app2d@te
Start date: Sep 1, 2015,
End date: Aug 31, 2017
PROJECT
FINISHED
The general idea of our project "app2d@te" is to create a project that enhances our students' and teachers' ICT skills not only in the field of the usual office applications, but mainly in respect to coding skills, which importance increases every day.
We developped the idea for "app2d@te" because all participating schools agree that the most important task of school in general is to prepare students for their future life, both private and professional life. In a world that is more and more digitalized and globalized, we believe that an international project providing our students with basic programming skills AND intercultural communication skills can help us fullfilling this important task in a very modern (app2d@te!) way.
The objectives of our project are to provide students with softskills they need for their life and a successful start into working life: motivation to work, the ability to unfold creativity, communication skills, a realistic self-assessment and the self-confidence to take weaknesses easy and to present strengths proudly. Also, we need to provide them with basic skills such as problem solving skills and a certain know-how in the digital world, which nowadays includes more and more coding.
We want to form a basis for individual learning, lifelong learning, teaching oneself and teaching others.
The project's participants are 18 students from each of the 4 partner schools in Finland, Italy, Portugal and Germany. They are aged 13-15 years with very different initial situations: Some find it easy to learn a foreign language, but are anxious about programming. Others are used to using computer software or have tried coding software, but are very timid when it comes to communication, especially using a foreign language.
This distribution of strenghts and weaknesses seems to be a quite common phenomenon, not only among students but also among teachers (and other adults).
In this project, not only the students are the learning target group, but also the teachers.
The challenge of this project is to bring them all together and make them learn to benefit from each others' strength in order to minimize their own weaknesses.
We are sure that the variety of tasks and the methodology we plan to use (e.g. peer-to-peer learning, indivual learning with the helped of guidance videos, learning by doing, learning with games) will help everyone to become aware of their abilities, especially undetected abilities in the field of coding, and to encourage them to use the help of others where they feel unsure so that they can learn and teach each other at the same time and become highly motivated learners.
In the beginning of the project we start with a transnational teachers' meeting where we make sure that the participating teachers are equipped with guidance videos to use in their classrooms and basic coding skills to be able to guide their students' first steps into the world of programming.
The students get to know each other with the help of our Guess EU game (eTwinning project: a game to find a penpal). After that they start coding with the simple coding programme "Scratch" and make an animation about their schools which they share in TwinSpace. Every school takes part in the international "Hour of Code" week in December, where they have all students try out some simple coding steps.
During the first international teaching and learning activity, 6 students and 3 teachers from each country visit Finland, where they are taught how to use the 3D coding software "Kodu".
After the meeting, the coding skills are disseminated within the schools and the students code maths games that can be used by primary school children.
In the second international teaching and learning activity, the participants learn about internet security and netiquette and provide their schools with rules and guidelines to be followed.
In the beginning of the second project year, another transnational teachers's meeting takes place to ensure evaluation and planning of the second year. Teachers make guidance videos of "Alice" (a gradually more difficult coding software than "Scratch" or "Kodu" that offers more opportunities) and "AppInventor" (a software to code apps for the use on smartphones or tablets) to use in their classrooms and make coding experience with the relevant software.
During the second project year, students learn during two more international teaching and learning activities how to use "Alice" and "AppInventor" software and design their own learning games to be used in class, at home or in primary schools.
These learning games and the guidance videos and guidelines are the products of our project.
We are sure that not only these products but also less measurable results such as for example a change of attitude concerning learning and ICT and coding, better communication and foreign language skills and a better self-confidence will be the positive impact and long-term benefit of our project work.