One CLASS!

ONE CLASS! – OPEN NETWORK FOR EDUCATION

The project conceived and developed by Openet and co-financed by the European Space Agency (ESA), aims to transform the isolation of a territory from a geographical limit into an opportunity to acquire new knowledge, through the use of a dedicated satellite network infrastructure and innovative learning methodologies.

The project is aimed at “multi-classes” of primary and secondary schools, distributed throughout the Lucanian regional territory with a marked digital divide. These are school classes in which the only teacher finds himself working with pupils and students of different ages, grouped together in the same classroom, due to the low number of inhabitants and the consequent reduction in school enrolments.
The ONE CLASS! project will also involve hospitals, to allow children from different classes to connect with their teachers and classmates. The project also involves the involvement of two Lucanian high schools, recognised as international institutes, to support the teaching and learning of foreign languages ​​(French and English) during school hours, through the involvement of two international schools, located in two different EU countries.
Finally, the project provides social integration services for unaccompanied foreign minors, such as technological and educational support for social workers at immigrant reception centres.

In particular scenarios such as those of small rural and mountain areas or reception centres for unaccompanied foreign minors, the ONE CLASS! project not only offers a satellite-based technological solution (SATCOM) to overcome the natural geographical and, consequently, digital isolation of internal areas (rural and mountainous), or the social isolation that affects the unaccompanied migrant minor, but also offers, on a teaching level, specific methods that, through the provision of a set of e-learning services, allow the educational system to be innovated in the direction of an active learning dimension.

The “ONE CLASS!” Project proposes:

– a high-performance telecommunications solution integrated with telematic platforms for teaching and production of advanced multimedia content, capable of being immediately operational and replicable on a larger scale;
– engaging and highly innovative teaching in the teacher-student relationship;
– excellent training support, to contribute to the transformation of the school into a driving force and territorial reference for local innovation;
– a network between the schools involved in the project and between the reception centers involved in the project;
– a monitoring system through an appropriate dashboard of the pilot sites, in order to be able to evaluate the operational status of the satellite terminals and key ICT devices used during the experiment.

With particular reference to teaching and training, the ONE CLASS! project proposes a learning solution based on the combination of the following models:
1. Synchronous teaching, based on:

• Shared teaching. A model of distance teaching based on the daily use of videoconferencing between multi-grade classes and the corresponding levels of standard classes, belonging to other institutes. In this context, the shared lesson promotes the exchange of experiences and guarantees the teaching of all subjects. For this model, technologies are the supporting element and teaching is restructured with methodologies such as the flipped classroom, the use of online webquests and forms of assessment that include, among other things, the use of assessment and self-assessment rubrics.
• The extended learning environment. This element refers to distance learning in which one or more classes working on a common project organize regular meetings between teachers, students and/or experts who may make use of videoconferencing or other technological settings. For this model, distance learning is not intended to replace the usual practice, but rather becomes a complementary methodology to “traditional” teaching, offering the advantage of optimizing resources and professional services for schools and allowing greater opportunities for interaction between teachers, students and their families.

2. Asynchronous teaching, based on:

A cloud platform (Openet eLearning platform – SCORM compliant) for resource access for management, collaboration and path monitoring;
a cloud storage service (eg: Dropbox, Google Drive, etc.);
a video/chat service, webconference (eg: Skype, Hangouts, etc.);
a social media (eg: Flickr, Scribd, Slideshare, Soundcloud, Youtube, ecc.);
a social network school-user (eg: Facebook, G+, etc.).

The cloud platform allows the individual student to complete the activities developed during the videoconference lesson by accessing a whole series of contents, such as:

– biblioteche on line;
– informazioni dedicate;
– mailing lists scolastiche.

This platform also becomes an important point of contact between families, students and teachers, as it will provide them with an electronic register that will allow personalized and continuous feedback regarding attendance, teaching activities and formative assessment.
The educational contents uploaded to the platform, defined and identified with the support of the MIUR and the local school institutions involved, are managed directly by Openet Technologies which takes care of their creation, in the form of an audiovisual contribution, and management within the platform.