DANT (Didactics Assisted by New Technologies)

• Italy

The Dant project is developed by IPRASE (Provincial Institute for Educational Research, Training and Experimentation), in the Trentino region of Italy.

DANT is an operative programme of the Autonomous Province of Trento (objective 3 for the period 2000-2006), and is also partially financed by the European Social Funds and private partners.

DANT is concerned with the professionalisation of teachers and other providers of the education system, in relation with the use of new information and communication technologies as supports to didactics and learning processes. In the first phase, “Learning by playing”, one component of the DANT project, involved schools (primary and lower secondary) only in the province of Trento (more than 600 teachers and their classes). Since the school year 2003-4, DANT has involved teachers and thousand of pupils from all regions of Italy (except Valle d’Aosta). In 4 years, more than 1000 teachers joined the experimentation project involving altogether over 10,000 pupils.The starting point of this experimental curricular project lies in several self-evaluation activities which, in the past, identified a significant group of pupils (around 20% in the Trentino region) with gaps in learning in basic mathematics and (Italian) language at the end of compulsory education. Pedagogical reflections on this fact followed and a question that arose became the first hypothesis: does ICT offer something more than traditional instruments, such as books, that is more relevant to pupils reaching low attainment levels with traditional didactics? IPRASE reflected on the pedagogical and didactic aspects of these activities, in order to understand how to manage them in the daily teaching/learning process.

Testing the impact of using games in the teaching process on pupils’ attainment has been the core of the project, together with developing a community of thinking and research between teachers to exchange experience, good practices and materials. Various educational games have been designed on an ad hoc basis, tested in concrete situations by teachers, improved accordingly and then disseminated to be used on a larger scale. All the materials developed under the framework of the project, including the didactic software, have been planned and realised by a research group, made up of IPRASE coordinators, teachers, technicians and experts in ICT education.

With a view to identifying under what conditions and circumstances ICT use is able to improve the learning and motivation of pupils, the stated objectives of the project were:

• To invest in developing activities, material and proposals targeting primary education as a priority
• To concentrate mainly on key skills and fundamental knowledge at the core of the curriculum, i.e. in mathematics (logic, written and quick mental arithmetic, trigonometry and problem solving) and Italian (spelling, syllable differentiation, etc.)
• To propose innovative materials supporting sensory-motor learning through the use of games and simulations instead of a symbolic-constructive approach through books and lessons.

The DANT project covered compulsory state education only and targeted primary and lower secondary teachers who especially taught Italian, Maths, Geography and Science and who did not necessarily play a leading role in ICT in their schools. They had teaching competences in one discipline (especially secondary teachers) or more (especially primary teachers).

• Technical
• Pedagogical

The project included developing a large collection of educational software, under the title of ''Imparo giocando'' (I learn by playing). Various game genres were provided in this collection, from arcade-style to simulations created by the research team. Each game has been designed to focus on a very specific and precise topic (the four operations in maths, trigonometric tables, etc.). A CD-ROM provided software for pupils aged 6-14 (primary and secondary school), for subject learning. 101 Italian, Maths, Geography, Music and Science activities have been made available. On the IPRASE website some on-line science simulations were also available. All the software was free for educational purposes, based on a computer platform and written in Flash or HTML programming language. In this way:

• any user can install and use them very easily;
• the games can run on all computer platforms;
• the games can be adapted (different levels, languages, content) to pupils’ needs;
• the games are available at all times and easy to download from

The .iso file of the CDROM is available for free download and burning. A significant number of games run directly on the website, so everybody has a chance to try out the software before downloading it. All the materials (CDROMs etc.) have been prepared and diffused by IPRASE in synergy with private partners, who provided support and financing. No central education authority support was needed or given, since school autonomy makes experiments like this possible in Italy.

The work of the research group has taken into account the outcomes of the constant monitoring of the experimentation by the teachers who tested the material in real contexts. One consequence is that the software has been amended several times in response to the comments and suggestions collected from the community of teachers involved in the experimentation. The project and its outputs have been awarded a certificate of quality by INDIRE-ANSAS (the Italian national agency for the development of scholastic autonomy).

See game details above and the project URL above.

• Imparo giocando: videogiochi e apprendimento, Rapporto di ricerca sul quadriennio di sperimentazione, Studi e ricerche, 40, (IPRASE, 2007) [Only in Italian]

• Imparo giocando, Edizione 2006 con quindici nuovi giochi, Strumenti didattici, 18, (IPRASE, 2006) [Only in Italian]

• Demos (not available for all the videogames): http://www.iprase.tn.it

• Online simulations (Science): http://www.iprase.tn.it

• Online labs (Science: Physics, etc.): http://www.iprase.tn.it