Project ACTiFE aims to increase the attractiveness and sense of creativity through Coding, Computational Thinking and "Internet of Things" (IoT) related processes among adults as well as the belief that innovative skills and state of the art technologies can help shape and deliver sound and efficient entrepreneurial plans in the field of Agri-Technology and Food production. Through the proposed innovative non-formal teaching methodologies and the deployment of a carefully designed serious game, various adult individuals will have the chance to be engaged in "hands-on" projects and "gamefied" scenarios and they will be inspired to deploy the newly built knowledge to the widely acclaimed field of "smart" entrepreneurship through simulations. This could potentially enhance their professional future by opening up new and alternative careers. The main stakeholders of the project are adult individuals that face the risk of prolonged unemployment or are at risk of exclusion, namely persons that are not employed and/or not in education or training (NEETs), are of low income, migrants and other minorities that face employment challenges because of ineffective or inexistent skill sets and inadequate digital competences. In addition, teachers and policy makers could benefit from their involvement in the project, by developing wider and up-to-date teaching methodologies and educational design models. The project further promotes the strategic deployment of ICT in education as a learning tool. It promotes the development of ICT applications for learning and the integration of digital tools as complementary educational content within wider, blended learning and teaching processes. The project focuses on high quality services and tools in education by linking learning practices to emerging state-of-the-art game-based technology and related active learning pedagogical frameworks. The integration of proposed technology and pedagogies are expected to offer broad learning benefits to both students and teachers by enhancing motivation, promoting long-term engagement with the learning process, providing timely and constructive feedback, and promoting critical and entrepreneurial thinking mind sets.
The documents referred to in this report are available in the document repository: - http://repository.erasmusplus.website/Actife/Final_Report/ - Username: evaluator - Password: Evaluator101! The central aim of the ACTiFE project was to use coding, computational thinking and "Internet of Things" (IoT) related processes in the Agri-Technology and Food sector to improve the creativity, employability, and entrepreneurialism of adults and young people at risk of long-term unemployment or social exclusion. The project was run with this in mind, but also in a context of a swiftly changing economy and society. Increasingly, innovative technologies are not confined to the tech sector, even for industries seen as traditional, such as agriculture. As such, it is more important than ever that the unemployed of every stripe – but in particular the long-term unemployed – gain STEM skills in areas such as coding, computational thinking, and IoT. Significantly, however, employers and industries have expressed concerns that these skills are not ubiquitous enough for their needs. It is in this context that ACTiFE has sought to build a series of tools and deliverables that will raise both awareness of and interest in coding, computational thinking, and IoTwith a particular focus on the Agri-Technology and Food sector. The project achieved these aims mainly through the development of a serious game and its supporting documents, which deliver the knowledge in an engaging way. In order to create these deliverables, the project focused on three central intellectual outputs (IOs), each of which focused on a particular set of results. IO2 was the first, and focused on the Learning Methodologies Framework as an initial preparatory research phase before the creation of the game itself: - A1: Stakeholder mapping - A2: The current status quo in linking Coding and Computational Thinking to innovative entrepreneurial practices in Adult education - A3: Current trends in the deployment of serious games in Adult education - A4: Learning requirements for preparing adult learners to effectively adopt Computational Thinking and Coding as necessary tools to set up and successfully deliver entrepreneurial plans. - A5: Skill development requirements for Adult education instructors on deploying ICT, and specifically serious games and simulations, towards preparing students to enter the world of work - A6: A collaborative, agile learning framework for promoting "smart" entrepreneurial" practices in adult education activities. The second IO was IO3, which was centred around building the game: - A1: The ACTiFE serious game design for exposing adult learners to Coding processes, IoT and "smart entrepreneurship in the field of Food and Agriculture industry. - A2: Software development of the ACTiFE serious game for building experience with industrial processes in the field of adult education. The final IO was IO4, in which the consortium created a number of supporting documents and deliverables to the game: - A1: Collection of learning sheets targeting educators - A2 User guide on the ACTiFE serious game - A3: Good practice guidelines in multimedia form aiming at enhancing instructor capacity to deploy the proposed serious game. As can be inferred from this, the results of the project therefore took the form of: - A learning methodologies framework - A serious game - Learning sheets related to the game’s content for use by educators - A user guide to the serious game - Good practice videos Unfortunately, as funding for the project’s piloting was cut, there was minimal time or resources for the consortium to undertake this as fully as hoped, but evaluations of project results were nevertheless undertaken. Only 10 participants took part in this activity, but the multiplier events that partners undertook captured a much broader audience. The four partners that held these events managed to get 204 participants, with feedback indicating that they would recommend the game and its supporting tools to a wider audience. Partners generally tried to ensure that the project’s target audience was being captured in these activities – namely teachers and other educators, particularly where possible those involved in adult education – but also the general public and other adults in education or unemployment. When added to the project dissemination figures – an impressive 86,817 people reached – we get a sense of the project’s broader impact. The above project results have been successfully promoted to thousands of people, many in the target audience who, as our feedback from multiplier events and evaluations shows, do feel largely positive about those results, their quality, and their potential. When combined with the project website that will continue to host project information and results after the project’s closure, and the potential for the Learning Methodologies Framework as basis for a body of research, it is clear that ACTiFE has had a significant impact that may well continue after it ends.