Federico Mayor Zaragoza awards

Last Saturday our team went to Tortosa to attend the Federico Mayor Zaragoza awards ceremony, organized by UNESCO Tortosa. We are very happy and we feel very honored because we were awarded with the Federico Mayor Zaragoza - Education 1st Prize for our project.

This award is an important recognition for our work and it keeps us motivated to continue working to promote Connected Learning and Global Citizenship Education among children to help them become changemakers. Obviously it is not an award just for the project team, but for all the schools, children and teachers who have participated in these 4 years.

Federico Mayor Zaragoza is a Spanish scientist, scholar, politician, diplomat, and poet. He served as Director-General of UNESCO from 1987 to 1999. He is currently the Chairman of the Foundation for a Culture of Peace.

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Field work in India 2017

Our Inventors4Change team has finished their stay in India. The objective was to conduct workshops with children and teachers of the schools participating in the project, in this way they know the tools and methodologies that we will use during the collaborative work India-Spain.

For five weeks we have performed workshops and trainings in different schools, and we have also visited other learning centers and projects that stand out for their pedagogical approach or for their educational innovations. For us, every trip is also an opportunity to learn.

In particular, this year during our stay, we worked intensively with the four schools of the Parikrma Foundation, we carried out some activities at Shanti Bhavan School and The Valley School, and we visited the Project DEFY.

 

Our actions included activities such as workshops and trainings on Scratch, LEGO tinkering, cardboard automatas, underwater robotics, drones, Arduino, and other creative learning experiences where we tried to merge technology, art and science. We also conducted videoconferences between Parikrma Jayanagar School and Carme Auguet School, and between Parikrma Nandini Layout School and Institut de Gurb.

Now it's time to create mixed virtual teams with children from both countries, and to start the online collaborative work. Children will use Scratch to create digital stories about this year's topic: the access to education.

 

 

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First contributions

Participating children in Catalonia have already begun to share their team video-presentations and their opinions on Acces to Education through their collaborative blog. You can check it here.

This is what Jana and Clàudia (8th graders) from Institut de Gurb said:

We think that the topic of this project [Access to Education] is very interesting. Besides it is totally appropriate for us. By carrying out this project, we have the opportunity to learn English, to practice Scratch and also to enrich ourselves when talking to our Indian colleagues. Although this project seems quite difficult for us, we feel really inspired and we are eager to start. From our point of view, the right to education is extremely important. We have learnt that this is one of the goals for sustainable development that UN wants to achieve by 2030. That would be grateful, but we think it might be difficult. One of the greatest activists who stands for this right is Malala Yousafzai, who was attacked when she was coming back from school.

And here the video-presentations of  children at Escola Carme Auguet and Institut de Gurb. To talk in English is a big challenge for them, but a great opportunity!

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Access to Education

This academic year 2016-17, kids from participating schools in India and Spain will write and share articles and opinions on the topic under discussion this year: Access to Education. The following weeks they will post their contributions (articles and video-presentations) on their Kidsblog. 

In this edition participating schools are: Parikrma Jayanagar (India), Parikrma Nandini Layout (India), Institut de Gurb (Spain) and Escola Carme Auguet (Spain).

After the research/presentations stage, students will participate in virtual cross-cultural exchanges and they will collaborate to create digital stories about Access to Education with Scratch .

Stay tuned! 

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Inventors4Change 2016-17. About to start again!

We are already designing new creative learning activities for the next edition of project Inventors4Change. This academic year students of Parikrma schools (India), and Escola Carme Auguet and Institut de Gurb (Catalonia) will experience cross-cultural exchanges and connected learning activities, they will investigate the new topic (Access to Education) on their own, and will create collaborative stories and animations with Scratch.

In addition, in January and February, our team will travel to India to work with the participating schools (and also with other schools and educational projects: Shanti Bhavan School, The Valley School, Project DEFY). During those weeks we will conduct teacher training and workshops for children. We are preparing a bunch of STEAM and maker activities including: scribbling machines, LEGO art machines, cardboard automatas, LEGO tinkering with legged walkers (like the one in the photo), MIT App Inventor, Scratch, underwater robots and rescue robots.

Soon we will publicly launch a new spin-off project of Inventors4Change: the project InventEUrs. It is a new European initiative with funding from the European Comission and partners in Spain, Italy, Romania and the United Kingdom. Stay tuned!

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