iTEC (Innovative Technologies for an Engaging Classroom) is a four year, large-scale project that takes an informed look at the potential classroom of the future.
Starting in September 2010, iTEC will bring together policy makers, researchers, technology suppliers, other technology-enhanced learning experts and innovative teachers in order to design and build scalable learning and teaching scenarios for the future classroom with recognition of the realities of pace of the educational reform process. Rigorous testing of these future classroom scenarios in large-scale pilots will then be carried out in order to significantly increase the possibility that innovation can be mainstreamed and taken to scale when the project ends.
With 27 project partners, including 14 Ministries of Education (MoE), and funding from the European Commission of 9.45 million Euros, iTEC will provide a model describing how the deployment of technology in support of innovative teaching and learning activities can move beyond small scale pilots and become embedded in all Europe's schools. The strategic nature of the project is underlined by the fact that the iTEC piloting in >1,000 classrooms in 12 countries is by some margin the largest pan-European validation of ICT in schools yet undertaken.
The EDRL research group works around a theoretical strain (embodied cognition), a methodological line (design-based research), and a disciplinary emphasis (mathematics). Thus, the laboratory hosts the full cycle of design-research projects that are geared to contribute to theory and practice of multi-modal mathematical learning and reasoning as well as to design theory.
J. Pruitt, and J. Grudin. Proceedings of the 2003 Conference on Designing for User Experiences, page 1–15. New York, NY, USA, Association for Computing Machinery, (2003)
B. Bannan-Ritland. Kelly, AE; Lesh, RA; Baek, JY Handbook of Design Research Methods in Education: Innovations in Science, Technology, Enginnering and Mathematics Learning and Teaching. New York: Routledge, (2008)