As Information and Communications Technology (ICT) continue to transform education and teaching, the very concept of the school has now come to a crucial turning point, according to education ICT experts from Finland participating at the 9th edition of Global Educational Supplies and Solutions (GESS) in Dubai.
“First, ICT enabled increased interactivity and sharing of learning materials digitally. Now a second major shift in education sees the development of personalised learning content via modern platforms utilizing social media models. This allows deeper commitment to one’s own learning, for example through educational digital games, efficient ways to search for information online and the creation of personal learning sets,” says Seppo Keränen, Program Director for Future Learning Finland, who leads a strong delegation of Finnish ICT companies that will be showcasing their innovative products and solutions at GESS Dubai.
Transforming classrooms into learning laboratories
According to Keränen, educational technology (edutech) solutions help transform classrooms into learning laboratories that encourage students to use innovative applications and solutions to support their learning.
“In Finland we understand the true value and promise of digitalisation. As connectivity expands at an increasing pace, the concept of the digital school can be exported all over the globe,” he added.
Finland enjoys one of the most advanced and expansive applications of digital technology in education, starting from the first grade of primary school throughout the education system, and consisting of formal as well as extracurricular learning through technology. It is also one of the first education systems in the world to incorporate coding as part of the core curriculum for students at Finnish comprehensive schools.
Finnish ICT companies, who will be sharing the latest innovations in EdTech solutions include CLANED®, which provides tools for finding, managing, studying, purchasing and discovering education materials from any source. It is also a personal learning tracker helping students to set targets, create study plans, stay on track in their studies, collaborate with peers and teachers and get personalized learning material and study buddy recommendations. CLANED® is free for individual students allowing them to save, organize and search learning material in different formats and study these materials collaboratively with other students.
Innofactor Skilli, meanwhile, is a solution to analyse learning. The students’ own experiences on learning is available to teachers, parents and the school. The schools get easy-to-use and affordable tools, which can be used for improving the children’s individual learning, their 21st skills, self-assessment, and modern teaching methods. Experiences on different learning situations can be analysed and teaching methods can be developed based on them. Information about the current learning situation is always up-to-date and of high quality. The available information is easily collected through reporting, and it gives results that are easy to read and compare.
Another Finnish exhibitor worth visiting at GESS Dubai is Paths to Math, a company focused in researching and developing modern educational content, and passionate about creating advanced learning solutions for schools and individuals. The company was founded by Maarit Rossi, a Top 10 finalist of Global Teacher Prize 2016, which will be awarded at GESS. Paths to Math provides students and their teachers a new educative, engaging and fun tool for learning and teaching mathematics. The material is web-based and fully aligned with the Common Core State Standards, making it a more advanced and flexible alternative to the traditional printed books. Paths to Math stems from the Finnish educational system, which has been consecutively ranked as one of the global leaders in the OECD’s PISA study.
Petra´s Planet is another innovative ICT company from Finland whose educational products offer a safe online learning environment that empowers children aged 5 to 12 to become active global learners through 21st Century learning principles. Providing features such as blogging, an email system, internet safety, real-time chat functionality, and the ability to twin with classes all over the world, Petra’s Planet EDU products help your students become globally aware, digitally literate and online responsible children.
Making learning fun and engaging is what Seppo hopes to showcase at GESS. It is an online solution for creating educational games. It can be used on all levels from pre-school to university. Games are easily created from scratch or by utilising an expanding games library. Seppo also enhances social interaction and physical activity as students get engaged in problem solving together outside passive classroom setting. Seppo has designed a mobile pedagogic game, the official game of GESS Dubai, which can be tried hands on by teachers and students visiting the exhibition.
SyraWise Ltd. is a Finnish start-up that produces Rescue busters game, a highlight interactive, high-quality 3D-animated learning game for safety education. A web-based version will be available in addition to a mobile app. The game can be internationally localised and scaled as required. Local language options will also be created for each country, the first version will be released in English, Swedish and Finnish. In the initial stage of launching, the available educational scenarios include fire safety, first aid and emergency call. Other scenarios like traffic and electric safety among others will be updated soon after first release.
AirportCollege.com is a complete online training service for airlines, airport ground operators and logistics. A strategic partner of IATA, Airportcollege.com helps train students efficiently and with greater flexibility. It offers a client specific training portal which includes selected eLearning self-study courses, automated certificate issuance and complete training records.
Finally, SkillzzUp Ltd promises to help improve learning by making students’ progress visible in real time. Using its proprietary software, teachers can easily assess skill development of individual students at any educational level. Teachers can now also for the first time assess also skills like teamwork or creativity. With this modern, tool teachers can give more support or more demanding tasks to individual students. Parents will also have the chance to view the learning results in real time and can support students at home. Schools will have more harmonized assessment criteria and a tool to notice if a student has problems with learning.