FAST

Fun, authentic, simple and trustworthy - Erasmus+ project with focus on the use of ICT.

Our great group in Norway, Slovenia, Poland, Croatia and Denmark

February 2020

We have now unfortunately reached the last chapter in our very constructive and forward-looking project. All participants and countries have done a great and nice job. 

Fortunately we are already now able to look back on a great effort that has both helped raise and quality assure our comprehensive effort as talented, innovative and evaluating teachers. At the same time we are able to look back on the great effort, which in the best and most constructive way, have been spread to our talented local colleagues and at the same time teachers all over Europe in the beginning of the 21st century. All this to the great benefit for both teachers and pupils.

Read more right here…...

January 2020

The January task figured out how our great cooperation has had an impact on our daily work and what this impact has been. This way, it will become clear to us as a group and individually, which directions we can and should focus on both in terms of our continuous lifelong professional development and the ongoing cross-border cooperation. The evaluation will also give a picture of how much our experiences and didactic and exemplary teaching courses have spread at our schools and whether it is necessary to focus even more on this process. Read more about this exciting reflections right here….

January 2020

We had our last transnational project meeting in Norway. The meeting was very well arranged by our Norwegian colleagues and even though the weather was dark and rainy most of the time, the sun always shone when we did something outside. The planning meeting this time was mostly about  the evaluation of our great project, but there was also time to plan the cooperation forward on.

In addition to the planning meeting we also had time to cultural activities and had a very exciting 3 hours guided tour in beautiful Grimstad where we learned a lot about Knut Hansum and Henrik Ibsen, who both lived in the city. At the school we attanded different lessons, some of the pupils tought us how to make code to micro:bits and we also tasted the delicious Norwegian pancakes and went hiking in the Norwegian skærgård. Finally we also visited a robot center at the local university. 

Have a look at some of the pictures from our great final transnational project meeting right here......

December 2019

Are new millennium learners digital natives and how do we use the competences, we asked ourselves this Christmas month? To find a definition for this, each country identified pupils’ digital skills and described further developments. Finally we made a comparison of the plans and took advantage of the different descriptions.

We are now about to reach the end of our great and exciting FAST Erasmus+ cooperation and ask ourselves the important question: Are our pupils digital natives?
Or is it more important to define and explain what digital competencies they have, which enable them to live up to the development and the steps according to Bloom's Digital Taxonomy in our context?

Read more about our results right here….

November 2019
We used November month to work on education based on e-learning/e-twinning. Our focus was how to use eTwinning to develop online ICT teamwork programs to promote motivation and engagement

We already worked with eTwinning and had good results and experiences from the project.

Therefore this month each country decided if they wanted to make an cooperation with some of our partners in this great FAST project or if they wanted to find new partners on the eTwinning homepage. 

Read more about this great topic right here…

October 2019

This month we cooperated about a very central question: The ultimate goal of teaching is to do just that – teach, not stand up in the front of the room and talk. We as teachers hope pupils will understand, if not now then before test time, and we keep our fingers crossed that their results will indicate we have done our job.

Research shows that the most effective way to test pupils understanding is to do it while the lesson’s still going on. How can we do this and in which way? We asked ourselves about key questions to show us as teachers signs of learning.

Read more right here….

September 2019

After a wonderful summer holiday we are now fully prepared  and full of good energy to start up our exciting project again.

In september we have reflected on our best didactic planning in relation to even better integration and continuous development of ICT in our teaching. In September our pupils have been working with different Google or Windows solutions and the teachers in cooperation with the pupils have selected which web2 online software to use.

Our theoretical foundation this first month of fall has been the theory of the 4 C's:

Critical thinking

Communication

Collaboration

Creativity

Read more about our thoughts and fine results right here...

June 2019

We had a very exciting planning meeting in Slovenia the first week of June. Our Slovenian colleagues made an comprehensive program, where we first of all had time to jointly plan the next - and unfortunately last six months - in our exciting project. In addition, of course, time was also set aside to visit the classes and see how the school in Slovenia works, which was exciting and inspiring. Last but not least, time was also set aside for us to experience some of the exciting things Slovenia has to offer. Take a look at some of our pictures from the exciting meeting right here ....

In June, we also responded to a questionnaire / joint evaluation on our project. The evaluation clearly shows that we all have great benefit from the project and continuously learn from the topics we work with together. Please take a look at our evaluation right here .....

May 2019

This spring month of May we dedicated our great FAST project to development of innovative ICT-based content. We focused on collaboration as part of 21CS and made it possible to make projects across borders where our pupils worked innovatively using eg WeVideo, Ibuildapp or similar apps/software.

Before we started we had decided that it was fine to use eTwinning and do a cooperation with a new school if prefered. There would very wide limits for how this exciting subject could be addressed and as mentioned in our application, this month's product could be anything from a new built app to mutual inspiration about how crafts in the different countries can take place.

Read more about our project right here….

April 2019

Our focus this April 2019 has been physically challenge and how not only to promote sedentary work. Based on the theory of 21st century skills, we have been testing collaborative learning in science. Opportunities have been opened to cross-border cooperation and the opportunities to set goals and start programming an app together.

The app from each school has been written in english and the focus have been physically challenge - small examples on how to make activities during a lesson that can make the children's pulse increase while it's fun.
Read more about our app production here….

March 2019

Once again we ask ourselves: How can ICT to promote better learning outcome for pupils in an ordinary school? In March month we have focused on Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy and pupils' ability to perform when using Web2 software. Our specific focus has been on the use of podcast and/or tools for narration in relation to pupils with reading/writing problems.

For some pupils (such as pupils with dyslexia or other learning difficulties) it might be very difficult to write written representations on the same level as their classmates. For some the problem can be temporary or an aspect that the pupil should relate to for the rest of his/her school time. It is therefore important as a professional teacher to offer alternative opportunities for pupils with these problems.
Read more about our educational here…...

February 2019

February has been the month where we have focused on ICT to detect learning difficulties. Based on different subjects we have tested web2 program like Flubaroo to try to find out how continuous testing can show learning difficulties.

Flubaroo is a very nice and small freeware that can correct different tasks made by students online and the program acts as an add-on to the browser.

Learn more about this great topic right here

January 2019

This month we have been working on how to understand, apply, test and compare web2 software in relation to openness, diversity and complexity. Our focus has been to find out if a given ICT program has that degree of openness, diversity and complexity making pupils engaged and challenged.

The learning objectives should guide the tool selection, rather than allowing the tool to take control of the lesson. From research results we know that learning is socially constructed. This has been important to remember when working in a 1:1 school where students are sometimes isolated with their own devices. Read more about this exciting and inspiring project…..

December 2018

Our focus this Christmas month has been the question:

"Does the online apps contribute to increase pupils outreach?"

Our underlying basis comes from the 21CS and we have decided to focus on entrepreneurship across borders in relation to Web2 platforms. Our students have built a sort of virtual stores where we can try out entrepreneurship like in reality.

The focus does not have to be aimed at an entire country or whole city. Even only focusing only on a single school class's parenting group, the course can be very instructive and lead to new and larger projects. Read more about this exiting project.....

November 2018

Our main focus this month has been how it is possible to organize a differentiated progression to make pupils learn more? Our theory has been the 21st century skills and we build on themes of collaboration and problem solving/innovation in math and have been testing Geogebra.

Our starting point was the free online software Geogebra, which has been translated into most languages. A fun way to work with the basic features was to to make a small competition between our countries. Read more about our great focus right here…

October 2018

How do we place us in the forefront of the ICT technology and ensure an ongoing dialogue around this? We all have small ICT committees that continuously evaluate and plan in relation to our project.

This month we describe for each other which experiences and focus areas we have had in the exciting work of the project.  The starting point for this project is that at the end of the project we have a precise (but also continuously adjustable) attitude towards how we want ICT to be used and utilized best in a didactic context. Our theoretical point of view is still Blooms Digital Taxonomy and 21st century skills in this process, but many other theories may also be useful.

To be able to visualize and explain experiences for each other we have gathered our description in a single document. Read more on this page ..

September 2018

We started our second year of this great cooperation with a successful meeting in the great city Lublin in Poland. Our colleagues had planned an incredibly exciting program with both time for planning, evaluation, class visits and general discussion, but also time to learn about the country's school system, enjoy the beautiful and exciting city and hinterland and Poland's exciting culture. We have added pictures from our great meeting in Poland in the Gallery section.

In our first task this new school year we focus on the complex world today that requires self-assessment thinking from teachers who continuously are able to focus on their professional responsibility, their work and their ongoing learning. It is necessary for each individual teacher to follow his/her own work and to incorporate feedback from pupils and colleagues to develop and improve his/her results.

Self-evaluation also supports teachers' ability to function in a 21st century workplace, where it is expected that you work with minimal supervision, plan your own work, design your own products and incorporate feedback to improve the products. Read more about our results on this page.

June 2018

Our focus this month has been to try how to ensure the roles of our school in relation with the changes that the work with ICT is constantly undergoing?  With help of experience from our project until now, we have worked with how to adjust school ICT plans, compared them and used each other's plans as inspirations.  The plans will of course be continuously improved.

As an example of a Technology Enhanced Learning roadmap (TEL) for school digital culture we have used a roadmap  designed by another Erasmus+ project but very  suitable in our cooperation. For simplicity of presentation the Roadmap is displayed with five separate questions/levels - one for each area of focus. Read about our results on this page.

May 2018

We had a great meeting in Croatia from the 22nd to the 26th of May in Nin in Croatia. Our colleagues had arranged a very fine program: We participated in a very nice gathering with all school pupils, teachers and many parents. The school's pupils performed for us, there was song, dance and pupils playing different instruments, we were present during lessons and most of all - we had time for discussing our cooperation for the next period. We had both breakfast and lunch at the school and tried different delicious local dishes like peka with squid and black risotto. We also had time for cultural and social activities and it was great spending time with both new colleagues and people we already knew from our first meeting. Please have a look at pictures from our meeting in our gallery.

A very important thing we discussed during our meeting was the results from our evaluation survey. It very clearly shows that our cooperation has an obvious impact on our use of ICT during lessons and comes with constructive suggestions for improving our cooperation. Have a look at the results right here

We also had time to get an in-depth introduction to all the exciting opportunities for collaboration through eTwinning. Our host first led us through all the basic features and then we made sure everyone was also connected via eTwinning. One of our future areas of cooperation this autumn will be about eTwinning and testing og all of the opportunities it offers.

On this page it will be possible to go into depth with the exciting introductions.

April 2018

Developing the use of ICT as a teacher requires individual focus, good cooperative relations, courage, desire and a theoretical understanding and approach. But in addition to the personal and individual approach, the school's overall objectives and framework setting are essential. Without overall goals and benchmarking, it is likely that the desire and need for development will end in a dead end.

Therefore, in our exciting FAST collaboration in April 2018, we have been working on describing our individual school plans for incorporating ICT into teaching in our individual countries. Some of the plans build on the plans we already have, and other plans are almost completely rewritten.

March 2018

In March as inspiration we have worked on our results from last autumn. In october we shared information of the ICT software we use in each country. In March we tried to use either a well known software as described in October or a software we got to know from the inspiration we shared.

Once again we got inspired from Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy and each teacher chose which levels to focus on. Special focus this month was which options the chosen software offers in relation to self-learning so that the pupil is challenged optimally in relation to the zone of proximal development.

Have a look at all the different descriptions right here

February 2018

It is now the last winter month in the first year with our exciting and evolving FAST cooperation. The focus this month has been online cross-border cooperation. We have divided our group into two major groups (Slovenia, Poland and Denmark + Norway and Croatia) and both groups have chosen to make online projects with the exciting and easily accessible online portal Padlet.com. One group chose to cooperate across the highly current Olympic Games.

Take a look at the great results from this month's collaboration

January 2018

A new year has started and we are ready for the next challenge in our fine and creative cooperation. This month our focus is what might be the right ICT equipment and the big question if we can ensure forward? Focus has been on the different digital platforms we are using and exchange of experience with eg iPads, Chromebooks and PC's.

Have a look at our thoughtsk and all the different results and experiences

December 2017

December is not only Christmas: We are also working continuous on our great project and doing our best and improving in being fun, authentic, simple and trustworthy in our teaching.

This month our fokus has been: We use our results from October to focus on guidance and feedback to the individual pupil in order to make well customized learning. We use web2 elements like Google Docs/Microsoft 365

Have a look at our great work and all the different results and experiences

November 2017

It already November....

....and our great cooperations continues. This month our focus is:

Introductory courses on digital imaging: We set up a list of what digital imaging means to the pupils: Private use, the tone, study tools etc. They scale their own digital competence from 1-10.

We compare results and use them forward.

Have a look at our great work and all the different results and experiences

October 2017

First result is now ready!

In October 2017 we discussed and shared information and facts about how to make teaching more exciting and varied  when using ICT? We shared the ICT software we use and also shared advantages and disadvantages of each software.

The sharing of this knowledge will from now on act as a basis for future activities.

Please have a look at our work right here

What is this project about?

The possibilities to plan and carry out good educational and well-planned teaching is continually getting better and for the group members in this context it is very important to focus on the use of ICT.

The use of ICT in education is also developing rapidly and both software and hardware is continuously evolving and opportunities, which technically seemed impossible just a few years ago, are now easily accessible to all. In our Erasmus+ group we greet this development very welcome but are also very aware that in order to explore its opportunities in a good and constructive way iIt is necessary to immerse ourselves and create routines, so that the teacher is continuously able to adapt, when development occurs rapidly. By the support of ICT we also believe that is is possible to develop innovation and entrepreneurship in all subjects.

We will therefore in this project both dive into routines but also help and inspire our colleagues across Europe so it is not the main thesis that a teacher must master an ICT application before it can be used in teaching. We will challenge ourselves and each other to focus on that many students enjoy and are used to a playful and experimental approach to ICT and this is also an excellent opportunity for us as teachers.

For us it is very important that our project takes place across national borders in EU and on this page you will be able to read all of our results and get inspired to use some of the results in your own teaching.