Shine a light – e-learning initiatives from two EU projects

Abstract

The paper presents ideas and initiatives from two ongoing Erasmus+ projects funded by the European Commission. Both projects use e-Learning as an enabler for communicating interesting and important learning contents that are believed to increase and improve employability prospects for the targeted groups of learners. The WINnovators project targets young women with reduced opportunities for quality education in different areas of STEM/STEAM and intends to demonstrate how their entrepreneurial skills can gradually grow by providing them with e-Learning incentives in such areas. The YNSPEED project intends to offer free MOOC courses addressing hot topics of modern society – artificial intelligence, sustainable development, and fake news. In the YNSPEED project, the target group of learners are young people (aged 16-29). It is believed that their interest in such important topics can be boosted by communicating the corresponding relevant learning content in a carefully designed way. The Shine a light metaphor is a common point and a common approach in both projects – e-Learning technology is used to facilitate informal education for the targeted learners and to indicate directions that often get either omitted or misunderstood in traditional schools.