The ARTSe project addresses two crucial priorities within the European Union, namely the need to encourage a higher level of sustainability on our lifestyles and to promulgate digitalisation within member states. Following the European Commission’s Digital Education Action Plan (2018) this project seeks to develop relevant digital technological tools that can be used to enhance the teaching/learning experience in schools. It also seeks to fulfil the targets in ET2020 about lifelong learning and mobility, improve the quality and results in education and work towards social integration, by meeting peers in other countries, and enhance the understanding of sustainable lifestyles in our students. ARTSe pursues a specific goal of developing an AR assisted curriculum for Sustainable Development which is cross curricular and extends beyond national boundaries in its applicability. Cognizant of the fact that many educators are not as conversant in creative digital pedagogical tools, this project also seeks to address the problem by : a. Training a number of educators from 3 European countries on the use of AR assisted educational resources b. Widening the effectiveness of this new approach by creating a guidebook for educators in general to assist in moving beyond traditional class based methodologies for teaching and learning. Research into the effectiveness of the resources will involve the participation of a group of students from Malta, Italy and Finland. This will help corroborate the multiplier effect of the project when the intellectual output and resources produced are then rolled out to other secondary and post-secondary institutions and specific national NGOs. This dissemination will ensure effectiveness and long term positive impact of output developed in this project. Such output includes a curriculum for training educators in using AR for sustainable development, a guide on how to develop AR content for SD education, an e-Learning platform that provides open resources and training material for teaching SD through the use of AR together with an open digital toolkit for Sustainable Education. Although educators will be major beneficiaries in this project, the overarching objective is to stimulate and motivate student learning by presenting them with enjoyable and relevant learning experiences. The current Gen Zers and the forthcoming Generation Alpha students are challenging educators to provide them with a learner centred environment that respects and caters for various learning capabilities, diversity of individuals and ways of learning. This requires a paradigm shift in our educational approach from using one or two dimensional educational resources to one that is more in sync with our physical three –dimensional world. This project focuses on the importance of using Augmented Reality (AR) technology in the teaching/learning experience to help create an educational environment where physical and virtual worlds intermingle to enhance the effectiveness and attractiveness of this experience by providing more realistic scenarios. AR enhances the interactivity between student and learning, and introduces innovative methods to the learning process. A final objective is that these resources extend beyond the physical confines of classrooms to render themselves valid and relevant for use in virtual classrooms. This year’s pandemic has put a spotlight on the need to enhance the flexibility of education to move into a virtual scenario. This project seeks to address this by ensuring that the connotation of ‘educators’ extends to the realm of home schooling scenarios.
One of the objectives of the EU member states is to reduce the rate of early school leavers (aged 18-24)at EU level to below 9% by 2030. The path to achieving this goal (currently 10%) is to ensure that the students’ educational experience is an engaging, relevant and beneficial one. Students currently in post compulsory education/senior classes are GenZers and GenAlpha who are technologically advanced, have an attention span that is an evolved 8-Second Filter, can multi task and tend to be independent and self confident. For Gen Alpha, there will be an increased digital literacy because of the omnipresence of technology with its underlying implication of shorter attention spans that highlights the importance of the gamification of learning. This implies that knowledge of subject matter is no longer enough for educators. Information is available at the touch of a button and therefore educators must strive to ensure that the added value they provide in the students’ educational experience is significant and meaningful. Educators need effective and interesting teaching methods that motivate students and incentivise them to take an active role in their learning. This necessitates the adoption and incorporation of advanced technology in pedagogy that caters for various learning capabilities, learning styles and embraces the diversity of students. Given that our physical world is three –dimensional, using Augmented Reality (AR) technology in the teaching/learning experience removes the dichotomy between the two-dimensional approach used in classrooms and the three-dimensional physical world and helps create an educational environment where physical and virtual worlds intermingle to enhance the effectiveness and attractiveness of this experience by providing more realistic scenarios. AR enhances the interactivity between student and learning and seeks to mainstream innovative practices based on collaboration and peer learning. Given the ubiquity of smartphones, schools should start embracing methodology that incorporates their use as a key educational tool. The use of assistive technology such as 3D learning tools will also balance the social/psychological divide since it allows everyone to learn at their own pace. Apart from focusing on using AR as a pedagogical tool, another main objective of this project is to address the issue of sustainability. Following the EU commitment to implement the UN Sustainable Development Goals in all its internal and external policies together with the 2030 Agenda adopted since 2015, this project seeks to reinforce the pedagogical importance of Sustainable Development as a cross curricular, cross-national priority. Both GenZers and Gen Alphas are more societally involved and considered to be climate crusaders. By exploring sustainable education through cross curricular modules, students will learn about the importance of leading sustainable lifestyles and understand the implications of sustainability as seen from different perspectives. By developing outreach material using AR, this project will create a more engaging and persuasive student understanding of sustainable development. The expertise each school partner has in specific SDGs have been conducive in the creation of intellectual output and resources that address different environmental, economic and social factors that are meaningful both nationally and globally. The project also Through the transnational exchanges of both educators and students, the viability and understanding of the resources generated on cross curricular and cross national levels will be assessed. This project also needed to create an awareness of the need for a paperless learning experience and the societal implications of an unsustainable education system. This project started at the height of the pandemic – a phenomenon that highlighted the need and urgency for a more flexible and creative approach to education. This project therefore had the added aim of creating material that supports educators, parents/guardians and students to obtain key competencies in sustainable development and digital skills and which could be used both for classroom and virtual teaching/learning.
Through this ARTse project, we felt the need to address two crucial priorities within the European Union, namely the need to encourage a higher level of sustainability on our lifestyles and to promulgate digitalisation within member states. This is also reflected in the document: The Future of Education and Skills Education 2030 published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Educational institutions need to prepare students for jobs that might not even have been created but which will definitely require use of technologies. Digital literacy and data literacy are of crucial importance as also evidenced by the European Commission’s Digital Education Action Plan (2018). To equip students with the knowledge, skills, values and attitudes that will be required in the place of work, it is imperative to have educators that are conversant in creative digital pedagogical tools. This in itself presented two issues: a. Gen Zers and Generation Alpha students are challenging educators to provide them with a learner centred environment that respects and caters for various learning capabilities, diversity of individuals and ways of learning. This requires a paradigm shift in our educational approach from using one- or two-dimensional educational resources to one that is more in with our physical three –dimensional world. b. Educators are not as conversant in creative digital pedagogical tools and therefore we needed to address the problem by, first of all, training a number of educators from partner schools on the use of AR assisted educational resources, and then propagating this innovative pedagogical tool by creating step by step guidelines to assist educators in moving beyond traditional class-based methodologies for teaching and learning. With technological advancements, we felt that it was becoming imperative to incorporate innovative, interactive and immersive teaching methods in the classroom. We chose Augmented Reality as the platform since it is a technology that has gained considerable traction. AR is predicted to surpass the use of VR in both the social and economic aspects of life and is therefore likely to become a ubiquitous platform. With its ability to enhance the learning experience and cater for different learning styles, engage students and make learning more enjoyable, AR is considered as an emerging technology that will have a significant impact on education. Equally important we also wanted the project to fulfil targets set in ET2020 about the need to improve the quality of education primarily by enhancing student understanding of sustainable lifestyles and help them place a higher value on common prosperity, sustainability and well-being. We took the approach of developing AR assisted resources that would be cross curricular and extend beyond national boundaries in their applicability. Through AR we wanted to increase awareness of the impact our lifestlyes has on the environment, and showcase different sustainable practices that individuals and communities can adopt, such as recycling, reducing waste, and using renewable energy. By providing students with a visual representation of these practices, AR can help them understand the impact of their actions and encourage them to adopt sustainable behaviours and become more active citizens in their communities. This would ensure the promotion of the four key competences as stipulated by the European Commission Directorate-General for Education, Youth, Sport and Culture: Key competences for lifelong learning, (Publications Office, 2019, https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2766/569540), namely: •Providing high-quality education, training and lifelong learning for all •Supporting educational staff in implementing competence-based teaching and learning approaches •Encouraging a variety of learning approaches and contexts for continued learning •Exploring approaches to assess and validate key competences. We also wanted the project to fulfil other targets sets by the European Commission by organising activities that foster more social integration by having educators and students to meet and work with their peers in different countries.