Teaching online electronics, microcontrollers and programming in Higher Education Erasmus Project

Project Title

Teaching online electronics, microcontrollers and programming in Higher Education

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: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Open and distance learning

Project Summary

The project focuses on the customization of the standard face to face materials for teaching technical subjects in the engineering field in such a way that it will meet the needs of the on-line education. The need emerged during the pandemic, where many higher institutions were called to change their teaching practices and update their training methods and materials. The challenge is still here especially for subjects that require physical contact with devices and hardware such as electronics and embedded systems programming.

The engineering programmes of studies are focused on teaching students practical subjects using different physical devices. The common subjects for different engineering studies are electronics, microcontrollers and programming. Based on the analysis of engineering programmes of project partners, the electronics/microcontrollers/programming subjects make up about 60-90% of all practical subjects.

The first goal of the project is the development, preparation and implementation of the online courses related to electronics, microcontrolers (e.g. AVR, ARM, PIC), board-based practice (like Arduino) and programming languages that are introduced together with physical equipment (e.g. C, C++, Python, VHDL, etc. ). The courses will be based on the open-source solutions and become available as Open Educational Resources (OER). These courses can be realized independently by students or supported by educators in the frame of on-line education.

The courses will be prepared by the partner Universities and submitted to a common online platform (i.e. Moodle or relevant) to support local education needs and extend the didactic offer for students. To strengthen the online collaboration and language benefits the courses will be prepared in English allowing also future use of the materials for higher education students in Europe and beyond.

The project also focuses on the development of a tutorial on how to organize the remote online learning for higher education students, especially how to choose and use the online platforms (like MS Teams, Zoom, Jitsi etc.), how to distribute didactic materials, how to support lectures using online courses, and how to introduce innovative methods of teaching and learning in online distance education. This tutorial will support educators who do not have experience with on-line platforms and generally on-line education.

The project is addressed to academic staff and students. It is estimated that more than 260 students and 20 academic teachers will be directly involved in the ENGINE-learning intervention whereas additional teachers (approx. 200) and students (approx. 500) will be engaged in the context of dissemination and multiplier events.

The project methodology includes 5 core phases:
1. Technical design
2. Pedagogical design
3. Teacher training
4. Pilot studies with students in Greece, Poland and Italy
5. Evaluation reports

Innovative aspects of the project include:
– The three of four intellectual outputs will focus on preparation of on-line courses on topics related with hardware, to support the online engineering education.
– The educational materials can be used entirely outside laboratories. Thus, the material can be used to support distance learning, without the need for a physical laboratory, electronic components and extra costs.
– The educational materials after the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) can be also used by students in combination with experimentation in real laboratories. Latest studies have shown that the complimentary use of virtual and real experimentation increases students’ performance in laboratories.
– The project also innovates designing optimal interaction and personalised communication with students , simulators deployed to substitute the physical devices where it is possible and as a replacement for hands-on learning.

The ENGINE project first will help Universities in systematizing and finalizing the good practises, which were started being developed during the COVID-19 emergency in the first semester of 2020. Second, ENGINE can be the starting point to develop new virtual and remote laboratories for computer science and electronics curricula. Interestingly, these remote resources can be helpful especially in case of a new lockdown.
The goal is to create a rich collection of OERs that would be helpful for the target groups covering different learning needs in different settings. This material can be used by other universities as well during fully remote education and might lead to an adaptation of a mixed educational model of blended learning when conditions allow universities to combine face to face with online education.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 178969 Eur

Project Coordinator

POLITECHNIKA WARSZAWSKA & Country: PL

Project Partners

• PANSTWOWA WYZSZA SZKOLA ZAWODOWA W TARNOWIE
• DIETHNES PANEPISTIMIO ELLADOS
• UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI PADOVA
• EUROPAIKO ERGASTIRIO EKPAIDEFTIKIS TECHNOLOGIAS