Once upon a time there was a big arrow, blue-painted, on a train. A toy train. This blue train was in a shop window with other toys. And… during the night these toys decided to take on live of its own to reach the children that needed each of these toys, priceless. The only logic was the affinity with each worthy child. This is not Disney’s Toy Story, but this is the plot of a tale (Blue Arrow/La Freccia Azzurra) written by Gianni Rodari in 1964 and brought as cartoon in 1996 by an European co-production between Italy, Switzerland and Luxemburg. The BLUE ARROW project borrows the name starting from the metaphors of the story and with the aim to be in memory of Gianni Rodari, in the centenary of his born (23 October 1920), the Italian author of children literature famous all over the Europe and world that won the prestigious and biennial Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 1970 for child literature. The BLUE ARROW project works on the metaphors that starts from the Rodari’s book. The main aim is the improvement of the teacher education of pre-primary and primary in higher education institutions Initial Teacher Education (ITE) and Continuous Professional Development (CPD) by providing new tools and new methodologies. During the pandemic crisis, the teaching sector exposed its fragilities and its adaptability. Europe is also facing a great challenge to provide sufficient and better-quality education and training to the teachers of tomorrow as the pandemic has come suddenly and brought several impacts on different levels. More than 100 million people who are directly related to education sector globally have been severely affected (Gabriel, 2020) and many of them have been trying to turn their traditional face-to-face (f2f) education into digital one. The new approaches for teaching during the COVID-19 lockdowns have a huge impact on the education in kindergartens and primary schools, in particular in the range of age 4-7, where children needs to learn by experience, drawing or manipulating things without writing and reading skills. UN, in a worldwide scale says that “the disruptions caused by COVID-19 to everyday life meant that as many as 40 million children worldwide have missed out on early childhood education in their critical pre-school year”. This is problematic because “they thus missed a stimulating and enriching environment, learning opportunities”. Declaratory learning, based on traditional didactical material, is easily to be exported in distance learning: MOOCs and videoconferences are perfect in this case. But in the case of children that are not able to read and write, the procedural learning that refers to experience and laboratorial activities involving the senses is fundamental and is needed a rethinking when schools close and lessons are in front on a screen. Theis rethink should start from the new competences for the teachers, through the teacher education in HEIs. The BLUE ARROW project aims to create an innovative pedagogical approach for teacher education that involve the development of a MOOC and the implementation of these practices in higher education courses for teacher education for the new challenge of distance learning: - including new ways to teach applying digital creativity, - proposing user-friendly tools and secure platforms which respect privacy and ethical standards, - developing new innovative educational methods for pre-primary and primary educators applying Tangible User Interfaces. A synergic and complementary Partnership was built: BLUE ARROW includes 3 pedagogical HEIs (UNIFG, UB and RUC) in teacher education (ITE and CPD); a SME experts in TEL ground-breaking devices (SM) and an association of HEIs in distance learning (EADTU). Four countries are represented (Italy, Spain, Netherland and Albania) BLUE ARROW will produce the following outcomes: 1. A pedagogical framework in the field of teacher education aimed at the improvement of competences of pre-primary and primary teachers about distance teaching, also a response on COVID-19 situation (O1). 2. A MOOC with lessons held by teacher educators in HEIs (O2), with an International presentation (E9). 3. An ICT platform that will be embed in the MOOC, based on TUIs paradigm, that allows the management of laboratory activities in teaching for children between 4 and 7 years old, including a multisensory approach based on exercises co-created with teacher educators and other learning experts. (O3) 4. A report that will show the results and the impact of the BLUE ARROW methodology and technology and the guideline for a reapplication in other contexts. (O4) 5. A series of co-creation events in 4 countries with experts where they will evaluate and propose new laboratory exercises with TUIs for distance teaching (E1-E2-E3-E4) and valuate the implementation (E5-E6-E7-E8) 6. An annual international conference on distance and blended learning for pre-primary and primary teachers (E10).
Once upon a time there was a big arrow, depicted with cyan, on a train. A toy train. This blue train was in shop windows with other toys. And during the night these toys decided to take on live of its own to reach the children that needed each of these toys, without any price-logic. The only logic was the affinity with each worthy child. This is not Toy Story by Disney, but this is the plot of a story written by Gianni Rodari in 1964 and brought as cartoon as a European co-production between Italy, Swiss and Luxemburg in 1996. The Blue Arrow project borrows the name starts from the metaphors of the story and with the aim to be in memory of Gianni Rodari, the Italian children written famous all over the Europe and world that won the prestigious and biennial Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 1970 for child literature, in the centenary of his born (23 October 1920). The BLUE ARROW project works on the metaphors that starts from the Rodari’s book. The main aim was the improvement of the initial teacher education (ITE) in higher education institution by providing new tools and new methodologies. This represents the engine of the “Blue Arrow” train that directly brings methods and technologies to the homes of the young children, even in the case they are forced to be at home, as happened during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns. The choice of toys represents the personalization of the educational approach that needs to be developed when the distance learning is implemented. The BLUE ARROW project intended to remember the work of Gianni Rodari by implementing innovative solutions in pre-service teacher education for a new generation of teachers that needs to deal with the distance teaching methods. The operative objectives were to: 1. Define a methodology and a theoretical framework for the Initial Teacher Education for distance learning that involve digital creativity, tangible user interfaces methods and privacy and ethical standards for using platforms with an EU and transnational approach (IO1). 2. Release a Massive Online Open Course for initial teacher education for fostering methods of teaching for distance learning in an EU dimension, with Open Educational Resources as lessons, videos, tutorials, applying a co-design approach for the MOOC contents with the teacher educators in HEIs (IO2)- 3. Design and implement an innovative tool based on Tangible User Interfaces paradigm, with learning exercise co-created with the teachers’ educators and schoolteachers able to allow exercises for pre-primary and primary education to be taught in the MOOC, representing the procedural learning component for distance learning of young children (IO3). 4. Disseminate the results of the project, delivering guidelines with an exploitation strategy that aims to expand across the HEIs involved with a snow-ball effect, promoting change and innovation (IO4).
During the pandemic crisis, the teaching sector exposed its fragilities and its adaptability. Europe is also facing a great challenge to provide sufficient and better-quality education and training to the teachers of tomorrow as the pandemic has come suddenly and brought several impacts on different levels. More than 100 million people who are directly related to education sector globally have been severely affected (Gabriel, 2020) and many of them have been trying to turn their traditional face-to-face (f2f) education into digital one. The European Commission started programs and initiative to face this new background, as for example the creation of the Digital Education Action Plan that aim to make education and training systems fit for the digital age, with the main aim to “be an EU-wide common understanding of how to make distance, online and blended learning effective, inclusive and engaging”. The new approaches for teaching during the COVID-19 lockdowns has a huge impact on the education in kindergartens and primary schools, in particular in the range of age 4-7, where children need to learn by experience, drawing or manipulating things without a writing and reading skills. UN, in a worldwide scale says that “the disruptions caused by COVID-19 to everyday life meant that as many as 40 million children worldwide have missed out on early childhood education in their critical pre-school year.”. This is very problematic because “they thus missed a stimulating and enriching environment, learning opportunities”. In this view we wanted to promote innovative distance teaching methods that works on declaratory learning. Declaratory learning, based on traditional didactical material, is easily to be exported to distance learning: MOOCs and videoconferences are perfect in this case. But in the case of child that are not able to read and write, the procedural learning that refers to experience and laboratorial activities involving the senses, is fundamental and needs a rethinking when schools close and lessons are in front on a screen. In the Blue Arrow project we improved the initial teacher education (ITE) in higher education institutions proposing new tools and new methodologies proposing an innovative approach based on mixed reality system (in particular applying the Tangible User Interface paradigm).