Welcome to WOWSA!

Wowsa – What’s on the Web Safe for All Family Members- A Family Learning Approach to Building Digital Literacy Competences

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Welcome to the WOWSA project. What does WOWSA stand for? WOWSA means ‘What’s on the Web Safe for All Family Members’. Throughout the WOWSA project, we aim to enable everyone in the family unit to develop the necessary skills for the every-changing, ever-growing, digital world.

With the evolution of technology in our daily lives, it is important that we know how to respond and react in our hyperconnected society. WOWSA addresses this in the hope to allow people to make informed choices and decisions in today’s digital environment.

The WOWSA project provides an insight into supporting parents as educators of children and other members within the family. Through the use of training sessions, themed comic strips, explainer videos, puzzles and audio books, all members of the family are introduced to the do’s and don’ts of the world wide web! WOWSA aims to promote safe usage of the internet for children, young adults, parents, and senior adult learners and assist digital learning within the family unit.

ABOUT

Over the course of the WOWSA project, participating organisations will develop different educational resources that appeal to all ages within the family to help them navigate the benefits and pitfalls of the internet. We hope to eliminate the “digital divide” or disconnection that exists within the modern family unit. To eliminate this divide, WOWSA seeks to empower family members with digital literacy skills that focus on how individuals interpret, apply and synthesise information and content that is sourced online so that they can form balanced and informed opinions.  

WOWSA consists of a package of different learning materials – all developed to support family learning. Firstly, WOWSA provides an introductory training programme to support parents in their role as educators in the home. This programme comprises of a series of workshops, offering basic instructions that help parents integrate with the digital lives of their children and support the senior adults of the family to develop their own digital literacy. The second set of educational materials from WOWSA focuses on enabling parents to tackle the “family digital divide” that exists. It incorporates six modules that address digital literacy, media literacy and social media literacy. 

kids, children, people

These training programmes enables parents to improve their knowledge of the digital world, and also support them to deliver the digital tools developed in the Family Learning Toolkit. This Family Learning Toolkit provides age-appropriate learning materials that family members can engage with and learn from. It includes themed comic strips for children aged 8-12, interactive digital magazines for teenagers and young adults aged 13-20, and audio books for senior adult learners. The Family Learning Toolkit aims to offer an effective learning approach to support all members of the family to enhance their digital and media literacies.

WOWSA also offers an in-service training programme to ensure that adult educators are fully trained in the field of digital literacy and can utilise the educational resources developed within this project. This programme seeks to familiarise adult educators with new approaches to work in online environments. Throughout the course of the WOWSA project, parents and adult educators can learn through induction trainings and workshops. The modules delivered in these training programmes aim to provide bespoke training support on the critical topics of digital and media literacies. Towards the end of the project, we will hold the WOWSA Family Learning Symposiums. There, we will present the full range of education materials developed and discuss key issues such as online safety and wellbeing, hoping to support families to address these modern issues together.

The symposiums will bring together families who have participated in the project at a national level. Families will share their experience and encourage other families to adopt a family learning approach on the topic of digital and social media.

Learning Materials

The WOWSA project – What’s on the Web Safe for All Family Members – aims to promote a family learning approach to building digital competences. This comprehensive, intergenerational family learning initiative supports the key role of parents to develop the digital and social media literacy skills of children, young adults, and senior adults within the family unit. To achieve these objectives, the WOWSA partners are collaborating together throughout the term of the project to produce the following innovative learning materials:

  1. Induction to Pedagogy for Parents

This programme of learning will provide induction training for parents as they are the primary caregivers and educators within the family unit. This approach aims to educate parents in understanding the issues related to online learning and the use of dynamic online tools so that they can integrate with the digital lives of their children and support their parents and senior adults in their families to learn about the dangers and pitfalls of the internet. This learning material encourages online safety and tackles the digital divide that exists between different generations of the family.
Available in English from December 2021.

        2. Digital Literacy Curriculum for Parents
This curriculum is a training programme to support parents to take on the role of educators within their family to address the topic of online safety. It aims to educate parents to be aware of information disorder, contemporary propaganda; to address privilege and diversity in the media and how to engage with social media responsibility. Therefore, this learning programme empowers parents to develop their own digital and media literacies to support the younger and senior members of their families. The content of this programme consists of six modules and addresses the three topics of: digital literacy, media literacy and social media literacy.

       3. Family Learning Toolkit – Comic Strips, Interactive Magazines and Audio Books

 This family leaning toolkit presents age-appropriate learning materials for family members of different age groups:

  • Comic strips that encourage safe online activities for children between the ages of 8-12 years of age. These cartoon-like comic strips identify dangers of the internet and offer solutions to act against online threats.
  • Explainer videos, self-help resources, games and puzzles are presented through an interactive digital magazine for teenagers and young adults aged 13-20.
  • A range of audiobooks for senior adult learners and grandparents to highlight specific risks and pitfalls that senior adults might encounter online.

The aim of this family learning toolkit is to provide resources that appeal to differing age groups in order to educate and inform of the threats that are faced in the digital world.

Available in English from November 2021.

        4. In-service Training Programme for Adult Educators

This training programme aims to inform adult educators about the WOWSA project, ensuring they are able to navigate and exploit the full potential of the WOWSA educational resources. The programme is specifically designed for adult educators who are ‘in-service’, meaning that they are already working in the community as adult educators. Therefore, this programme will build on the existing expertise and experience of adult educators, and provide them with an opportunity to up-skill to deliver family learning projects locally, and also to offer training to families on the topic of digital and social media literacy. This programme introduces the basic principles of digital, media and social media literacy to familiarise adult educators with the new approaches required to effectively use and integrate the new resources into everyday activities. This in-service training programme teaches adult educators how to produce their own educational materials as online platforms continue to grow. It consists of workshops and a handbook to teach educators how to develop their own Comic Strip and Audio Book for young and senior learners, respectively. The in-service training programme will be available online as a handbook in a PDF format for printing and as a flipbook for online use.

PARTNERS

WOWSA has been funded with the support of the Erasmus+ Programme. The WOWSA project commenced in September 2020 and will run until August 2022.  WOWSA is currently being delivered by a team of seven organisations from Austria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, France, Ireland, Portugal, and Slovenia.

Coordinating Partner: InterAktion - Verein für ein interkulturelles Zusammenleben

Austria

InterAktion is an Austrian organisation that focuses on human rights, sustainability, the integration of refugees and young people from migrant families, and encourages intercultural dialogues between people from different backgrounds and cultures through non-formal educational methods. This organisation aims to advocate for the development and inclusion of marginalised groups and youth at risk within society. InterAktion helps to promote and create integrated communities that instil individuals with confidence to be more aware of their competencies and potential.

Rebenburggasse 5, 8793 Trofaiach. 

office@interaktion.org


Responsible project manager: 

Katja Lenic Salamun 

katja.salamun@interaktion.org 

+436644309278InterAktion

 

Verein für ein interkulturelles Zusammenleben – Austria 

office@interaktion.org

CSI - Center for Social Innovation LTD.

Cyprus

Based in Cyprus, CSI is a Research & Development organisation that promotes social innovation with the aim to bring about positive change in local, national, regional and global levels. This organisation focuses on identifying societal needs and offers disruptive solutions that promote sustainable growth and cultivate the potential for change within society. CSI is primarily engaged with education, e-learning, social entrepreneurship and project management within the fields of VET and the labour market.

Drustvo Za Razvijanje Prostovoljnega Dela Novo Mesto (Association for Developing Voluntary Work Novo Mesto)
Slovenia

Drustvo Za Razvijanje Prostovoljnega Dela Novo Mesto (DRPDNM) is a non-governmental and humanitarian organisation based in Slovenia. Their area of expertise is social care, youth, and culture. DRPDNM’s promotes the values of solidarity, tolerance, voluntarism, active living, clean environment, citizen awareness and participation in order to foster a more inclusive society. This organisation engages with and supports different communities in order to promote cultural identity, social integration, and equality. DRPDNM works with projects on a local, national, and European basis to inform, educate and promote voluntary work.

REINTEGRA, z.s.

Czech Republic

Reintegra is a Czech organisation that was founded in 1999. Their goal is to establish a regional market leader in order to reintegrate individuals to society and the labour market. Reintegra focuses on minority groups of society to provide services that effectively support the employment of disadvantaged communities. This organisation highlights the importance of social inclusion and equal opportunities through educational courses and individual support. Reintegra focuses on career guidance, lifelong learning, educational methods, e-learning, and integration purposes to prepare individuals for their professional life and a full integration into society.

The Rural Hub

Ireland

The Rural Hub is an Irish association founded in 2012 that provides specific training programmes in order to support and aid members of disadvantaged communities. The Rural Hub focuses on encouraging social inclusion and offering solutions that promote the integration of migrant communities. Alongside this, they specialise in education, e-learning, media production, development, research, and strategic planning. The Rural Hub aims to support greater community involvement and enhance social inclusion by focusing on growing isolated communities. By working on national and EU funded projects, this association has supported local youth groups, migrant communities, senior adults, and individuals who have been absent from education to re-engage with service providers and mainstream education. The Rural Hub delivers a range of diverse programmes to support the next generation of creative individuals to build and sustain successful careers.

Proportional Message – Associação

Portugal

Proportional Message – Associação is an association that offers support to people through the development of educational materials. They aim to fulfil human potential by creating educational environments that develop social, emotional, and cognitive areas. Their target groups are marginalised communities, elderly people, adolescents, adults, families as well as people with disabilities. Proportional Message acts to actively combat the global challenges of poverty, social and labour inequalities, education, environment, peace, and justice by raising awareness and enacting change. Proportional Message commits to furthering the field of education through non-formal means in order to promote socioeducational projects for individuals.

Solution: Solidarité & Inclusion

France

The objective of Solution: Solidarity & Inclusion is to boost social inclusion among younger adults by proposing several kinds of activities allowing to foster mutual acceptance, stimulate human interests by offering cross-cutting activities, design educational programs to open minds and strengthen fair dynamics between generations.

Solution operates in a multicultural and socially complex environment: in the east of Paris, there are more than 70 different ethnic communities whose younger adults may face
economic difficulties, as well as social and labor exclusion. Such groups are often excluded from extra scholar offers, which may help them to acquire new skills enabling a better integration into society. Solution’s mission is to propose to these people non-formal education activities bringing together different publics and stimulating, this way, intercultural and intergenerational dialogue while promoting the acquisition of soft and hard skills useful for professional and social purposes.

On the European level, Solution aims at multiplying the number of exchanges and partnerships with competent organizations expert in the field of youth education to offer youth with fewer opportunities the possibility to participate in international educational workshops in the framework of the Erasmus+ program where to acquire new skills useful for their social and labor inclusion and where to exchange their ideas with people from other countries.

By participating in the WOWSA project, Solution aims at providing new skills to its educators and new resources to is target groups in order to empower parents to develop their own digital and media literacies and to support the youngest and most senior members of their family to do the same to foster digital safety.

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