ExpertICTize is the joint partnership of five European secondary schools who have realised the importance and potential of digital educational methods and wish to develop dynamically in this aspect of education. They have decided on this direction in order to make daily teaching methods and practices both more enjoyable and more effective for their students. The central idea of the project is to learn from each other by exchanging and adapting good practices in the field of digital educational technology and methodology. Almende College, Isala in the Netherlands is currently at the most advanced stage as students do not use coursebooks and textbooks but rely on tablets in the daily educational activities. In terms of administrative duties this school has also changed to digital tools from paper-based documentation. Prof. Dr. Orhan Oguz Anatolian High School in Eskisehir, Turkey is also equipped with digital technology and use smart board on a daily basis. All the students and teachers have tablets but they feel that the ways these have been used are limited and this school would like to learn about more effective uses of tablets in class. This school is planning to establish a digital classroom next schoolyear and would like to examine what works for other schools in Europe. Neumann János Secondary School in Hungary has now almost all classrooms equipped with some kind of ICT. There are interactive whiteboards, laptops and projectors but this school would like to learn about more effective uses of digital technology in the classroom, especially educational tools available via Internet connection. They are also planning to make a larger part of school administration digital. The 8th High School in Trikala, Greece have minimal ICT technology but have already recognised the importance of digital methodology in education. They would like to learn about equipping the school with ICT effectively and also about smart ways of using digital technology in class. They have very strong connections with the local institution, e-Trikala, the first digital city in Greece. This company aims at introducing digital technology in all aspects of city life. Participants of the present project would like to get familiar with the means of this company and adapt good practices in education. Through dissemination of project results good practices will be beneficial for other municipalities too. Lycée des Métiers Jules Le Cesne in Le Havre, France face serious problems in dealing with students coming from socially disadvantaged background. Many of the students regularly skip classes and they have the highest droupout rate amongst the participants in this project. Their aim is to increase students’ involvement in the educational process through digital technology. More intense involvement increases motivation, develops different aspects of their intelligence and is expected to result in higher academic achievement and a greater level of satisfaction in secondary education. In terms of mobilities, 100 people (teachers and students) are involved in the project. The number of those directly taking part in the program during and in between the transnational project meetings and short exchanges of students is about 500. Considering the impact of the project about 3000 people will directly benefit from more intense involvement in classroom and extra-curricular activities within the participating institutions. However, dissemination will spread the results in the wider area of each participating school (locally and at a national level as well). Transnational project meetings in the Netherlands, Hungary and Turkey are for teachers to get familiar with the host schools good practices. In between meetings each school works out ways of adapting these in their own educational circumstances. During short exchanges of students in Greece and France the focus is on demonstarting students’ involvement in the use of various ICT tools and digital technology. Students during these two short exchanges teach each other about their own language and culture through the use of digital applications exclusively.
Project background: It has now become a commonplace to talk about the transition and shift from rote-learning to developing 21st century skills in education worldwide. Three years ago, however, when this project started digitalisation of schools was a lot less ingrained in the minds of educational professionals. Even if it was felt in the day-to-day practices that generation Y and Z cannot be handled in the old ways, teachers needed a lot of assistance to open up classroom doors and embrace the necessary methodological and technological changes. It was in the autumn of 2015 in Alcala de Henares, near Madrid that we the birth of ExpertICTize was seen. The future participants took part in an Erasmus+ KA1 Staff Mobility training called “Let’s make our school more international: European Project Planning, Design, Management and Funding under Erasmus+”. The participants learned about important steps in creating a project proposal and managing a successful project but it was also an opportunity for networking with other European institutions. This was where a group of 7 teachers (from 5 schools) started to think along the lines of digital education. The basic project idea was to get acquainted with classroom mobile applications in order to make the learning process more intriguing for students. Also, to become familiar with different models for transforming schools and create increasingly engaging digital learning spaces within the current framework of each educational institution. Aims of the project: At the beginning of the common work digitalisation in education was not as strong a concept as it is now. Apart from Almende College, Isala (the Netherlands) the partners lacked experience and reliable infrastructure to launch digital projects. Also, there was a somewhat shy and reluctant attitude among the staff members of each school. The main aim of the project was to pave the way for digital schools by becoming familiar with a lot of classroom applications and gain expertize in the use of ICT. Project partner institutions: During the writing of the project proposal one German school decided to opt out and a French partner school was invited as a result of an advertisement placed on E-Twinning’s Partner Search platform. This how the final partnership of a Hungarian, Greek, Turkish, Dutch and French school was created with the coordinating role going to the Hungarian institution. There was one very important common feature: the sending institutions were from the field of secondary education and four of the five schools were academic grammar schools preparing students for successful university admittance. Thanks to the similar school profiles intentions, goals and challenges were easy to fine tune from the project proposal phase until the end of the project period. Project activities: Participants of the project meetings took part in training events together during the transnational project meetings and disseminated the knowledge and know-how amongs their own staff once back to the sending institutions. Sharing good practices was an important part of the collaboration. In between the meetings schools created videos in which they demonstrated how to use classroom mobile apps and how to adapt them in different educational contexts. The videos were uploaded to the project website (http://erasmusexpertictiz.wixsite.com/website). Results and impacts: Placing the schools on the scale of EC DigCompEdu Progression Model the starting point was A1 (Awareness) or A2 (Exploration) for the partners, except the Dutch school who were already at B1 (Integration) or B2 (Expertize) level. An important result of the partnership is that in the end all schools safely reached this B1-B2 level and are ready to move on to become leaders and innovators in digital education (C1-C2 level). Long-term impact of the project: ExpertICTize is definitely not a project that closed down on 31 August, 2018. This project of learning and growing together equipped the partner schools with experience about school policies, infrastructure and devices and also the human resources necessary for 21st century education. It has successfully broke through the reluctance of educators and planted the necessary curiosity and willingness to welcome technology in education. Partners schools are now revising previous school policies concerning the use of wifi and smart devices and are in the process of creating the infrastructure necessary to host digital education not only in the scope of a two-year project but in the whole educational concept.