UP2U, BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN SCHOOLS AND UNIVERSITIES THROUGH INFORMAL EDUCATION: THE FIRST MINIMUM VIABLE PRODUCT/ FEEDBACK AND EVALUATION FROM THE USERS DURING THE FIRST PILOT TRAINING

Up2U is a European project focusing on a specific learning context based on an ecosystem that facilitates more open, effective and efficient co-design, co-creation and use of digital content, tools and services specially adapted for personalized, collaborative or experimental learning for students preparing for university. The main objective of the Up2U project is to close a gap between secondary and higher education.

We are focusing on the context of secondary education and the schools that support it, often defined as "secondary schools", that involves students between the ages of 11 and 19, depending on the country, after primary education and before Higher education.
However we intent to focus the students group three years before enter on University

Inspired by organic educational initiatives, such as Google for Education, Khan Academy and the like, Up2U creates a flipped virtual ecosystem, called “Next Generation Learning Distance Ecosystem”, where students can learn at their own pace supported by social interactions, federated access and are able to exchange documents and other project-related multimedia content in a trusted and privacy-protected environment.

The project is already in implementation for a year now, and a wide set of tools have been put in place, addressing project-based learning and end-to-end learning scenarios. Those tools include a learning management system, federated access functionality, file sync’n’share solution, data storage, access to open educational resources, teleconference solutions, interactive notebooks, repository creation and content creation applications and learning analytics, all of them linked via open standards and interoperability tools.

The design follows the “Minimum Viable Product” and the “pedagogy before technology” principals. This means that every design step is co-decided with the pedagogy experts of the consortium, and that every time a minimum viable product is accomplished, it is delivered and tested among the targeted community, teachers and learners from pilot schools in 8 countries.

In February 2018, the 1st MVP was released, delivered and tested to the 1st pilot country, Greece. 70 teachers from 8 Greek pilot schools were trained, during eight 3-hour face to face courses, to the use of the NGDLE. They created their own content and courses on the platform, gave their feedback and evaluation and are ready to use it for creating an environment for for creative student projects across Greece.

In this paper we will explain the functionality of the NGDLE and present the feedback and evaluation from the first user experience.