Planning and Integrating ICT in Kindergartens and Primary Schools Erasmus Project

Project Title

Planning and Integrating ICT in Kindergartens and Primary Schools

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for Schools Only

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

One of the concerns of our educational community is to integrate the use of ICT in the curriculum by providing our students with the necessary digital skills in the development of such competence, as there is no official program that guides us on when and how we should do it. For this purpose, this Erasmus Plus project was born within the framework of the EU.
The project itself has the ambitious objective of improving the digital, linguistic and social-civic competence of our students. To do this, we created a partnership with schools in four other countries: Ireland, Germany, Portugal and Italy, which provided enriching experiences in these fields.
The line of work used is basically based on the use of Web 2.0 tools applied to the acquisition of social and cultural competence. The result has been the elaboration of an exhaustive work program adapted to the different ages, where the use of ICT is gradually incorporated into the student’s training. In that way, students can bring it closer to their social reality and, in addition, share it with other European cultural realities, thus obtaining a broader and more diverse vision.

CONTEXT / BACKGROUND:

Our centre takes several courses working in the line of integrating digital competence in the curriculum of the students and for this purpose we had designed an action plan. Our concern to achieve excellence in quality education encouraged us to seek digital educational experiences in other countries that would complement and energize the creation of this project:
– Spain had digital whiteboards in all its classrooms and had developed innovative experiences such as the application of augmented reality for educational purposes.
– Portugal used digital whiteboards, computers and tablets with its students, especially focusing on early childhood education (kindergarten).
– Italy was developing an innovative project based on the “digitization of the Montessori method”.
– Ireland used tablets with its students (especially with students with special educational needs) and integrated the “coding” into their daily work.
– Germany educated its students in the responsible use of digital media and in the prevention of cyber-bullying.

OBJECTIVES:

The proposed and achieved objectives are the following:
– To improve the quality of teaching with a methodological change that integrates digital competence in the curriculum.
– To develop students’ skills in digital, social and linguistic competences, encouraging the integration of students with learning difficulties.
– To train teachers and provide them with tools so that they can carry out this task.
– To raise awareness and collaborate with the different educational sectors in the shift towards an eminently digital education.

NUMBER AND TYPE / PROFILE OF PARTICIPANTS:

In this project the different members of the educational communities of the schools involved have participated: students, teachers, families and non-teaching staff. With regard to students, it must be said that their age range is between 3 and 12 years, and students with different learning difficulties have been included. The socioeconomic level of the families has been varied, so the project has contemplated the inclusion of the most disadvantaged ones.

DESCRIPTION OF THE ACTIVITIES CARRIED OUT:

We have carried out activities in a sequent way by levels (from 3 to 5 years, from 6 to 9 years and from 10 to 12 years) and we have grouped them into six blocks of content to be developed during the two years of the project:
Block 1: Geographic location (January – February 2018).
Block 2: Green spaces (March – April 2018).
Block 3: Monuments (May – June 2018).
Block 4: History (October – November 2018).
Block 5: Gastronomy (December 2018 – January 2019).
Block 6: Folklore (February – March 2019).

Numerous digital activities have been developed from each of these blocks using a wide variety of tools and applications.

RESULTS AND IMPACT:

The work done can be consulted in one of our most valuable final products, the project website: https://erasmusplanningict.com.
We have made a “Didactic Guide” on the use of the 25 digital tools that have been most effective from the didactic point of view and we have analysed and exemplified each one of them. We have also prepared a brief guide with recommendations for the implementation of ICT in schools.
With this we have achieved that the students integrate the use of computing resources as an inherent part of their educational process. ICT has become a way to build meaningful learning based on technology, improving its educational quality. The impact has been such that other schools have taken us as a reference for methodological change and adaptation to new technologies.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 93405 Eur

Project Coordinator

C.E.I.P. San Pablo & Country: ES

Project Partners

• Scoil na bhForbacha
• Agrupamento de Escolas de Vialonga
• Istituto Comprensivo Maria Montessori
• Walburgisschule Werl