Call Information Package

Call Information Package

Chapter 1 of the Call Information Package on Experimental School Environments follows below. The full Call Information Package can be obtained in

postscript, and
RTF (rich text format)

versions.

ESPRIT Intelligent Information Interfaces (i3) Call on Experimental School Environments
Single-Step Evaluation
"Exploring New Learning Futures for Children"
September 1997

1. Introduction

This document provides information on how to prepare a project proposal on Experimental School Environments. This call forms part of the intelligent information interfaces (i3) initiative of Esprit Long Term Research, Task 4.4 of the 1997 Esprit Workprogramme.

This guide needs to be used with two other documents:

1. The Call for proposals, which gives the submission dates and overall budget. This document is attached in the annex.

2. The Esprit Workprogramme, which outlines overall technical coverage and priority research and development themes for the Esprit programme.

Proposers who are new to Esprit are advised to refer first to the Introduction for Proposers and the Work programme of Esprit.

All documents are available on request at the Esprit Information Desk:

Tel: +32 2 296.85.96 Fax: +32 2 296.83.88 E-mail: Esprit@dg3.cec.be

or at the Webpage

http://www.cordis.lu/esprit/home.html

1.1. Scope and objectives of the call

The call on Experimental School Environments solicits proposals to research new kinds of IT-based tools or environments designed to enable new approaches to learning. The call focuses on learning in young children around the transition to literacy, typically in the age range of 4 to 8.

Proposals should investigate "new paradigms" for learning based on the development of novel IT-based tools or environments. The new paradigms investigated should make learning an enjoyable, stimulating and engaging activity, both on a personal and group level, promoting the development of key skills such as creativity, self-expression and learning to learn. The paradigms should encourage the active participation of pupils and teachers extending to include parents or members of the community if appropriate; they should empower the people involved with meaningful roles in the learning process.

The educational tools designed to enable new approaches to learning could be based on new types of devices, artefacts, or environments, that support interaction with one or more senses. The tools could be portable, wearable or sharable, and could have toy-like or game-like characteristics. They could be based on new systems that allow for the easy creation and access to information, supporting interaction and sharing between groups of people.

In order to achieve these aims, it is expected that educational and technological aspects must be researched and worked on together in an open and exploratory fashion, encouraging innovation. The new ideas, concepts and technologies should be tested and evaluated in relation to real school environments. To facilitate the take-up of both educational and technological elements of projects, effective ways of promoting and sharing experiences gained should be employed.

1.2. Background and Rationale

Current and emerging trends in education are increasingly moving towards learner-centred approaches. In these, learning becomes an active process of discovery based on self-motivation rather than on the consumption of facts. The role of teacher is coming more to be seen as mentor or guide, facilitating and playing an essential role in this process. This call is based on the premise that IT can play a significant role in opening the door to new learning paradigms.

In order to gain the full potential of IT, it is important to complement the introduction of current technological solutions to schools today, with a longer term vision of the future. New ideas and new paradigms have to be explored that are not bound by today's solutions. Open and visionary approaches have to be tried out that make learning a richer, more effective and more relevant activity, and ultimately a more fulfilling one.

To do so, both educational and technological aspects have to be encouraged to evolve together, aiming to result in useful learning tools and not simply an eclectic collection of "gadgets". To this end, the call explicitly encourages methodologies that intertwine learning and technological research in exploratory and iterative ways. For example, rather than accepting the linear pattern of "user requirements" leading to "building a device" leading to "testing with users", a non-linear and iterative mixing of activities such as "generation of concepts", "development of mock-ups", "understanding learners", "creation of prototypes", "evaluation" and "technological research", "refinement of concepts" is encouraged.

The special focus of the call on learning in young children provides exciting challenges from both educational and technological points of view. Educational IT-based tools are having an increasing role in teaching and are likely to play an important role in the future. In particular tools that encourage and enhance discovery, creativity, thinking and expression are very much needed, particularly at this stage of a child's development. Equally, from the technological point of view, developing new tools for young children forces technologists and designers to think about the creation of new solutions, without pre-conceptions and not merely based around text or the PC.

This call forms part of the intelligent information interfaces (i3) initiative of Esprit Long Term Research. The general aim of i3 is to develop new human-centred interfaces for people in their everyday activities. A first call has led to the launch of 13 projects in mid-1997. By focusing on a single domain of activity, namely learning, and on young learners in particular, the present call complements the first one. It is hoped that in the long term, results of this effort may carry over and influence the development of new interaction tools for the population at large.

1.3. Early Learning

The basic context of this call is learning in young children around the transition to literacy, typically in the age range of 4 to 8.

This age group provides a very fertile ground for investigating new learning paradigms and new kinds of educational IT-based tools. Children in this age range represent a particularly open, inquisitive, and creative cross section of learners, that have not yet been "conditioned" into the more traditional thinking and behavioural patterns of older generations. This can serve as an exciting challenge (and as a source of inspiration) for technologists, educationalists, and designers, prompting to think openly about new alternatives. For example, working with this age group is particularly suitable when considering new learning approaches not based on text alone, since pre-conceptions of literacy have not yet formed. It offers the opportunity of taking a broader view of literacy to encompass the full range of social interactions and media.

At the same time learners in this age group have a range of particular skills and attributes that need to be developed, discovered or encouraged to flourish. Helping children to think, create, and express themselves is very much needed, particularly at this early stage in life. It is also a stage at which the notion of "learning to learn" can start being introduced. A number of specific educational and learning issues can be addressed by an individual project proposal. All of these should aim to encourage learning through active participation. Developing approaches for the exploration, discovery or enhancement of any of the following could be considered:

Creativity and imagination
Curiosity and the art of asking questions
Various forms of expression
Taking initiative
Learning to learn, setting goals and being aware of progress
Sharing, group activity and learning in teams

Proposers should use the context outlined in this section as the starting point for the development of ideas or new paradigms for learning. This should set the background for the development of new IT-based tools aimed to provide richer, more effective and more relevant learning for young children.

1.4. New Tools

The development of new tools that can support new approaches to learning poses a variety of research challenges. A proposal should research and validate new experimental IT-based tools or environments designed to perform specific functions, in a chosen learning context. To suggest but not to constrain thinking about the characteristics or functionalities of these, some example ideas are listed below:

New types of portable or wearable devices, artefacts or installations, that support interaction with one or more senses.
Artefacts that are fun and enjoyable to use but at the same time have clear educational purpose.
Toys or games that can be manually constructed or deconstructed.
Environments that bridge differences between "virtual" and "real" objects and activities.
Systems that can reflect "friendliness" or "emotion" through a combination of visual images, symbols, tactile sensations or sounds.
Personal learning assistants that act as intelligent guides, growing and adapting to a child's needs, and helping establish learning goals.

Sharing and group activity are an important part of learning. New kinds of tools or environments that explicitly support and encourage these could include for example:

Environments that make it easy for children (and teachers) to create and display messages, experiences or snippets of information, in a range of media that can be accessed and used by others.
New systems to enable the growth of collective knowledge created by children and teachers.
Installations designed to encourage collaboration, participation and sharing with other children and teachers.
Environments designed to extend to communities and help bridge between cultures.

Proposers may research, develop and validate new educational IT tools based on the examples above, or they may they may suggest new ideas of their own, or they may choose a combination of these. Whatever choices are made, proposers must develop and explain their ideas in depth and indicate how these relate to the learning context of their particular project.

1.5. Method

The development of new tools that encourage new forms of learning depends on the interplay of a range of skills and activities. A project will have to bring together a range of activities relating to learning, technology, design and validation. It is expected that proposals should explicitly plan processes that intertwine these activities in exploratory and iterative ways.

Project should emphasise early validation and refinement of concepts. A traditional linear plan of "obtaining user requirements" leading to "building a device", and terminating with "testing with users", is not considered sufficient. Instead a more exploratory and iterative approach is encouraged, involving a number of concurrent and inter-linked activities, eg:

generation of concepts
creation of mock-ups
understanding learners
creation of prototypes
technological research
evaluation with learners

Preferably, these should occur with iterative feedback between them. For example, generation of a new concept may lead to a specific study of learners or could lead to the development of mock-ups. Likewise, evaluation does not necessarily occur only at the end of a project but may be carried out on new concepts or early prototypes.

Consideration of how educational assessment will be done is an essential part of any project, and it is expected that new ideas, concepts and technologies should be tested and evaluated with children in real school environments. There are a number of related issues that a project could consider, for example:

Methods to trace changes in attitudes of children and teachers as a consequence of project work.
The involvement of children, teachers, parents and communities in the learning process.

In addition, there are a number of issues relating to the overall effectiveness of a project that should be considered; for example:

Defining the criteria of success of a project.
How a project would be best monitored over time.
Requirements for deploying future solutions on a broader scale.

Other methodological aspects, in keeping with the general outlines above, may also be considered; these should be described in detail and reflect in a project plan.

1.6. What to do if you want to submit a proposal

If you want to submit a proposal you should take note of the following:

Proposers are encouraged, on a purely voluntary basis, to submit pre-proposals for consultation with the Commission services. The purpose of the pre-proposal service is to give feedback and advice to proposers before submitting full proposals. See Chapter 3 for more information.
The format and evaluation criteria for full proposals are described in Chapter 4. Full proposals will be evaluated independently of any comments given on pre-proposals. Further details on submissions is given in Chapter 5.

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