On 25 June the Creative Classrooms Lab teachers were invited to the first webinar to launch the project officially with all of them. The CCL project manager Anja Balanskat provided a first overview of the project presenting the rationale and objectives of the project and its partners. Furthermore, she brought up questions like how to define the terms “creative learning” and “innovative teaching”. The teachers were encouraged to think about questions like “What is the role of technology in their classroom?” and “What other enablers support the opportunities for creative learning and innovative teaching?”

The majority of teachers were able to attend this first session and several already took the opportunity to share their views on the best use of tablets.  Jonathan Else (Gracemount High School, United Kingdom) shared that his pupils had just been given iPads and were looking forward to participating in the project. Hannes Thomas (Informatikhauptschule Jennersdorf, Austria) already started to share best practice examples during the webinar and presented the app “Papierflieger” (Paper airplanes), which his school has developed. This kind of practice exchange will be very much encouraged throughout the lifetime of the project. Finally, Marc Deldime (TechnOV Vilvoorde, Belgium) shared his views on how to best use tablets in class. In his view, they are most suited to new concepts like flipped classroom which is one of the topics the CCL project will focus on during its first project cycle.

As a follow up of this webinar, the teachers start using the "Teachers' Blog" and use the first post to introduce their schools, their project expectations and tell what challenges they expect. The teachers will use the blog frequently to provide insights into day to day teaching with tablets.

Related links:

• Teachers' blog
• Report: Creative Learning and Innovative Teaching: Final Report on the Study on Creativity and Innovation in Education in EU Member States
• Publication: Developing Practical Guidelines for 1:1 Computing Initiatives

One of the corner stones of the Creative Classrooms Lab project are the pedagogical scenarios that the teachers will implement within their class. In preparation for the pilots, the scenario development started during the 1st policy makers workshop (21 May 2013) and continued in the Scenario Development workshop involving the project partners and national lead teachers.

The participants of the workshop exchanged views and ideas on the meaning of two terms central to the project: creativity and innovation. The teachers assessed how innovative the ICT use of their school already was, using the innovation maturity model developed in the iTEC project.

In the afternoon session, the participants worked to develop learning stories on the basis of the four policy scenarios on the topics Content creation, Flipped Classroom, Collaboration and Personalisation. The policy makers who had participated in the outlining of the original scenario worked with the lead teacher from their country. The goal was to develop more concrete ideas on activities for the classroom on these four topics. 

The learning stories will be finalised over the summer and implemented by the 45 pilot teachers in their classrooms from November on. As an official kick-off for all the teachers in the project, there will be an introductory webinar held on 25 June.

More information:

• Policy makers' workshop 21 May 2013
• Teachers in the project

The selection of the schools and teachers who will be implementing the pedagogical scenarios for tablets in the next school year has been almost completed. In total 45 teachers from 9 countries will experiment with their students with the use of tablets supported by the innovative scenarios developed by the Creative Classrooms Lab project.

Most of the selected teachers work at secondary schools, but some work at primary schools. While the majority of the teachers already have several years of experience with 1:1, some also just started to use 1:1 pedagogy with their classes. More importantly, all the students they teach have already tablet computers allowing for 1:1 computing (a device for every student) or will receive tablets before the start of the first pilot. The majority teaches science subjects and mathematics, but there are also some language, arts and sports teachers taking part. Most of their students are between 10 and 18 years old.

Each country has also a dedicated lead teacher, who will take part in the scenario development and will support the other teachers in the implementation of the pilot and encourage them to develop and share learning activities based on the pedagogical scenarios. The selected lead teachers took part already in the first scenario development workshop together with the project partners in Brussels on 6-7 June 2013.

The project's 1st Mainstreaming Workshop took place on 21 May 2013 in Brussels and it defined national policy challenges (concrete policy concerns) related to 1:1 tablet integration and considered possible approaches (measures) to remove existing barriers to further encourage the innovative use and wider uptake of ICT.

Evidence from the literature review

The initial findings of a literature review of published 1:1 studies suggests various points. There seems to be positive evidence of 1:1 computing on pedagogical impact including motivation, attention, self-directed learning, etc. Also, the use of tablets in the classroom make teachers to rethink their role and relationship with the learners. Furthermore, there is a grown interest in the “Bring-Your-Own-Device” (BYOD) initiatives but there are also concerns about the “side-effects” of such programmes. In all, there seem to be only few opponents to the tablets in classroom, but on the other hand, hard evidence on tablets impact on academic attainment is very limited currently.

Policy challenges related to 1:1 initiatives and measures

The participants discussed  challenges and issues policy makers and teachers in the participating countries face in implementing 1:1 computing initiatives including tablets. The identified  challenges, which policy makers in all countries currently face at the systemic level are: to sufficiently provide the necessary infrastructure and continuous professional development (CPD) for teachers implementing a 1:1 initiative, as well as the availability of suitable high quality content for tablet devices. Moreover, the assessment of ICT based competencies as well as using tablets in exams are important issues to tackle. Policy makers, as well as teachers ask for evidence on the effectiveness of tablet devices. Important questions to address at school level infrastructure include (security issues), how to relate the use of tablets to the curriculum and to ensure sufficient  communication between teachers and parents.

Policymaker scenarios

Each of the partners worked in groups on poliy scenario for the use of tablets that could be addressed by teachers during the first round of pilots.  Policy makers worked in groups to develop a narrative, a short description of the  implementation of the scenario by teachers and students highlighting their specific role, pedagogical activities, technologies to be involved and the different learning environments in which the tablets can be used . All the scenarios are linked to one of the four key topics identified by the partners. The topics were:

• Content Creation (Belgium Flanders, Italy)
• Collaboration (Austria, Belgium Wallonia, Slovenia)
• Personalisation (UK, Czech Republic, Lithuania)
• Flipped classroom (Italy, Portugal)

The identified key challenges and draft scenarios will serve as a reference framework for the pedagogical scenarios the project’s lead teachers will work with during the Scenario Development workshop on 7 June 2013.
 

How to invest most efficiently in national 1:1 computing programmes? What advice to give to schools that are integrating tablets into their teaching and learning? The new two-year Creative Classrooms Lab project creates pan-European policy experimentations with tablets to give insight into these questions and many more.

The project will carry out a series of policy experimentations to collect evidence on the implementation, impact and up-scaling of 1:1 pedagogical approaches using tablets. This evidence will enable policy makers to take more informed decisions. Lessons drawn from the policy experimentations will also:

• Provide guidelines, examples of good practice and a training course for schools wishing to include tablets as part of their ICT strategy.
• Support capacity building within Ministries of Education and regional educational authorities and encourage them to introduce changes in their education systems.
• Enable policy makers to foster large-scale uptake of the innovative practice that is observed during the project.

The project is coordinated by European Schoolnet, a unique network of 30 Ministries of Education in Europe and funded by the European Commission’s Lifelong Learning Programme. Nine Ministries of Education or organisations nominated to act on their behalf are project partners: Austria, Belgium (Flanders), Belgium (Wallonia), Czech Republic, Italy, Lithuania, Portugal, Slovenia and the United Kingdom. The observation and documentation of innovative practice in participating schools is led by the University of Wolverhampton from the UK.

To read more about the project, click here or download a brochure here.