The 1st instructor-training event organized by EUTrack took place on March 04th 2022. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, the event was organized virtually through the Zoom® platform. Eleven higher education instructors attended the event from GC-FS Alumni of Università Degli Studi “La Sapienza”, a student association organizing training activities in Lazio and its surroundings on specific topics, such as energy transition, sustainable development, and energy community, all of which focus on critical and practical modern challenges.
Participants had the opportunity to become familiar with the ICT-INOV project, the project objectives, and the proposed methodological learning approach that aims at developing innovation skills in different sectors with a particular focus in ICT. In addition, participants participated in engaging activities that demonstrated in depth applications of the design-thinking methodology and process by showcasing the steps of team building, problem discovery, empathy, ideation, prototyping, and testing.
Subsequently, participants were introduced to the ICT-INOV platform, its functionality, and the opportunities it provides in terms of methodological learning design and technical viewpoints. Participants became familiar with both the educator and student interfaces of the platform. In order to demonstrate how the ICT-INOV digital learning platform operates from the instructor’s point of view a scenario was created as an example to explain how to manage activities on the platform and how to organize work with the students in small groups. On the other hand, the gamification elements were underlined to promote students’ motivation and involvement, for example, by using rewards. In order to demonstrate the platform functionality from the student point of view, participants were encouraged to join a specific class and group, to post ideas in their workspace, and, in general, to navigate through the diverse services. The audience was also exposed to educational activities developed in the platform by ICT-INOV project partners as good examples to follow and emulate.
Finally, participants discussed using the ICT-INOV methodology and tools with their students in Energy Transition classes (Transizione Energetica).
The participants provided positive feedback on the ICT-INOV gamified design thinking methodology and the digital learning platform. Even for participants that were already familiar with the design thinking approach, the ICT-INOV digital learning platform was a novelty that raised their curiosity. They expressed interest in using the ICT-INOV project approach and tools with their students in their courses throughout the Lazio region.
More information is available at the 1st instructor training event – ICT_INOV project, where the presentation is also available.The event was promoted via e-mail to the senior instructors of GC-FS Alumni, on the EU-Track web portal, on Facebook®, Instagram®, Twitter®, and LinkedIn® see more