Minerva: 27 projects to get the best out of the new educational technologies

Citation

(2006), "Minerva: 27 projects to get the best out of the new educational technologies", Education + Training, Vol. 48 No. 2/3. https://doi.org/10.1108/et.2006.00448bab.011

Minerva: 27 projects to get the best out of the new educational technologies

The European Commission has earmarked €6 million to support 27 new European co-operation projects under the EU Minerva scheme, which aims to promote European co-operation in the use of information and communication technologies in education. Named after the Roman goddess of wisdom, Minerva is part of the EU’s Socrates education programme. The projects will run between two and three years and will help to ensure that new teaching technologies are exploited more effectively in a wide range of subjects, including languages, business studies and mathematics.

The 27 projects, involving 28 countries, have been selected from among more than 250 applications from all over Europe. Each project typically involves between five and eight partners from at least three European countries, and will receive an average grant of around €225,000. Altogether, the Commission will devote more than €6,000,000 to funding these projects. The project partners come from all kinds of educational institutions, although universities account for the majority. Many of the projects involve co-operation between different types of institutions – for instance, a Spanish university might work with a Polish school, a French non-governmental organisation and a Greek medium-size firm.

The themes covered by the new projects are also varied. Using information communication technology (ICT) to teach foreign languages and scientific and technological subjects has been especially popular, respectively accounting for six and five of the selected projects, but there are also projects aiming at using ICT to teach arts, business studies and law. Among the new technologies that will be deployed in the new projects are online video and mobile technologies. Also featuring prominently are projects that use blended learning, where there is a mixture of online, traditional and game-based learning.