THE PARTNERS

Italian Ministry of Education, AOPI

ABF ACTIONS

THE PROJECT

Since 2019 ABF has been implementing the Art & Music Labs projects – centered around the expressive languages of art and music as resources for fostering, supporting and promoting the talent of every child. At the same time, ABF is promoting the use of new educational technologies in its school and hospital school network, which is part of the AOPI (the Italian Pediatric Hospitals Association): a precious tool for communication and curricular integration, with the aim of improving quality and advancing educational innovation.

The project – which represents a significant innovation in terms of promoting new technologies for educational innovation – aims to create and maintain the conditions that make the devices real tools that support, supplement and enrich learning processes.

The digital library – ABF TeachBus – made available to every school has all the devices required to develop the project.

Furthermore, every device will be handed over to students already customized with all the content and apps – which have been carefully chosen on the basis of their age group also – and will go back to the digital library ready to be reassigned, once their program of study has finished.
The project also includes the development of an online platform for ABF Labs, which will offer access to a vast selection of educational content, and the training and integration of the figure of the digital atelierista within the schools’ teaching staff: a 4.0 librarian specializing in the use of new educational technologies who, collaborating with the ABF working group, will promote new and transversal perspectives on the use of technological tools for students, thereby supporting teachers and families in how to best use these devices.

THE CONTEXT

In Italy, an April 2020 report from the Italian National Institute of Statistics tells us that amongst children up to the ages of 17, 57% must share their computer or tablet and 12.3% do not have one at all. Out of those children who have browsed in the last 3 months, 34% have poor skills and 32% only basic skills. . Furthermore, the 2018 OECD survey reveals that almost half (48%) of teachers in Italy have never received formal training on the use of new teaching technologies and just over 1 in 3 (36%) feel particularly prepared about using them. Despite the fact that the use of the new Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) by individuals and families represents one of the crucial milestones of the social and cultural inclusion policies of the European Union – so much so that it is one of the key competences – the level of general literacy of adults is extremely low.