New report on Artificial Intelligence in Vocational Education and Training

July 31st, 2020 by Angela Rees

The Taccle AI project has launched it’s 74 page report exploring the use of AI in policy, process and practice in VET. For VET teachers and trainers, there are many possible uses of AI including new opportunities for adapting learning content based on student’s needs, new processes for assessment, analysing possible bottlenecks in learners’ domain understanding and…

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Getting ready for the holiday break – Looking forward to next year

December 15th, 2019 by Pekka Kamarainen

In my recent posts I have summarised the results that have been achieved for the EU-funded project TACCLE 4 CPD from the perspective of vocational education and training (VET). In addition I have provided insights into the work with Open Educational Resources (OER) as support for vocational teaching/learning arrangements. Altogether I have been relatively pleased when wrapping up the achievements by the end of the year. As I see it, I have completed my tasks for the project and thus I can enjoy the holiday break.

Before going on holiday I would like to make one point concerning the contribution of our project to the field of adult education. At the end of October I was invited to visit the kick-off meeting of a new EU-funded project “Artificial intelligence (AI) and vocational education and training (VET)”. In my guest presentation I had the chance to inform the participants of the initiative of the Finnish Government to provide online training for the whole population in matters related to AI. By that time the course “The Elements of AI“ had already reached one fifth of the population and it was gaining wider popularity. The partners of the new project were very interested of this course. In November I wrote a blog post of this working visit.

Later on I was informed that the Finnish government has promoted this course as n initiative of the Finnish EU-presidency. In this context the course will be made available in all EU languages and the goal is to educate 1% of the European citizens in the basics of AI.

I cannot claim that I would be an expert in AI or in organising such online courses. But I would assume that this particular pilot case is interesting for our project and in particular for its contribution to the field of adult education. I leave this idea at this point and let us see if we can get further in the beginning of next year.

I wish all my partners and contributors in the project and all readers of this blog a merry Christmas break and a good slide to the New Year 2020!

More blogs to come (in the new year 2020) …

Visiting the “Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Vocational Education and Training (VET)” project

November 2nd, 2019 by Pekka Kamarainen

At the end of the week I had a chance to give a guest input at the kick-off meeting of the new Erasmus Plus project “Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Vocational Education and Training (VET)”. The project is coordinated by our institute – Institut Technik & Bildung (ITB), University of Bremen – and in person by my colleague Ludger Deitmer. The partners come from Greece, Italy, Lithuania and the United Kingdom/Wales. All partners are known to us from previous European cooperation activities, so the project team was in a good position to have a rapid start. My role as a visitor was to give an overview of some predecessor projects and their recent/ongoing work. In addition I had a surprise input to deliver on top of my presentation. (This time I didn’t  need to travel elsewhere, since the meeting took place at ITB.)

Looking at the work of earlier and parallel projects

As I mentioned above, the partners were all old acquaintances to ITB, but they had not all been working in the same projects for promoting digital competences. Therefore, Ludger asked to give a presentation of the immediate predecessor projects – the TACCLE projects and the Learning Layers project and their achievements. In particular the point of interest was, how these projects have contributed to training of teachers and trainers regarding digital competences. For this purpose I could use my presentation that I had given when visiting the recent meeting of the TACCLE VET project in Athens.)

In my presentation I gave brief historical overview on the development of TACCLE projects, starting with the shaping of a generic e-learning handbook for teachers (TACCLE1), in shaping a differentiated set of online handbooks for selected subject areas (TACCLE2) and then shaping online resources for teachers who teach coding and programming in primary education (TACCLE3). Whilst these projects were directly addressing particular teacher groups, the ongoing TACCLE4-CPD has the task to analyse and develop models for continuing professional development (CPD) for different educational sectors – including general education, adult education and vocational education and training (VET).  From the perspective of VET and workplace learning I added to the picture the work of the Learning Layers project, in particular the shaping of the Learning Toolbox (as a digital toolset to support work process -oriented learning).

Based on the overview I drew attention to several points with which I am currently working in the TACCLE4-CPD project:

  • Policy analyses that draw attention to measures and initiatives to promote digital competences of teachers and trainers  in VET (at schools, training centres and work organisations);
  • The role of the European DigCompEdu framework and the adapted TACCLE Routemap as support for CPD;
  • The need to pay attention to digitization in education/training contexts and to digital transformation in working life;
  • The impulses that are given by particular exemplary projects for specific ‘innovation paths’;
  • Revisiting the “Theme Room training” that was piloted in the Learning Layers project with the training centre Bau-ABC (in North Germany).

We had a lively discussion and then I left the project team to continue its planning of the work to be carried out during the working period that had just started. (Below some photos of the previous session that I observed.)

 

AI and VET 1 AI and VET 2 AI and VET 3

My special input: the citizens’ course in Artificial Intelligence in Finland

As I mentioned above, we had a lively discussion after my presentation. Yet, it was not so much about the predecessor project or on the points with which I am currently working. The partners who have been working in the said projects (and attended the recent Athens meeting ), had already become familiar with these contents. To others, these were new impulses. However, I had also a special input that was immediately interesting and relevant for all participants.

On the same morning I had listened to the German radio channel Deutschlandfunk and its program “Europa heute”. At the end they had a special report from Finland – presenting a course on Artificial Intelligence that had been designed for a wide audience. (See the transcript of the report “Digital-Vorreiter Finnland: Künstliche Intelligenz fürs Volk.)

I then visited the website of the course “The Elements of AI“, designed by the University of Helsinki and the special agency Reaktor. And in the meeting we then had a closer look, what kind of civic knowledge the course delivers for wide audiences. These impressions triggered a lot of thoughts and comments. (Below some screenshots on different chapters of the course.)

Screen Shot 2019-11-02 at 14.36.05 Screen Shot 2019-11-02 at 14.36.39

I guess this is enough of my visit and of my guest input. I was happy to share some information on past/parallel projects and to provide an interesting example of a an ongoing online course that is reaching wide audiences in my home country. We will follow, how this course is being developed in the coming times.

More blogs to come …

 

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