A presentation focusing on "Raising Awareness for Sustainable Energy". Presented at a workshop of the Joint European Summer School for Doctoral Candidates on Technology Enhanced Learning (JTEL 2013), held in Limassol, Cyprus in May, 2013. This presentation shows best learning practices for environmental awareness and presents state of the art applications in the field of sustainability and energy savings. The psychological factors and motivational patterns that lead these applications to succeed are discussed through the presentation.
The workshop was moderated by Andreas Kamilaris, postdoc researcher at the University of Cyprus and Sotiris Themistokleous, assistant director at the research institute CARDET.
Raising Awareness for Sustainable Energy: Best Learning Practices and State of the Art Applications
1. Raising Awareness and Learning Practices
for Sustainable Energy
Joint European Summer School for Doctoral Candidates on
Technology Enhanced Learning (JTEL 2013)
Limassol, Cyprus May, 2013
Sotiris Themistokleous
CARDET Assistant Director
sotiris@cardet.org
www.cardet.org
Andreas Kamilaris
Postdoc Researcher, Uni. Of Cyprus
camel9@gmail.com
2. Raising Awareness is the process of informing
a group‟s norms, attitudes, beliefs and actions and
influencing the group to change/transform/ re-
assess its norms, attitudes, beliefs and actions
towards a theoretical or a practical issue.
Raising Awareness Theoretical Framework
2
3. Raising Awareness as other information and learning initiatives are
highly influenced by:
1. The medium/tool/action used to transmit information
2. The perceptions and experiences of the communicators and
the receivers
3. The social, political and economic environment in which an
initiative takes place(cultural trends, meanings attached to the
message). Such environment may not have a direct connection
with the initiative
4. Diversity of the target groups
Factors Influencing Awareness Raising
3
4. Focus on the Local Level to achieve a Global Change
• Local experiences of a community in managing energy are
applicable in numerous other communities around the globe
• Local institutions can act as transmission belts of policies and
practices between the community, the region and the globe
• Local stakeholders can influence directly the community and
promote global actions on the local level
• Local stakeholders are more effective in reaching citizens in
the community and adapting global trends in the needs of the
local community
• Local success stories generate domino effects at global scale
(Social Media)
Raising Awareness from Local to Global
4
5. How Social Change occurs (OXFAM International)
Social Change
5
Knowledge
–
Understand
the cause
Approval
–
Accept the
cause
Intention
–
Decision to
apply
Practice
–
Application
of the cause
in a
sustainable
manner
Advocacy
– Promote
the cause to
others
6. • Know the purpose of your awareness raising campaign
• How would the purpose inform the message
• Study your target groups
• Map the potential challenges and provide solutions
• How would you build trust with your target groups
• Apply the right tools and mediums and use the appropriate
language to reflect your target groups profile
• Manage the quantity of the information you transmit
• Establish formative and summative evaluation tools to measure
outreach and impact
Designing an Action Plan
6
7. • CARDET‟s Project, “Raising Awareness on Development
Cooperation” www.developmenteducation.org
• Collaboration between academia and civil society
organizations to raise awareness on sustainable development
Raising Awareness Case Study
7
9. Project Based Learning Framework
• Practical and obvious relevance with the real world
• Motivation to get involved and learn
• Life long learning approach
• Community level with local citizens
• Sustainable knowledge
• Tasks with tangible outcomes
• Social media and networks
• Assessment methods
Getting Involved, Acting and Learning
9
10. Samples of Local Projects
• Measure energy efficiency of your neighborhood and
compare it with others (i.e. Social Electricity Project)
• Perform energy audits to your neighbors and suggest
methods to reduce energy consumption
• Depending on the location of your community develop
a small local hydroelectic, solar, wind system of
producing energy for the community
• Design and implement a raising awareness campaign
for your neighborhood
Getting Involved, Acting and Learning
10
11. Case Study - Global Campus
• CARDET „s EuropeAid Project “Global Campus”
• Focus on Raising Awareness among Students on
Sustainable Development
• Train students to carry out, on campus, awareness
raising and learning activities
• Assign a project related to sustainable development to
volunteer students in collaboration with a local community
Getting Involved, Acting and Learning
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12. Networks of Learning
• Preserve Relevance
• Value of Participation
• Distribute-Communicate Resources
• Effective access, valuable return, timely efficient
• Commitment
• Common Objectives
• Valid action plan and targets
• Flexibility in administration and participation
• Inter-Network Collaboration-Communication
Getting Involved, Acting and Learning
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13. Case Study: Life Long Learning Project “Community
Learning Social Networks - NetBox (www.netboxproject.eu)
• NetBox will capitalize on the pervasiveness of, and
acquiescence to social computing in today‟s society.
• NetBox responds to the challenge of supporting smart,
sustainable and inclusive growth and the priorities of the
transversal programme
• NetBox exploits ICT-based social networking tools and
platforms to connect people of all ages and educational
dispositions to public services, learning and civic engagement
Getting Involved, Acting and Learning
13
14. Mediums/Tools
Three information and communications technologies underlie
the explosion of the “social web”, (Willard, 2009):
• Mobile Communications – extending Internet access through a
new generation of mobile phones and handheld computers;
• Social Media – enabling individuals to easily upload their own
content (text, photos, video) and to find (and discuss) the
content generated by others; and
• Online Social Networking – enabling people to maintain and to
extend their personal and professional networks, as well as to
facilitate the flow of information through these networks.
Social Media and Networks - Communicating,
Informing, Networking and Learning
14
15. Securing Sustainability :
• Promote interaction
• Organize regular meetings F2F, via phone or via online tools
• Provide a minimum diversity of tools according to the needs
and the objectives of the network (blogs, wikis, social networks
ect.)
• Establish clear management and administration process, roles
and hierarchy
• Support interactions with other networks and other fields
• Free exchange of ideas
Social Media and Networks - Communicating,
Informing, Networking and Learning
15
16. Case Study: Competencies and Transferable Skills for the
Green Energy Sector (Lifelong Learning Project –
CARDET)
• Development of an online analytical tool with a project
focus on investigating transferability of competence
between renewable energy and traditional energy
production subsectors
• Collaborative Skills Development
• Inputs and Feedback from EU stakeholders
Social Media and Networks - Communicating,
Informing, Networking and Learning
16
17. The Value of Online Social Networking:
• Sustainable Energy principles and practices are diffused
through peers and network members
• Specialized knowledge is becoming visible to all
members of the network and its extended periphery
• Local progress, practices and initiatives can be
extended/transmitted and adopted on a global scale
• Direct communication and reflection from numerous
users
• Interdisplinary contributions, feedback and solutions
Networking for Sustainable Energy
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23. 23
Raising Awareness: Feedback through Google
Power Meter Project
Timely feedback of domestic electrical consumption can
contribute in reducing the amount consumed by 5-15%.
25. 25
Raising Awareness: Metering is not enough…
• Employed techniques are limited as they tend to use a “one
size fits all" approach.
• Same feedback to individuals who have different motivations
and experiences in energy saving.
• The long-term effect is limited.
32. 32
Raising Awareness: Social Factors
"Comparative feedback, in which one's energy use is contrasted
with those of others, can generating feelings of competition,
social comparison or social pressure"
“People tend to follow what other
people do and adapt their behaviour
and practices according to the stimuli
received by their friends, relatives
and neighbours”.
“Social norms can motivate
people to question their
attitude, if they discover it is
not ”normal”.
33. 33
Raising Awareness: Social Influence
• Informational: People serve as a valuable source of information
to accurately evaluate one's behavior.
• Normative: People have a tendency to agree on the values,
beliefs, attitudes or behaviors of others.
• Descriptive: Depict what happens in a given situation based on
informational and normative influence.
• Injunctive: Describe what should happen in a given situation.
Important for avoiding the boomerang effect.
35. 35
Raising Awareness: Social Influence
"Strong participation in social movements is most likely
when activities can be easily integrated into daily life."
36. 36
Raising Awareness: Social Influence
“People are willing to compete in online social networks
and compare with real and known people”
40. 40
Raising Awareness: Success of Online Social
Networking
“Persuasion in online social networks follows regular,
observable patterns. This conclusion has interesting implications.
First, software developers can tap into these patterns to
create applications that are more likely to succeed.
That some applications succeed and others fail is not
based on pure chance; success can be learned and replicated.
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