On February 25-27 the international kick-off meeting in the frame of the project ,,DITECH - Developing and Implementing Technology-Enhanced Teaching and Learning at Georgian HEIs” was held on the zoom platform. The meeting was opened and the participants were welcomed by Prof. Andres Jõesaar, Vice-Rector of Tallinn University who spoke about the importance and role of the electronic teaching in the era of digital technologies, in particular, under the current pandemic circumstances. 

The consortium members were greeted and the project values were discussed by George Shervashidze, Rector of the Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, Lika Glonti, Head of the “Erasmus+” National Office Georgia, Prof. Zurab  Khonelidze, Rector of the Sokhumi State University, Silvia Veelup, Head of the National Contacts Centre –Estonia, Peter Normak, Director of the Digital Technology School, Berika Shushakidze, Head of the Teachers’ Professional Development Centre.

DITECH coordinators gave detailed information on the project objectives, tasks, and comments from the EU evaluators, preliminary plans and the results of the first national meeting of the Georgian Universities, to the representatives of the participant universities. The coordinators of the universities and institutes presented their higher education institutions and their plans in the course of the implementation of the DITECH project, to the consortium.

As a results of the three-day meeting, working groups were established; the information and knowledge management, quality management, risk management, dissemination management and the IT group plans were elaborated. The participant universities found it particularly valuable to share thoroughly the experience of the Tallinn, Kaunas and Cork universities in electronic teaching platforms and digital technologies; the presentation on the changes in the financial management and the updates in the EU projects, introduction to the DITECH website objectives, design, structure and resources were found very important. The recent plans and tasks of the project implementation were discussed by the working groups and then agreed at the joint meeting. The work to be done was distributed among the partners; the tentative schedule was also prepared and the deadlines for the submission of the project activities were confirmed.

The meeting participants were Georgian and EU universities: Tallinn University (Estonia)-project Coordinator, Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University –National Coordinator in Georgia, Ilia State University, Samckhe-Javakheti State University, Iakob Gogebashvili Telavi State University, Akaki Tsereteli State University, Teachers’ Professional Development Centre, Kaunas University of Technology (Lithiania), University College Cork (Ireland).

The meeting was organized by the project coordinators-Sirie Virkus, Prof. of Tallinn University and Izabella Petriashvili, Prof. of  Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University.