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About Ola Project

About

OLA is a 2-year Erasmus+ European project (2021-2023) coordinated by the National Research Council of Italy that, following the crisis generated by the COVID-19 pandemics, aims at giving an impetus to “open educational resources” and “open educational practices”, as an opportunity to reduce the digital divide in the European educational context, building a more inclusive society.

Open Educational Resources – intended as free digital educational resources, collaboratively developed by teacher networks with other social actors – already exist, but are still a fragmented reality, not enough widespread and valued at institutional level. OLA project aims at promoting their development and diffusion by means of: MOOC courses for teachers; creation of guidelines about open educational resources for teachers and editors; participative building of an open access online platform usable by teachers to develop and spread multimedia educational scenarios.

By the end of the project, 80 interdisciplinary scenarios related to STEAM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Mathematics) will be developed, 50 of which will be tested in the 5 partner countries: Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Romania and Spain.

A central issue transversal to the project is paying attention to recognizing stereotypes – starting from, but not limited to gender – and values implicitly conveyed by school textbooks and multimedia online resources, so as to promote a wider concept of “digital competences”, including not only strictly technological competences, but also the capability of using online platforms and information sources critically and responsibly, as a premise for exercising a conscious and informed citizenship.

OLA MOOC and other educational resources

Within OLA project, the following resources are being developed:

-MOOC courses for teachers, about: “What Open Educational Resources (OER) are”, “Reusing OER”, “Building and Evaluating OER”, “Open Educational Practices and Blended Education”, “Creative Commons and open licenses of digital educational resources”

-guidelines about open educational resources for teachers and editors

-80 interdisciplinary scenarios related to STEAM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Mathematics)

Partners

The Institute for Research on Population and Social Policies of the National Research Council of Italy (CNR-IRPPS)

Founded in 1923, the National Research Council (CNR) is the largest public research institution in Italy, the only one under the Research Ministry performing multidisciplinary activities. CNR mission is to conduct research in order to promote innovation and competitiveness of the national industrial system, to foster the internationalization of the national research system, to provide technologies and solutions to emerging public and private needs, to advice Government and other public bodies.

IRPPS is an interdisciplinary research institute of the CNR conducting studies on social policies and welfare systems, education, relationships between science and society, creation/access/dissemination of knowledge and information technology, demographic and migration issues. Specifically, the Research Unit ‘Social Studies on Science, Education, Communication’, placed in Rome, aims to understand and enhance relationships between science, politics and society, combining science and society studies in the following fields: evidence and decision-making processes in the interaction between science, society and politics; science communication and scientific community; representations of international migrations and representations of migrants in textbooks; science teaching and participation in the scientific debate; scientific popularization and participatory models. Common to all topics is the use of participatory methodologies to involve various social actors in the research activities.

Visit CNR-IRPPS website

OLA CNR-IRPPS staff (international coordinator): Adriana Valente, Claudia Pennacchiotti, Valentina Tudisca, Elisa Butali

The National Technical University of Athens (NTUA)

The National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) is the oldest and most prestigious educational institution of Greece in the field of technology, and has contributed unceasingly to the country’s scientific, technical and economic development since its foundation in 1836. The School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE NTUA) is well known in Greece and abroad for the research achievements of its faculty members and the good reputation of its students and alumni. The research performed in the ECE School is both of wide scope and high standard, in both fundamental and applied research, securing substantial grants from its researchers’ participation in competitive research programs in national and European level.

The Artificial Intelligence and Learning Systems Laboratory (AILS Lab) is one of the main research units of the ECE NTUA, directed by Professor Andreas-Georgios Stafylopatis. AILS Lab has been established as the union of two major ECE Laboratories, the Image, Video and Multimedia Laboratory (IVML) and the Intelligent Systems Laboratory (ISLab), pioneering from 1989 in areas like neural networks, multimedia content analysis, human interaction, fuzzy logics, ontological knowledge representation and reasoning. AILS Lab has been involved in more than a hundred EU R&D projects, in the area of artificial intelligence, machine learning and applications like multimedia content analysis, digital cultural heritage and data analysis.

Visit NTUA- AILS website

OLA NTUA reference staff:: Paraskevi Tzouveli, Kostas Karpouzis

Carducci-King school of Casoria, Italy

Istituto Comprensivo Carducci-King includes schools of both orders of the first cycle of compulsory education, plus the nursery school, with 1460 students (302 for kindergarten, 633 for primary schools, 525 secondary school of First Instance).

The school building is located in an area in the North of Naples affected by profound socio-economic and cultural changes, having changed from industrial powerhouse to degraded and abandoned area with a high risk of crime and with a migration, especially ethnic Rom, which fuels school drop.

So, it is necessary an efficient and effective linguistic communication to meet the learning needs of a multhi-ethnic audience. It becomes a priority: the improvement of foreign languages proficiency, which become vehicles to promote social inclusion; teaching the curriculum through foreign languages; developing intercultural communication in a multicultural European environment and promoting the European dimension. On this subject, the school has previous experiences in E-twinning projects and in the Erasmus+ KA2 Action.

Visit the IC Carducci-King website

OLA IC Carducci-King staff::Giovanni Buonocore, Carmela Menna, Barbara De Simone, Angela Raffaella Pulcrano, Loredana Tucci, Stefania Cherubino, Rosa Acampora

The University of Cyprus (UCY)

The University of Cyprus (UCY) is a relatively young University, established in 1989 as the first University in Cyprus with the aim to become a leading educational and research institution, distinguishing itself internationally through the promotion of scholarship and being recognized as an institution of excellence in the Mediterranean region.

The main objectives of UCY are the promotion of scholarship and education through teaching and research and the enhancement of the cultural, social, and economic development of Cyprus. With 7,000 students and nearly 1,536 employees, UCY is the youngest institution to be ranked in the top 550 Higher Education Institutions in the world (placed in the 351- 400 group for 2015-2016 in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings). Furthermore, UCY has been recently ranked 55th worldwide in the “150 Under 50 Rankings” of the top 150 universities under 50 years old (THE World University Rankings). UCY has a vast experience in running small but also large scale research projects, at both national and international level.

Visit the UCY website

OLA UCY staff:Elena Ioannidou, Mohammed Shormani

1st Experimental High School of Athens

The 1st Experimental High School of Athens has a total of 25 teachers and 234 students, separated into 9c lasses (3 grades) of 26 students each.

The school collaborates with the University of Athens on a permanent basis. This collaboration includes cooperation in research projects, the University’s support for the implementation of innovative educational practices and providing practical training field for University students who intend to follow a career in education.

The school has established a series of procedures promoting the effort to build a modern educational institution: implementing the educational method of Content and Language integrated learning (CLIL), establishing a special program connecting foreign language teaching with other disciplines such as Biology, History, Home Economics, Geography; developing an annually organized program of cultural activities; establishing 15-20 groups of interest focusing on various subjects (film making, physics laboratories, debate competitions, popular dances, cooking), including students from different schools; developing a complete digital class, thus a full distant learning environment on MOODLE platform, for all educational disciplines; cooperating with scientific or social organizations (e.g. Amnesty International); connecting educational practice with the labor market, by developing an entrepreneurship program and participating in European projects (the KA2 Erasmus “Developing and Evaluating Skills for Creativity and Innovation”).

Visit the 1st Experimental High School of Athens website

OLA 1st Experimental High School of Athens reference staff:Kostis Kontogiannis, Maria Boumpouka

Mircea Eliade School of Craiova, Romania

Mircea Eliade School is a primary public school situated in Craiova, a city of 300,000 inhabitants in the south-west of Romania, with around 1,200 students and 60 teachers. The school was founded in 1964 and over the years it has proved to be one of the best schools in the county based on national test results.

Since 2008 the school has been organizing a regional contest called 22 METS (Mathematics English Testing System), in which students test their Maths competences in English, using a CLIL approach. The school students were also involved in the international contest Mathematiques Sans Frontieres and received great scores. The school has a computer lab in which a lot of lessons in different curricular areas are taught using active methods and English teachers are familiarized with the basics principles of CLIL as they use them in order to develop students’ reading and writing skills.

Visit the Mircea Eliade School website

OLA Mircea Eliade School staff: Ioana Genoveva, Lidia Cazacu, Simona Popescu, Văncica Diana-Mihaela

Centro de Formación Somorrostro of Muskiz, Spain

The Somorrostro Training Center is an Educational Center belonging to the Diocese of Bilbao. Their teaching activities address students older than 12, both in the field of regulated education and employment training, while paying special attention to vulnerable people. Their educational assortment aims to fulfill the expectations of students, families, and social and business environment, offering a comprehensive training. Their task is to bolster our students’ incorporation into the job market with as many degrees as possible or the continuation of subsequent studies through a personalized student-tailored training.

Visit the Centro de Formaciòn Somorrostro website

OLA Centro de Formación Somorrostro of Muskiz staff: Nere Sierra

Ola Brochures

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