Blue Arrow Erasmus Project

Project Title

Blue Arrow

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 : Partnerships for Digital Education Readiness

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

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

Project Summary

Once upon a time there was a big arrow, blue-painted, on a train. A toy train. This blue train was in a shop window with other toys. And… during the night these toys decided to take on live of its own to reach the children that needed each of these toys, priceless. The only logic was the affinity with each worthy child.
This is not Disney’s Toy Story, but this is the plot of a tale (Blue Arrow/La Freccia Azzurra) written by Gianni Rodari in 1964 and brought as cartoon in 1996 by an European co-production between Italy, Switzerland and Luxemburg. The BLUE ARROW project borrows the name starting from the metaphors of the story and with the aim to be in memory of Gianni Rodari, in the centenary of his born (23 October 1920), the Italian author of children literature famous all over the Europe and world that won the prestigious and biennial Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 1970 for child literature.
The BLUE ARROW project works on the metaphors that starts from the Rodari’s book. The main aim is the improvement of the teacher education of pre-primary and primary in higher education institutions Initial Teacher Education (ITE) and Continuous Professional Development (CPD) by providing new tools and new methodologies.

During the pandemic crisis, the teaching sector exposed its fragilities and its adaptability. Europe is also facing a great challenge to provide sufficient and better-quality education and training to the teachers of tomorrow as the pandemic has come suddenly and brought several impacts on different levels. More than 100 million people who are directly related to education sector globally have been severely affected (Gabriel, 2020) and many of them have been trying to turn their traditional face-to-face (f2f) education into digital one.
The new approaches for teaching during the COVID-19 lockdowns have a huge impact on the education in kindergartens and primary schools, in particular in the range of age 4-7, where children needs to learn by experience, drawing or manipulating things without writing and reading skills. UN, in a worldwide scale says that “the disruptions caused by COVID-19 to everyday life meant that as many as 40 million children worldwide have missed out on early childhood education in their critical pre-school year”. This is problematic because “they thus missed a stimulating and enriching environment, learning opportunities”.
Declaratory learning, based on traditional didactical material, is easily to be exported in distance learning: MOOCs and videoconferences are perfect in this case. But in the case of children that are not able to read and write, the procedural learning that refers to experience and laboratorial activities involving the senses is fundamental and is needed a rethinking when schools close and lessons are in front on a screen. Theis rethink should start from the new competences for the teachers, through the teacher education in HEIs.

The BLUE ARROW project aims to create an innovative pedagogical approach for teacher education that involve the development of a MOOC and the implementation of these practices in higher education courses for teacher education for the new challenge of distance learning:
– including new ways to teach applying digital creativity,
– proposing user-friendly tools and secure platforms which respect privacy and ethical standards,
– developing new innovative educational methods for pre-primary and primary educators applying Tangible User Interfaces.
A synergic and complementary Partnership was built: BLUE ARROW includes 3 pedagogical HEIs (UNIFG, UB and RUC) in teacher education (ITE and CPD); a SME experts in TEL ground-breaking devices (SM) and an association of HEIs in distance learning (EADTU). Four countries are represented (Italy, Spain, Netherland and Albania)
BLUE ARROW will produce the following outcomes:
1. A pedagogical framework in the field of teacher education aimed at the improvement of competences of pre-primary and primary teachers about distance teaching, also a response on COVID-19 situation (O1).
2. A MOOC with lessons held by teacher educators in HEIs (O2), with an International presentation (E9).
3. An ICT platform that will be embed in the MOOC, based on TUIs paradigm, that allows the management of laboratory activities in teaching for children between 4 and 7 years old, including a multisensory approach based on exercises co-created with teacher educators and other learning experts. (O3)
4. A report that will show the results and the impact of the BLUE ARROW methodology and technology and the guideline for a reapplication in other contexts. (O4)
5. A series of co-creation events in 4 countries with experts where they will evaluate and propose new laboratory exercises with TUIs for distance teaching (E1-E2-E3-E4) and valuate the implementation (E5-E6-E7-E8)
6. An annual international conference on distance and blended learning for pre-primary and primary teachers (E10).

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 300000 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI FOGGIA & Country: IT

Project Partners

• SMARTED SRL
• VERENIGING VAN EUROPEAN DISTANCE TEACHING UNIVERSITIES
• UNIVERSITAT DE BARCELONA
• ESKELD SHPK