INNOVATION=MOTIVATION: How to be a smart student with a creative mind Erasmus Project

Project Title

INNOVATION=MOTIVATION: How to be a smart student with a creative mind

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 : School Exchange Partnerships

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Quality Improvement Institutions and/or methods (incl. school development); ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Early School Leaving / combating failure in education

Project Summary

The background of this project is the need to introduce continuous educational innovations to keep motivated students who are increasingly exposed to ICT. Five schools from Spain, Italy, Poland, Greece and Slovenia have been involved in this project where we have continued our previous experiences in which we had already started the implementation of improvement the use of ICT, the focus on skills and key competencies and the fight against the early school leaving and disadvantages of our schools, aspects that we have further improved thanks to this project.
All the members of the partnership consider that the objectives of the project have been absolutely fulfilled. The participants, students between 10 and 14 years old, have developed their digital competence beyond given applications, being able to design their own Apps. At the same time, the design of these applications has allowed them to deepen their knowledge of the subjects of the educational curriculum and encouraged a good number of students to consider different training options when they finish compulsory schooling, such as vocational training programs. In addition, thanks to the Gamification and Project-Based Learning methodologies implemented in schools, the participating students have developed an entrepreneurial mind-set, their creativity, the ability to organize ideas, self-improvement and logical thinking have been enhanced. The activities carried out have ensured that students have been able to build social relationships with other students, being able to work in a foreign language and considerably improve their linguistic competence in English.
On the other hand, schools have been able to establish innovative and motivating proposals capable of attracting students and tackling school failure and early school living, as shown in the evaluations carried out throughout the project, although we must carry out a follow-up over the next few years to find out the true long-term success of the measures put in place. In this sense of implementation of innovative methodologies, it is also noteworthy that the professional profile of teachers has been highlighted, thanks also to the development of their digital competence, the exchange of good practices and the promotion of their linguistic competence in English.
The activities have followed a logical sequence through 3 with a duration of about 8 months each. In the first place, the Gamification methodology was implemented thanks to the use of different educational Apps. The students developed a research work on the possibilities of ICT tools, not only in the educational context, but also in the workplace, making them aware of the digital world in which we live and the importance of these tools. The second part of the project involved the creation of multimedia content and the introduction of computer programming. In the last part the students were able to design and create their own Simple Applications. Three joint teacher training activities were developed at the beginning of each of the modules, two of them in Spain and one more in Poland. These teacher training activities allowed us to establish the knowledge that we wanted to transmit to the students for each module. In each module, a short student exchange activity was developed where they were able to finish in person, in Greece and Slovenia, the projects that had been previously developed online. Unfortunately, the pandemic made it impossible to carry out the last activity scheduled to be held in person in May 2020 in Italy.
An active and dynamic methodology in which students have participated in group activities of students of different nationalities thanks to tools such as TwinSpace, Padlet and videoconferencing has been used in all phases and activities of the project. The Project-Based Learning methodology, where real-life problems have been presented to be solved by designing their own computer tools, has been very positive, allowing students to develop their ability to Learn to Learn and their entrepreneurial spirit.
Regarding the tangible results of the project, a number of multimedia activities have been created, grouped in a resource bank, organized by educational and subjects, in the mother tongues of the 5 participating schools (Greek, Italian, Polish, Slovenian and Spanish) and in English. These activities are accessible free of charge from the project website and the Erasmus + Project Results Platform. In addition to the activities, infographics and educational videos created by and for students from 3 to 14 years old, tutorials are available for all the applications used to build them, such as InShot, LearningApps, Educaplay or Genially, among many others. The main strategic result have been the implementation of a completely innovative project where different sectors of the educational community were involved in order to develop their own computer applications fostering creativity and analytical thinking.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 84316 Eur

Project Coordinator

CEIP Santa María la Blanca & Country: ES

Project Partners

• Szkola Podstawowa Nr1 im. Ryszarda Knosaly
• Osnovna sola Sveti Jurij
• 40 dimotiko scholeio Peristeriou
• ISTITUTO COMPRENSIVO “ANNA MOLINARO” MONTEFIASCONE