The year when we were nowhere: digital transformation
Digital transformation has been a thing for a while already, and this blog is the living proof of it. But during the pandemics, it had a incredible boost that moved everything 3 to 5 years forward, according to different analysts. So this is what happened to me in the year when we were nowhere (easter egg for you guys here… 😀 ).
Being stranded at home and, especially in the first months of pandemics, having not so much to do, it sparkled my creativity and enterpreneurship (well done, European key competences!) to contribute to the ongoing debate about digital youth work and, more in general, about the digital transformation of education.
After the string of posts here on the blog, about how to arrange non formal education activities online, it happened to me more and more to be asked for contributions in the ongoing debate about the digital transformation of non-formal educational activities, until… I stopped for a while, and realized how far I went along this road, without even sharing a glimpse of it here on the blog.
So I decided to put here all these contributions, be them personal or group efforts, written or spoken or recorded on video. The many different aspects of the digital transformation we are facing can hopefully get a bit more clear here, especially for who is on the field and does not have a deep knowledge of these aspects. So let’s start:
In spring 2020, my friend and colleague Arpad Bernai had a nice, long chat with me about so many topics related to digital transformation, which became a podcast in a series called The Source, curated by the Academy of Experience, in Hungary. LIsten to it, and let me know what do you think about it in the comments:
I was then involved by Salto Inclusion & Diversity (ID) resource center in creating a publication about digital inclusion, but… me being me, it turned out being an interactive website with several podcast episodes as a side-dish. It is now officially out, so I can link it here and invite you all to go there, read the articles, listen to all the podcasts etc etc – it will take some time, but again I invite you to let me know about it in the comments: http://digitalinclusion.salto-youth.net
While developing the website content, in autumn 2020 I was also invited to the ID Talks, a series of talks organized by Salto ID about different aspects of inclusion. You can find more information about the whole series on this webpage. Of course I was invited to talk digital inclusion and you can find the whole recording at the link, together with an article summing up the ideas of the talk. Here you can watch a teaser video, made using the beautiful graphic recording by Olalla Gonzalez:
At the end of 2020 I was also invited to the OnTrack online conference about NEET youngsters, and you can find my speech and all the rest of the contents on this webpage.
Then In December I finally made it to deliver the training course Citizenship Reloaded, together with my friends and colleagues Jan Lai and Carmine Rodi:
It was a great ride and I honestly think it set a new level of quality in delivering online training activities. I wrote (also) about it, in this other article I wrote on the Tools For Learning online magazine: Dear digital citizenship, we need to talk.
Last but not least, after the last EYWC online from Bonn, at the end of 2020, I was asked by the Perspectives on Youth magazine by the Youth Partnership between the European commission and the Council of Europe, to write an article regarding a possible strategy on how to further develop digital youth work after what we learnt during the year where we were nowhere..
The article is here, and a few months after, it was presented and discussed online in a panel that you can watch from here:
What do you think about what I said or wrote? I would be very glad to read from you in the comments.