Computer Science Learning Community Erasmus Project

Project Title

Computer Science Learning Community

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 school education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: ICT – new technologies – digital competences; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills

Project Summary

Computer science education is becoming a major issue in the training of tomorrow’s adults who will be part of a society where technology is increasingly present. However, this subject has only recently been introduced or will soon be included in compulsory education in many European countries, and French-speaking countries and regions in particular. This project aims to support teachers who will need to teach this subject, even if it was not covered by their initial training.

The objective of this project is to develop and share pedagogical and technological tools to support the emergence of a community of computer science teachers able to teach this new discipline (including subjects such as data representation and storage, algorithms, programming languages, computer systems and networks, etc.).

The targeted participants are primarily teachers of French speaking pupils at the end of primary and secondary school (K5-12 i.e. 10-18 years old). The project will mainly target French-speaking regions. The use of French as the vehicular language in this project aims to facilitate communication between teachers within a community of practice. It also allows to develop resources that can be used directly with pupils who, for the youngest, only master their mother tongue. We will, however, endeavour that the pedagogical and technological resources developed are reusable for learning communities using other languages.

This project aims to create a community of teachers, supported by a web platform and digital tools, to facilitate their discovery of computer science and the educational tools they need to teach their students. Teachers will be the heart of the community. They will be accompanied by experts in computer science and educational science to integrate the resources available to them, to adapt them to their needs and generate new ones. It will be collaborative. Cooperation between teachers will be encouraged so that they can build collectively their new ability in computer science teaching.

As the age of the pupils is a factor that strongly determines the identity of the teaching community, two distinct core communities will be created: one for teachers at the end of primary school, start of secondary school (K5-9 i.e. 10- 14 years old), the other for the upper secondary / high school level (K10-12 i.e. 15-18 years old).

Several intellectual productions will result from the project and will be released for free re-use:

– Firstly, a collaborative digital platform for resource sharing and mutual aid between teachers will be created.
– The platform will then be fed with educational content intended for 10-14 years on the one hand and 15-18 years on the other hand, by the partners but foremost by participating teachers.
– The platform will serve as a catalyst for building two core communities of teachers, one for teachers of 10-14 year olds and a second for teachers of 15-18 year olds.
– The analysis of their practices and use of this platform will be carried out from the viewpoint of educational science and teaching of computer science. The results of this analysis will influence the development of the platform and its content.

Three unifying events will be organized during the project:

– During the first year, local meetings between partners and teachers will be organized to present the project, the resources, and the platform that will support the community;
– At the end of the second year, a summer school will be organized where teachers will be able to work with the project partners on the resources and exchange ideas and practices about the functioning of the community;
– At the end of the 3rd year, a summer school, organized in synergy with a conference in IT didactics (Ludovia / Didapro), will disseminate the results of the project and anchor participating teachers in the community of teachers and education specialists in computer science.

In addition to the intellectual productions, other impacts are expected. We will train teachers who are not only able to use educational resources for the teaching of computer science, but who are also able to analyse them to adapt them or to create new ones. This skill will forge their identity as computer science teacher for the benefit of many students. The two core communities will be encouraged to continue their collaboration and use of the tools beyond the project, and may be imitated by other teachers outside the French speaking community.

Project Website

https://cai.community

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 394793 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIVERSITE LIBRE DE BRUXELLES & Country: BE

Project Partners

• UNIVERSITE CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN
• UNIVERSITE DE LA REUNION
• PANEPISTIMIO PATRON
• La Scientothèque
• Université Côte d’Azur