Technology and education are the two elements at the core of the European project LEA: Learning Technology Accelerator. The project aims to put educational centres in contact with technology companies so the latter can address the teaching needs of the former.
LEARNING TECHNOLOGY ACCELERATOR
Representatives of European cities, universities and companies participated in a work meeting on 26 and 27 June at the new Viladecans Innovació Empresarial (Viladecans Business Innovation) space in the Cúbic building. With 17 institutions that promote it and framed under the Horizon 2020 Programme, LEA aims to accelerate the development of learning technology by fostering innovative public procurement methods.
PUBLIC PROCUREMENT OF INNOVATION
What is public procurement of innovation? It is a process for purchasing goods or services that aren’t available on the market, through which the buyer (and/or end-user), in this case the public administration, teachers and students, “steer” development of the final goods or services. Meaning the buyers and/or end-users drive innovation. There are three universities participating in the initiative (Jyväskylä and Oulu universities in Finland, and Otto von Guericke University in Germany), seven public procurers from six EU countries (Halmstad, Sweden; Gothenburg region, Sweden; Konnevesi, Finland; Sachsen Anhalt region,
Germany; Turin, Italy; Braga, Portugal; and Viladecans) and seven collaborating European organisations (Innova +, Portugal; ENTER, Austria; ICLEI, Germany; Sara Bedin, Italy; Innova Esak, Hungary; and EU Projekkonsult, Sweden).
CONTINUING IN THE PATH OF IMAILE
The European educational project IMAILE forged a path in pre-commercial public procurement in education by developing two prototypes of personal learning environments using artificial intelligence that aimed, among other things, to personalise students’ learning process. LEA carries on the task begun with IMAILE, calling on all the knowledge acquired over the past four years, but moves from a specific experience, like IMAILE, to mobilising a critical mass of public procurers in Europe.
TECHNOLOGY SUMMER CAMP
During their stay, the LEA project heads visited the Casal Tecnològic d’Estiu (Technology Summer Camp) organised by EIN (Educational Innovation Network) and Fundació Ciutat de Viladecans (City of Viladecans Foundation). This is a great example of the hard work Viladecans has put in to bridge the gap between education and technology, and more specifically 3D printing: an emerging technology in educational centres given its capacities for developing creativity and teamwork skills, among others. The end result of this summer camp is that each student will build their own 3D printer, learn how to use it, set it up and take it home to continue researching and learning.
This meeting in Viladecans served to pose activities that could be done in educational centres when the new school year begins and to plan how data will be collected from students and teachers to detect their shared needs.
It also allowed LEA partners to get up-to-date on the status of the project’s activities and the next steps to take. It must be noted that a good part of the session was devoted to talk about the School Labs that the procurers will develop this autumn. These Education Living Labs aim to become a testbench and a meeting place for end-users and the learning technology industry.
