Coding, robots and ITC for an innovative pedagogy promoting high level skills. Erasmus Project

Project Title

Coding, robots and ITC for an innovative pedagogy promoting high level skills.

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: Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills; Pedagogy and didactics; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

Educational digital technology, programming and robotics are increasingly present in European schools. From 2017 to 2020, in order to give a European dimension to pre-existing projects, two French establishments in Priority Education and a popular school in Salerno decided to join forces in an Erasmus + KA2 R.E.C.C. “Robots in Europe for Coding and Cooperation”.
The Marcel Plaisant elementary school (210 students, 14 teachers) and the Victor Hugo college (650 students, 60 teachers) are located in a political district of the city of Bourges, in a very disadvantaged socio-cultural-educational and digital context. Many students present significant difficulties in learning fundamental knowledge. The Italian school Alfonso Gatto (1,200 students, 120 teachers) is particularly invested in digital technology and Erasmus partnership projects with also a fragile school audience.
In order to remedy educational difficulties and take into account pupils with special needs, French and Italian establishments are implementing numerous measures specific to their countries or territories, including digital education. Teachers use digital technology in the classroom, in particular to offer all students innovative and motivating sessions but also to further develop collaborative projects between peers. These collaborative projects are a source of motivation since they allow students to reinvest, to work differently on the skills of fundamental knowledge with the support of digital technology. In addition, they promote educational and social inclusion and help fight determinism.
The main theme chosen for this Erasmus + KA2 partnership project was therefore collaboration, the sharing of knowledge and skills about educational robotics. To implement it, the teachers in charge and those participating in the project have been trained about digital technology in teaching, programming and the possible uses of robots in schools. These skills were implemented during sessions dedicated to the programming of robots in classrooms, during collaborative projects in or between establishments but also during mobility learning activities in France and Italy according to established specifications. by partners.
The implementation of the Erasmus + KA2 project in institutions, monitoring committees, transnational meetings, mobility and numerous dissemination activities have made it possible to enrich the teaching know-how of teachers to effectively use digital technologies, to continue to train and cooperate with teaching teams from other establishments. The achievements of this project, integrated into a daily pedagogy, have enabled teachers to further help students to appropriate the tools and digital uses and to adapt their teaching to the diversity of the students.
The impact of this project has been measured in schools by specific evaluations but also through the pupils’ school books, in particular the validation of the skills of the base or of the Reference Framework of Digital Skills, the C.R.C.N. The R.E.C.C. has also built the development of intercultural competence in pupils and their parents so that they have a more concrete and positive vision of Europe. It also promotes the feeling of belonging to a school capable of offering quality projects.
The R.E.C.C. also had a tremendous impact on other target audiences in the Priority Education network, agglomerations, the department, the Academy and in France thanks to numerous training courses, dissemination actions and publications in the press or institutional websites. Many schools have thus planned on educational robotics activities or on Erasmus + projects.
While the main objective was to promote educational robotics in Europe, the Erasmus + KA2 project was the opportunity to develop the 21st century skills needed by students: collaboration and autonomy, critical thinking, computer thinking, problem solving and creativity. These high-level skills are now present in the minds of all participants and represent an ambition that each teacher sets for his or her students. This project, carried out over three years, will have made it possible to promote the educational inclusion of students with special needs and to promote more vulnerable students academically. Finally, the Erasmus + KA2 R.E.C.C. will also have been an important vector of girl-boy equality: pedagogical robotics in a European framework then becoming a driver of success, ambition, equality and citizenship for all.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 55635 Eur

Project Coordinator

Ecole élémentaire Marcel Plaisant & Country: FR

Project Partners

• Bowburn Infant and Nursery School
• Istituto Comprensivo Statale “Alfonso Gatto”
• Collège Victor Hugo