Abstract:

In recent years the number of virtual learning environments and platforms for online teaching and learning has increased. Many of them are open source platforms (e. g. Moodle, OLAT, …), and can be downloaded free of charge. Still the maintenance of these platforms require financial as well as personal resources.

However, schools in Europe are very diverse concerning what technologies are available for teachers and students. Therefore, teachers are often forced to use different online teaching tools in their classrooms such as learningapps.com for interactive quizzes or Mindomo for Mindmaps. Up to now there is also a lack of free collaborative teaching and learning spaces that are especially suited for synchronous teaching and learning.

Against this background, the INTACT project has developed a free platform for collaborative online teaching and learning that enables students to collaborate with other students in real time.

This paper aims to present the main features of the INTACT platform as well as the approach for defining the functional requirements. Moreover, this paper will show that a limited budget does not necessarily have to mean a lack of innovation.

Keywords:

Collaboration, online teaching, on-line learning.