We’d like to tell you more about the Digital Balance Project. Digital Balance is a new approach to train VET teachers, leaders and managers in digital well-being. The end result will be to improve educators’ own digital competences, while also boosting the capacity of VET institutions to manage the digital transition.
With so many of us working and studying from home due to COVID, digital well-being has never been as important as it is now. Due to the sudden change in the work situation there was not enough time to discuss the risk factors. Growing scientific evidence from workers in digital environments has shown that the unconstrained use of devices can have a very strong negative consequence.
The difficulty of effective interpersonal communication causes higher stress, while heavy screen use is linked to eye sight problems and headaches. The term” Technostress” is caused both by technology and organizational expectations that leads to deterioration in productivity/ performance and in employees’ mental health and physical health. In recent times the VET schools suffer shortage of staff and increase in the absence due to digitally induced stress.
The objective of Digital Balance is to clear: design, develop and implement a new approach to train VET teachers, leaders and managers in digital wellbeing.
The goal of the project is to boost the capacity of the VET institutions to manage the digital transition in a way that marries high quality teaching with the well-being of the concerned on a long term.
We aim to produce three new resources that enable the integration of policy and practice to support digital well being for teachers and encourage proactive behaviour at personal level:
- IO1: Digital Balance Analysis Report is an investigation, analysis and publication which introduces and analyses the challenges to digital wellbeing as experienced by VET teachers and managers as a part of the wider current digital transition.
- IO2: Digital Well Being Resource Pack are a series of open resources in the form of case studies, guides, and template documents, which enable VET managers and department heads to better understand the options open to them and to develop concrete plans, policy and practice suitable to boost their own organization’s digital well-being performance.
- IO3: Digital Balance Empowerment Program is an online training course that provides teachers with the knowledge and skills to be proactive in safeguarding their own digital wellbeing in order to maintain high quality teaching performance over time.
To find out more about the Digital Balance Project please visit the website:
https://digitalbalanceproject.eu/
