"SOPHIE – Safe and Inclusive Online Learning in Primary Education” is an Erasmus+ project in the field of school education involving 8 partners (both organisations and schools) in 4 countries: La Xixa (coordinator) and Escola L’Esperança in Spain, Symplexix and the Interorthodox Centre in Greece, CESIE and Istituto Comprensivo Statale Cassarà-Guida in Italy, Inter-kulturo and Os Rudolfa Maistra Sentilj in Slovenia.
Context and needs
The outbreak of Covid-19 has represented a drastic change in the way schools, students and their families approach education. Once schools shut down, teachers and school staff had to rethink teaching and start using online platforms through which online classes could be taught, homework assigned and carried out. However, most teachers did not have enough training to use digital means or were reluctant to adapt their methodologies to online learning. Children needed help from their families in order to be able to connect and carry out the required tasks, however, not all families had the knowledge and time to be able to give the needed support. Others did not have access to digital devices and the Internet. On the other hand, the situation of confinement meant lack of social interaction and participation in leisure activities, with the consequence that children spent much more time using smartphones, tablets, and computers, making more evident and urgent to address children’s digital safety and cyberbullying.
According to the research conducted by the consortium:
Initiatives need to be created so that all families with children in school age can have access to the required digital devices and to a good connection to the Internet.
Easier and more accessible platforms are needed in order to make online education more inclusive.
Digital training for teachers is needed in order to make them more confident in the adaptation of their teaching methodologies to the online environment.
Digital training for families is needed in order for them to be able to support their children engaging in online learning.
Awareness must be raised around the risks connected to the use of the Internet, and methodologies must be created to prepare teachers, families, and children to recognize and respond to those existing risks.
Collaboration between school and families must be improved.
Objectives
SOPHIE aims to tackle early school leaving and foster digital inclusion, resilience and safety among primary school students, by promoting inclusive and safe access to online learning, and actively involving teachers, educators, and families.
Its objectives are to provide primary schools (teachers, families and students) with guidelines, tools, and strategies:
To recognize and safely and critically address the risks connected to the use of the Internet, with particular attention to cyberbullying.
To detect difficulties that students might be experiencing in terms of access and in the online learning environment and to address them adequately.
To generate tools for teachers and families to support, accompany, and guide students during their online learning.
Target group
Teachers
Students
Families
Methodology
The SOPHIE method brings together methodologies such as Theatre of the Oppressed, Participatory Action Research and Process Work, applied to Critical media literacy and digital resilience.