Project Result 1 - Development of sustainable community of practice

The main objective of this task is to create a sustainable community of practice of educators, teachers & trainers, operating both online & face-to-face, for exchanging practices, expertise & experience, getting peer support during their professional activity.

The project HACK-IT has the main objective of developing & supporting teachers’& trainers’ technological skills to help them in the transition to digital classroom in times of pandemic & beyond.

It is well known that there are several difficulties when dealing with blended & online learning, both in the use of the available tools & in the development of digital learning experiences, that should be as effective as possible considering the constraints that physical isolation brings.

In this context, HACK-IT provides a rigorous set of objectives that contribute to the immediate development of technological & pedagogical skills, including a full online Hackathon methodology (PR2) & a training set of tools & associated example methodologies (PR3).

Nevertheless, the sustainability of the participants' digital practices demands constant & continuous support & feedback, ensuring that the teachers & educators are not working alone, but in a community that shares & discusses their questions, doubts, difficulties as well as successes.

HACK-IT will provide a collaboration and coordination platform with support for a learning community. It will serve as a platform for: exchanging practices & expertise in teachers’ activity, provide a peer-support team that increases collaboration & fosters discussion for reflection & selfimprovement, help participants face unexpected challenges & adapt to the new circumstances & environment.

Most of the teachers work with pedagogical & scientific autonomy, so it is fundamental to provide a collaboration & discussion area that can increase the feeling of community & reduce the impact COVID19 has in the teaching-learning process in situations of drastically shift to online learning, in most of the cases entirely.

We aim to develop a support cooperation & support environment that provides an effective online meeting area, with the following description: HACK-Step 1: cooperation, networking and peerlearning support; HS 2: definition of the inter-exchange methodology, HS 3: test pilot the community of practice, HS 4: create an e-book (interactive) with best practices & guidelines for effective communication & inter-exchange in a community of practice.