Skills and ideas related to the digitalisation of education disseminated to the rest of Europe by teachers from Kittilä

"The idea came about at the end of 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic was still raging,” says teacher Ari Mäkinen from the Finnish municipality of Kittilä. “I was contacted by Rui Baltazar from Portugal, who asked me whether we would be interested in a project for promoting the use of digital tools and methods in the education sector. I was, of course, on board right away, as I had just completed the Apple Professional Learning Specialist qualification.” 

The project included partners from Finland, Portugal, Slovenia, Italy and Romania. Originally, the idea was to utilise Mäkinen’s recently acquired expertise in Apple devices and applications, but it soon became apparent that the initial level of competence of the European project partners was so low that the project needed to focus on the basics of using digital tools and methods instead. The differences in capabilities across Europe are illustrated by the fact that in the Lisbon area, cable television is still widely used in the provision of teaching and education, while in Romania, the digital tools used in teaching consisted primarily of ready-made YouTube videos. 

Finland is ahead in the digitalisation of education

In many European countries, teachers and pupils still have difficulties with using digital devices and applications or at least exploiting their full potential, even if digitalisation is already a part of teaching. Teachers' skills are often limited to using Word, PowerPoint and YouTube. In southern Europe, there are no digital learning materials or learning platforms similar to those used in Finland available, or at least they are not widely used. 

Since Apple devices and applications proved too difficult to use for Kittilä’s project partners, and the costs of updating their devices would have been too high, the project and its outputs were ultimately realigned to offer new digital skills to European teachers, educators and pupils. In addition to this, the project sought to illustrate what kinds of opportunities digitalisation can present for education and studying. 

“In Finland, we can be proud of the high digital competence of our teachers and of how widely and comprehensively they are able to utilise digitalisation at school to support teaching. Our European partners were astonished at how well these things have been organised in Finland and how well everything works here.” 

For example, in Kittilä, the municipality has for several years now been providing all pupils with personal iPads, which are used as teaching tools on an almost daily basis. The municipality deployed the first series of iPads in 2016, before the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, the use of digital materials and platforms has become an essential part of teaching in Kittilä. 

“If we are teaching pupils about a large European city, for example, the iPads allow us to instantly get a feel for the place. Many of the books at our small school are also quite old, so we use the iPads to look up more up-to-date information online. Every pupil is provided with an iPad by the municipality, as we consider it important for all pupils to have access to similar devices with the latest updates.” 

Concrete examples explored in training

The project included meetings, training courses for teachers and workshops in both Finland and Slovenia. Participating teachers were provided with practical training in the use of digital devices, such as iPads, as well as ideas on and concrete examples of how virtual and augmented reality can be utilised in teaching.

“The project organised two training courses. One was held in Slovenia in a small country school and explored topics such as robotics, virtual reality and 3D printing and its use in teaching. The other was held here in Kittilä and involved me teaching others how to use an iPad and Apple applications that can also be utilised in the creation of educational resources.” 

A MOOC about the digitalisation of education for teachers

One of the project’s most important outputs was a massive open online course (MOOC) that allows any teacher to develop their own digital skills. So far, the “Do it Yourself MOOC” has recorded over 500 participants worldwide. The course will remain available online for five years after the end of the project. 

The project has also published research articles and an e-book on digital best practises. An important part of the project was to identify the starting skills and needs of teachers regarding the digitalisation of education through an interview study right at the beginning of the project and to compile European good practices. These were compiled into a research report by Italian and Romanian university researchers. 

Teachers' self-confidence and digital competence increased

According to feedback from teachers, the project increased their digital competence and also improved their self-confidence and courage to utilise digitalisation in teaching. The project also established a network for organisations across Europe to exchange ideas and good practices on the digitalisation of teaching and education. 

“The project was originally planned to run for two years. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the sudden serious illness of a project partner, the project ended up being delayed for six months. Because of this, we applied for an extension of the project, as a result of which it ultimately ran for three years.”

Since the completion of the project, the project partners have maintained regular contact with each other. A new project that would delve deeper into digitalisation, digital competence and its current themes, such as the utilisation of AI, is already being planned. 

Text: Aino Kivelä