Steam4Future

Väinölä school is located in Pori, western coast of Finland. Pori has great beaches, versatile culture life and lots of innovative schools.

Väinölä school is a primary school with 300 students and 16 teachers. We have a big outside area that gives great possibilities for physical activities. We use a lot of technology and digital tools at all grade levels.

The Education division is in charge of early childhood education, preschool education, basic education, upper secondary education, and liberal adult education in the City of Pori. The department consists of 28 Basic education schools with 7336 pupils enrolled in grades 1-9 and one upper secondary school with 1250 high school students enrolled. The department has 630 primary, secondary and upper secondary teachers in service. The department is also responsible for teachers’ in service training.

The department of education is responsible for providing up-skilling and professional In-service training for teaching staff in the city itself, and also for the surrounding Satakunta region. The department is highly digitalized and the teaching staff is digitally competent. Beginning of 2015, the City implemented the 1:1 laptop programme for basic education to promote collaboration among teachers, students and staff, to increase efficiency and to provide a foundation for a new ICT and STEAM* curriculum. In 2020 Pori is one of the leading cities in Finland in digitalization of education, being the greatest beneficiary of the digital development funding granted by the Finnish national board of education. Digital practises and models developed in Pori have often been implemented elsewhere in Finland.

Scuola di Robotica (School of Robotics) is a no profit Society appointed as Educational and Training Center by the Italian Ministry of Education, Research and University. A Committee consisting of robotics scientists and of scholars in Humanities has instituted School of Robotics (2000). Actually, School of Robotics is upholding the transdisciplinary of its mission.

The aim of the “Scuola di Robotica” is to promote the knowledge of the science of Robotics among students and young people, in the range of undergraduates, to teachers and the general public. It provides for the widest practicable and appropriate dissemination of information concerning the results of the R&D in the field of Robotics, ICT and of about complementary developments of other disciplines (Artificial Intelligence, Neuroscience, Philosophy, Psychology, Applied Ethics, Education). Scuola di Robotica has been key in promoting Roboethics (Ethical, Legal and Societal Aspects in Robotics – ELSA) and it was the ELSA Referee for the European Action CARE (Coordination Action for Robotics in Europe). It is a member of European Centre for Women and Technology (ECWT).

It is the National Centre of the Project Roberta, Girls Discover Robot; Regional Partner of the FIRST® LEGO® League (FLL); it is the National Coordinator of EC euRobotics Week. It the National Organizer of the NAO Challenge, and European Reference for the Humanoids Festival.

Since 2004 Scuola di Robotica has contributed to the birth and definition of Roboethics, the ethics applied to advanced robotics. In 2007 Scuola di Robotica coordinated the Atelier of Roboethics, which drew up the Roadmap on Roboethics:

http://www.roboethics.org/atelier2006/docs/ROBOETHICS%20ROADMAP%20Rel2.1.1.pdf

School of Robotics is deeply involved in the study of the complex interaction between Robotics and Society, and is supporting the international project for the development of Roboethics, the ethics applied to robotics.

The main aims of Robot at School are:

· Understanding the impact of ICT, of Robotics and of new technologies in general with regard to the processes and learning methodologies;

· Technical, scientific and methodological update for the teachers working in secondary technical and vocational schools;

· Development and diffusion of a highly innovative didactic methodology through a multidisciplinary Virtual Laboratory on the Internet.;

· Promoting cooperation between the different disciplines with regard to the realization of an innovative experiment;

· Promoting knowledge and responsible use of ICT and the New Media.

Over the past 20 years, School of Robotics has been committed to integrating Robotics into the Undergraduate Education not as an aim but as a tool for: 1) Providing continuous refresher courses for teachers; 2) Making it easier for new high school graduates to find a job; 3) sustain Gender Methodology in STEM Education; 4) Selecting and coaching of graduates interested in university careers; 5) helping societies and workers keep abreast of new technologies; 6); support the Special Need Education. It does it in cooperation with the School of Robotics nationwide network of educators started from the Robot-in-the-Classroom (in Italian, Robot@Scuola), which was originally funded by the Italian Ministry of Education (2005) and following School of Robotics kept supporting and feeding this network.

Centro de Professorat IBSTEAM (founded in 2020) is a state teacher training center made up of 24 in-service teacher trainers from different areas and levels who are advising 450 state and state-subsidied schools from the Balearic Islands in Spain (ranging from kindergarden, primary, secondary, post-secondary, VET and Adult Schools) on their own digital plans, virtual learning environments and providing specific teacher training to a community of 19500 teachers (15500 teachers working in state schools, 4000 teachers from subsided schools).

In the same way, the in-service teacher trainers gather, disseminate and exchange good practices from the schools, apart from developing an online learning resource bank, being the link between administration and the educational centers as regards the digital competence. With their tasks, the in-service teacher trainers accompany and stimulate the changing process, stir the implication of all the participants in the educational community and help the school staff in the process of becoming autonomous to continue their own lifelong learning process, as well as supporting and training the students’ families in their own ICT skills.

As for our training program, it focuses on 6 areas, 5 of which are based on the European Framework for the Digital Competence of Educators, DigCompEdu, namely: Information and data literacy, Communication and collaboration, Digital content creation, Safety, Problem solving and the STEAM area that aims at being transversal to all of them.

Among our competences, we are also in charge of providing equipment loans (Internet connection and Chromebook devices) for students who are at risk of social exclusion in order to reduce the digital gap.

Similarly, related to other projects, some of our members of staff are Scientix ambassadors, Future Classroom Lab ambassadors and robotics trainers. We also work hard on reducing the gender gap in science by raising awareness among students and teachers alike. We also collaborate with national and regional institutions and companies.

01. Scratch our country’s tale #ErasmusDays.

In order to popularize robotics and make schools include it in the curriculum, we brought together boys and girls from a representation of primary schools from Spain (CEIP Pare Bartomeu Pou), Finland (Väinölä) and Italy who did a collaborative multicultural coding and storytelling project . Each national team has exchanged storytelling texts which in turn will be turned into coding on Scratch. During the online event the students presented their stories getting to know each other’s country/region.

02. I wanna be a scientist TOO.

This contest was designed to commemorate the 11th February, the International Day of Women and Girl in Science in order to achieve full and equal access to and participation in science for women and girls

The aim of this video contest was to raise gender awareness in science among the primary and secondary school students. Participants created a video in which they had to show a female scientist throughout history.

More than 50 schools with a total of 180 videos and more than 500 students from Italy, Finland and Spain have participated in the contest. The winner has been “Kapana Chawla” made by the students from IES M Àngels Cardona (Menorca, Spain)

Here you can find some pictures of the online international event celebrated on the 18th February and the playlist of the best 8 videos which took part in the international phase.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLV56be4xNoDvglhfaskRWUt_37w2-J9PG

The results will be published soon