The competencies required for successfully navigating the workplace in the digital age - the 21st century skills - are not specific to a particular discipline. These transversal skills include ways of thinking (creativity, critical thinking, learning to learn), ways of working (collaboration, communication), tools for working (information literacy, digital literacy) and living in the world (citizenship, social responsibility) (Binkley et al., 2012). Collaborative social media solutions, when used properly, can be powerful tools to foster such 21st century skills. The focus of this project is to enable teachers at the university level to include 21st century skills as learning outcomes in their courses by training them to adequately use social media tools in their courses.
More specifically, we will focus on the use of the SpeakUp application (speakup.info), developed at EPFL and the University of Lausanne by Prof Adrian Holzer (now at UNINE) and colleagues. This application supports rich blended learning scenarios (a mix of face-to-face and digital interaction) which directly promote 21st century skills such as creativity (brainstorming), collaboration (peer instruction), or critical thinking (think-pair-share). Furthermore by actively using this tool, students become attuned to the opportunities as well as the challenges of using social media and this know-how spillovers in their private and professional lives. To achieve this goal, we will organize regularly several 1-day workshops with different UniNE Faculties and other schools (e.g., HEP) to introduce the tools and learning outcomes to teachers. Following the workshops, we will offer personal support for teachers, in orderto assist them to overcome the various challenges of the deployment of the new technology in the classroom, and to apply and adapt the available tools in their specific contexts.

• Date début : 01.01.2019
• Date fin : 31.12.2020
• Montant: 39 766 CHF
• Financement : projet de recherche Swissuniversities​