Digital Natives – Participant Veronika's Opinion /SK

Digital Natives - participant Veronika's opinion /EN

Any work with youth is always a challenge and also a responsibility. This work requires constant adaptation to the "language" of younger generations, with whom we, as teachers, educators, lecturers - or generally, as youth workers, come into contact. The training course titled "Digital Natives", supported by the Erasmus+ program, which took place from October 12 to 29, 2019, in the Croatian city of Zadar, was about the importance and benefits of digitalization. The organizers of this training course were members of the Croatian organization Udruga Prizma.

Whenever I decide to travel abroad for an ERASMUS+ project, it's a small-big adventure. It begins the moment I plan my trip, search for the most affordable flight, and full of anticipation and curiosity, wait for the big day. It was no different for the project I traveled for to the Croatian town of Zadar, full of historical monuments and beautiful coastlines.

The aforementioned Digital Natives course was intended for youth workers in general, social workers, or youth leaders, and was attended by participants from Italy, Spain, Slovenia, Lithuania, Latvia, Portugal, Croatia, and Slovakia. Together, we formed a community of 22 enthusiasts with diverse professional backgrounds, cultural experiences, inspiring insights, and the ambition to become more responsible digital natives and to share the knowledge gained from the course within their communities.

The main theme of the course was primarily to increase our digital competencies in online safety and how not to be just passive recipients of information from the media, but rather, the goal was mainly to develop critical thinking. A truly great benefit for us was that we learned about and mastered various tools, applications, and tricks, thereby developing our digital literacy. In addition, we worked with cameras and camcorders provided by the training course organizer. We gained basic information on how to record videos and take quality photos.

The project itself, of course, was not only about the atmosphere of non-formal education. On the third day of the project, the organizers prepared a trip around the city of Zadar, and a secondary task for the participants was to present their country and its culture in an interactive way during the "inter-cultural night". The group of Slovak participants (along with me) tantalized the taste buds of the others mainly with traditional Slovak cheeses, Horalky wafers, and homemade smoked sausage.

In conclusion, I can only state that leaving your home for a while and traveling for any Erasmus+ project is definitely one of the best experiences you can get! You just need to find a suitable topic, choose a topic from the offer that is close to you, and go for the adventure!