Colectic was born as a cooperative in 2017, but its history goes back more than 25 years ago, since it is the result of the transformation of the Teb Youth Association into a cooperative. We manage one of the first telecentres in Spain and led to the birth of the first telecentre network in Catalonia, in 1999. We currently work for the Catalan Government in the coordination and advice of 750 telecentres that are part of the Punt TIC Network.

Colectic plays a very active role in the STEAMonEdu project, with implementing all the work packages and leading the creation of the International Community of STE(A)M educators. Colectic brings to the project its 25 years of implementing various social and digital inclusion activities taking advantage of the experience acquired in previous projects, that we’d like to share with you:

Makers per la inclusió (Makers for inclusion) – in Raval district (Barcelona)

Makers for Inclusion carries out an awareness-raising task, based on outreach activities that arouse interest and encourage the learning of techniques related to digital manufacturing. It is also essential the involvement of educational agents in the territory and the development of complementary activities to the educational curriculum, extracurricular activities, open workshops, etc. In which areas? Scratch programming, electronics with Arduino and free hardware, sound technologies, digital manufacturing and 3D printing, video game creation, internet of things, etc.

In Raval district, Colectic neighborhood, the project ‘Makers in the classroom’ invite the students of the INS Milà i Fontanals institute to collaborate with groups and organizations in the area.

It is an active learning, a reflection on practice, which aims to strengthen the feeling of belonging and rooting in the territory. It focuses on students, promoting responsible and active participation through real situations of daily life, within the concept of global citizenship, seeking the good of society as a whole.

After visiting some primary schools, participants design and create their own proposal for toys/games with digital manufacturing technologies, in order to return to primary school and invigorate a game session with the little ones, in addition to giving the toys created thinking about them.

mSchools Toolbox

The mSchools Toolbox is an online repository of validated and tested mobile educational content for schools, teachers, parents and students. The content is curated by teachers and educational experts to ensure it fits the current educational curriculum.

It is a multi-faceted mEducation programme of Mobile World Capital Barcelona, in partnership with Ministry for Digital Policy and Public Administration of Generalitat of Catalonia, Barcelona City Hall, and GSMA.

mSchools empowers students and teachers to integrate mobile technologies into the classroom, opening up new ways of teaching and learning that improve achievement and employability.

Technovation Girls

Technovation Girls is a global initiative created in 2009 with the aim of increasing female participation in the technological field, in which women represent only 30% of workers. Every year, Technovation Girls Catalonia invites teams of girls (10-18 years old) to learn and apply the skills that are necessary to solve real problems by creating a mobile application.

Through a mentoring process that takes place within the classroom or as an after-school activity, the participants work on solving a problem. They work individually or in groups (from 1 to 5 participants) with the assistance of a teacher and/or an external mentor. The process begins with the detection of a specific and local problem to which the participants want to contribute a solution; the participants are inspired by the Sustainable Development Goals. Different possible solutions are designed and selected for the market study or survey.

Later, the solution is programmed with MIT’s App Inventor and, in parallel, graphic images, sales elements and a business plan is designed (written by participants over 14 years of age).

By Colectic

Núria Salán Ballesteros (Barcelona, b.1963) is a Catalan chemist, professor at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC) and current president of the Catalan Society of Technology (SCT). Last year, she won a Special Mention from the DonaTic Awards, which accredit the excellence of talent and female digital entrepreneurship in Catalonia.

We spoke with her about the STE(A)M community in Catalonia.

• In your opinion, which is the situation of the maker and STE(A)M movement education in Catalonia? Incipient or initial, in development or in consolidation?

The maker movement, during this first period of confinement by COVID-19, has revealed itself as a collaborative movement with immediate and highly effective solutions, in such a way that the image that a part of society could have of the maker movement is “a group of geeks”. But more than ever, the solutions provided by this movement in all its forms (3D printing, sewing, mechanical assembly groups, etc.), have been essential to improve the quality of life for many and many people. An applause!

• Do you think we have significant groups of expertise in STE(A)M education in Catalonia ?

Yes, definitely! Personally, I have rediscovered a group of technology teachers from all over Catalonia, who have turned to offer their tools, their material, their time and their know-how to help organize a project like Telecomunicat.cat. Through this project, mobile devices are supplied to people affected by COVID-19 in public hospitals in Catalonia, to support health personnel and that there are no missing vents, supports for masks, safety screens or other items. And I say “rediscovered” because I already knew a good part of the things they did, but I have verified their ability to make immediate, creative proposals, redesign elements, etc. This teaching team are the best STE(A)M references that we have right now. We have a lot of talent and many expert people among our technology teachers!

• Has the demand and interest of the teaching community on these topics been growing?

Inevitably yes. There has been a lot of curiosity to know how robots that can make 2,400 PCR tests a day or ASSUM devices that sterilize sanitary spaces have been designed and manufactured, with the collaboration of people from all over the world to take them to the hospitals of Catalonia. This curiosity has led to the emergence of groups like Covidwarriors.org. It was time!

• Do you think that the teaching teams have enough resources?

With what we have done so far, we have enough to do initial training in technology at schools. Now, after which we have seen and lived, ICTs have been the undeniable protagonists to guarantee communication and to avoid the isolation of society in this situation of confinement, therefore, ICT terminology that was not common to society now is. In any case, what we have lacked more is resources rather than knowledge… We have adapted to virtual classes, to guarantee virtual learning scenarios, to convert practical content into digital, but it is not very useful if our students can not access.  The digital gap has revealed that not everyone has the same opportunities. This has been the main inconvenience for teachers.

• How do you value the training of teachers on the subject? And the quality of the projects that are presented from the different centres?

There are teachers who have a lot of and very good training because they have been organizing activities for years like Robolot, Roboresme, Robotseny, Tramuntec, technology fairs, Mercatec, etc. and have offered to do “not expert” teacher training. What we have also detected is that a part of the teachers have not felt like adapting. Those who wanted to train, have found training scenarios, created by colleagues, like CESIRE network. We can say that we will start 2020-21 course with a “renewed” teacher team in technological skills (who wanted to renew them, naturally). But I am afraid that the scope of activities carried out by public school teachers has had a very diverse reception by students, because it has been subject to the abilities and resources of the students (availability of PCs or tablets, WIFI availability …). Again I refer to the fact that the digital gap has been very marked.

• What strategies do you think can best serve to extend and broaden the reach of this movement and resources within the educational community?

That teachers know that what they propose can be done and that their students can enjoy it. And let them know that they can count on the support of their centres. I think teachers who have spent more time and hours preparing material, training, supporting, etc., should be recognized for that.

• Do you think that this type of activities, projects and experiences can serve to democratize access to technology, or is there a risk of generating elitist spaces of exclusivity?

On the one hand, the situation has let clear that there is a (large) part of the technology that is much more accessible than it might seem, and we can enjoy impressive ICT offers. This has allowed us to stay connected, in a fairly globalized way, and the appearance of devices that require little to function (open software, free software, open platforms) have contributed to democratizing part of this technology. But, of course, there is still a perception that technology, and studies related to technology and engineering, are elitist. And it should be emphasized that this perception is totally wrong and out of place. In the past, engineers were important gentlemen, with ties, who made a lot of money (or much more than factory workers), but there were also many people who did “magic” without wearing a tie (and without collecting the salaries of the gentlemen). I mean by this that engineering and technology is present in many jobs and tasks from our day to day. We need TECH talent in all these areas, with diversity, with parity, with all kinds of points of view.

• Did you think that this theme helps or hinders gender work (and the gap) within technical-scientific vocations?

Yes, inevitably an important gender gap is generated. Girls are more attracted to vocations more linked to “saving the world”, and do not perceive that technology means too to “save the world”. On the other hand, boys (and I speak in general, no one takes it badly) are attracted by initiatives more related to leisure, competitiveness, etc. If a girl says she likes cars, there are still people who don’t see it as something normalized. This, in the middle of the XXI century, causes female vocations to be lost from the beginning of the formative stage. On the other hand, if any examples of technology will be applied to quality of life (health, medicine, etc.), many girls (and boys) would receive the message and incorporate it. Early childhood and primary education is key in this “recruitment of talent”.

• Comparing with experiences and realities of the countries of our environment at an international level, what do you think is the role of Catalonia within the international maker movement? Do you think that the projects carried out here have recognition and sufficient visibility abroad?

Personally, I believe that we can talk “from you to you” with international makers of recognized prestige. I have visited FABLABs in Berkeley and Cambridge, and we have nothing to envy from our FABLABs. I think we have the capacity, skills and talent perfectly comparable to that of others maker communities that have recognition because they have visibility. We still need a recognition of talent in our country. Catalonia can become a pioneer in this impulse of the talented community, with recognition and giving it the value it deserves. We can do it!

• Any project, resource or experience that you want to highlight?

I have said that the experience of Telecomunicat.cat has been very enriching for me during this first confinement by COVID-19. We saw that we could organize more than 80 people from all areas and TECH-ICT profiles that they didn’t know each other who knew each other and we accepted a fairly horizontal organization chart of people to move forward all together. It has been exciting! We have worked a lot, we have spent many hours, but it was worth it to see some image like a mother who could see her baby through a mobile phone. Technology has helped a lot in this terrible situation.

By Colectic

The Government of Catalonia, some universities and some jointly private initiatives are promoting STE(A)M education through different initiatives at Catalonia. Supporting teachers and learners, creating and developing activities and generating new communities are the main strategies developed.

In Spain, the educational competences of the formal levels of education are divided between the state government (Ministry of Education and Professional Training) and the regional governments (Councils or Departments of Education). In this way, the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training establishes the common contents and assessable learning standards of core subjects and sets the minimum number of hours for core subjects. The Departments for Education of the Autonomous Communities complement the contents of core subjects, and they establish the contents of specific subjects and the subjects that are freely structured by the Autonomous Communities. Accordingly, the regional government makes methodological recommendations to educational institutions within their remit.

Thus, everything that is related to formal education in the field of STE(A)M is the responsibility of regional governments. Let’s focus on Catalonia, where Colectic, the STEAMonEdu partner, is implementing this project.

First it was STEM, then it was STE(A)M. Public initiatives.

In 2009, the government established that the Catalan Department of Education should favor initiatives for the development of pedagogical and curricular innovation projects that aim to stimulate the capacity, learning, personal skills and potential of educators, the school success of all students, the improvement of educational activity, and the development of educational projects of the educational centers. It also stated that these projects may refer to one or more centers and involve, where appropriate, links with universities, economic sector or other organizations. The two decrees – Decree 119/2015 of 23 June on the organization of primary education and Decree 187/2015 of 25 August on the organization of compulsory secondary education – determined the competences in the scientific, technological and mathematical fields and their evaluation.

In 2016, in relation to the STEM disciplines (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths), the Parliament of Catalonia urged the educational authorities to take the necessary actions to ensure that all students achieve, during primary education, the necessary basic skills to be, in addition to consumers, creators of technological solutions in the digital society, taking into account the digital competence that students must develop at this stage Therefore, the mandate implies that programming and educational robotics activities should be developed at school from of the first courses of compulsory education.

Subsequently, by Government Agreement on 2017, the STEMcat interdepartmental working group was created, with the aim of drawing up and monitoring a plan to promote scientific and technological vocations in engineering and mathematics with students in Catalonia (STEMcat), which includes, among its priority lines, the promotion of scientific, technological and mathematical skills among students in compulsory education.

SteamCAT and Bitbot: the government leadership

A big step was taken a little bit later: with the aim of promoting the scientific, technological, engineering and mathematical vocations through creativity, design and art in students in Catalonia, the STEAMcat pedagogical innovation programme was created in 2018 (see the official government document). The programme is part of the support for innovation and research, which is one of the lines of action in relation to the specific objectives mentioned, and which must also contribute to the overall improvement of the other actions of the STEMcat Plan.

STEAMcat community of centers – Comunitat STEAMcat

The joint work of active, participatory and learning methodologies, the competence work of the contents of the different STEM disciplines and the regulatory evaluation of learning in the extension of the center, together with the educational orientation, must contribute to the promotion of STEM vocations and also to achieving the increase of these vocations among women. At first, 40 educational centers were selected (20 Infant and Primary Education centers and 20 Compulsory Secondary Education centers) to be part of the STEAMcat pedagogical innovation programme from the 2018-2019 academic year. Nowadays, 51 educational centers are part of the community.

In Catalonia, the formal network of STEAMcat educational centers emphasize the relevance of equity and promotion of the scientific-technological vocations among women and in disadvantaged social contexts.

The STEAMcat programme aims to boost the development of teachers’ professional skills and the application of methodologies that promote in students an improvement in the understanding of the world, based on scientific, technological, mathematical and engineering contents, from creativity, the arts and the humanist vision that critical thinking entails. (Source)

 Their detailed objectives are to:

• Increase the scientific-technological and mathematical vocations especially in women and disadvantaged social contexts.
• Reinforce the process of orientation of the students towards the studies and professions of the field STEM in terms of equity and in all the educational stages.
• Improve the ability to understand and interpret a scientific-technological and mathematical world.
• Improve the social perception of STE(A)M areas.
• Improve the personal attitude towards the learning of the scientific-technical and mathematical areas, in the group of the students from the infantile education to baccalaureate.
• Increase the application of transversal learning methodologies, generators and vehicles of shared knowledge between the different scientific, technological, artistic and mathematical fields that encourage critical thinking and creativity.
• Promote the creation of alliances between the educational centers, the agents of the scientific-technological field and the near surroundings by means of the realization of activities related with socially relevant problems.
• Share research as teachers and reflective practice among members of the STEAMcat community.

Screenshot of the STEAMcat website

The STEAMcat pedagogical innovation programme consists of supporting the centers through advice, the creation of the STEAMcat Community, training and resources. Taking advantage of the distributed leadership of the educational centers, the methodologies, perspectives and technologies appropriate to the classroom and the transversal work of the teaching staff, the critical thinking of the students is encouraged, and the social perception of science is improved, to bring about an increase of the selection of post-compulsory STEM studies for a positive change in students’ self-perception towards these disciplines. (Source)

 A complementary but really relevant action was taken by the Secretariat for Digital Policies, in collaboration with the Department of Education: creation and promotion of the Bitbot programme to increase the extracurricular offer of activities in the field of programming and educational robotics in Catalonia. This programme stimulate and promote the private initiative in order to achieve one goal: to have more STE(A)M activities in the after-schools programmes.

STE(A)M: universities and private initiatives

Some Universities have also created similar initiatives. For example, Aquí STEAM (Here STEAM) is an initiative of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) specifically aimed at girls between 9 and 14 years old in Catalonia to attract female talent to study technology and engineering. The programme aims to break the stereotypes and gender roles established in society and to make visible new female references in an attractive and close way for girls.

Screenshot of the Aqui Steam website

Another great example is the new STEAM en acción (STEAM in Action) that will be developed by La Fundació Aigües de Manresa – Junta de la Sèquia, the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) and financed by the bank BBVA. It is a transversal educational proposal that aims to educate students from day-to-day experiences. In addition to one exhibition, “Mathematics and life”, multidisciplinary and interactive activities have been designed, aimed at an audience ranging from 3 to 18 years old, all of them thought and developed by UPC members.

Fundació Catalana per a la Recerca i la Innovació (Catalan Foundation for Research and Innovation,a private entity funded with public sources ) develop the Open STEAM teaching innovation workshops, offering support and updating to teachers for the introduction of the scientific method in primary, secondary and high school classrooms. Its content provides a practical approach to encourage teacher training in scientific experimentation activities, aimed at these educational levels.

At a national level, Inspira STEAM is a pioneer project for the promotion of the scientific-technological vocation among girls, based on awareness-raising and orientation actions taught by professional women from the world of research, science and technology. This is the first time that the group mentoring technique has been used in a project to promote STE(A)M (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Maths) among elementary school students. It is held by the Universidad de Deusto, with the cooperation of Innobasque in Euskadi, Edenway and the Universitat Rovira i Virgili in Catalonia, CIONET in Madrid, UCA and Universidad de Jaén in Andalusia, Universidad de Vigo and the Universidade da Coruña in Galicia, the Universidad de Oviedo in Asturias, the UCAM in Murcia and with the cooperation of companies as BBK, Roche, Barcelona Activa, Silk, HP Foundation among other companies. Tons of talent and a supra-territorial vision to make this initiative possible.

Screenshot of the Inspira STEAM website

Conclusions

The initiatives highlighted in this article, and some others that complement them, are promoted at different levels by private and public initiatives. In Catalonia, the STE(A)M is in the classrooms.

By Colectic

Featured image from Pixabay

Francesc Rambla is a technical engineer in telecommunications. He has worked for more than twenty years as a consultant in the field of information and communication technologies, both in the public and private sectors, an activity that he has combined with teaching. Since 2005 he has been working for the Generalitat of Catalonia as a Technician in charge of technological vocation projects to promote technological vocations, educational technologies and free software. Our partner Colectic spoke with him about the situation of the maker movement and STE(A)M education in Catalonia.

•  What is the situation of maker movement and STE(A)M education in Catalonia, in your opinion – initial, incipient, in development, or in consolidation?

There is always a room for improvement but I think that in Catalonia there is a very wide consolidated offer of extracurricular and leisure STE(A)M activities. This offer is often particularly focused on the field of educational robotics, which, in many cases, incorporates a maker component. This means that other STE(A)M disciplines, such as biology, chemistry, mathematics or certain branches of physics, are under-represented in this offer and, as a consequence, although these activities have a very convinced audience, it is difficult to expand it.

On the other hand, the reality is that Catalonia is very diverse and that this offer is not uniform everywhere. There are still many regions where the only possibility to access this offer is through online proposals or specific activities that are offered, very often, to the orbit of educational centers. So I think we are not bad, but could be much better.

• Which strategies do you think can best serve to extend the scope of this movement in Catalonia?

In my opinion, the different specialties are essential to extend these proposals to a wider audience. Announcing a workshop or an activity with the word “robotics” immediately generates the rejection from a part of the target audience. All the experts tell us that STE(A)M activities have to be introduced through contextualized proposals in aspects that interest or concern young people and children.

For example, if we propose an “Underwater Robotics” workshop, we will attract a very convinced audience, but if we contextualize this workshop and call it “Let’s save the sea! We build robots to eliminate plastics”, surely we can attract a part of the public that otherwise wouldn’t come close.

In any case, this means that the conceptualization and design of the proposals is more complex and, therefore, more expensive. It is not enough to have a beautiful idea, you have to work on it, adapt it to different ages, social contexts, have trained personnel specialized in social stimulation, but also in STE(A)M subjects. Wow, all this is not easy!

• Do we have leading initiatives in Catalonia on STE(A)M? Any project, resource or experience that you want to highlight in this respect?

 We do have expert groups that offer relevant activities and proposals, but, unfortunately, it becomes very difficult to make them grow and reach a wider audience. I will cite two initiatives from different disciplines, which, despite being successful, we cannot consider them to be benchmarks because the impact they achieve is small.

The first is the Museum of Mathematics of Catalonia (MMACA). It is an infrastructure managed by a teachers’ association that is economically viable, that has an offer for teachers, for families and for compulsory education school groups.

However, it has collapsed. Every year it receives about 40,000 students and cannot accept more! This represents only 4% of the students in public education. It would be ideal for students to be able to work on mathematics with the strategies presented to the MMACA, not one day in the course, but at least one day a week throughout the course. Surely, in a few years, such an action would show results.

The other initiative that I would like to show in value is the Technovation Challenge. This proposal is important, because it is for girls. The idea is that girls develop an entrepreneurship project around a mobile application that responds to a social concern that they have detected themselves.

The activity includes all the ingredients to lead it to success: interdisciplinarity (it is fundamentally technological in nature, but has communicative, aesthetic, social components, etc,), the ideas of the participants themselves when looking for a problem, lack or need to solve or cover, and, finally, the possibility that this initiative materialized in real applications.

All of this makes this initiative a success, but it reaches a not very significant part of the school-age population and has a low impact.

• The Government of Catalonia is leading through initiatives such as Bitbot.cat. What do you think are the strengths and weaknesses of this initiative? Creus that is exportable to other countries, especially considering those of the European Union? Do you use any platform or channel to share and dialogue with other outside communities?

Bitbot is an initiative that we launched four years ago to promote the extracurricular offer of programming activities and educational robotics. The name of the initiative plays with the terms ‘bit’ (basic unit of information and basis of binary computing) and ‘bot’ (contraction of the term robot). We chose this name because, in addition to the meaning we can give it, we thought it conveyed something fun and attractive for children.

Bitbot consists of three lines of work: the catalog of extracurricular programming and educational robotics activities in Catalonia, the training programme for monitors of this type of activities and, finally, a set of dissemination actions. The objectives of Bitbot are to improve children’s digital competence and, through an approach to the world of technology, to seek new technological vocations.

It is evident that participation in educational robotics and programming workshops opens a window, that of computational thinking, which otherwise very often remains closed. In this sense, the program may not improve digital competence, but it certainly complements it.

Regarding vocations, given that the public of the programme is between 8 and 14 years old, it is still too early to see the fruits, but we are convinced that the people who have participated continuously in these activities topics, they will have a sensitivity towards technology in the future.

Bitbot is easily exportable in other countries or contexts, despite the fact that in each case it would have to be evaluated which are the most appropriate lines of work and what the best way to carry them out.

The Generalitat of Catalonia, through the Departments of Digital Policies and Public Administration, and of Education, is part of the EU STEM Coalition, which is a meeting space in which public administrations, platforms and universities from various member states of the EU.

• Do you think that STE(A)M helps or hinders the work (and the gender gap) in technical-scientific vocations?

Before answering this question, I try to explain what I understand by ‘STEM’ and ‘STE(A)M’, because this will help me later to develop the answer.

In my view, when we talk about STE(A)M we refer to the set of strategies or methodologies to work within the educational field (formal or non-formal) of mathematics, scientific and technological subjects, in an integrated way – that is, STEM subjects. There is no unanimity in the meaning of ‘A’ in STE(A)M, it is often attributed to “Arts”, but I like a more holistic conception and I attribute the concept “all” to it, in the sense that any other subject is good for STEM work.

Following this view, which does not have to be shared, there is a set of studies and professions that we could fit within the STEM concept, while any study or profession would be within STE(A)M field.

This is the reason why it is very difficult for me to pose, from the point of view of the gender gap, all STEM studies or professions, because the data tell us that the casuistry is very heterogeneous. In Catalonia, for example, while in ICT studies the percentage of girls is around 10%, in biological sciences studies it is above 65%.

In any case, as I have already said when referring to extracurricular activities, a good STE(A)M strategy is essential to promote vocations and, because it is a good strategy, learning all subjects has to be done. It should be done in an integrated way and in an understandable context. Otherwise, we will end up repeating the same errors and obtaining the same results.

• Do you think that this type of activities, projects and experiences can serve to democratize access to technology or, on the other hand, is there a risk of generating elitist exclusivity spaces?

I think that the most effective way to guarantee universal access to technology is through compulsory education and, at least in our case, free education. Any other strategy, project or initiative can also help reach the public, but carries a high risk of worsening the social and economic gap.

• What is the role that the culture of the commons can play in these initiatives? Do you know the Catalan initiatives related to STE(A)M and the commons?

Throughout this interview I have been thinking about the importance of contextualizing learning to reach a wider audience. I am convinced that this is the key.

Developing interdisciplinary pedagogical proposals, for different levels and rhythms of learning, designing the evaluation and establishing the links with the basic competences that all citizens should have, is very difficult and, therefore, very expensive. It is an iterative, trial and error process that, from my point of view, is available to very few people.

The world of the commons and free knowledge has shown that co-creation works. Projects such as GNU / Linux or Viquipèdia are examples, therefore, my opinion is that we must work in this line in the construction of educational proposals.

Later, if necessary, publishers will come to package them and offer them in print or embedded in digital platforms, but the collective effort to build them has to remain accessible and public. The best guarantee to achieve this are open and free licenses.

There are some initiatives that promote the publication of proposals with free licenses, generally creative-commons, but I think this is not enough. You have to offer support so that other people can contribute and help improve them.

In this sense, I would highlight a proposal that is developed within the framework of mSchools, a programme to bring mobile technologies closer to education of the Mobile World Capital Barcelona Foundation that is developed in collaboration with the Generalitat of Catalonia, the Barcelona City Council and the GSMA.

EduHack is being developed within mSchools, an initiative that proposes a co-creation process based on the Design-Thinking methodology to build educational proposals. These proposals are documented and published under free and open licenses. From my point of view, the only downside to this proposal is that it is not yet critical enough and this makes it difficult for there to be a large community to iterate and refine the proposals.

By Colectic

Colectic, the Spanish partner of the STEAMonEdu project, has participated in two events to present the project, the collaboration platform, the Competence Framework for STE(A)M Educators to educators and trainers and to request their opinion and collaboration.

The events were aimed at two different profiles of educators: the  Encuentro de Centros Innovadores – DIM-Espiral (Meeting of Innovative Centers – DIM-Espiral) – for teachers and professors; and the Jornada de la Internet Social 2020 (Social Internet Annual Conference) – for e-facilitators and trainers).

The  Encuentro de Centros Innovadores – DIM-Espiral (Meeting of Innovative Centers – DIM-Espiral) on 25 November brought together (online) teachers from all over the Spanish territory and offered a great variety of elements in its programme. Esther Subias, project manager at Colectic, organized a workshop focused on the draft of the competency framework and how it should – or not – be adapted so that STE(A)M education can take place despite the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

During the workshop, which was attended by 14 people, both the framework and the survey were presented; both elements had been designed and translated into several languages (including Spanish and Catalan) so that educators and policy makers can offer their opinion. The results of the meeting can be found on the website, where the framework can also be accessed.

The Jornada de la Internet Social 2020 (Social Internet Annual Conference), under the slogan “JdIS 2020: innovation, technology, and Punt TIC in pandemic situation” hosted on 15 December a conference by Colectic, which was attended by educators and trainers from telecentres and other non-formal education entities.

The presentation highlighted the European STEAMonEdu platform, which brings together STE(A)M educators and policy makers, as well as the Competence Framework and the survey to evaluate it that will be open to the contributions until 17 January. The conference was streamed on YouTube, and 53 people attended live.

Colectic seeks, in this way and in collaboration with its European partners, to encourage the participation of educators and trainers in the STEAMonEdu project and especially in this phase of the project, which puts on the table the key elements that will serve to lay the foundations of future training actions, planned for 2021.

Any interested person can reach Colectic’s team by sending an email to steamonedu@colectic.coop or by visiting the website colectic.coop.

By Colectic

The workshop “STE(A)M digital skills for educators and trainers” brought together 34 educators from the Catalan territory to deepen the concept of STE(A)M education. STEAMonEdu project partners from Colectic –  Esther Subias, project manager, and Pep Oliveras, STEAM educator and Colectic coordinator, organized a workshop focused on the competence framework for professionals who implement STE(A)M in classrooms and establish, among the assistants, the priorities in the training of these professionals collaboratively, especially in times of the Covid-19 pandemic.

This meeting was an opportunity to verify the value of the STEAMonEdu project and its community of practice that involves educators interested in the STE(A)M approach in teaching and facilitates their active contribution to the framework development.

By Colectic

The CEB (Barcelona Education Consortium) is an instrument of co-management and decentralization, within a framework of institutional collaboration, which represents the will of the Generalitat of Catalonia and the Barcelona City Council to work together to improve services in school education and citizenship through a single educational network. Our project partners from Colectic spoke with Susana Navarro Jiménez, a leader of educational innovation programmes in the STE(A)M and sustainability areas of the CEB, and Rosanna Fernandez, director of the innovation, programmes and training area on the strategic lines and STEAM initiatives that are promoted in the city of Barcelona.

• How do you work in STEAMCat projects on technologies for learning and knowledge?

The STEAMcat pedagogical innovation programme is an educational programme promoted by the Department of Education, which lasts for three years. This programme is deployed throughout the Catalan territory and, from the Barcelona Education Consortium, 8 centres participate, finishing this course after having participated for three years.

Also, in the city of Barcelona, there are other educational programmes and proposals framed in the STE(A)M field. These are of different duration and intensity, aimed at different educational stages and promoted by different entities. The supply has increased considerably during the last three years, as well as the demand from educational centers.

• Does the STE(A)M approach have to be transversal or have a specific specialization?

From the CEB, we consider that the ideal situation is to work in a transversal and global way, taking advantage of contextualized and real situations to work on Sciences, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics.

Competency learning aims for the student to be able to apply their knowledge to solve problems and challenges in different contexts of their life. Situations are never closed to a single field of knowledge, but the solutions to them are the result of different fields of knowledge. Helping our students to use their knowledge in a holistic way, under the benefit that it is global and multi-factorial, is one of the objectives of competency learning.

Along these lines, one of the main advantages of working on STE(A)M in a transversal way is that students can experience how they work in real life to respond to the challenges posed by science and technology: all projects of this nature They are developed from the work of a multidisciplinary team members that complement each other. The basis of their work is cooperation and knowledge sharing with the aim of achieving the same goal.

• What are the successes of the STE(A)M community in Barcelona? Can you comment on some indicators and challenges?

A few years ago subjects in schools were worked on separately, and it was not proposed to work collaboratively between the different disciplines. Many institutions, entities, administrations and universities began to offer new ways of learning through STE(A)M, but these arrived in a disorderly way and without coherence. From the CEB we saw the need to channel the offer, to analyze the needs, to take advantage of resources and to share language and meanings with the different institutions and administrations involved. For this reason, monthly meetings were organized with the different agents, to build a map of the city and create a global STEAM action plan.

The demand for educational centres has increased exponentially, and that is why our goal is to offer proposals based on real needs, such as working on scientific vocations in earlier stages, which is when vocations are defined.

• Are there training actions aimed at teachers who want to work on STE(A)M?

Yes. From the Department of Education there is a STE(A)M training line that began more than 10 years ago. To highlight the CTM training (Sciences, Technology and Mathematics) that was born with the aim of working the STE(A)M in a transversal way and by projects. The teachers of the Barcelona Education Consortium, as part of the Education Department, also had the option of taking this 3-year training. It could be said that the CTM training was the starting point for the design and implementation of many other training courses in this field of knowledge.

At the CEB there are two lines of STE(A)M training offer that stand out: one has to do with the fact that most of the educational programmes of the Consortium’s unified call for programmes offer training to the teachers responsible for implementing them in the classrooms. One of the areas of the unified call for programmes is the STE(A)M area, which today has an offer of 10 educational programmes for primary, middle and secondary schools. At the same time, the resource centres of the city of Barcelona offer training centres included in the STE(A)M field and tailored according to the needs and PEC of the educational center.

• How do Pedagogical Resource Centres work, and how do STE(A)M skills such as robotics, digital manufacturing, social networks or technological sovereignty work?

The main objective of the pedagogical resource centers is to accompany the educational centers in their improvement process towards the educational transformation of the centers. For years, digital culture seminars have been carried out in which robotics, collaborative work and the use of mobile devices have been worked on.

Also from the CRPs, programs such as the Science Congresss, aimed at primary school and where the focus is placed on scientific methodology and on the student body as the protagonist, have been energized. The key to this programme is the accompaniment of the teaching staff by the CRP technicians, as well as the link with the scientific community.

• What is the pedagogical programme of the Manufacturing Athenaeums aimed at students and teachers?

The objective of the Educational Program of Manufacturing Athenaeums is to bring digital manufacturing closer to students and teachers through the use of it to solve real needs in their environment, focusing on the learning, design and manufacturing process rather than on the product.

Projects are developed that put into practice creativity, research, experimentation and meaningful learning for both students and teachers. It is committed to being interdisciplinary, offering students the opportunity to go from idea to object applying curricular content from different areas and personal and learning competencies that promote school success, educational innovation, technological competence and professional guidance.

• How do you imagine STE(A)M to be worked on in educational centres in the future?

We imagine that the centres work in a holistic and real way, therefore we would probably no longer talk about STE(A)M. The trend is work by skills, and not by subjects.

by Colectic

The event, in hybrid format, is within the 2021 social internet day #Jdis21, where Esther Subias from Colectic, Claudia Matera from ALL DIGITAL, Achilles Kameas from Hellenic Open University, Cornelia Popescu from Fundatia EOS Romania, Katrin Schuberth from Helliwood media & education and Paolo Russo from Stati Generali dell’Innovazione will present the European framework and approaches to STE(A)M education in the session “STEAMonEdu for digital inclusion: project results”.

The Government of the Generalitat of Catalonia (Spain), through the Xarxa Punt TIC and the Secretariat of Digital Policies, are pleased to invite you to be an active part of the conference.

During the conference, will be presented the most relevant results of the project and how STEAMonEdu works to strengthen a network of people interested in the field and offers the opportunity to share their experiences.

Time for interactive workshops will take place from 12:15 pm to 13:45 pm.

Additionally, the workshop “Free software tools and resources: the Punt TIC experience” will be focused on free software and tools helpful to work and share results, with open standards to facilitate cooperation. These opportunities can allow wider control over the computer, data and privacy.

From the Punt TIC experience, we’ll explore how it can be implemented in telecenters.

A second workshop on “SteamOnEdu and the telecenters: exploring the intersections” will be focused on how the professional profile of digital trainers and facilitators influences and matters. And to which extent sharing ideas, experiences, activities, resources, networks and dialogue is an element that makes a difference.

The STEAMonEdu project has explored all these avenues as ICT Point Network. Now is time to share, analyze the results, see how we can improve our impact on the citizens we interact with and answer some questions such as: Is the STEAM profile essential in a telecentre?

Registration for the final event session at #JdIS21.

For any questions, feel free to contact steamonedu@colectic.coop.

By Colectic