BRIDGES - designing a European Digital Education Hub (EDEH) to support networked digital learning as we transition from Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) to effective post-digital education.

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the need for effective digital education across all education sectors, but perhaps especially within the HE context. Initially in 2020 the rush to continue to deliver teaching and learning to students who were no longer allowed on campus was characterised by a process of trying to emulate online what had previously been occurring offline. This included activities such as large and unwieldy online lectures and classes, often featuring the same powerpoint presentations as would be used in a face-to-face setting, and a general failure to adapt materials and pedagogies to take full advantage of the affordances presented by the digital context. This period has been coined Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT). During 2021 more co-ordinated and highly developed approaches have been explored by HE Institutions as it became clear that COVID-19 was not going away and that the long-term reality of HE teaching and learning lay in new approaches (e.g. blended learning) and new pedagogies (e.g. networked learning). This led to the rise of the post-digital education paradigm. However, across many institutions, regions and countries there remains a lack of support, resources and training for HE educators in post-digital education. The BRIDGES Erasmus+ project aims to work with European educators and learn from existing research in these areas to better understand these shortfalls and develop a digital platform - the European Digital Education Hub - to help address the gaps.