Discussions

Your Name and Title: Associate Professor, Phd, Gabriela Grosseck

School or Organization Name: West University of Timisoara, Romania

Co-Presenter Name(s): Laura Malita

Area of the World from Which You Will Present: Eastern Europe

Language in Which You Will Present: English, Romanian

Target Audience(s): Higher Education and pre-university

Short Session Description (one line): Digital media education as part of the curriculum for higher education

Full Session Description (as long as you would like):

Nowadays societies are transforming rapidly due to technological change.  Day by day we can see how we are increasingly using different tools and applications for our professional and personal activities. More than that, digital skills and competencies are becoming a necessity in our professional profiles if we want to become proactive digital citizens, ready to take not only the opportunities but even the challenges associated with the digitalization, new types of jobs and professional activities. Therefore, the gap between people with the skills and opportunities to take advantage of these transformations and those who do not is growing continuously. In this context, not only the educators, but even librarians could play a major role in helping/guiding people to develop/acquire/gather necessary digital skills and competencies. In this process, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) can be a possible bridge for connecting librarians and those in need, by providing online content and courses relevant for their beneficiaries and by fostering a strong sense of community among the MOOC’s students. Such courses could cover a variety of topics, ranging from general ones like digital curators and creators, digital copyright and fair use, preserving content etc. and continuing with more advanced ones like assessment, learning analytics and support for specific issues.

Therefore, as we consider MOOCs as a sustainable initiative for the professional development of Romanian citizens, the goal of this presentation is to explore and respond to the question how MOOCs can be used to teach citizens in learning and enhancing their digital skills through multidisciplinary courses that address topics as they were mentioned above. 

Therefore, the presentation will benefit many librarians, students, educators and stakeholders who seek transformative and innovative strategies and tools for personal and professional development purposes, both extremely necessary in nowadays society.

Conference participants will be able to:

• argue the challenges and advantages of using MOOCs in education and for professional development purposes;
• introduce the benefits of MOOCs in developing global competencies and 21st century skills among the “global digital citizens”;
• investigate and demonstrate creative strategies and possibilities for preparing citizens (nowadays professional development through MOOCs is affordable and an easy and fast way of finding resources, engaging in a community of users interested in the same topics, finding and exchanging best practices and also updating their professional activities)
• Share examples (MOOC courses offered in different languages and that covered different subjects) and best practices on how MOOCs could benefit different content area, inter and cross disciplinary (e.g. math, geography, history, civic education, world languages, urban education etc.) Our examples will illustrate the use of some MOOC courses offered in Romanian in teaching transversal courses that bring together students from different faculties, like social studies, STEM, digital humanities;
• Investigate, discuss, and share common points for national or institutional strategies in order to such knowledge and competences to be recognized by both educators and employers.

Websites / URLs Associated with Your Session: