Creative Classroom Lab
Collaboration and Assessment
The Creative Classrooms Lab project (CCL) brought together teachers and policy-makers in eight countries to design, implement and evaluate 1:1 tablet scenarios in 45 schools. The project produced learning scenarios and activities, guidelines and recommendations to help policy-makers and schools to take informed decisions on optimal strategies for implementing 1:1 initiatives in schools and for the effective integration of tablets into teaching and learning. The project, funded by the European Commission’s Lifelong Learning Programme, was coordinated by European Schoolnet, involved 10 partners and ran from April 2013 to May 2015.
http://creative.eun.org/
What is the Creative Classrooms Lab project about?
CCL – Creative Classroom Lab
von Diana Bannister MBE
Development Director for Learning Technologies
Learning Technologies Unit
University of Wolverhampton
Faculty of Education, Health and Well-being
My fourth observation visit was to two of the five schools in Austria who are involved in the Creative Classrooms Lab project. The teachers have been working on a learning scenario that looks to enable collaboration. The first school is in Jennersdorf and the second is in Stockerau, near Vienna.
4½ years ago, this school was the first “iPad school” in Austria. In the first instance, one class of 10 and 11 year olds were given iPads financed by the Ministry. Jennersdorf is recognised as one of Apple’s Lighthouse schools. When I visited the school in May, the school had 130 – 140 iPads for students and 25 for teachers. However, the headteacher admits, it is incredibly important to ensure that all staff the opportunity for professional development to encourage regular use of the technologies. This year, there are three iPad classes and one without. These have been financed by parents individually.
In the first lesson, the teacher is using Skooly with the students and they can each receive the questions answer them at their own pace. They are also able to see what they have scored. Skooly is the learning management system for the school. However, some of the teachers also use Showbie; there is no standard platform for the school.
The school makes effective use of an app called Paper Plane (papierflieger) that allows students and teachers to share notes easily in lessons.
After break, I am with the school’s iPad orchestra and I can only describe what I observe as inspirational! An iPad orchestra; a real orchestra. This is definitely a first for me! There are 12 students altogether, but I find out afterwards only four of them can play an instrument individually. The quality of the sound was perfect and after “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” the students played “Go West.” I wonder how many other schools have their own digital orchestra. I can almost visualise a future project of a European orchestra! (Now there’s an idea!)
- Do you have a digital orchestra in your school?
- What opportunities are there for students to collaborate to produce digital outputs in your school?
- Do your students create resources with other students?
- How do you capture evidence of student collaboration?
In Mathematics, the students are using Edupuzzles 2.0; the teacher writes the instructions to create a trapezium on the blackboard and the students have to construct it on their iPad using Geogebra. The student connects to the projector using Apple TV and shows his response to the question. There is a sharp contrast between all the different tools, and one of the next steps will be to see how the school makes the tasks available digitally too.
I also visit other classrooms and see learningapps.org being used and in science the teacher uses Thinglink to label his work on insects.