Wäinö Aaltonen (1894–1966) was the most important sculptor in the early years of independence of Finland.

 Primary School About 500 pupils and 24 teachers  The learning Environment project with TOP-keskus and the NBE  CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) with six classes in English CLIL

 WA-school is located on the island of Hirvensalo in Turku and the housing consists mostly of detached houses. Practically no immigrant learners and finnish as native language.  In the school there are six media oriented classes with about 130 learners from 7 to 13 years of age.

The project of using webbased Learning Environment started 2009 Tools: 50 Mini-PC-Computers, 50 Linux workstations and using the Moodle as primary working environment.

 Henri Littunen, age 50.  25 years of teaching experience of which 20 years with Computers.  Master of Education and also competence in History Masters Thesis (Pro Gradus): Creative Potential among 6th graders in finnish primary school (Science of Education) Economical thought in 18th century Swedish Academy of Science (Finnish History )

 Of 450 learners about 90% are using Computers weekly  Of 24 teachers 10 are active users ( 1- 2 times a week) of ICT and the rest occassional users  (a few times a month)  All the learners have address of their own provided by the school. The same username and password is also valid in Moodle.

 Typical ICT-lesson consists of going to ICT- classroom and producing a Word-document.  Most used resource is the Wikipedia  No free surfing or playing in the web allowed in our school

 Henri Littunen is teaching Finnish, Mathematics, History and ICT.  Weekly about 150 learners are using Moodle with HL mostly in History and Finnish.  Of 24 teachers are using Moodle, still mostly occassional users  Motivating Colleagues for using Moodle is a big task. Possible but time taking.

 The NBE is supporting the project  The goals:  1. Using ICT for learning not just using computers.  2. Creating Working Spaces in Moodle  3. Students taking responsibility for their own learning process  4. In general: Testing the possibilities of Moodle in an ordinary Primary School

 Only non-commercial webbased platform of learning that has many useable features for everyday working in school.   Google Docs is also useable from our point of view specially as WIKI-platform  Using Blogs will start in near future

1. The Chat module allows smooth, synchronous text interactionChat module

Advantages: 1. Activation of the learners in their learning has been significant. 2. Information retrieval is on learners responsibility 3. Making difference between significant and trivial knowledge is gaining from the project

4. Sharing the learning with classmates by showing your own products: PowerPoints, films, radio plays etc 5. Learning critical attitude towards pieces of information that has been googled. Is this relevant for my purposes? 6. Keeping timetables and deadlines has become better by using Moodle. After the date of return the homework will be closed.

7. Very positive attitude on Moodle helps your ”selling ” standard exercises. By doing it with PC and Moodle is more interesting. 8. Keeping test in Moodle has saved huge amounts of A4-paper in two years. Environmental friendly approach. The Computers are on anyway. 9. The learners are happy to get feedback and results almost right away after tests.

 10. Teacher can use and find easily the same material year after year (The question bank)  11. Benefits equality in Learning and using ICT not depending your social background

 1. Needs a lots of motivation to get collegues with You.  2. Using Moodle needs time but then again You always need time how ever You plan your Approach  3. Technical problems with Computers possible but Moodle has shown to be rather stable interface

 4. The interface of the Moodle is incoherent and its easy to loose ”index path”  5. The first steps of the ”Moodle ladder” is high for an averige teacher and getting used to use the tools in Moodle takes time and patience  6. ”Why should I use Moodle?” is a question of some collegues…Yes, Why indeed? Ask the learners and You Know Why.

These boys will be ready for that Future…are You as teacher?

© Henri Littunen 2010