From the 9th to the 13th of May 2022, the project partners met in Ljubljana, Slovenia, for a short short-term joint staff training. The training aimed directly at adult educators and, indirectly, to low-educated and low-skilled older workers. The project is based on creating a continuous, supportive learning environment for low-educated and low-skilled adults over 45 whose main motivation for learning needs to be activated and maintained. The main goal of this project is to ensure that adult educators have the knowledge and skills to create productive and effective learning environments for working with adults with lower levels of education than those required in the daily professional, social, and cultural environments.
The first day was spent learning more about the project. First, we introduced ourselves and then did an activity called “World Caffe” to check what we already knew about people with functional illiteracy. Then the coordinator of the project, EDENSOL, presented the project, its rationale, objectives and results, and U3A explained the concepts behind the project.
During the different days of the training, the participants were able to familiarise themselves with all the material developed within the project. Each of the partners presented the topic they had developed. The presentations consisted of a short theoretical introduction and practical activities. In this way, the participating adult educators were able to see how they could put the content of the modules into practise.
Participants also had the opportunity to use the web application under development and provide feedback to improve the results. This web application, which can be accessed from the project website, will be available in English and partner languages.
The application uses thinking and game mechanics in a non-game context to improve user engagement and learning. These exercises aim to improve adult learners’ basic skills, such as spelling, math as applied to daily life, reading comprehension, problem solving, and communication.
As additional activities, the partners were able to have dinner together in a nice restaurant near Tivoli Park, where we further discussed the topics discussed during the day in a more informal atmosphere, and we had the opportunity to visit the beautiful city of Ljubljana with Meta Kutin, who gave an interesting guided tour of the most representative buildings designed by the famous Slovenian architect Jože Plečnik.
