CoCOS TRAINING IN CO-CREATION
A week-long CoCOS co-creation training event was held in Ghent, Belgium, in February 2019. Teachers and educators associated with all partner organisations gathered for a specialised training designed by Artevelde University College and based on the Design Sprint method.
Training moderators from each organisation were appointed months ahead of the training and took part in an in-depth advanced training using the flipped classroom method. The advanced training had a heavy cooperation element, and rich discussions contributed to the final format and content of the training in Ghent.
During one whole week the participants worked on the integration of co-creation in a variety of training contexts and different target audiences: university students, adult learners. A significant issue which appeared consistently in the worksessions and discussions was solving the conundrum of technology implications: availablility of IT tools, IT competences and skill levels for both educators and learners, IT consultant or peer role.
At the end of the training week, the educators left with a detailed plan of work – authoring, methodology of delivery, content – for a specific course of their own. These plans are now in the process of being fleshed out, approved at institutional level, and delivered as pilot courses.
EXPLORING CO-CREATION
The participants have already developed, and are in the process of testing, a diverse array of course topics. At this stage of the project we are testing both the co-creation methodology and the variety of IT tools we identified at the research stage.
We are looking into how different combinations of learning platforms and IT tools perform, how do they address and stimulate the motivation of participants and peers, how different subjects and topics can become the focal point of co-creation, and how this plays along in different countries and educational settings.
Some of the courses which have been developed already are:
- Design Thinking
- French Language, English Language
- Audiovisual Media Technology
- ICT and Informatics
- Economics
- Presentation Skills
BUILDING A COLECTION OF ONLINE RESOURCES FOR EDUCATORS
The partners are building a collection of online resources to assist educators in integrating the co-creation method in their teaching practices.
These resources consist of:
- Online training modules on co-creation for introducing the method to teachers and trainers
- A collection of IT platforms and tools with difficulty ratings for educators of any IT skill level.
- A conceptual framework for co-creation to lay the method’s foundations
- A guidebook on co-creation with tips and practical advice
THE CoCOS PROJECT
CoCOS is a European Erasmus+ KA2 funded project that has as a main objective to apply the mindset, methods and tools gleaned for open source development to the co-creation of course content. In a number of diverse pilot courses we will test out and evaluate our experiences with open educational resources (OERs), open source platforms and freely available web tools explicitly designed to reduce course management during co-creation.
THE CONSORTIUM
The consortium consists of six European partners:
- Artevelde University College (project lead), Belgium
- Ljudska Univerza Velenje, Slovenia
- National Training Centre, Bulgaria
- Jaitek Technology and Training, Spain
- Foundation Knowledge Centre Pro Work, The Netherlands
- Ghent University, Belgium
For more information regarding the CoCOS activities, stay up to date and visit our website on www.cocos.education
