhance performance and promote business communication.