AR 4 EFL Check our 3rd Newsletter
AR4EFL’s PROJECT
AR4EFL’s aim is to offer training and
information for teachers to use augmented
reality (AR) when teaching English as a foreign
language. The Project enhances teachers’ skills
to adopt new technology in their regular
teaching while enhancing students’ motivation,
engagement and performance through
augmented reality.
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AR4EFL’s Projekti
AR4EFL:n tavoitteena on tarjota opettajille
koulutusta ja tietoa lisätyn todellisuuden (AR)
käytöstä englantia vieraana kielenä
opetettaessa. Hankkeessa parannetaan
opettajien taitoja omaksua uutta teknologiaa
käyttöön tavallisessa opetuksessa ja lisätään
samalla oppilaiden motivaatiota, sitoutumista
ja oppimistuloksia lisätyn todellisuuden avulla.
Would you like to attend a Multiplier Event?
The AR4EFL project is almost complete. The partners met for the final TPM in Helsinki, Finland in April. The outputs are now complete, and the AR4EFL app and teachers handbook can be downloaded at www.ar4efl.eu/ar-application/
Learnmera have also created a podcast series where listeners learn about AR, the benefits of using it in the classroom and for learning English as a foreign language, as well as providing the listeners with information about the project and results.
Throughout April and May, Learnmera have been contacting the target groups for the project, to carry out Multiplier Events. If you are a teacher, EFL/ESL teacher, work with young people or students, a caregiver, VET trainer, VET centre, university or software developer, and would like to attend one of the Multiplier Events we will be carrying out during May 2023, please get in contact with us. The Multiplier Events are conducted in a workshop format, giving the participants the opportunity to test the app and provide their feedback.
If you are interested in attending a Multiplier Event, please contact naomi@learnmera.com
All Multiplier Events will take place in Helsinki, Finland. You can either attend a planned Multiplier Event, or we can attend your school/organisation and provide the workshop style ME onsite.
Invitation to the AR4EFL Multiplier Event
Our project AR4EFL: Transforming Primary School Students’ English as a Foreign Language Learning (EFL) with Augmented Reality (AR) will end on 31st May 2023.
This means it is time for us to present the results and products we have worked on over the two year to you!
You will have the chance to receive a demonstration of the augmented reality app that we created and find out how you can use AR in the classroom.
Also, you will learn about the research we carried out at the beginning of the project (comparison between traditional approaches and augmented reality in language acquisition) and the Teachers Handbook that accompanies the AR app.
This event will be free of charge and snacks and drinks are included!
Are you interested?
Are you an EFL teacher or VET trainer in a primary school in Finland?
The event will take place in Helsinki, Finland on the 28.04.2023 from 16:00-18:00h.
CLICK HERE to register for this Event (registration is necessary).
Event Venue:
Designing the Future – LTTA in Rome
The 3rd LTTA (Learning, Teaching and Training Activity) for our project ‘Designing the Future’ recently took place in Rome, Italy from the 22nd to the 27th of January, 2023. The local organisation responsible for managing the proceedings was CIAPE.
The attendees were welcomed to the event with a session introducing the CIAPE organisation. Participants were also provided with an overview of the LTTA program and activities that would be carried out over the next few days.
Day 2 began with an introduction to Scratch, a programming language, and its functionalities. Following the explanation, attendees participated in team work sessions to create their own scratch projects. In the afternoon, a virtual guided tour of the Circo Massimo was conducted, which included VR recreations of what the arena and ancient Rome looked like throughout the centuries.
On the third day, the focus was on learning about Arduino (an open-source hardware and software platform designed for building programmable electronics projects) and Tinkercad (a free, browser-based 3D design and modelling tool). The morning session involved an explanation of these tools, and participants got guided training on how to use them.
Day 4 featured the topic robotics, which included an introduction to Makeblock and the use of mBot – a programmable robot kit designed for beginners – which are great tools for STEM education. Attendees worked on programming mBot and getting a feeling for its correspondence. In the afternoon, we had a study visit to the Digital Education Lab organisation, while the evening featured a partner dinner at a typical Italian Ristorante called ‘Benso 215’ with Italian specialties.
The last day of the event was dedicated to project assessment and an administration session. The partners also had the chance to voice wishes and suggestions for our next LTTA, which will take place in Helsinki, Finland. Attendees also received their certificates for the completion of the training.
Overall, the 3rd LTTA was a success, allowing participants to gain new knowledge and skills related to Scratch programming, Arduino, Tinkercad, and robotics. They also enjoyed cultural experiences such as a virtual tour of the Circo Massimo, a visit to the Digital Education Lab, and a great dinner at an Italian restaurant. Learnmera Oy is now working on the program for the next LTTA in Finland in collaboration with Lusofona University Lisbon.
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Digit & Learn Project Update – March 2023
The Project “Digit & Learn – Empowering teachers for a more interactive, efficient and appealing digital learning experience” aims to support teachers and professors in a digital upskilling journey that enables them to exploit the potential of digital means and technologies.
Here is an update for the progress that has been made in the training format (Output 1), as well as the plans for Outputs 2 and 3.
The team has made great progress in finalising the training format. The training modules have been created and testing of training workshops have been executed by all partners.
The training format covers important topics such as ICT and digital literacy, developing digital content and integrating it into teaching, and VR literacy. All the training modules will be translated to partner languages and made available on the learning platform.
For the digital Toolkit (Output 2) a survey has been sent out in order to ensure that the training is tailored to the needs of the students. The feedback gathered is used for a needs analysis and to understand the expectations of students. Based on this feedback, a plan is being created for the contents of the toolkit (e.g. interactive video lessons, virtual games, resources).
The platform for the toolkit (Output 3) is created simultaneously.
With these plans in place, the team is confident that the training will be engaging, effective, and tailored to the needs of the students.
Read our Newsletter to find out more and make sure to follow us on Facebook for further information on the project and related topics!
Designing the Future Project Update – December 2022
The world’s first text message was sent in December 1992. It’s a technology that most of us don’t raise an eyebrow about, it almost feels like we’ve always been able to use our phones to send text messages.
Would you be surprised if we told you that a patent for 3D printers was already granted in 1986 and that the first commercial 3D printers were released already in 1987 – 1988?
Although commercial use existed in the late 80s, the accessibility in our curricula nowadays is not at the level we wished. Of course, development has come a long way in terms of the specific areas of use and the teachers in these subjects have a high level of knowledge and ability to teach them. But when it comes to other areas such as languages or humanities subjects, there are many teachers who need more knowledge in both programming and 3D printing to be able to incorporate new technologies into lessons.
The partners within this EU project are Szkoła Podstawowa z Oddziałami Integracyjnymi nr 12 from Poland, Ozel Yedisu Mesleki ve Teknik Anadolu Lisesi from Türkiye, MULTI-ACT STD from Türkiye, Narva Soldino Gümnasium from Estonia, Lusófona University – COFAC from Portugal, CIAPE from Italy and Learnmera Oy from Finland.
Our project aims to reduce this knowledge gap for teachers, students, and other stakeholders, regardless of subject area. This will be explored through extensive Learning Teaching Training Activities (LTTAs) and the experiences & knowledge will be shared on multiplier events and other activities.
The project will generate a training program based on the Scratch and Tinkercad programming languages as well as an Ebook that will contain all the activities that have been carried out in the LTTAs and virtual meetings. The result will also increase the digital literacy and readiness which is also very important to reach our end result of the project.
As teachers, we are not necessarily at the highest level of digital skills, but we want to ensure that – through the project – we also help to improve every participants’ digital literacy in one way or another.
Our first LTTA took place in November at the Lusófona University in Lisbon. We all got our first opportunity to meet as partners in person and not least to familiarise ourselves with the technology and programming required to be able to use 3D.
It was at the same time an overwhelming experience for us with slightly poorer digital knowledge, but above all both important and very interesting. We had the most amazing opportunity to follow the process from programming, creating a 3D model in a program, to actually seeing it printed.
Our next LTTA will take place in Turkey in December and in Italy in January, and we are all looking forward to some new challenges in the digital world.Interested to learn more about the project?
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E-Safety – LTTA in Valladolid
On 21.11.2022, the first LTTA meeting began in Valladolid, Spain.
For 5 days, all the project partners met and together participated in various activities aimed to pass on the message of what the E-safety project is for, with one of the main target groups, the students.
The CIEP El Peral school, coordinator of this project, prepared an excellent LTTA with numerous workshops on various topics, such as the presentation on Cyber Bullying made by the Finnish partner as well as internet security, carried out by the local police through a presentation made for the students, both activities had the opportunity to be featured in the local news, which provided this project with a wide spread in terms of dissemination.
The Finnish partner also had the opportunity to present a learning resource tool, The Language Menu website for teachers, explaining to everyone present how it works and what they can do with all these tools available completely free of charge.
The main target group of this project had the opportunity to know, participate and ask all the questions they wanted and obtained all the necessary answers of their doubts and curiosities, a radio program was made, on the pod-cast channel available at the school, where some of the students asked questions of the project partners and were able to provide a moment for satisfying their curiosities about the project partners in a fun way. They also had the opportunity to show all the project partners their work done for this project, in an extraordinary way and we are certain, all the partners will remember the efforts made by the students forever.
The ceremony for delivering the certificates of this LTTA was something indescribable with words, all the students of the CIEP el Peral school gathered outside with flags symbolizing each of the countries present – Turkey, Italy, Spain and Finland and the anthems of each country were played.
The event will be remembered for the hard work that all the students put in for weeks to create this ceremony and for the contagious joy with what they did! It was, without a doubt, a complete LTTA and full of initiatives that only prove that all the work done in the E-Safety project was passed on to everyone in a totally innovative way and also that how important the creation of these kinds of Erasmus + projects are for the participants, especially the children and other participants.
Digit & Learn Project Update – November 2022
The Digit & Learn project started in December 2021 with partners from Greece, Turkey, Romania, Lithuania, Italy and Finland.
The KA2 “Digit & Learn” partner consortium will support teachers and professors in a digital upskilling journey that enables them to exploit the potential of digital means and technologies.
The two day kick off meeting was held in Lithuania in February 2022. The presentation of the project and the work plan was discussed and agreed. The hosts welcomed all partners to their country with a guided tour to Pakruojis and Manor Homestead and dinner at Traktierius Restaurant. A positive kick off meeting where partners had the opportunity to build relationships necessary to ensure the project runs smoothly and is a success.
The partners have held numerous online meetings since meeting in Lithuania. Over the last few months, they have completed an extensive report for the first output, by researching and concluding findings on current digital forms of teaching (digitalsation in the classroom). In addition to the report, the partners created a survey of which many teachers took part in, concluding 78% of teachers use some form of digital teaching methods in the classroom, however over 50% realise they have a medium amount of knowledge.
The partners have now finalised the training format and are working on outputs two and three.