Consumer Classroom: Digital innovation and collaborative tool for teacher

education
Education for Sustainable Consumption; Teacher Education; Digital Technology; 21st
century skills; Open education

Abstract

The Consumer Classroom project is a European Commission (EC) funded collaborative

platform and multilingual website for teachers across the EU launched on March 2013. It
is therefore a tool that provides a response to the new approaches towards consumer
education. It consists on an interactive open multilingual platform for the on-line
community of teachers of between 12 to 18 years olds European schools and other
stakeholders across Europe (experts in education or consumer issues, parents, etc.).

The platform aims to provide better coordination and synergies with national efforts within
the area of consumer education and provides a database with teaching/pedagogical
resources on consumer education and its subthemes. Its main goal is to promote an
understanding of the structures and systems within the market and provide the insight
necessary to develop citizens into responsible and intelligent acting consumers. In
particular, it seeks to encourage Education to Sustainable Consumption in European
secondary schools.

This initiative is part of the EC’s active policy funded tools and is aligned with 4 main axes
of the EC work in terms of Education for Sustainable Consumption: (i) knowledge-
enhancing aspects of consumer empowerment; (ii) the development of 21 st century skills
and competences; (iii) innovating and modernizing education and training; and (iv) open
education.

This website, available in EU official languages, is dedicated to secondary school teachers

of students aged 12-18 years old in all 27 European Member States. Its strength lies in the
quality of its teacher resources and its collaborative tools such as the Lesson Builder,
Forums and Live Chat. It is suitable for teachers of students aged 12-18 but open to any
expert willing to contribute.

Taking full advantage of the latest web technologies and community based Internet usage,
Consumer Classroom provides ready-to-use teaching resources on a wide range of
consumer education themes. Each school subject has elements on consumer education -
from literature, mathematics or Financial Literacy to home economics, sciences,
Information and Communication, Sustainable Development, Social Media and Internet
Safety and languages – providing the necessary pedagogic tools to include this thematic
area in the teachers’ curricula.

Consumer Classroom also invites teachers to become part of a dynamic web community of
teachers throughout Europe and beyond. It helps them to share with their students,
encourages inter-school multi-disciplinary projects and also offers teachers the opportunity
to become a consumer education expert on the website.

This presentation will be an occasion to explore the role of this kind of digital tools in
teacher education and to officially launch the new version of the website as well as
interactively display its features and methodology to include Consumer Education in the
European and National curricula. The objective of this presentation is (i) to illustrate a
concrete example to the question on how digital technology could support teachers in order
to provide quality education and adapt to changing needs and (ii) to further discuss and
obtain feedback about the schools current prerequisites in the field of Consumer Education.

Names of the contributors

The presentation will be given by Ms Andrea del Pilar Giraldo Sevilla, Project Manager of
the project for Expertise France, the French Governmental Agency of International
technical expertise and Leader of the Consumer Classroom Consortium, and Ms Tiiu
Müürsepp, Consumer Classroom National Coordinator for Estonia.

Ms Giraldo-Sevilla currently works as Project Manager for Expertise France, the French
Agency for International technical expertise cooperation. She works on the coordination of
the European Commission's DG-JUST and Chafea project Consumer Classroom and worked
until March 2018 on the DG-CONNECT co-founded European Digital Up-Skilling platform
for Youth unemployed in partnership with the OECD. Before working for Expertise France,
she previously worked at UNESCO HQ for 4 years, including 3 years for the ICT in Education
Unit at UNESCO's Education Sector, supporting the overall coordination of the following
projects: Leveraging ICT to Achieve Education 2030, the Prize for the Use of ICTs in
Education, the World Conference on ICT and Post-2015 Education and ICT Transforming
Education in Africa.

Ms Tiiu Müürseep has Over 18 year of experience in the Consumer protection and
education. Director of Consumer Advice and Information Centre of Tartu (2001-2014) and
House of Consumers Cooperation (2015 - present) Member of the Consumer Council by
Estonian Consumer Board (2001- present). National Team Leader of Estonia in the of
Dolceta 2.0 consortium (2012-present). Member of European Consumer Consultative
Group subgroup of Energy (2013- present). Strategic partner to Ministry of Economics and
Communication to coordinate national consumer movement (2013-present).