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There is a worldwide acknowledgement that our education system is quickly becoming outdated: criticisms are spreading from different society sectors, blaming it for not helping develop the natural skills that children possess, for using a content-based curriculum, for stressing the importance of quantitative assessment and so on. Such criticisms are expressed by parents’ associations, companies, the pupils/students and even the teachers themselves, confined to mere content providers and thus unable to carry out effective and innovative pedagogical practice. The first objective of our projects is deeply linked to the imperative need to put the students back at the centre of the learning process: the main role in the classroom should be played by them and not by the teachers.
In this sense, the Social Learning Theory developed by Lev Vygotsky will be implemented in this project, allowing groups of students to teach others, as it will be made clear in the following form fields. The second objective focuses on the tools to be utilised: ICT has proven itself extremely useful when it comes to stimulate students’ imagination, foster communication, collaboration, critical thinking and creativity. It is not by coincidence that the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) philosophy has been widely accepted in all sorts of education centres. Digital and technological skills are also strongly demanded by the labour market and by the society itself, which is characterised by an unprecedented level of computerisation. Furthermore, the Multiple Intelligences Theory developed by Howard Gardner has played a remarkable role in putting the emphasis on the different ways in which learning is made possible, depending on the natural talents of the trainees. As a result, we are now able to identify spatial, naturalist, logical, existential, intrapersonal, interpersonal, musical, kinesthetic and linguistic intelligences. For all the above mentioned, we aim to develop cutting-edge hardware and software specifically designed for educational purposes. The third objective is clearly related to the environmental focus that permeates the whole project, which is based on the evident need to foster environmental sensibilities among pupils and students, in a time when the ecological balance is at stake. The target groups will be primary and secondary school students coming from a variety of social backgrounds: middle class, destabilised families, immigrants and Roma families at risk of social exclusion.
