Details

17 February 2022

WOODigital is an ERASMUS+ funded project involving 6 partner organisation from Spain, Italy, France, Ireland and Hungary. The purpose of the WOODigital project (2020-22) is to improve the digital skills - Industry 4.0 - of young Europeans (ages 18 to 35) working or interested in working in the wood and furniture sector.

A vocational education and training (VET) methodology is applied which combines learning and skills developed in both the training centre and in companies i.e. a work-based training modality.

WOODigital will first identify the digital skills and competencies needed by young people working or interested in working in the wood and furniture sector. Then a new joint curriculum will be designed in order to meet these needs. Based upon these findings, an online, open and free training course will be developed (in 5 languages). The course will be validated through a pilot course among at least 75 young people, 25 of whom will participate in a 10-day dual training stay in Italy in the summer of 2022.

Continuous feedback that allows changes and improvements is an essential part of the WOODigital project. This is why we asked students of the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology to participate in a special pilot session in December 2021. The participants were second-year students from GMIT Letterfrack, the National Centre for Excellence in Furniture Design and Technology. Our goal during this session was not only to test our first online learning unit, but also to assess the user friendliness of the online learning platform and interface.

After introducing the project to the participants, they were asked to explore the online platform independently and complete the pilot learning unit, Introduction to Circular Economy. This provided valuable feedback on the usability of the platform and highlighted some of the areas that needed improvement. After reading through the training materials, the students could self-assess their knowledge by going through a multiple-choice quiz.

The overall feedback from this session was quite positive. According to the students, the platform is easy to use and most of them thought the training would be useful to them in their professional career/further education. Some of them also took time to write suggestions and ask questions about the content of the training materials.

In the following months, taking into consideration all the feedback we received, the project team, led by GMIT, will develop the remaining training material, including learning units in Industry 4.0, Software, Machinery and Manufacturing Management.

We are looking forward to piloting the full WOODigital training course in 2022 with even more participants. We will then be seeking interested young Europeans to join us on an immersive experience in the heartland of Industry 4.0 for wood manufacturing in northern Italy, supported by our partners FederlegnoArredo and COSMOB. Keep an eye on updates on www.woodigital.eu.