Description:
Technology and digitalization are continually changing and developing, especially in the fields of military, health, agriculture, transportation, communication, and education. With the digitalization process of educational environments, many educational institutions have started to implement various activities such as distance education, seminars, and workshops. The research conducted by the JRC between 2016 and 2017 on digital education policies is built on three main topics. These are respectively, “21st century skills and competencies ”,“innovative and modernized education and training” and “open access education”. This project is designed to take into account the three main issues mentioned above. Europe 2020 innovative and modernized education and training strategy title is one of the topics emphasized explicitly for the project. In addition, topics such as the agenda for new skills and jobs, digital plan, and innovation union, which are among the Europe 2020 strategy agendas, are also addressed in our project. Until recently, educational activities were carried out with restrictions such as place, time, and person. Today, education is done through distance, online or blended education models. Especially with the COVID-19 outbreak, many universities worldwide have decided to implement distance education to reduce contagiousness. Although the distance education method is partially successful in theoretical courses, it is seen that there are various problems in applied courses such as medicine, chemistry, veterinary medicine, and gastronomy. The digitalization of the application courses in gastronomy education with the distance education model has made the integration of universities and academicians teaching gastronomy into the process. Academicians have many needs in this process;
• Developing the competencies of academicians to prepare creative course content in terms of digital education
• Making gastronomy lesson environments suitable for digital education and teaching methods
• Creating supportive and enhancing digital education materials and methods that will help academicians to make effective lessons
• With these activities, students of the gastronomy department, who interact with academicians, will be able to learn more effectively.
The phenomenons of eating and drinking, which is among the primary needs of people, will always maintain their importance. In this context, the fact that gastronomy education, which is seen as the art of fine eating and drinking given in all of Europe, is one of the factors that makes the project meaningful. The differences and similarities between the cuisines of European countries show that countries affect each other in gastronomy education. Therefore, the project outputs that will emerge with this project will be aimed at meeting the digital gastronomy education needs of all EU countries. There is a need to prepare a guide that will help universities in the transition to digital education and to improve the digital skills of academic staff in order to solve problems and provide more effective courses/classes.
The primary target group of the intellectual outputs created in the project is academicians who teach in the field of gastronomy in higher education institutions. In order for gastronomy education to achieve the expected results within the scope of digital education, it is necessary to increase the competencies of academicians. Guidance and educational material that will enable the integration of academicians in the field of digital education will help to develop their skills. These outputs will contribute to the determination of standards and roadmap for digital gastronomy education of universities. Academicians who have developed competencies in the field of digital gastronomy education will positively affect the students, who are the indirect target group of the project, in their education and training activities. The results of the needs analysis made for the problems and needs mentioned above have encouraged us to prepare this project for the solution of the problems.