Acer-EUN’s Educational Netbook Pilot Acer

From September 2010 onwards, 240 classes in six countries will start the school year equipped with Acer netbooks. The participating countries are France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Turkey and the UK. This is part of the on-going Acer-European Schoolnet Educational Netbook Pilot.

The pilot started already in January 2010 with ten classes in each countries. Despite netbooks still being a new phenomenon in educational settings, there are several projects around the world where each learner has a personal computer, allowing for one-to-one (1:1) pedagogy. The pilot is interested in exploring how the introduction of netbooks and 1:1 pedagogy in schools can have an impact on the processes involved in teaching and learning. It aims at understanding and documenting how learners and teachers can use netbooks in various educational contexts:
- Place: use in school vs. outside of school
- Context: individual use vs. collaborative use
- Purpose: educational use vs. leisure use

A "Netbook team" in each participating school
Within the project, each participating school has set up a "Netbook team" consisting of subject teachers teaching the class (participating teachers receive an Acer notebook), an ICT coorinator and a member of the senior leadership team. The "Netbook team" plans and implements the use of netbooks for teaching and learning according to the national curricula. Cross-curricular projects involving two or more teachers working closely together are strongly encouraged. Separate pedagogical projects can be planned by individual teachers to use netbooks in their own subject.

Online community and 1:1 netbook scenarios
To support teachers in their work, the participation in an online community (www.netbooks.eun.org) is encouraged to share experiences and to learn from one another. Co-designing pedagogical 1:1 netbook scenarios is envisaged. 1:1 pedagogical scenarios highlight the fact that the learners have netbooks available at all times, taking advantage of blended learning approach alternating online and offline activities, as well as individual and collaborative ones. 1:1 netbook scenarios potentially blend the borders of formal and informal learning, as learners have the use of netbooks not only in school environment, but also outside of the school hours.

Evaluation
The evaluation of the pilot takes into account the feedback from all stakeholders including teachers, school heads, school ICT coordinators, learners and parents. This will help better understand the needs of the future classroom and help Acer and European Schoolnet better understand how technology can best serve pedagogical needs.

LIST OF PILOT SCHOOLS 2010-11