ENDESA S A : The Endesa Foundation and Fad join forces to train teachers on how young people use ICT

• Through the online course 'Youth and ICT, dismantling the myth of digital natives', both organisations will train education professionals so that they understand and can address this issue more effectively in the classroom.
• Professionals in the educational field interested in taking the course can register until 26 February through the Campus Fad website

The Endesa Foundation and Fad will launch, next March, an online course aimed at training teachers on the effect the extensive use of new technologies is having on the way the youth population makes contacts, communicates and relates to others.

The course, 'Youth and ICT, dismantling the myth of digital natives' also analyses the way in which young people build their identity and their relationships both online and offline and on their 'way of behaving in the online world'. A world in which personal interaction or the construction of personal and collective identity arise from very different, but almost always self-managed, assumptions which we must all understand better.

According to the study 'Leisure and life models. The inevitable entrenchment of technologies in young people's leisure time' carried out by the Fad Reina Sofía Centre on Adolescence and Youth, most young people have incorporated new technologies as the cornerstone of the activities they carry out in their free time. In fact, 74.6% state that the activity they do the most in their free time is chatting or surfing the internet. ICTs and the intensive use of social networks are thus shown as mediators in leisure activities, but also as a form of leisure in themselves that optimises the possibilities and the time available.

The course also deals with some worrying aspects that so often come to the fore when we address the use of new technologies by young people: misuses such as cyberbullying, virtual violence, the sexual abuse of minors, invasion of privacy, etc. Dangers that, together with the risk of addiction or the supposed effect of isolation and self-absorption, appear not infrequently in the 'window dressing' on ICT use in the youth population.

In addition, it offers a set of activities that address different objectives, content and materials for the participating students to select and adapt depending on the characteristics of the group with which they are going to work, as well as the time and means they have.

This training is free and is specifically aimed at education professionals in the autonomous communities of Andalusia, Aragon, the Canary Islands, Extremadura and Madrid. The training period will begin on 4 March with a duration of 50 hours structured into 4 training modules: ICTs and young people; risk factors and protection factors linked to the use of ICTs; digital skills and promoting the appropriate use of ICTs; and resources and activities to support the intervention.

With this project, the Endesa Foundation reinforces its commitment to quality education and the promotion of young talent, favouring the responsible control of the extensive use of new technologies by young people and, with it, their way of contacting, communicating and relating through ICT.

Education professionals interested in taking the course can register until 26 February through the Campus Fad website.

Fad and Fundación Endesa, two committed organisations About the Endesa Foundation

The main objective of the Endesa Foundation, which is chaired by Juan Sánchez-Calero, is to contribute to social development through educational projects, training for employment and through environmental and cultural training.

The Foundation's educational projects seek to encourage innovation in education at all levels, while also promoting academic excellence at university level through grants, scholarships and lectureships.

Employment training projects focus on promoting the talent of people at risk of social exclusion, young entrepreneurs with limited resources and professionals over 50 years of age.

Its environmental projects are primarily focused on promoting environmental education and energy efficiency.

As for its cultural projects, special mention should be made of those dedicated to illuminating monuments, conserving and promoting the historical industrial heritage of the Spanish electricity sector and collaboration with top-level Spanish cultural entities.

The Endesa Foundation runs and funds programmes and activities to provide humanitarian, health, social, economic or material aid in extraordinary situations such as health crises, natural catastrophes and similar.

More information on www.fundacionendesa.org

About Fad

For its part, Fad works toward the personal and social development of adolescents and young people in all the areas that affect their well-being. It does this by researching the reality experienced by youth, raising awareness in society, generating educational programmes that enable them to face their future and by sharing their experiences in other places such as Latin America. In addition, it promotes training as a fundamental preventive strategy by offering online courses that include specific and specialised training for very diverse sectors: teachers, families, young people, social mediators, professionals, the workplace, etc.

More information about the course