BadgeTour – Second international meeting in Lisbon
The BadgeTour project partners met for the third international meeting in Lisbon, Portugal on December 2nd. This time almost all partners met in person, except for the SBTC (Turkey) who participated in the meeting virtually.
After discussion about quality assurance issues with the spanish partner (INFODEF), OAMK revised with the project team the first project result (R1), the BadgeTour micro-credentialing guidelines. The aim of this guide is to support VET trainers to approach for the first time the world of micro-credentials providing all the key concepts, main roles and related activities. This Result will empower anyone and especially those working in the tourism sector to become proficient badge issuers and proud earners. As a basis, the project objective is to better match skills and jobs both at national and international level, thus fighting unemployment in this crisis-affected sector.
After deciding on some minor improvements on the guidelines, partners focused on the BadgeTour Toolkit (R2), a set of Open Educational Resources (OERs) on the creation and use of digital badges to validate learning. The 5 training modules are being implemented on the BadgeTour Training Platform by each partner working on a specific phase of the open badges creation and release, together with a coherent competence map to guide participants in their learning path. This course will be soon finalized to be tested by VET trainers, managers and experts in the tourism sector next spring in each partner country.
The last part of the meeting revolved around Result 3, the training path. Mindshift, the hosting partner, presented the path structure that will improve awareness and skills of teachers and trainers in VET in implementing micro-credentialing practices. The core concept is that participants will be able to design and issue open badges equally understood and recognised by employers, educational establishments across sectors and society in general for the tourism sector.
Preparing for the release of Newsletter n. 2 by INFODEF, partners concluded that a stronger dissemination strategy will help them convey the BadgeTour objectives and results through social media.
Next meeting will be in Oulu (Finland) in May 2022 for a 3-day training event that will involve both project partners and VET trainers and teachers. Stay tuned for more updates and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin!