Implementing and Applying Good Practices: Croatian national contest

In the framework of the DigiSkills project, the Faculty of Sciences of the University in Split has launched a national contest for teachers in Croatia. Primary and secondary school teachers in Croatia could apply to the contest in the implementation of two selected good practices, specifically “Safer Internet” and “Nanotechnology and Nanocomputers” uploaded to the DigiSkills inventory. The Faculty has organized several events for teachers in collaboration with national Education and Teacher Training Agency in order to spread the news on the DigiSkills project along with the content of respective good practices in general as well as to instruct them how to participate in the contest in particular.

Two interactive workshops were organized at the Faculty of Sciences:

- “Safer Internet” on the 28^th of April 2015 with 22 attendees

- “Nanotechnology and Nanocomputers” on the 29^th of April with 19 attendees

All participants had an opportunity to experience good practices guided by their authors. In addition, the teachers were encouraged to consider potential implementations of these practices in their school environments. The initial ideas and concrete steps that came from the teachers at workshops were very promising since they are leading to real implementation of these practises in Croatian schools.

For teachers who were not able to attend the workshops, two webinars were organized:

- “Safer Internet” on the 6^th of May 2015 with 65 attendees

- “Nanotechnology and Nanocomputers” on the 7^th of May with 59 attendees

The attending teachers were from different parts of Croatia and teach different subjects in primary and secondary schools, including Mathematics, Computer Science, Physics, Croatian, foreign languages, Biology, Chemistry, Economy, Music, History, Geography. During the webinars, the interaction with the participants was established through an open online forum. This enabled the teachers to comment possibilities of using presented materials in their teaching practices. According to the teachers’ feedback collected through webinars evaluation forms, the two webinars were interesting, useful and applicable in class. The complete video of the webinar on “Safer Internet” (in Croatian) is available at  https://connect.carnet.hr/p5elr5b8usf/. The video includes a short introduction to DigiSkills project, presentation of the good practice along with the instructions for teachers who want to take a part in the contest.

The good practice “Safer Internet”is available through the DigiSkills inventory of good practices here, while the material for “Nanotechnology and Nanocomputers” can be reached here.