The new online learning course developed by EFIL and AFS volunteers is now becoming reality!
As previously announced, the “Developing Intercultural Competence through E-learning (DICE)” course aims at supporting the application of intercultural competences in everyday life. Its contents and activities touch upon aspects of intercultural competences which can be helpful in facing current society challenges and which might not be yet addressed by existing AFS tools and curricula. The pedagogical approach builds on the principles of non-formal education: experiential learning and interactions between participants playing a central role, with small input based on existing free resources online (rather than producing high-tech tools inside the course). Important role will be played by online facilitators. The contents are built around 10 thematic “stations”, of which five are already developed: Power in intercultural encounters, Identities, Media literacy, Inclusion and Discrimination, Othering.
The first version of the course with basic features and a significant part of contents will now be piloted by a group of AFS volunteers: participants of the upcoming EFIL Training for Trainers in the Czech Republic. As a preparation for their October event, the TfT participants will try out the DICE course online. This will be an opportunity not only to start reflecting on intercultural learning issues and to gain online learning experience before the event, but also to collect crucial feedback on the course shape from the users’ perspective. The piloting will start in mid September, facilitated by the course development team.
The DICE prototype is being developed by a team of volunteers, supported by EFIL office, which currently consists of: Marina Saglietti (AFS Italy), Bojana Ilic (AFS Serbia/AFS Denmark), Nicolas Martig (EFIL/AFS Switzerland), Irem Elvin Unsal (EFIL/AFS Turkey) and Stephan Winiker (AFS Switzerland). The DICE project team is meeting four times during 2018 – the first time was in Brussels (January), the second in Frankfurt (April), the third in Utoya (July) – however most of the work is happening virtually throughout the year.
The project is a part of the 2018 Work Plan “ICL in the 21st century – uniting polarised societies”, supported by the European Youth Foundation of the Council of Europe, and as such is linked not only to the upcoming Training for Trainers but also to the Expert Meeting (January), Volunteer Summer Summit (July), building on their results. The exciting news is that the EYF funding for DICE has now been confirmed to continue for 2019, when we would like to fine-tune the course, train new facilitators and try it out further with new target groups.
Stay tuned for further updates along the way!
For more information see https://efil-dice.org/ or contact izabela.jurczik-arnold@afs.org
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