EDUINO - Two Years of Improving Education Through Co-Creation and Innovation

Being a driver of change in society requires having vision, discipline, perseverance, and strong faith that change will become a reality. How we, together with our partners and supporters, have been creating changes in education for two years - we will tell you in the text below. Detecting the challenge of digitalization in education that emerged with the onset of the pandemic in 2020 was the impetus to take initiative for its improvement through co-creation and innovation. The SmartUp team - Social Innovation Lab - has been part of the team proudly implementing the EDUINO project for two years: Collective improvement of education through co-creation and innovation, whose beginnings were created in 2019, although its official launch was in March 2020.

What is EDUINO? EDUINO is the solution to the challenge that education, along with all its entities, faced two years ago. EDUINO is a collective portal for improving education through co-creation and innovation and represents an opportunity to stimulate changes in our society starting from our community. In fact, EDUINO is a digital platform with content created by the community for the community, rich with educational resources intended for the professional development of educational staff, as well as for the personal growth and development of children. The project "EDUINO: Collective improvement of education through co-creation and innovation" is owned by the Bureau for Development of Education (BDE), and it is funded by the Government of the United Kingdom through the British Embassy in Skopje, with support from UNICEF, the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy (MLSP), and the Ministry of Education and Science (MES). The project is implemented by our organisation SmartUp – Social Innovation Lab, and our collaborators are SyNRG - Software & IT Solutions and FINKI - Faculty of Computer Science and Engineering.

How did the process start? The mapped challenges that appeared during that period imposed the need for uniting and finding a common solution to overcome them, hence the key elements of EDUINO are precisely collectiveness and innovation - because we know that the possibility of achieving goals is greater only through a process of joint work and co-creation. The main challenge was the digitalization of education in the most effective and efficient way. We started by supporting educators in the process of improving and enhancing their digital skills, as well as creating resources to support distance learning. At the very beginning, the content posted on the EDUINO portal (the first recorded video lectures) was created by the community itself - the teachers, who voluntarily joined this process to help other colleagues and children to more easily master the teaching material during the period of digitalization of education and distance learning. Driven by the desire for the EDUINO portal to be a nursery of new ideas, resources, and initiatives, today we can proudly say that through co-creation, for two years we have succeeded in the mission to collectively improve education.

How do we permanently improve our education? Thanks to the dedication of our innovative team, as well as the support and innovativeness of all co-creators, the EDUINO Collective portal for digital content counts significant initiatives and campaigns that represent various types of resources and are of a permanent nature.

• EDUINO video lectures- available over 4,600 video lectures- resources intended for preschool, primary, and secondary education, with over 25,000 members who help each other daily;
• EDUINO ambassadors- an initiative that honors the contribution of the most dedicated educators to the development of the platform and enrichment of its content. This initiative today counts a total of 75 members - 75 EDUINO Ambassadors;

Third group of EDUINO Ambassadors, June 2022 “The professional community of EDUINO ambassadors is constantly upgraded through various trainings and conferences, and its members develop mutual cooperation and friendship - and that is a key indicator toward achieving the goal of introducing innovations through co-creation.” – told us Angela Zafirovska, manager of EDUINO communities.

• EDUINO webinars- online events for professional growth and development of educators, so far we have conducted a total of 32 webinars with around 52,000 listeners, during which we issued about 55,000 certificates for acquired knowledge and applied skills on certain topics;

Promotion for the third series of EDUINO Webinars, May 2022 “Through the EDUINO project, I have the opportunity, with the help of my experience, to directly participate in overcoming the challenges of students, teachers, and of course parents. One of the activities I like the most are the EDUINO webinars, which according to our statistics are the most viewed webinar series in the country. The numbers as well as the praise from the members of our community, which grows day by day, are a sufficient motivation to continue with the series of EDUINO webinars.” - says our project manager Milena Ignjatova.

• EDUINO Playathon- a creative challenge for learning and playing aimed at supporting parents, educators, and classroom teachers, with the possibility of implementation at home, kindergartens, and schools. So far, we have held three creative challenges with over 300 participants and more than 1,500 play activities created.

Photo from EDUINO Playathon, performing educational play activities in school, February 2022 “The creative challenge - EDUINO Playathon - always exceeds our expectations. The number of realized activities, involved families, kindergartens, and schools is truly admirable, but what we most want to highlight are the smiles on the children's faces. Their smiles and joy are our motivation to continue spreading the beauty of learning through play!” – told us Sonja Chalovska and Vesna Peceva, team leaders and coordinators of EDUINO Playathon.

• EDUINO Early Childhood Development- a platform intended to stimulate early childhood development in children aged 3 to 10 years. Through two open calls for submitting educational play activities, in the period from 2022 to 2022 a total of 1,353 activities were submitted, of which 75 are available on the EDUINO Early Childhood Development platform, both in Macedonian and Albanian. The total number of available educational play activities on the Early Childhood Development platform is 630 - a number that is constantly increasing.
• EDUINO 2D Laboratory- a virtual 2D laboratory that offers support to all who want to expand their knowledge in the field of natural sciences through experiential learning with special attention to climate change and environmental protection. It represents an additional resource that can be applied by educators in everyday teaching and by students (with or without parental support) when mastering the teaching material.

What does our team say about the achieved results and what do they represent for them? During these two years as a team, we have achieved results we are truly proud of. The positive impact we make in our society gives us energy for work, motivation, and encouragement to continue introducing lasting innovations. “Such a community combined with the incredible dedication of the team that tirelessly works on the project (and of which I am immensely proud) and with excellent cooperation with partners and institutions has led to the results we have at the moment, and I hope we will be a positive example, not only here but also worldwide, so others can follow our example.” - says Aleksandar Lazovski, co-founder and programme manager at SmartUp. One of the greater achievements that enabled EDUINO to be recognized internationally is that we were listed on the HundrED list of the top 100 innovations in education worldwide for 2021. “We managed to be included in the HundrED report for the top 100 innovations in education worldwide for 2021. This is an international confirmation of the potential of this project, and its significance was also recognized by all those who voted for this portal in the category “Most Popular Site for Education, Science, and Culture,” where we won third place within the “Site of the Year” event organized by Media Solutions.” - says Maja Ilioska, Marketing Manager.

Part of the SmartUp team, the EDUINO team, and EDUINO Ambassadors at the conference “The Link Between Child Well-being and Their Achievements” organized by UNICEF, 2022 We are especially proud of the encouragement we gave and that was enthusiastically accepted with great support from all stakeholders in this process, and as an organisation led by the idea to inspire and empower organisations and people to solve social challenges - we are particularly proud that “EDUINO - The Collective Portal for Digital Content” is based on co-creation, networking of actors-participants in the process with the goal of jointly achieving and implementing a lasting solution.