LLP ICT project proposal with UNICA

The call

The project proposal was submitted in the framework of the call 'Life Long Learning - KA3 ICT - DG EAC/31/08 - KA3 Multilateral projects'. The promotion of ICT for learning is one of the four key activities of the LLP's transversal programme, supporting actions that address general issues concerning two or more educational sectors. The actions are not about developing technology itself, but about the use of ICT tools to enhance learning environments and experiences, as a way of effectively integrating ICT into education. 

The project in short

The projected submitted is called 'European Campus: e-learning tools'. The partners are UNICA, Youth Agora, ESN, Stockholm University, Vienna University and Tallin University. The aim of the project submitted is to introduce new open source technologies and help teachers to become aware of the wide possibilities offered by these technologies to provide the appropriate tools for the creation of an enhanced e-Learning platform through the use of web 2.0 technologies and the use of social networks. This project will build on top of the open source platform that is currently used in the European Campus project (EM Action 4 IV: 145393-1-2008).

Youth Agora's part

As technical project coordinator Youth Agora will be in charge of the technical development of the Master template website and the e-learning tools. Youth Agora will be in charge of all the ICT aspects of the entire project. In particular, Youth Agora will support with great care the pilot group of universities in their technical requirements to join the pilot phase of the European Campus. Furthermore, Youth Agora will also provide the training sessions and will be in charge of all supporting actions for the joining universities during the time of the project. In the final phase Youth Agora will ensure the sustainability of the project and will provide a report with recommendations regarding the future exploitation of the developed tools. Youth Agora also considers it as part of its mission to continue to give support and training to other volunteer webmasters for future extensions and development of the platform.

The aims

The project can be considered as a pilot project to investigate the possible use for education of the growing open source platform Drupal. Drupal modules will be developed that allow teachers and students to create personal learning environments aiming at making the learning experience more interactive and richer. Another goal is to study the process of the social network instructional approach and to develop applications to interact with popular social networking sites, such as Facebook, in education. Students in general welcome the opportunity to experience and explore the use of social networks in teaching and learning. Student know how to use these new technologies and have positive experiences with them. All these tools will be developed and directly implemented in the website template that is currently under development in the European Campus Project. At the end of the project all these tools will be freely available at the download centre of the project website of the European Campus project. The developed tools will be evaluated by a pilot group of universities of the UNICA network and a pilot group of students selected by the Erasmus Student Network. The project finally aims are providing hands on trainings on using the website template and the developed e-learning tools, combined with a dissemination campaign on using Drupal powered open-source e-learning tools for education.