The authors introduce their experiences gained in the EACEA project Do It Yourself in Education: Expanding digital literacy to foster student agency and collaborative learning (DIYLAB). The project was aimed to design an educational procedure based on DIY philosophy focused on digital literacy development and later to verify it in teaching practice in primary and secondary schools and HEIs in three European countries: Finland, Spain and the Czech Republic.
A model of DIYLab learning activities is based on DIY philosophy and six educational principles of approaches to pupil's learning: collaboration among learners, inquiry-based learning, digital literacy development, support of interdisciplinary relations, promotion of autonomous learning, and curriculum contexts. In the Czech Republic at the Faculty of Education the project DIYLAB was realised, alongside other issues, in initial teacher education.
DIYLab as a teaching approach was applied within 20 activities with Bachelor and MA degrees in ICT, Biology, Primary Education and Art Education student teachers. DIYLab activities were designed not only by teacher educators, but also by student teachers themselves who could bring a problem related to curriculum and concurrently to their after-school interests.
Following the project, the DIYLab approach is being included in future Bachelor and MA level initial teacher education.