King's Ely develop MOOC for schools across Europe

King's Ely is only school in Britain to take part in Erasmus Plus online learning programme

Posted by Stephanie Broad | October 09, 2015 | International

• #kings-ely
• #mooc
• #erasmus-plus
• #europe
• #independent-schools
• #education-technology

King’s Ely recently welcomed over 40 students and teachers from Spain, Germany, Italy, Finland, Sweden and Poland to the school as part of the Erasmus Plus programme – the European Union's programme for education, training, youth and sport.  

The current focus for projects within the programme is on sharing, developing and transferring innovative practices in education between participating countries. Only 18 out of 256 Erasmus Plus projects were approved for funding by the EU. King’s Ely was selected as the only school in Britain to take part in this online learning project by the lead partner school, Liceo Galilei, Pescara, Italy.  

Erasmus Plus is a three-year EU funded project to develop common digital resources, which can be shared by schools across Europe in a Massive Online Open Course (MOOC). This was the third of seven meetings taking place over three years.  

Students are welcomed to King's Ely

Principal of King’s Ely, Sue Freestone, welcomed the partners to the school before students took part in online evaluation courses from programming to architecture. Throughout the week the group visited Ely Cathedral, climbing the famous Octagon Tower, participated in Geography-based treasure hunts around Ely and visited London and Cambridge. The students offered a critical presentation on what they thought of the online lessons, giving very helpful feedback to allow staff to move forward with future lessons, as well as investigating how we can use multimedia more effectively in lessons, before preparing a brochure explaining the Erasmus MOOC.  

Head of ICT and Computing, Marc Hawes, who is heading up the UK partnership, said: “A lot of new friendships have been made amongst the cultural experiences and academic work.  Our own students are looking forward to our meetings in Poland, Finland and Spain next year.”  

Sue Freestone added: “It is a huge privilege to be part of this scheme, to be representing the UK and contributing to something that could have such a far-reaching impact on learners world-wide”. 

www.kingsely.org