Name of piloting school: Druskininkų “Saulės” pagrindinė mokykla
Druskininkai ,,Saules“ basic school students have electronic learning environments – EMA and Eduka. In it are all disciplines that students study. There are also digital textbooks. It‘s the good practices, because teachers can choose what level of tasks students can to complete – easy, medium or difficult. In addition, the system includes gamification elements: conditions are created for students to grow together with the characters, receive prizes after solving tasks and see their progress on an interactive board. Our students like electronics exercises. They like electronic exercises more than paper ones
Once a week, our students have a math lesson with ViLLE or Eduten. In particular, ViLLE and Eduten tasks are related to our learning content. This is the best practice our students have gained because ViLLE and Eduten has many game elements to motivate students to learn math. Students can choose what level of tasks they want to complete – easy, medium or difficult. This is a very important aspect of the modern lesson. By the way, students always do math by heart, learn to create algorithms and program. We noticed that students’ memory skills in counting improved.
In math lessons we use and ,,Bebras” cards. It tasks encourage students to learn to collect, select, sort, classify, systematize data, read algorithm texts. Actually we have found that ,,Bebras” cards stimulate students’ thinking. By the way our students participate in the ,,Bebras” contest.
In geography lessons we use „Google Earth“, „Google Maps“. Students learn to navigate on interactive maps. We also use ,,Tinkercad”, ,,XLogo” for various themes. Students also create ,,Scratch” games (such as multiplication) and then play them. Our students also tried ,,Micro Bit” programming. This is a very fun and interesting activity. Actually our students have been actively learning programming and coding since the second grade. DOWNLOAD HERE THE COMPLETE PDF
Name of piloting school: Vilniaus Barboros Radvilaitės progimnazija
In 2017 the school started the path of IT – oriented education at primary school. We experienced a special success when in 2018 we became one of a hundred schools in Lithuania that were involved in the project „Informatika pradiniame ugdyme“ which was initiated by the Lithuanian Ministry of Education, Science and Sport. We contributed to development and testing of the content of Informatics at primary school. Currently, at our school students learn Informatics, as a separate subject, from the 1st Grade. Moreover, Informatics is integrated into all subjects at primary school.
Our children are tought Informatics even without digital devices. One successful tool, that is used till now, is a book „Informatika be kompiuterio“. By completing the tasks students learn the basics of programming and algorithms, also they apply binary numeral system, code and create coding tasks themselves. The most fun for the students is to become robots and complete commands created by a friend.
Bebras cards are used in different lessons and different subjects. While integrating Informatics the main character of the cards (a beaver) has become a friend for the primary school students. There are teachers who create tasks for their lessons that are based on Bebras cards principle. We have digitized the cards and it is really convenient to use them during the lessons while working with an interactive whiteboard. Until now, we participate in the international competition „Bebras“.
Eduka is the first digital platform where we started learning in 2016 and we use it till now. Despite the fact that the platform is paid, the school provides licences for the primary school students for the entire school year. There is created a tasks bank for all the subjects including and Informatics. On this platform teachers may find recommendations how to develope computational thinking of primary school students from the 1st Grade.
Now it is possible for all students of our progymnasium to learn Maths on the Eduten platform. One lesson per week students from the 1st till 8th Grades learn Maths in the IT classroom or with tablets. We are happy about the results of participation in the project. Game – based, digital and engaging tasks in the virtual learning system „Eduten Playground“ significantly motivate our students, what is more it improves their mathematical litearcy (the accuracy of completed tasks is 87%). Learning in the Eduten Playground system is successful in both, distance and contact learning.
In 2022 we had an opportunity to try computational thinking tasks for 3 – 4th Grades students on Ville platform. The most enjoyable activities were programming and algorithsm. The presentation of the tasks in English did not make any difficulties for the students. If it was difficult to understand the task, students translated it into their native language. Our 1st and 2nd Grades students were also able to complete some of the tasks. DOWNLOAD HERE THE COMPLETE PDF
Name of piloting school: Klaipėdos Gedminų progimnazija
We have been introducing computer science to children for more than 20 years. We started with Logo Writer, followed by Comenius Logo, Imagine Logo. Pupils participate in LOGO Olympiads and competitions. The innovations that come into our classrooms change the daily routine and quality of teaching. They improve learning outcomes, students’ progress and motivation.
The modern teacher has to be like that and bring children the whole world in his hands.
The Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Lithuania together with the Centre for Educational Development initiated by Professor Valentina Dagienė, carried out the project “Informatics in Primary Education”. The aim of this project was to develop informatics content for primary education. Ten schools in cooperation with teams from Vilnius University and the Centre for Educational Development, developed and tested teaching materials, made suggestions on the draft content of informatics education and the draft general curriculum and shared good practices.
This project provided schools an opportunity to take part in the traineeships in Finland schools and at the University of Turku.
Thanks to this projects ViLLE came to Lithuania. Three Lithuanian classes (third grades) were selected to be the first to try ViLLE in Lithuania. Collaboration with the ViLLE team has begun. Once a week children solve ViLLE tasks. DOWNLOAD HERE THE COMPLETE PDF
Name of piloting school: Šiaulių r. Dubysos aukštupio mokykla
Researchers from Vilnius University interviewed primary school teachers and a mathematics teacher from Šiauliai Dubysos school. The researchers were interested in how teachers learn, as well as how they create innovative schools in modern society.
What is important for the development of an innovative digital school? Individual teachers using digital technology cannot fully develop, the real development happens when all teachers use digital technology. Teachers can support each other through this commonality in digital technology. Innovation in schools, new digital tools, apps or platforms should not be limited to individual classrooms. For example, a teacher was pleased that the international platform LearnLab, developed by the Norwegians, will be used by the whole school in the educational process.
Some of the teachers’ thoughts as testify:
“Teachers do not improve only for their own sake, but that their development and learning have a further goal – the students and their successful inclusion“.
“It is never enough to have lots of computers, lots of trainings, but it is more important to develop the skills to apply and use all this to engage, motivate and interest students“