On 6th of February DigiREES project was officially launched at the Aleksanteri Institute. DigiREES is a part of Digileap initiative, and the project aims to increase digital competences and skills of teachers and researchers focusing on Russian, Eastern European and Eurasian research areas.
The launch was opened by Sari Autio-Sarasmo, Vice-director of the Institute and head of DigiREES project. In her opening words, Autio-Sarasmo said, that DigiREES is a joint initiative of the Master programme in Russian studies (MARS), the East Central European, Balkan and Baltic Studies (ECEBB), Ukrainian Studies and Expertise in Russian and Eastern European Studies (ExpREES) educational programmes, ran by the Aleksanteri Institute. The main aim of the project is enhancing digital skills of the teachers and researchers, and for that DigiREES team organises training sessions on Moodle, MOOC, video production and other instruments of online teaching and learning during the spring semester.
After the summer the second part of the project will start – creating a MOOC “Introduction to Russian, Eurasian and Eastern European Studies” worth of 5 study credits and open for all Finnish universities and universities of applied sciences. The course will be open also to the wider community outside of Finland, and there is an incentive to make part of the course available for high school students in Finland. The course creation requires a broad competence in these online tools and platforms available for teachers. Project coordinator Elena Gorbacheva told about the training schedule and substance. The launch concluded with Question&Answer session.
The first training was organised already on the 10th of February and was devoted to the basics of Moodle. The training was led by Sami Soinio, OTE representative for the DigiREES project, and Veera Kallunki. At the session, Soinio and Kallunki went through all the most important Moodle functions and tools, showing the participants how useful Moodle can be for teachers.
The next session will deal with more advanced functions of Moodle and has already attracted high interest. The training schedule is organised the way so that all participants can attend as many training sessions as they want, and there is a possibility of remote learning through Zoom.
Elena Gorbacheva