What we learned from the project - Direct Testimonials
About teaching
Ferran Jambert, head of Escola Veïnat
"Participating in the Playful Coding project has allowed us to work cooperatively between partners from different countries which therefore, has facilitate the exchange of good practices and knowledge in the field of programming".
Delia Pîrvu, English teacher at Constantin Ianculecu' Highschool from Romania
"The role of teaching in our modern world has been the subject of much debate, as has been a growing awareness that teaching is often as culturally-specific as the cultures it springs from. Playful Coding Project was the perfect environment in which we had the opportunity to meet, study and understand other cultures and more important other educational systems."
Marius Marian, lecturer at University of Craiova
“No one will argue that teaching is fundamental for the growth of our children - the tomorrow’s society. If we want a better world for themthem, we have to keep investing time and energy in this. Local communities striving to improve are always curious and interested in finding out how others are doing it. This project offered us the opportunity to discover how Europeans teach. In our community, we had some adjustments and also a beneficial adoption of the approaches identified.”
Tomi Rowlands, ICT Coordinator, Ysgol Bro Hyddgen, Machynlleth, Wales
"Taking part in playful coding has allowed me as a teacher to develop myself professionally and prepare my school and my students for the new programming curriculum which will be introduced in Wales shortly. I found not only we have been sharing resources but seeing the lessons being implemented in diffrent schools we were able to improve our resources to make sure school would be able to use them with ease through out teacher guide and website."
Valentina Poggioni, Researcher and Project Manager, Esebel srl and University of Perugia, Italy
“The students of today will be the citizens of tomorrow. Learning with more European approaches probably will create better European citizens, also in order to break down the barriers and the differences amongst them. To do this, we need more European way of teaching methods and approaches. Thanks to the project a step forward was made in this direction.”
Xavier Cufí, Head of Udigitaledu research group,Universitat de Girona, Girona
"Kids from different countries, in general show similar passion for technology gadgets and for activities that employ technology as a main tool to implement them. This appreciation points out that technology is probably one of the most appropriate tool to engage the students to work in all kind of topics belonging to their curricula. Technology means computers, robots, tablets, smart phones, etc. Kids from different places love to use them."
About schools
Ferran Jambert, head of Escola Veïnat
"Being able to visit the facilities of the other partners has allowed us to see different ways of teaching and learning and, afterwards, think over it and introduce it in our daily school activities".
Delia Pîrvu, English teacher at Constantin Ianculescu Highschool.
"We visited and also worked in many schools from four different countries throughout the project, which was amazing. The schools we have worked with varied considerably in size and sophistication but all did provide a strikingly caring and kind environment for the children."
Marius Marian, lecturer at University of Craiova
"Crossing Europe from East to West, it is impossible not to notice some more or less significant differrences in the educational infrastructure. However, through this interactions one gets also aware of the fact that a school is not made only by its walls, but by the people working in it. So my take on this is that the positive aspect are the people that I met which are all interested in the good education of the children. The instruments used may vary from the old blackboard and chalk to the nowadays Internet and playful coding."
Tomi Rowlands, ICT Coordinator, Ysgol Bro Hyddgen, Machynlleth, Wales
“We found sharing good practice and the ability to visit each of the partners’ schools enabled us to work and observe good practice all over Europe!”
Valentina Poggioni, Researcher and Project Manager, Esebel srl and University of Perugia, Italy
"The schools we visited are different and similar at the same time. They have different strengths and problems in different places that usually depend on the place. But it is surprising how they can be considered, in general, very similar. Most of the issues they manage are similar. It is clear that best practices can be in general exported or become food for thought."
About each other
Ferran Jambert, head of Escola Veïnat
"For the development of this guide, the experience of the consortium has been essential. It has put together all the knowledge and expertise generated and it has provided debate and exchange of opinions. The fact that the consortium was composed by different kinds of institutions (schools, high-schools and universities) has enabled us to provide a more contrasted view and learn from each other."
Delia Pîrvu, English teacher at "Constantin Ianculescu" Highschool.
“In my opinion, the best part of the project was the collaborative work within the consortium. All the teachers worked together to plan and design effective workshop, based on the effective teaching strategies. The teachers were also engaged in professional dialogues with the aim of evaluating and modifying the workshops. Participating and being involved in regular classroom observation helped me grow as a teacher.”
Marius Marian, lecturer at University of Craiova
"The project allowed me to meet wonderful people all over the European continent. I am glad and grateful for seeing and learning new things, while also discovering many facets about their national culture. I am assured thus that good people will bring out the good in people!"
Tomi Rowlands, ICT Coordinator, Ysgol Bro Hyddgen, Machynlleth, Wales
“By working together in this project it has meant we have learnt more ideas on how to improve our local schools with wonderful ideas on introducing programming in a playful and enjoyable way for our students.”
Valentina Poggioni, Researcher and Project Manager, Esebel srl and University of Perugia, Italy
“New ideas can come only when we meet other people, see different ways of doing things, hear about different methods and learn different approaches. The strength of the project was meeting different teachers and researchers from all the Europe, talk and observe them, their schools and their work.”
Xavier Cufí, Head of Udigitaledu research group,Universitat de Girona, Girona
“Teachers from different countries have different backgrounds, cultures and probably different ways to proceed in front of different kind of learning situations. All the members of the consortium, teachers at different educational levels (primary school, secondary school, university,…university…) consider that it is very important allow kids to proceed without direct guidance and in a very independent way with the coding activities proposed in the website. This methodology is very important because we are promoting the use of the intuition, avoiding the fear to fail, encouraging the try and error procedure and learning from mistakes, team working, sharing experiences with others, etc. Teacher must be a mere guide of this kind of activities, and an accompanying “high-level” mate.”