environmental sustainability

Paese, Città/Regione

Paese: 
Sweden
Città: 
Ronneby

Organizzazione

Nome dell'ente o associazione: 
Gymnasieskolan Knut Hahn
Contesto dell'ente o dell'associazione che presenta il progetto: 
School
Specify: 
Erasmus+

Sito Web

http://teknist.se

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Tipo di progetto

Educazione fino ai 18 anni

Descrizione del progetto

Description Frase (max. 500 characters): 

The students of the school Gymnsieskolan Knut Hahn in Ronneby, Sweden, have been taught how to build simple robots using Little bits and trash within the EU-project Make:Learn:Share:Europe. The students then went along and taught primary school students how to build "shitty robots". The students of Gymnasieskolan Knut Hahn also taught students with migrant background who are about to enter secondary school how to make "shitty robots" as well.

 

Watch a clip of the student of Gymnasieskolan Knut Hahn making their own "shitty robots": https://youtu.be/TAIMvFiIFSc

 

Project Summary (max. 2000 characters): 

Students teaching students how to make simple robots using trash.

Da quando è funzionante il vostro progetto?

2016-09-01 00:00:00

Obiettivi ed elementi di innovazione

To enforce and promote peer-to-peer learning and make the sharing culture a natural part of the students every day life.

Risultati

Describe the results achieved by your project How do you measure (parameters) these. (max. 2000 characters): 
The project isn't finished yet.
How many users interact with your project monthly and what are the preferred forms of interaction? (max. 500 characters): 

5-10 ambassadors teaching about 15-30 other students via workshops at the school.

Sostenibilità

What is the full duration of your project (from beginning to end)?: 
Meno di 1 anno
What is the approximate total budget for your project (in Euro)?: 
Meno di 10.000 Euro
What is the source of funding for your project?: 
Finanziamenti pubblici o privati
Note eventuali: 
Upper secondary school
Il progetto è economicamente autosufficiente?: 
Since when?: 
2017-09-01 00:00:00

Trasferibilità

Has your project been replicated/adapted elsewhere?: 
What lessons can others learn from your project? (max. 1500 characters): 

It's really simple to set up a learning environment like this and the students love it. All schools should inspire to peer-to-peer learning like this or in simular fashion.

Are you available to help others to start or work on similar projects?: 

Informazioni aggiuntive

Barriers and Solutions (max. 1000 characters): 
We could make better workshops if we could get more Little bit units (they are a bit costy).

Paese, Città/Regione

Paese: 
Italy
Città: 
Gorgonzola (MI)

Organizzazione

Nome dell'ente o associazione: 
ITIS Marconi di Gorgonzola
Contesto dell'ente o dell'associazione che presenta il progetto: 
School

Sito Web

http://www.cycling-in-europe.eu/

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Tipo di progetto

Educazione fino ai 18 anni

Descrizione del progetto

Description Frase (max. 500 characters): 

The partnership aim is to give students the opportunity to deepen their knowledge and
understanding of different subjects such as sustainable development, history, art and culture of the
region they live in, multimedia documents production and editing, planning and management of an
open source website, international team cooperation.

Project Summary (max. 2000 characters): 

We want to develop understanding among students and educational staff of the diversity of European cultures and languages and its value. All this goals will be accomplished building a website to document some cycling routes. This website will be useful to anyone interested in cycling and in the future it would be possible for other schools to join the web community and update the site with new cycling routes documentation. We would like to cooperate with people from other countries on the theme of sustainable development, that for its importance and complexity can’t be limited and faced at national level. Through the participation in the European cooperation we hope to promote cycling among young people, and, through the dissemination of the documentation produced, to raise the interest of
local communities on the importance of planning and designing cycle paths.
We want to involve students, teachers and scholastic communities in the development of products that are not limited to educational fields, but that cross the boundaries of scholastic and national areas to be available to everyone in the European Union. We think that working together on common and real problems is the best way to know and meet different cultures and scholastic systems.
Students will have a central role in all activities. They will have to plan the cycling route, gathering information on flora, fauna, climate, historical and artistic points of interest in the region, try it and describe it with special attention to critical passages, and get all the photographic documentation.
They will be responsible for the translation of all provided documentation into English and for the updating of the website.
They will evaluate documentation provided by students of partner schools by trying the described routes, during the scheduled exchanges. They present and discuss their results in international groups during the meetings and online conferences.

Da quando è funzionante il vostro progetto?

2009-08-30 22:00:00

Obiettivi ed elementi di innovazione

Concrete objectives of the partnership and subjects or problems we intend to address:
- Environmental education through promoting the use of clean and healthy transportation and sustainable development both for daily purposes and for tourism;
- Promoting cultural exchange, language learning and linguistic diversity through the website pages in English and the different partner languages, and through the students’ and teachers’ exchanges when trying the different routes;
- Promoting cooperation through gathering and organizing in proper documentation morphological,
geological, botanical, climatic, historical and artistic information;
- Supporting the development of innovative ICT-based content, working with the freedom to cooperate with each other, which is the aim of open source projects’ philosophy;
- Promoting creativity, personal fulfilment and the growth of an entrepreneurial spirit through developing a website as a platform to document the cycling paths in Europe, to be used not only by students but by all citizens within the European community.

Approach we take to achieve our objectives:
Each member school forms a group of 30 students aged 16-19, from different classes, and at least two teachers, with good knowledge of English, acting as supervisors. Different class origin of the students is helpful in spreading through pupils the results of the partnership, as peer education is often more efficient in disseminating experiences and information.
Each website page can be updated easily, and for each one is expected a manager who will be responsible for the document loaded. At the end of the project we hope to have achieved an increased awareness not only of our individual responsibility for our own health and environment, but also of the importance of European cooperation.

Risultati

Describe the results achieved by your project How do you measure (parameters) these. (max. 2000 characters): 
Tasks and competences: - Gathering information about the meaning of cycling and bikes in each country, developing a questionnaire about tourism/everyday life with bikes; - Testing and documenting cycling routes in each country, uploading all material to the website. The website will be in English and the partaking country languages; - Having given the communication infrastructure, the portal ensures a constant sharing of information and ideas between all partners; - Developing a common agenda with all steps, tasks and responsibilities; - Testing the routes during student exchanges on such different aspects as ecological diversity and cultural specialities on the basis of information provided on the website; - Getting in touch with foreign cultures through mobilities, as the students stay in families. Student exchange should last one week; - Developing a kind of logo, icon or statue as a symbol of a bike and ecology orientated school; Evaluation will be achieved through ongoing monitoring of project evolution and team work through the scheduled meetings by the participating members: . monitoring of the respect of deadlines . analysis of produced documentation . questionnaires . involved students prepare a survey for other students in school . student diaries after each meeting . analysis of trend and number of visits to the website . new results will be integrated into the ongoing project Evaluation will also be made on the final expected product. - an evaluation questionnaire for visitors will be put on the website to make a survey on quality and usefulness of the information provided; - the long-term impact of the project will be evaluated by the interest from new partners to update and expand information provided on the website.
How many users interact with your project monthly and what are the preferred forms of interaction? (max. 500 characters): 

The coordinator will create a positive team mood, thanks to face to face meetings and
online conferences (once a month). The common language will be English. During the meetings and online conferences we will exchange the individual results of the schools and evaluate them to be able to put them on the webpages. Collaboration and involvement of all partners will be achieved using web 2.0 tools and also be with frequent access to the website itself, which will become the
place where students and teachers virtually meet and work together.

Sostenibilità

What is the full duration of your project (from beginning to end)?: 
Da 1 a 3 anni
What is the approximate total budget for your project (in Euro)?: 
Da 75.001 a 500.000 Euro
What is the source of funding for your project?: 
Finanziamenti pubblici o privati
Note eventuali: 
Istituto Tecnico Industriale
Il progetto è economicamente autosufficiente?: 
Since when?: 
2009-08-30 22:00:00

Trasferibilità

Has your project been replicated/adapted elsewhere?: 
No
What lessons can others learn from your project? (max. 1500 characters): 

To promote language learning and communication exchanges with foreign students and colleagues, through the production of written documents to be published and made available to all Internet users in English and foreign languages.

Are you available to help others to start or work on similar projects?: 

Paese, Città/Regione

Paese: 
Spain
Città: 
Alcalá de Henates / Madrid

Organizzazione

Nome dell'ente o associazione: 
IES ISIDRA DE GUZMÁN
Contesto dell'ente o dell'associazione che presenta il progetto: 
School

Sito Web

http://chelomzhd.wix.com/chelo4

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Tipo di progetto

ICT per la sostenibilità ambientale

Descrizione del progetto

Description Frase (max. 500 characters): 

School survey to understand students’ actual energy use and habits and development of communication messages on this basis.
Creation of a website and wiki and development of a digital game mimicking the format of a popular TV show and providing questions and answers on energy efficiency and responsible behaviour.

Project Summary (max. 2000 characters): 

‘Do you sort your waste for recycling?’ was the fi rst question pupils at Secondary School Isidra de Guzmán asked their peers in a school survey. No one said ‘yes’ and 81% said ‘no’. This gave the class a sense of the grandeur of the task before them as they embarked on their communication campaign to make their peers more energy-aware. What they also found out was that half of those surveyed did have some understanding of the importance of water conservation, the need for this seeming more obvious and connected to their daily lives. When it came to energy conservation the majority “did not believe their behaviour to be important”.
The team concluded that the pupils at their school ‘know how to do it, but do not feel the need to do it’. Communications stemmed from there and after defi ning their messages and developing their strategy, the class began organising lively workshops, interesting exhibitions, contests, panels, a fun digital game and an informative website. They also joined external campaigns such as ‘Lights for Learning’ and ‘Earth Hour’, worked their Facebook contacts and championed programmes for the recycling of old equipment and clothes.
An empowering part of the project for the class was a visit to the local city hall where they attended a session on how to deliver workshops. The class learned about adapting their message to their audience and as a result, dressed up as mother nature for a set of “rucksack days” with younger pupils at the school. Lack of funding sometimes made implementation a challenge, but they managed to find solutions. For example, a great idea for an energy awareness photo exhibitionproved too expensive to produce so they did it virtually.
It is a campaign of raising awareness based on the own curriculum and the educational basic competitions, which it departs from the own experience of the pupils and in which they have all the protagonism. Workshops, exhibitions, contests, panels and cartels, creation of didactic materials, games for digital slate, videoes, graffitis, wikis, glosters, photographic virtual exhibitions, digital books and a length etc. They have been some of the activities and materials realized for this campaign, always from the playful thing, from the own language of the juvenile culture and innovative use of technology for the education.

Da quando è funzionante il vostro progetto?

2011-10-30 23:00:00

Obiettivi ed elementi di innovazione

El OBJETIVO PRINCIPAL es que los alumnos se conviertan en agentes del cambio social, en cuidadores de su entorno medioambiental. Promover en ellos los valores de solidaridad, compañerismo, cooperación, constancia, esfuerzo, visión crítica y constructiva... que les permita ser miembros activos y comprometidos con su sociedad y con la naturaleza.
OBJETIVOS ESPECÍFICOS
1. Aportar a los alumnos las habilidades básicas de empatía, trabajo en equipo y liderazgo para que sean capaces de desarrollar en el mundo globalizado y en constante cambio que les toca vivir.
2. Potenciar en nuestros alumnos la conciencia sobre la necesidad de mantener y proteger el medio ambiente, destacar la importancia de la consecución de un desarrollo sostenible y reflexionar sobre nuestros logros en la conservación de la biodiversidad.
4. Desarrollar las competencias en las nuevas tecnologías de la información.
5. Implicar a toda la comunidad educativa, fomentando su participación mediante proyectos y la web 2.0
Estos objetivos se desarrollan en las diferentes fases del proyecto que se diseñan específicamente para su cumplimiento.
FASE 0: Detección de las necesidades (evaluación ecológica del centro y encuestas iniciales a los alumnos), formación del alumnado, elaboración y diseño del Plan de Campaña. Para la formación del alumnado se han elaborado materiales digitales y cursos en la plataforma digital Moodle.
FASE I: Puesta en marcha del Plan de Sensibilización. Actuaciones de 1º Bach con los alumnos E.S.O.
FASE II:Actuaciones de E.S.O. supervisadas y apoyadas por alumnos de bachillerato. Actividades a nivel de centro, local y global. FASE III: Evaluación final del Plan de Sensibilización.
La Educación por Proyectos, el trabajo en equipo y las herramientas de la web 2.0. son los pilares metodológicos utilizados.

Risultati

Describe the results achieved by your project How do you measure (parameters) these. (max. 2000 characters): 
El resultado final de este proyecto no puede ser más satisfactorio : -Se han cumplido con los objetivos propuestos de sensibilización, concienciación, formación y actuación del alumnado sobre la necesidad de una mejor gestión de los recursos energéticos. -Los materiales didácticos finales han sorprendido cuantitativa y cualitativamente (ver anexo "relación de productos finales") - El proyecto ha tenido un gran impacto en el centro, lleva en marcha cuatro cursos y está prevista su continuidad. - Se ha producido modificaciones en la dinámica del centro y en la corresponsabilidad del alumnado y se ha involucrado a toda la comunidad educativa. - Se elaboró un cuestionario y fue contestado de manera anónima por 23 alumnos de bachillerato que participaron en el proyecto. Se puede concluir lo siguiente: El Proyecto global fue valorado muy positivamente (puntuación media de 8,7 sobre 10).Les ha gustado la forma de trabajo. consideran que la metodología empleada y las actividades planteadas son adecuadas (95,7%). Les gustaría volver a participar en un proyecto como éste (95,7%). Los alumnos consideran que ha sido positivo y útil para su formación (91,3%). Los alumnos consideran que este proyecto les ha ayudado a tener mayor concienciación sobre las problemáticas planteadas (95,7%). Creen que han actuado para mejorar el mundo que les rodea (73,9%). - Evaluación de la actividad en la que han participado mediante la valoración escrita en los canales telemáticos abiertos para al fin y podemos concluir que los alumnos han quedado muy satisfechos con las actividades que han realizado.
How many users interact with your project monthly and what are the preferred forms of interaction? (max. 500 characters): 

Este proyecto ha involucrado a los 600 alumnos del centro. A través de su página web (alrededor de 200 visitas), canal yutube (más de 3000 visualizaciones) y la presencia en la red social facebook, ese efecto ha sido muy alto.

Sostenibilità

What is the full duration of your project (from beginning to end)?: 
Da 3 a 6 anni
What is the approximate total budget for your project (in Euro)?: 
Meno di 10.000 Euro
What is the source of funding for your project?: 
Finanziamenti pubblici o privati
Note eventuali: 
Educación Secundaria
Il progetto è economicamente autosufficiente?: 
Since when?: 
2011-10-30 23:00:00

Trasferibilità

Has your project been replicated/adapted elsewhere?: 
Where? By whom?: 
A través de cursos y seminarios de formación del profesorado se han involucrado profesores de otros centros educativos de Madrid y se ha podido replicar realizando las modificaciones necesarias.
What lessons can others learn from your project? (max. 1500 characters): 

-Es un proyecto pedagógico completo apoyado en las competencias educativas básicas y fundamentado pedagógicamente de Educación para el Desarrollo sostenible del medio ambiente y potencia conductas ecológicamente más sostenibles desde la adolescencia (puede leerse memoria didáctica en documentos anexos)
-Es un proyecto significativo para los alumnos: Se parte de sus propias formas de expresión, de las manifestaciones propias de la cultura juvenil que poseen una forma específica de manifestación/producción artística y de difusión, basadas en las nuevas tecnologías de la comunicación y la web 2.0.
-Fomenta en los alumnos la capacidad autoaprendizaje, de pensamiento crítico y resolutivo, los capacita para actuar de forma ecológica y comprometida, convirtiéndolos en agentes motivados y responsables.
-Promueve la autonomía y el desarrollo de estrategias de autoaprendizaje en los estudiantes (autoevaluación, búsqueda selectiva de información, reflexión individual...), preparando al alumnado para responsabilizarse de sus futuros aprendizajes.
-Tiene un gran efecto multiplicador, convirtiéndose cada alumno en un agente activo de sensibilización. Fomenta la participación de toda la comunidad educativa mediante proyectos y la web 2.0: página web del proyecto, canal YouTube, presencia en las redes sociales, debates, foros, wikis, lecciones digitales polivalentes, cursos on-line abiertos etc.

Are you available to help others to start or work on similar projects?: 

Informazioni aggiuntive

Barriers and Solutions (max. 1000 characters): 
Cuando nos planteamos este proyecto nos encontramos con dos grandes retos que nos llevó a reflexionar y buscar soluciones 1. Queríamos que nuestros alumnos actuaran en las situaciones medioambientales que plantea hoy nuestro mundo global y nos encontramos con la creencia de nuestros de que su actuación no es importante y que no depende de ellos la mejora ecológica de su entorno. 2. Falta de financiación. SOLUCIONES: -Nuestro proyecto se centra más en los valores que en los conocimiento, porque creemos que son básicas las habilidades básicas de empatía, trabajo en equipo y liderazgo para que sean capaces de desarrollarse como ciudadanos en el mundo globalizado y en constante cambio que les toca vivir. -Planteamos el proyecto como una actuación para potenciar el emprendimiento social juvenil. -Utilizar la TIC como herramientas de empoderamiento de los estudiantes (los profesores tenemos que enseñar tres cosas básicas: saber leer e interpretar nuestro mundo, investigar y distinguir lo verdadero de lo falso). -Utilizar herramientas web 2.0 gratuitas.
Future plans and wish list (max. 750 characters): 
Queremos mantener activo el proyecto en nuestro centro pero nos gustaría traspasar fronteras y darlo a conocer en la comunidad educativa internacional. Porque estamos convencidos de que se ha de iniciar en las conductas diarias y cotidianas como la buena gestión de los residuos o el ahorro de energía y agua y que ésto es una cuestión de valores. Trabajar por mejorar la conciencia medio ambiental es también trabajar por la paz (las guerras se inician por recursos escasos, el agua es un recurso muy escaso en gran parte del mundo), por la reducción de la pobreza y del hambre (los refugiados medioambientales son ya realidad). No se puede separar moral del medio ambiente de moral de la vida humana o de justicia social. Nuestra ilusión es poder crear una red de centros unidos por una plataforma on-line para compartir recursos, realizar proyectos y trabajar juntos por la sostenibilidad ambiental.

Paese, Città/Regione

Paese: 
Italy
Città: 
Colle di Val d'Elsa, Toscana

Organizzazione

Nome dell'ente o associazione: 
Arnolfo di Cambio
Contesto dell'ente o dell'associazione che presenta il progetto: 
School
Specify: 
non sono necessari finanziamenti: il progetto è svolto in orario curriculare

Sito Web

http://secondagineuropa.blogspot.it/

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Tipo di progetto

Educazione fino ai 15 anni

Descrizione del progetto

Description Frase (max. 500 characters): 

European students to the world via food and ICT: are we really what we eat?

Project Summary (max. 2000 characters): 

Students from Italy, Greece and Hungary explore their own and each other’s countries, and then the whole world, as seen through the food that is eaten in the different places. Their journey is a virtual one, but the exchange of experiences is real, with regular meetings via Skype, and a blog http://secondagineuropa.blogspot.it/ a TwinSpace http://twinspace.etwinning.net/1291/home and the EXPO2015 community http://www.togetherinexpo2015.it/ as meeting points. In their journey through the world, students find out that the food of a country can tell us a lot about its natural environment, history, economy and even religion. The project, which was born out of the urge to find an alternative to the traditional book in Geography teaching, soon developed into something more: Geography learned not by reading a book or watching a documentary, but by meeting and making friends with peers from abroad. Geography not as a list of data about a country but as something alive, told by those who live in those countries. The partners in the project were three, but the EXPO2015 website gave us the opportunity to meet students from all over the world. The blog SecondaGiNeuropa got more than 11.000 visits in a bunch of months, and the students published around 400 articles. We tried out some simple exercises of flipped classroom: students had to work in groups to present an aspect of a chosen country via food, choosing an ICT tool from a list given by the teacher: the tool-testing had to be performed at home, the realization of the product and the publishing in the blog or TwinSpace at school, in a given time. All of the teams (first national, then international teams) managed to complete the tasks, boosting their creativity (thus their learning) in the process. The involved classes registered a dramatic increase in basic competences in Geography (in attachment, the graphics). It was a very successful project in terms of development of students’ competences via the use of ICT.

Da quando è funzionante il vostro progetto?

2014-08-30 22:00:00

Obiettivi ed elementi di innovazione

At first, our objective as teachers was to find an alternative to the use of the text book in the teaching of Geography. We wanted to prove that Geography can stop being felt by students as boring (having to learn by heart the names of mountains, lakes, rivers, capitals etc.) and it can be transformed in a subject perceived for what it is: a picture of real places, inhabited by real people, with their stories, culture, ideas. Later on through the project we started working on the idea of the EU as a an union of different countries, that yet have something in common and support each other (a very important topic at the moment!). Of course, we had all the objectives connected with the subject of Geography: correct use of the specific language of the subject, understanding the anthropic and natural elements in a territory, respect of natural resources, understanding European common roots, understanding the relationship between natural environment – economy – history of a country. We also had objectives linked to the use of ICT: understanding the correct use of a tool, being able to respect copyrights, understanding the opportunities and risks of the web. The means used to reach those goals are ICT tools, peer learning, team working (in national and international teams), simple experiences in flipped classroom. The use of ICT tools was kept as free as possible in order to boost creativity. This trick turned the tasks into fun and soon the blog became addictive for the students! Eventually, all of the objectives were attained, at different levels, by all the students.

Risultati

Describe the results achieved by your project How do you measure (parameters) these. (max. 2000 characters): 
The most important result is obviously the students learning: in my school we have standardized tests at the beginning, middle term and end of the school year. The Italian involved classes improved dramatically from the starting level to the end of the school year in Geography. And the comparison between involved/not involved classes is striking: this is an evidence that a methodology based on real interaction of students with peers of different countries + creative use of ICT + use of different means of expression (to care for the different intelligences, also visual or kinesthetic, etc… not only linguistic) is successful as more motivating, and definitely beats the chalk and talk. I consider another great result the fact that the students chose to spend their free time at home interacting with their partners in the TwinSpace, posting in the blog, completing team missions in the EXPO2015 community, instead of being on facebook or other uncontrolled (i.e. unsafe) socials. This expanded their school-time with a positive rebound on their learning. The criteria used to evaluate the results, as well as those established by the Literature/History/Geography department for the standardized tests, are the comparison between classes involved in the project versus classes not involved + number of classes involved in the first year versus number of classes willing to join in the project for the second year. We have evidence that the involved classes perform significantly better even in the standardized (more traditional) tests. And while this year in Italy we had two involved classes, we have another six willing to join in for the next year (plus, around 10 European school as potential partners).
How many users interact with your project monthly and what are the preferred forms of interaction? (max. 500 characters): 

We have 2 Italian classes + 2 teachers, 1 Hungarian class + 2 teachers, 1 Greek class + 2 teachers: about 100 students + 6 teachers. The families show a good participation, take part in all of the dissemination events, and so do the different Municipalities of the involved schools. The blog has a good amount of monthly visitors, both from our schools (students of non-involved classes browsing the blog for their studies) and from all over the world, presumably thank to the EXPO2015 activities (see the chart on the top right of the blog homepage to see the different nationalities of visitors).

Sostenibilità

What is the full duration of your project (from beginning to end)?: 
Da 1 a 3 anni
What is the approximate total budget for your project (in Euro)?: 
Meno di 10.000 Euro
What is the source of funding for your project?: 
Altro
Note eventuali: 
Scuola Secondaria di Primo Grado
Il progetto è economicamente autosufficiente?: 
Since when?: 
2014-08-30 22:00:00

Trasferibilità

Has your project been replicated/adapted elsewhere?: 
No
What lessons can others learn from your project? (max. 1500 characters): 

They can reuse our working plan for the teaching of Geography, as other classes will in our school for the next school year. They can see that we cannot teach Geography as they did in 1900. Today, Geography is both more complex and more exciting, as there’s the whole world of knowledge in it (from Science to Technology, from Economics to History, from Natural Sciences to Biology). We want our students to taste a little bit of each. So we have to introduce the subject in a way that it is felt as alive: cooperating with partners from different nationalities, learning by doing and exchanging, working in teams, preferably international teams, getting first-hand information from those who live in a different country, feeling free to explore the countries and the ICT tools to get to know first, and then present them. We chose food as the leading image in our journey, but other themes can be chosen of course. It is the journey that matters. Other schools and teachers can see that, even if we don’t use traditional means (test book, individual study, traditional essays, etc.), our students get more involved, so they perform better even in traditional tests.

Are you available to help others to start or work on similar projects?: 

Informazioni aggiuntive

Barriers and Solutions (max. 1000 characters): 
There are no obstacles to this kind of methodology. It’s just very time-consuming, so teachers have to know that if their students get involved and write down 400 articles, they’ll have to give their feedback to 400 articles (not the 25 essays you have to correct twice a semester in a traditional teaching). Plus, the team activities should be well planned in advance, to avoid having one student doing all the work and the others play (the teacher has to think about different roles for the students to choose in the group). Planning the project and the dissemination with partners is time consuming as well. And you have to know lots of ICT tools to keep the students motivated and entertained (a playful atmosphere is of great help!). But everything can be easily overcome with collaboration (also teachers have their share of peer learning!). There are neither extra costs nor extra hours needed. Everything can be done in normal school time, inside the curriculum.
Future plans and wish list (max. 750 characters): 
We are planning to widen the project next year, opening it to new partners from different countries and more classes in our school. We expect a huge participation as a consequence of this year’s brilliant results (families are pushing for their kids to be involved in the project). We will create a new blog and open a new eTwinning project as a follow up. Everything will be kept, as for this year, in the curriculum and in the normal school-time. We do not need any funding or anything special, as it’s an innovative kind of teaching that just needs a pc room and some tablets, plus motivated teachers, not an expensive plan of buying any complicated or futuristic technology. In the long run, we want to introduce an innovative, evidence-supported methodology, for the teaching of Geography, widening it to institutes in our net, bot in Italy and in Europe.

Paese, Città/Regione

Paese: 
Macedonia
Città: 
Skopje

Organizzazione

Nome dell'ente o associazione: 
FON University
Contesto dell'ente o dell'associazione che presenta il progetto: 
University
Specify: 
Incredible Green Contest organised by Acer Foundation

Sito Web

http://fon.edu.mk/content.aspx?cid=420&ln=mk

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Tipo di progetto

ICT per la sostenibilità ambientale

Descrizione del progetto

Description Frase (max. 500 characters): 

Climate for Children represents multiple-awarded set of multimedia interactive presentations and games that are used on interactive boards in classrooms.

Project Summary (max. 2000 characters): 

Climate for Children represents a concept which combines 3 strategies: 1) Bringing the new technology in the educational system; 2) organizing the wave of lot of new information offered by the world organizations – Open Data Initiatives; 3) involving the children in the climate change awareness process. It is a project that aims to mobilize children from early ages to social responsibility and enables teachers to enrich their lessons using the latest technology. The solution is a set of multimedia interactive presentations and games for interactive boards in classrooms. Interactive boards provide rich learning environment that integrates with traditional classroom layouts and collective activities. They boost creativity, encourage collaboration, and allow moving away from teacher-centric to a more personalized constructive learning.
The initial idea about the project was born as part of an assignment in the course Educational software. The presentations in Climate for Children use different sets of open data from the World Bank (http://goo.gl/Kx8cc6) and the Human Development Reports’ (http://goo.gl/dWPBeb) databases making the learning process more interesting. World Organizations around the world provide free access to a variety of raw data that give important information related to the UNDP Millennium Development Goals. Using the embedded codes, the students can interact with the presentations, finding data for a specific country and using these presentations to discover how they can contribute to solve a particular problem. This concept brings students closer to the problems that the world is facing nowadays, raise the awareness of the children about the problems defined in Millennium Development Goals and encourage the teachers to use the opened data from different sets of the World Organizations to stimulate the children. The implementation of this project is supported by specific grants and by the facilities that the university provides.

Da quando è funzionante il vostro progetto?

2012-03-30 22:00:00

Obiettivi ed elementi di innovazione

In this project the main objectives are: creating a huge range of interactive presentations and games which address the problems defined in Millennium Development Goals, raising the necessary awareness of the children from the early ages and encouraging the teachers to combine the opened data with the latest technology in the educational process.

To achieve these objectives, the project Climate for Children was tested on pilot elementary and high schools where a group of students was chosen to participate in the testing process. The testing process gave very promising results. In the surveys we’ve made, we noticed that the students were really excited about this new way of learning offering us a full support.

After the first positive results at our university where for a period of less than a month more than 1000 students were tested and the results were really satisfactory, we was awarded with a research grant from the COST Action IC0904. The student Darko Bozhinoski went to Cyprus University of Technology for a Short Term Scientific Mission to work under the supervision of Dr. Panayotis Zaphiris on further development of the prototype in the direction of its usability and further testing of the current solution.

The government in our country in this moment does the supply of interactive boards for the elementary and high schools. This means that the need for an educational material for interactive boards is increasing a lot. Even if all the of the interactive presentations and games address different problems, they follow the same template, which is based on a standardized heuristic used in the schools around our country, which means that they can be implemented as a study material for all the students in our country. In a meeting with the minister of education in Macedonia, we discussed about the different directions how this project could be implemented in the educational system in Macedonia. He assessed the idea with a positive assessment.

Risultati

Describe the results achieved by your project How do you measure (parameters) these. (max. 2000 characters): 
Climate for Children have been awarded multiple times by really prestigious world organizations and companies as one of the best projects for addressing and promoting environmental sustainability. We will briefly describe the awards with which this project was awarded. First, at the World Bank competition called “Apps for climate change”, “Climate for Children” was selected as one of the winners of this contest (http://goo.gl/s8j6f ). Afterwards, Climate for Children won the highest recognition on two very prestigious contests for young people under the age of 30 - the World Youth Summit Award (http://goo.gl/RC1Wc) and the European Youth Award (http://goo.gl/VMZoh) in the category GO GREEN – two very important competitions which select and promote the best solutions that have important social impact. Another important event worth mentioning was the invitation of the project for the final stage at Innovact - Forum for Innovative Start-Ups (http://goo.gl/me10f). Still, the biggest recognition for this project came before one year. Among 2100 projects, the project was awarded with the Bronze Medal Award and a grant for further development at the “Incredible Green Contest” organised by Acer (http://goo.gl/cQdPc5).
How many users interact with your project monthly and what are the preferred forms of interaction? (max. 500 characters): 

As a part of an UNESCO project our university was involved in making a portal for free sharing of materials that was really popular among the students and the teachers in Macedonia. We put our interactive presentations on this portal and the professors following our concept gave us an acknowledgment that the students that used our additional materials had better understanding of the consequences of the climate change. Now, around 40 professors and around 1000 students are using this concept.

Sostenibilità

What is the full duration of your project (from beginning to end)?: 
Da 1 a 3 anni
What is the approximate total budget for your project (in Euro)?: 
Meno di 10.000 Euro
What is the source of funding for your project?: 
Finanziamenti pubblici o privati
Note eventuali: 
Faculty for Information and Communication Technology
Il progetto è economicamente autosufficiente?: 
No
When is it expected to become self-sufficient?: 
2014-12-30 23:00:00

Trasferibilità

Has your project been replicated/adapted elsewhere?: 
No
What lessons can others learn from your project? (max. 1500 characters): 

Combining the opened data with the new technologies like Interactive boards, teachers can really improve the students’ experience. This can be done by creating a big number of multimedia interactive presentations that will be available for a broad range of people. Interactive boards provide rich learning environment that integrates with traditional classroom layouts and collective activities. They boost creativity, encourage collaboration, and allow moving away from teacher-centric to a more personalized constructive learning. This technology had shown great results in increasing teaching productivity by combining the power of traditional multimedia with the ability to navigate the content more flexibly. We had tested this project on pilot schools and we encountered a positive response from them. Our interactive presentations and games follow the same template, which is based on a standardized heuristic used in the schools around our country. All presentations are divided in three parts: 1) displaying the problem and the effects it has nowadays; 2) showing videos and discussions about it; and 3) working exercises and games that the students need to solve. After the class, the students have a homework they need to make and a diary to write for their ecological activities that are needed in order to successfully deliver the homework. This way, students learn about the problems and the possible solutions of the problems defined in Millennium Development Goals.

Are you available to help others to start or work on similar projects?: 

Informazioni aggiuntive

Future plans and wish list (max. 750 characters): 
Our future work will include: - Expanding the scope of the interactive multimedia presentations and games for every indicator from the opened data from the World Organisations - Expanding the interactivity including different kinds of games and exercises in the presentations - Expanding the project across different platforms and gadgets (currently used only interactive boards) - Translating the presentations in other languages: German, Italian etc. - Promoting the presentations in the elementary and high schools in our country and on other sites for sharing materials
Abbonamento a RSS - environmental sustainability