Mobile enhanced tools and approaches for innovative language learning and assessment Erasmus Project

Project Title

Mobile enhanced tools and approaches for innovative language learning and assessment

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 addressing more than one field

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2014

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Teaching and learning of foreign languages; Research and innovation; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

The motivation behind the M-Lang project is the need to upgrade the professional skills of teaching staff and improve learning outcomes by applying state-of-the art online response systems and Open Educational Resources (OER). In a European landscape in which the imperative is for better qualified teachers (The New Skills for New Jobs initiative; ET2020 Agenda) and the emphasis is on rethinking the nature of learning and teaching in Europe (Opening Up Education initiative; Rethinking Education initiative) through innovative teaching/learning approaches and OER, the M-Lang consortium has been situated in the triangle of innovative educational approaches and OER applied for mobile and digital technologies and learning/teaching skills.

Partners have identified gaps in terms of training of their staff in innovative learning and assessment methods that offer immediate or nearly immediate feedback on learning progress from the teacher to the students and from the students to the teacher. The consortium have tried to reduce these gaps by joining forces in a collaboration built on complementary partner profiles: a Higher Education Institution (HEI) delivering and customizing mobile solutions for learning, two private and one non-profit organisations, and one research centre/HEI specializing in adult education, all located in different countries – Greece, Italy, Norway, Spain and Sweden.

The cross-country approach has been cross-sectoral, as partners involve staff teaching languages, but also Social Sciences and Humanities subjects. The means to achieve better qualified staff and better learning outcomes for students is an ICT-based learning and teacher training approach that is supported by mobile devices (smartphones, tablets) and computers. To cater to the reality of all institutions and to meet business imperatives, the technological solution has been very cost-efficient as it is based on a Bring Your Own device (BYOD) concept for both learners and teachers.

The M-Lang project has supported the participating teachers throughout the project by offering hands-on demonstrations of several mobile learning applications consisting of online response systems, and more importantly continuous proactive and reactive teacher training follow up by a experienced team members while the teachers implement the mobile enhanced approach with their learners. The project also gave educational staff the opportunity to join an intensive 5-day joint training course to further develop their skills, by co-creating, negotiating and publishing pedagogical scenarios, activities and tasks – both language specific and across languages – also joined by teachers in Social Sciences and Humanities. Assessment of progress in terms of teaching and learning skills and attitudes will be continuous and based on quality indicators.

Freely licensed project results as guidelines for learning and assessment with mobile devices, pedagogical materials for use in class in the form of OER, and a study on progress made on attitudes and skills of both learners and teachers have been developed. The summaries are available in GR, FR, IT, NO and SE, while the rest of the documents have been written in English. The partnership has organized multiplier events in each country so that its educators and educational policy makers can foster penetration of the approach and to highlight good practice emerging from class interaction.

The project has tested out, evaluated and validated the effect of applying the response tools SRS, PeLe and Eval in language classes in 5 different countries in secondary schools, upper secondary schools and in university classes. The testing period lasted for ca 3 semesters. 32 teachers from 5 countries attended the Interactive Exchange Workshop course, in Patras, Greece in Sept. 2016. They shared experiences and made up networks, resulting in a Facebook group for applications of response tools in language learning. The testing and validating that have been done during the project has been summarised in 4 intellectual outputs. They describe how to organise a 5 day long Interactive Exchange Workshop course consisting of 10 sessions, for teachers that have obtained some knowledge about usage of response systems in education and training. The material has been uploaded into the E+ Project Results database and is freely available to other teachers in Europe. The response systems SRS, PeLe and Eval are going to be maintained by the Norwegian University for Technology and Science NTNU in Trondheim, Norway. Teachers in Europe may trough the portal www.one2act.no access the 3 tools, downloading them and start applying them. The project has in addition organised 1-3 multiplier events in each country and about 200 persons attended those. In addition there has been organised dissemination events in each country. The project has created impact in Spain, Sweden and Norway, where a community of language teachers have started to use response systems.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 289476 Eur

Project Coordinator

HOGSKOLEN I SOR-TRONDELAG & Country: NO

Project Partners

• TIBER UMBRIA COMETT EDUCATION PROGRAMME
• Institut Français d’Espagne
• GOETEBORGS UNIVERSITET
• KENTRO ELLHNIKOU POLITISMOU MONOPROSPOPI IKE