“We have just successfully completed a one-month long marathon of 8 online thematic trainings”, exclaims Olena Shynarovska, Programme Coordinator for EWC’s Schools for Democracy in Ukraine.
32 trainers conducted 96 training sessions over a total of 144 hours involving 115 school teams with a total of 220 participants.
The four main topics were:
• Development of civic competences
• Links with the community
• Project-based learning
• Student self- governance bodies
“Not only is the online learning format possible, but we even managed to do some elements better than face to face, like graphs, schemes and visualization. Participants benefit from the possibility of learning in a safe environment, and try out newly developed skills in practice with a chance to discuss this experience and make adjustments based on feedback received. It is more complicated to try things out during the conventional trainings which last for several days”, Shynarovska says.
The confusion and uncertainty of the first online trainings is now a thing of the past. The trainers are more equipped, and better in adapting to changing conditions and ambiguity. The team of trainers can select more appropriate applications for each task, share new ideas and technical findings with colleagues.
“Our team of trainers enjoyed choosing different ways to visualize and interact with the audience. At times we had to come up with alternatives in case of poor internet connection or other unforeseen online situations. Of course, living and working without live communication is difficult for all of us, but online learning provides us with many other opportunities. In our opinion, the future lies in combined trainings, where parts of learning will take place face to face while some elements will be conducted remotely”, says Svitlana Ovcharenko, member of the Schools for Democracy pool of trainers.