Empowering Teachers with Technology Erasmus Project

Project Title

Empowering Teachers with Technology

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 adult education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

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

Project Summary

The number of users who download online language teaching applications has been increasing in recent years and according to educational prognosis, in particular during the COVID crisis, a further significant increase is expected. However, outstanding technical solutions are available with excellent professional indicators, the major drawback of all available language teaching software is that they exclude the teacher from the process of learning. They do not allow the teacher to monitor and evaluate their learners’ progress, to get a glimpse into, to have a say in and to actively guide the learners’ activities. The creation of the Nexus software suite was motivated by the long-term objective that we have, which is to deliver the integration of ICT devices into traditional education to all countries of the EU.

The objective of developing the Nexus Software Suite was to establish a link between students and teachers in the online space, therefore opening a door for teachers to enter their students’ world of digital language learning.

Teachers empowered with technology and thus having insight into their student’s actual performance and learning habits, along with being armed with a relevant methodological toolkit of digital education can offer the same precious guidance, control and support in the online space as they do in traditional classrooms.
By the aid of the objective and transparent feedback and information on the students’ performance through the connected learning applications, digital language learning can become personalized and teachers can act as mentors and instructors at the same time. This creates efficiency both for students and teachers in a revolutionary way of language teaching and learning.

The primary result of the project is the Nexus Software Suite on HTML, iOS and Android platforms, with a test version connected to a running language learning application and a full SDK and API interface that provides connectivity to additional language learning applications.
The most important feature of Nexus – which goes beyond those of available applications – is that it allows teachers to keep a complete record of the e- and m-learning activities of their students outside the classroom. This feature offers teachers actionable and detailed visualised data and feedback on the improvement of their students in every language skill (writing, reading, speaking, listening, grammar, vocabulary) and furthermore, teachers obtain information on the learning activities of their students, the time they spend on these, and their results.

The apps are complemented by a 110-piece video package with methodological, motivational, and tutorial videos to provide additional support to teachers who incorporate Nexus into their educational toolkit.

The project partners came from three European countries. Three partners {Itt és Most Egyesület (HU), Converzum (HU) and Euroform RFS (IT)} worked on the educational side and another two {(NLV8 (UK) and Code Yard (HU)} on the software developmetn side.

Although the main product,being the application package, was completed in some respects even better in quality and functionality than originally planned, the dissemination plans suffered damage due to the COVID situation. Due to this,alf of our project time, we had to work within strict restrictions. Although we worked perfectly in the online space, we were only able to organise two face-to-face meetings and instead of the five multiplier events planned, we were only able to complete two face-to-face events and two webinars. Our main target groups were language teachers, language schools and language learning organisations. These groups were all severely affected by the epidemic, so their motivation for extra work and collaboration was impractical.

However, we even had slightly more testers than we had originally planned and received positive feedback and helpful suggestions. 564 teachers and their 2213 students tested Nexus and as described in our study, summarising the experiences of the testing phase, both of the main objectives of our project were achieved:
1.Change in teachers’ attitudes towards online platforms
Even if the impact of COVID can be felt in all this, the fact that at the end of the project, twice as many people as before accepted that the future lies in the use of online and digital tools, is a significant achievement. Similarly, the proportion of those who see digital solutions as effective has doubled, and the proportion who recognise the motivational power of online tools has also increased significantly.

2. Successful product development
In the final study, we also detail the positive feedback we receive from teachers who have tested Nexus with their students. 92% of the testers found our development useful and a similar proportion indicated that they would definitely or at the request of their students plan to continue using the app.

Project Website

http://ittesmostegyesulet.com/empowering-teachers-with-technology/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 370422 Eur

Project Coordinator

Itt és Most Egyesület & Country: HU

Project Partners

• Euroform RFS
• NLV8 TECHNOLOGIES LTD
• CodeYard Kft.
• Converzum Tudomany Nyelviskola Zrt.