RATIONALE, BACKGROUND, PEDAGOGICAL AND DIDACTICAL APPROACHES, AND INNOVATION.

We are immersed in the Society of Information and Knowledge and the Internet has become a powerful tool that can be very useful for educational purposes. This project is based on the innovative idea of using on-line technologies to run an in-service training course for teachers and other educationalist about, precisely, how to get a lot out of the Internet.

The Society has changed towards the globalisation of the economy and the knowledge, and the Internet is the engine that has made this possible. For this reason the educative world need new strategies and methodology in accordance with this time.

We are going to present a new way of working based on the constructivist idea of building up our own knowledge; it is a web based searching model which includes cooperative learning elements and whose name is WebQuest. It was been developed in the USA in 1995 by Bernie Dodge and Tom March, two teachers from the San Diego State University. Since then lots of schools have joined this idea.

All these contents are going to be set in a digital environment with built-in functions such as chat, whiteboard, discussions and internal course e-mail that allows the participants not only the attendance to the virtual course but also to have the opportunity to work and join together with their European colleagues in the same frame that enhances communication and collaboration for an interactive learning experience.

Through this project an effective network will be established to develop facilities and experience for training trainers and teachers in the use of a wide range of electronically based media for communication – with a special focus upon the particular potential of on-line technologies for the development of co-operation in education amongst schools across Europe.

This project harmonises with the aims of the European Schoolnet (EUN) to establish a European school information network to promote contacts and cooperation among schools in Europe. They are going to work in a collaborative environment in which they can share their ideas, experiences, Webquest projects, doubts and thoughts, etc. This could be the first step for future European projects under Comenius 1, for instance.

The participants in this project are educationalists directly involved in the initial and in-service training and some of us have large experience working with ODL tools and e-learning platforms to run on-line courses. We met in Romania in October 2001in a Contact Seminar for Comenius 2.1 projects and the similar concerns about education and its future made us to constitute a group to study the possibilities of ICT use for initial and in-service training process.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

The digital age implies that the educational staff has to introduce these new technologies in their way of teaching if they want to work according to it. This is the main aim of this project. We are trying to show a new way of teaching using ICT as a powerful tool to enhance the quality of education and to reinforce the European dimension of school education. For this purpose we are going to use the Internet to produce an on-line course whose main contents are based on how to give an educational use to WWW: WebQuest.

 So the objectives of this project are:

-          To design an e-learning environment in which teachers improve their own training in order to enhance the quality of teaching using cooperative learning tools.

-          To produce guidelines, manuals and tutorials to attend the virtual course and to create their own WebQuest projects.

-          To explore the potential of this new web based educational technique in the classroom within the curriculum.

-          To share experiences from the different participating countries and to spread the outcomes to the rest of Europe using ICT.

-          To monitor and evaluate the distant learning process and the outcomes in order to create a guideline of best practices for teacher trainers and other educationalists who wants to use these tools.

-          To promote the creation of effective networks amongst European schools to share experiences and to carry out European Educational Projects under Comenius 1, for instance.

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ACTIVITIES AND DURATION:

During these three years we are going to develop the project following a logical sequence that is going to make effective the achievement of the objectives proposed. We have divided the work plan in four phases:

Creation Phase, Testing Phase, Evaluation Phase and Dissemination Phase. The activities that we are going to carry out are:

-          Analysis and selection of the e-learning platform we are going to use to create our on-line course about WebQuest

-          Preparation of materials, documents, manuals and tutorials to teach on-line how to make a WebQuest project.

-          The design of assessment tools in order to evaluate all the elements involved in the project in two ways: one regarding the WebQuest and the impact in the classroom, and the other is the platform used and the advantages and disadvantages found using this e-learning technology for teacher training.

-          Selection of some Primary and Secondary schools from the different partner countries as a testing group to carry out the on-line course.

-          The production of WebQuest projects by teachers and student teachers (from the Universities) as the result of the virtual course.

-          Testing at school with students from Primary and Secondary Education, including Vocational education.

-          Meeting of all the schools participating in the testing phase, using videoconferencing tools.

-          Final evaluation and selection of the best WebQuest projects that will be published in our web site and in a CD Rom.

-          Dissemination of the outcomes via Internet, opening the website to the addition of new WebQuest projects made as the result of the e-learning course

-          The creation of a Network within the schools participating in the project in order to share experiences, teaching methods, and best practices setting the bases for future collaboration in other projects such as Comenius 1.

-          Project’s dissemination through Internet (opening the e-learning course to more teachers from each participating country and setting the new WebQuest projects made in this last phase in our website) and via a face-to-face Comenius 2.2 course if it is approved by the European Commission and included it in the Comenius Catalogue.

Workshops involve not only  the coordinators of each institution but also the local tutors who are going to monitor the on-line course, the teachers who are going to attend it and to produce the WebQuest projects and the students who will develop the WQ projects. They will be established to carry out all the activities designed in the work plan focusing in the final outcomes.

Another basic element for the success of this project is the frequent contact among the members involved. So we have planned some coordinating meetings in strategic dates and also we foresee local meetings with teachers to coordinate the testing phase.

Through the continuous and final assessment we can offer the rest of Europe all the foreseen outputs with the best  quality. Finally we disseminate this results using the Internet and the Comenius 2.2 course.

TARGET GROUPS:

The target group that benefit directly from this project results are teacher trainers, teachers, student teachers and pupils in Primary and Secondary schools. The teachers are going to discover a new way of working and using ICT and the students the way to construct their own knowledge and be autonomous in taking decisions.

 During the Testing Phase, 10 schools will be selected to take part into this project and test the on-line course with 44 teachers. Then they should put in practice this technique with their students, in which their number could reach 500.

Furthermore other European regions will be able to benefit from the experience developed and join the network in which this experience is to be used by becoming involved in the in-service training and by participating in the Comenius 2.2 course. At the end, we foresee working with 400 teachers and 6000 students, minimum.

EXPECTED OUTPUTS

1. The on-line course about WebQuest (WQ): With this course we provide the teachers with a learning environment in which they can get not only the manuals, tutorials, documents, etc related to WQ, but also a platform with chats, news, whiteboards, tutors on-line, bulletin boards, meeting points, etc, in order to share all the experiences and projects.

The target group are teachers from Primary and Secondary Public Education and teacher students from Joensuu University, Valahia University and Babes-Bolyai University. The testing group are composed by six Primary and six Secondary Education Schools from Spain, and one of each from Italy and Poland. So the total number of schools will be ten and 44 teachers (four teachers from each educative centre). The total number of student teachers from the universities will be 30. In the Dissemination Phase this number will increase because we are going to offer this course to the rest of teachers under our institutions control: 3 local tutors, minimum, for each institution and 10 students (teachers) per each. So at the end, the people who will benefit from this project could be 9 cooordinators, 24 local tutors, 400 teachers and student teachers, and 6000 pupils. And this number will increase because the virtual course can be run when the project is finished by any teacher trainer all around Europe.

The languages we are going to use for this on-line course will be English (EN), Spanish(ES), Finnish (FI), Italian(IT), Polish (PL) and Romanian (RO) and it will be structured in Modules.

The course will start in March 2003 till June 2003. As an Open Distance Learning course the participants are free of choosing when they are going to attend it but we consider that it is possible to carry out all the activities in 45 hours. So Teacher Training Centres will certificate 45 hours.

The responsibility for the achievement of this output is the whole number of partner institutions.(?)

2. Teaching Materials: In order to help the teaching on-line process, we are going to design some manuals, tutorials and other documents to guarantee the success of this course. They will be set in the digital platform and will be available for each participant who could download or consult on-line. The languages we are going to use are the same that is in the course.

They will be made in the first phase, the Creation Phase, and  Spain (Valladolid, Gijón, Zaragoza), Finland and Romania (Valahia University) are responsible for this task.

3. Assessment Tools: These are the basics to assure the quality of the whole procedure so we have to design them carefully and try to evaluate every element involved in the teaching-learning process. As a result of this evaluation we are able to modify or improve the outputs.

They will be designed by the Babes-Bolyai University, and the Italian and Poland institution, during the first phase of the project, the Creation Phase.

4. WebQuest projects made by teachers and student teachers: These are the results from the on-line course. The first ones received from the Testing Phase are going to be published in a CD Rom; the rest from the Dissemination Phase will be divulged on the Internet. Each partner institution will translate their own projects  into English and will be sent to the head partner who with the help of the other two Spanish partners, will edit the CD Rom with the selected WQ projects in the six languages.

5. Guideline of best practices in WQ projects creation, as a result of the final evaluation: During the third  phase of the project, the Evaluation Phase, all the assessment tools are going to be analysed and the information received will be the basis to publish a guideline about the use of WebQuest in the school. This guideline of best practices will be published on the project’s website and in the CD Rom with the selected WQ projects.

6. CD Rom edition: In this CD Rom we are going to publish the WQ projects made by teachers and student teachers during the Testing Phase, and the Guideline of best practices. This is going to take place during the third phase, the Evaluation Phase, from March 2004 to June 2004.

7. Project’s Web Site: From the very beginning we are going to design a web site in which participants can find all the information about the project, a link to the digital platform and the WQ projects created by teachers and student teachers. The web master will be the coordinating institution but the other partners will contribute with the contents to set in.

8. On-line course for more European teachers belonging to the partner countries and under the influence of the Teachers Training Centres involved in the project: During the last phase of the project we will extend the training through our on-line course to more teachers and student teachers from our area in order to divulge the course and the outcomes. Three local tutors from each partner institution will attend the course and each one will tutor a maximum of ten teachers. This output will take place from October, 2 004 to March, 2005.

9. A face-to-face course under Comenius 2.2 to spread the teaching strategy, methodology and the outcomes: If the European Commission accepts the proposal of including this course in the Comenius Catalogue, we will organise a Comenius 2.2 course which divulges our project and shows other European teachers what WebQuest is and how to run an on-line course using ICT tools. It will take place in June 2005 in Gijón (Spain). The target groups are teacher trainers, teachers and other educationalist interested in the use of ICT in the classroom. The total number of participants will be 30.