Workshops at the EAEA Annual Conference 2021

The parallel workshops will be organised 18 November 11:00 – 12:15 CET. Read more about the programme and register on the main conference page.

1. Competences for active citizenship and digital transformation – This workshop is full

What competences do adults need to be digital citizens? Are there any that are the most urgent ones to develop? What competences are the most fundamental ones? During an interactive workshop, Helder Touças from Lisbon City Council will invite participants to share their views on the competences needed for digital citizenship.

You will also hear from Chiara Palazzetti, who represents the #GEMMA project. #GEMMA promoted a model of social engagement in the region of Umbria, Italy and won the EAEA Grundtvig Award 2021.

Helder Touças is the co-coordinator of Lisbon City Council’s Digital Inclusion and Digital Literacy Program, an initiative that seeks to demystify the use of technology, helping citizens, in a simple and engaging way, to take advantage of its daily use. Has been proudly serving the city of Lisbon as a public servant since 2005.

He has been a visiting professor at the University of Lisbon and is also an instructional designer, trainer, innovation learner and author at ELM, EPALE and national academic and scientific journals.

His special interests include empowerment through digital inclusion, game-based learning and Critical Pedagogy. As Paulo Freire once wrote: “There is no change without dream, as there is no dream without hope”. Touças believes that being a public servant is an act of hope. And focus on acting towards the empowerment of his fellow citizens through hope in a human-first digital society.

Chiara Palazzetti is the Coordinator of the International Projects Department at FORMA.Azione srl, an accredited VET and AE provider based in Perugia, Umbria (IT) with a specific expertise in international cooperation and project management.

Palazzetti graduated in Anthropology at the University of Siena in 2009, then moved to London for a Master Degree in Anthropology and International Development completed in 2010 at the LSE – London School of Economics and Political Science.

She is an expert in the planning and management of international projects focusing in particular on the areas of education and inclusion. As project manager, she has coordinated several EU projects mainly under the Erasmus+ and REC – Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programmes. Currently working as project manager on the following themes: gender equality and contrast to discriminations in the labour market, quality of VET and adult education provision, social inclusion & migration, digital education and inclusion, active citizenship and youth participation.

Also, she has an expertise in designing, implementing and evaluating formal and non-formal training opportunities targeting both youngsters and adults.

Through the years, Palazzetti has developed a strong competence in quality assurance and impact assessment. In particular, she is trained on the European Peer Review Methodology applied to different educational domains, and as Trainer for Peers. She has been directed responsible or involved in the assessment of many EU-funded projects in the areas of her expertise.

2. Is there a right to an analogue life? Spaces for learning and citizenship outside of online environments

This workshop is cancelled.

3. Power dynamics in participation and exclusion in a virtual space

What aspects keep adults from actively participating in virtual spaces? How are power structures shaped by an increased platformatisation of learning? Are adult educators platform users or creators? During an interactive workshop, Nils-Eyk Zimmermann from Arbeitskreis deutscher Bildungsstätten will open a discussion about different issues that affect participation and exclusion in virtual spaces. He will share lessons learnt from Digital Transformation in Adult Learning for Active Citizenship (DIGIT-AL), a European project which won the EAEA Grundtvig Award 2021.

Nils-Eyk Zimmerman is Coordinator DIGIT-AL Digital Transformation in Adult Learning for Active Citizenship -project at Arbeitskreis deutscher Bildungsstätten. He is also secretary of the DARE network – Democracy and Human Rights Education in Europe.

Zimmerman is consultant and author in the fields of active citizenship, civil society, non-formal and lifelong learning and capacity building for civil society actors. He coordinated and implemented international cooperation programs in the field of active citizenship for different organizations and with different partners. He is also initiator and editor of the Digital Toolbox Competendo and writes blog on https://civilresilience.net

4. Artificial Intelligence in adult learning: the way forward?

Although Artificial Intelligence has become part of our daily lives long ago, its connection with adult learning remains blurry. How can adult learning demystify AI? How much do AI systems contribute to the democratization of adult education? During an interactive workshop facilitated by Maja Maksimovic, participants will get to hear about an example of a pervasive game which opened a conversation about AI with citizens of Belgrade, Serbia. Reflections about the game as well as the role of AI in informal learning will be shared by Sunčica Pasuljević-Kandić. Participants will also discuss the priority topics for the development of AI literacy and the role of adult learning in ensuring an ethical and inclusive use of AI.

Maja Maksimović is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Pedagogy and Andragogy at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Belgrade. At the moment, she focuses her research practice on the entanglement of the educational, activist, and artistic, trying to incorporate the critical, embodied, spatial and imaginative into a repertoire of action. 

Maksimović has an intensive cooperation with NGOs, cultural institution and activist organizations, trying to build stronger links among academia and the civil sector, but also to explore public spaces as participatory educational sites. She is a part of ESREA steering committee and a co-convenor of the ESREA network Active Democratic Citizenship and Adult Learning. Maksimović is also a member of Škograd collective.

Sunčica Pasuljević-Kandić is “antidiscipllinary being with a desire to orchestrate loosely choreographed interactions with communities and spaces that we share. Creating interventions at the intersection of artists research, curatorial and pedagogical practice. ” 

“Through site specific research and participatory performative approaches I explore issues of language, collaboration, identity making in the context technological development and its affect to our Anthropocene environment. I question the boundaries and flexibility of art education and explore arts connection to contemporary life of capitalized data and materiaility behind our AI systems.”