EU awards Lm100,000 grant to Malta-led project

The European Commission has granted about Lm100,000 for an innovative project conceived in Malta that aims to teach young students how to learn by themselves, using animated software that helps them exploit the internet.

Private companies and educational institutions from five European countries - Malta, the UK, Germany, Italy and Holland - will share expertise and resources to create the software, spread information about it, train teachers in how to use it, and make it available free to interested schools across Europe via the project's website.

The project is called s.a.i.l. - specialised animated interactive software - and the software should be ready by the spring, said Antoine Gambin, the project coordinator.

The grant, a substantial one for Malta, is a first for the country under the EU's Socrates Minerva programme, which funds educational projects related to information and communications technology and distance learning.

The originator of the project is Audio Visual Centre Ltd, a company which supplies books and other educational materials to local schools.

Its director is Simon Bonello, while Mr Gambin is its head of marketing for educational material.

Among the other partners are Holland's Haagse Hogeschool, a teacher training institute that has experience with distance learning projects in Europe; Educational Software Products in the UK, an English language learning software developer; Hpcom in Germany, a company that offers computer courses and designs websites; and Galassi Distribuzioni, which will organise an international conference in Italy on the project.

About from Audio Visual, the partners in Malta are the University of Malta's Department of Primary Education, which will provide the academic input; the university's Teachers' Resource Centre, which will prepare material for the software; and Metis Co. Ltd., a subsidiary of Audio Visual Centre set up to procure projects.

Island Hotels Group and Deloitte & Touche are also supporting the project.

Dr Gambin, who is also the director of Metis, said it had its origins in Audio Visual's realisation that education in the future would be ICT-based and in its ambition to form a relationship with schools more akin to being a partner than a mere supplier.

He said the project had three main aims.

Intended for the social skills class, it would help pupils aged nine to 11 "learn how to learn" and develop a "research mentality". The pupils would be encouraged to take control of their own learning via the internet.

This would turn them into autonomous learners, a skill that should serve them for life and allow them to cope with new situations, evaluate their own work and allow them to learn from their own failures and successes.

A second aim is to provide primary schoolteachers - through the learning autonomy that the software gives to pupils - with the opportunity to limit their intervention in the teaching process. As the students work on their own, the teacher will have more time to monitor students and assess their personalities and preferred learning processes.

Thirdly, through themes centred around minorities in Europe, their history and cultural background, the software will seek to contribute towards building a "trans-European cultural awareness".

Teachers would be offered training in handling a student-centred classroom, making use of the software package, and teaching tolerance skills towards other cultures and diverse needs in the classroom.

An innovative aspect of the project is that it will enable the teacher to bring the classroom together and facilitate the inclusion of all the students despite their diverse learning needs and abilities.

"Students with learning needs at the extremes of the learning spectrum will find it easy and fun to integrate with mainstream students," said Mr Gambin.

"Also, working in teams, the students will be able to bring their individual skills to bear on their projects. For example, one student who is good in maths may work on the statistical aspect of a project; another, better at writing, could take care of the literary side. All the students would be allowed space in which to work.

"In this way they will also learn how to tolerate different needs, opinions and so on - a very important lifelong attitude. There is a heavy social element to this project."

Furthermore, the project will contribute towards the computer literacy of the teachers themselves, said Mr Gambin. "We are very conscious of the fact that many teachers still feel illiterate compared to their pupils when it comes to computers. We aim to help teachers get over their fear of the screen, and to have faith in the computer skills of their pupils."

Three international conferences are to be held about the project, in Malta, Italy and Holland.

The website will host a discussion forum on the ICT experience in the classroom, while seminars and other activities will disseminate the reflections on the new classroom environment created by the project among teachers and educational institutions.