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TIDE operates an outreach program to support the development of digital skills in teaching and learning.
Beyond empirical research TIDE (Interactive & Distributed Technologies for Education) strives to generate a positive social impact through its interactions with teachers and learners. A key initiative for TIDE is the operation of an outreach program (www.upf.edu/es/web/tide/outreach-program) focused on the development of digital skills in teaching and learning.
TIDE’s outreach program involves the organization of learning initiatives (from local workshops to MOOCs) focused on training teachers and learners to improve their abilities to use digital technologies for educational purposes. Actions within the outreach program blend research conducted in authentic environments and involving diverse stakeholders with the training of research participants enabling them to benefit from their collaboration with researchers by directly improving their digital skills.
TIDE’s projects are carried out both in Spain and in other European countries in the frame of national and European initiatives. Examples of recent projects are: METIS (Meeting teachers co-design needs by means of Integrated Learning Environments); COT (Communities of teaching as a data‐informed design science and contextualized practice); RESET (Reformulate Scalable Educational Ecosystems Offering Technological Innovations); Smartlet (Reformulate Scalable Educational Ecosystems Offering Technological Innovations); and Makers a les aules (Computational and design thinking in the classroom).
To facilitate the development of digital skills, TIDE has developed a number of digital tools to scaffold teaching and learning practices. These tools have been developed by engaging with stakeholder such as teachers and learners in authentic environments to better enable their needs to be met. Further, the tools developed by TIDE are openly available for the public audience so that they can further support digital skill development in education. Examples of the tools include: ILDE (a community platform for learning design); edCrumble (a platform for blended learning designs), PyramidApp (a classroom activity tool supporting a Pyramid collaborative learning flow pattern), LdFeedback (a classroom tool to gather feedback from students regarding the implementation of learning designs).
Current examples of actions within TIDE’s outreach program are:
* ‘Makers in the classroom’ – A STEAM (Science, technology, engineering, arts, and math) initiative supporting primary school teachers in running ‘maker’ educational projects. The initial project introduces students to the basic principles of programming using Scratch; and physical computing using Makey-Makey. Joint sessions with experts, students and teachers are held to promote design and computational thinking and develop digital skills. Participating teachers are taught how to create their own STEAM projects and to make use of the ILDE platform. ILDE supports teachers in co-creating learning resources such as learning activities and documenting their impact with analytics and reflections; and helps teachers reuse and modify learning designs created by experts so they can be used in their own classrooms.
* Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) is a pedagogical approach that focuses on how technology can bring students together to learn collaboratively. A TIDE initiative combines the use of the ILDE platform with the PyramidApp to support teachers in designing and implementing technology-supported collaborative learning activities. Participating students develop digital skills associated with collaborating online. Through the use of these tools, teachers learn how to carefully choose learning designs and define parameters for collaborative learning activities and also work on anticipating real-time issues that might occur during the enactment of collaborative activities and coming up with strategies to manage the effects of such issues.
* EdCrumble supports teachers in designing blended learning activities and integrates commonly used digital tools for education such as edpuzzle and kahoot. EdCrumble provides a visual representation of learning designs that combine face-to-face and online learning. A TIDE initiative supports teachers in designing blended learning activities for their classes – the learners in such classes benefit from the innovative learning scenarios designed by their teachers and further develop their digital skills.
TIDE in its collaborations with educational centres (from primary to adult schools, higher education institutions, associations, and lifelong learning centers) actively works with educators, learners, and other multidisciplinary researchers and is open to further collaborations. TIDE also aims for the sustainability of its efforts by taking an Open Science approach that facilitates the transfer of knowledge and technology to the scientific, industry and educational community.