iTEC is a four-year, multinational project funded by the European Commission and lead by European Schoolnet . Its mandate is to examine the classroom of the future – today!

The project brings together policymakers from 15 European education ministries with key learning technology providers, including SMART Technologies, as well as experts from leading research organizations and universities. iTEC projects leverage this community’s diverse knowledge and experience to help design and scale 21st century learning and teaching scenarios.

iTEC in Action

The project is scaled up primarily through the development of pilot learning and teaching scenarios that are being tested and evaluated in more than 1,000 classrooms across 17 countries. The iTEC school pilots are carried out in the following 14 countries: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Lithuania, Norway, Portugal, Slovakia and Turkey. SMART Technologies and other associate partners facilitate additional pilots in other countries. SMART’s pilots began in September 2012, with 18 classroom pilots set up in Germany and another 18 pilots underway in Spain. SMART’s iTEC Spain project receives additional support through a Spanish-language blog.

Select pilot classrooms explore innovative learning scenarios with SMART products. SMART Exemplary Educator Gonzalo Garcia and his students participate in iTEC and created this video to share their learning experiences.

To learn more about how iTEC teachers are using SMART products, check out iTEC’s community resources for effective use of SMART products.

iTEC at BETT

Will Ellis works with European Schoolnet to lead the iTEC Project. His presentation will showcase  future classroom scenarios and innovative use of technology learned from the iTEC project so far in the SMART Collaborative Classroom during BETT on January 31.

About Will Ellis

Will Ellis previously held the post of Senior Manager within Becta, the UK Government Agency responsible for educational technology strategy.  Will oversaw national strategy for learning tools and resources including the Learning Platform Services procurement framework, delivered to support schools purchase VLEs.  Will started as a science teacher and progressed to the post of Project Manager in the high profile UK Education Ministry ICT Test Bed Project. The project explored and tested new and developing strategies in the use of ICT in education and arguably spearheaded further UK government funded work within England to improve schools use of technology.

Special thanks to Ainhoa Marcos, SMART’s Education Program Manager in EMEA, for her assistance in gathering content for this article.