On 12 March 2016 Minister for Education, Children and Youth Claude Meisch presented the eduSphere project. This is a new on-line teaching and learning environment for teachers and pupils.
eduSphere is a key project in the Digital(4)Education strategy. As the Minister pointed out, “Society is increasingly using digital devices and tools – schools must do so as well.” The aim of eduSphere is therefore to enable teachers to devise active, collaborative learning activities using multimedia resources. It offers each user a personalised environment and provides access to quality teaching resources in the various branches, to learning tools, and to educational approaches (on-line exercises, formative tests, etc.).
The first stage of the portal (launch of the repository of learning objects, also called resources) was officially inaugurated at “eduSphere Day” on 12 March. 350 fundamental and secondary school teachers pooled their experience in respect of digital resources and took part in more than thirty themed workshops.
eduSphere is to be set up in three stages:
- 1st stage (2015–2016): Teaching in the same way, using existing digital resources, producing an environment enabling pupils and teachers to find and share educational resources (videos, images, documents, scenarios, etc.) in a common repository that can be accessed by the entire school community, and to use them in class.
- 2nd stage (2016–2017): Teaching better, using appropriate digital tools, working together to draw up learning scenarios, on-line exercises and other educational applications making it possible to teach certain types of content more to the point.
- 3rd stage (2017–2018): Teaching differently, with the setting up of a new, promising educational approach promoting even more the pupils’ differentiation, autonomy and creativity. Since the educational accompaniment of teachers is an important element in supporting them in their day-to-day work and enabling them to benefit from the added value of digital tools, the eduSphere coordination team has already delivered a large number of training courses for teachers on teaching methods using digital resources, using both tablets and computers, since the start of the 2015–2016 school year.
