Innovation=Motivation: How to be a smart student with a creative mind, is the title of the international project designed by five schools from Greece, Italy, Poland, Slovenia and Spain for a period of 24 months. Partner schools have several years of experience jointly developing eTwinning projects and in this occasion they intend to develop an innovative proposal to implement innovative practices related to ICT, promote the acquisition of skills and competencies and address the problem of early school leaving and disadvantages of our schools. For this reason, special priority will be given to participants with fewer opportunities to participate in project activities. The main objectives are: -To develop digital competence beyond the use of given applications, by designing their own applications. -To highlight the professional profile of teachers by means of implementing innovative and motivating methods, the development of their digital competence and the ability to work as a team with other professionals, while promoting the improvement of their linguistic competence in English. -To establish in schools a methodology of Gamification and Project-Based Learning where students will have to solve problems, work as a team and respond to specific needs by designing computer applications. -To develop an entrepreneurial mind-set and the ability to "learning how to learn" from the analysis, research and development of their own projects. -To encourage creativity, logical thinking, the ability to order ideas and the desire to outdo themselves. -To build social relationships with other children, the ability to work as a team and to communicate the results in the mother tongue and in a foreign language. -To improve the knowledge of the subjects of the educational curricula by designing interactive educational activities from different subjects. -To propose innovative and motivating methods capable of attracting students and tackle school failure and early school leaving. -To encourage students to know different training options when they finish compulsory schooling, encouraging them to continue their school career in professional training programs. The project is mainly aimed at involving two main groups: students between 10 and 14 years old and teachers of different subjects, so that students can discover the possibilities of computer programming in different areas. The activities to be developed have been established in 3 different modules: -In the first module, the Gamification methodology will be implemented through the use of different Apps, and the possibilities of ICT tools in the workplace will be studied investigating the real use made by local companies of computer applications and sharing the results of the researches developed. -In the second module the creation of multimedia content and computer programming will be introduced. The first results of the creations of the students will be already visible at this stage. -In the third module students will be able to analyse the needs, propose possibilities, design and create their own Apps after fully implementing their training in terms of implementation of the methodology related to programming. The methodology to be used will be mainly Project-Based Learning, where real-life problems will be presented to the students that must be solved by designing their own computer tools, in collaboration with students from the other schools and using English as the main vehicle. Throughout this process, the prior training of the participating teachers will be a key aspect that will allow the project activities to be exploited later. The tangible results of the project will be mainly for the designing of computer applications that can be used by students and teachers for educational purposes, in different subjects and levels of primary and lower secondary education: applications for learning the English language, mathematics, geography, history , art... The main strategic result will be the implementation of a completely innovative project in all schools, where different sectors of the educational community will be involved in order to develop their own computer applications, based on project-based learning and teamwork, fostering creativity and analytical thinking. In the long term, the project participants will expand their knowledge about creating multimedia content, coding and creating Apps. This will allow students to open their training options and also their opportunities in the labour market, reducing early school leaving. They will also develop the ability to carry out a project in a foreign language, enabling the ability to work in international teams and develop their creativity for their own benefit and for others beyond the local level. Furthermore, the schools will be able to continue implementing the coding teaching and creation of Apps in the future through the acquired learning, including it in school programs and developing extracurricular activities.
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.