CASE STUDY

P.IN.O.K.I.O.

by Davide Calenda

This document is part of the overall European project LINKS-UP - Learning 2.0 for an Inclusive Knowledge Society – Understanding the Picture. Further case studies and project results can be downloaded from the project website http://www.linksup.eu.

Copyright

This work has been licensed under a Creative Commons License: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivshttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author(s), and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

The use of children’' literature for implementing intercultural projects is not so diffused in Europe. Besides, there is not an European network on pupils' literature, though sever-al countries are active in this field. A fairy tale or a fable can enhance the intercultural approach as an active and creative processes. The combination of more fairy tales and fables can enhance intercultural and learning dialogue. ICT's can be used to support a work on literature in creative way, which ultimate goal is that the literature of different countries, including that of migrant children, is compared, combined and (re)created ac-cording to cultural contexts, personal experiences and moral landscapes that are trans-forming quickly and need to be shaped in a more positive way.

Case profile – PINOKIO in a nutshell

P.IN.O.K.I.O.- Pupils for INnOvation as a Key to Intercultural and social inclusion

Website http://www.pinokioproject.eu

Status active/running (10/2009 – 09/2011)

Interviewed person Cinzia Laurelli - Fondazione Nazionale Carlo Collodi (Italy)

Funded and promoted by… Lifelong Learning Programme – Comenius Multilateral Project

Location of the Learning Activities Combination of formal setting (e.g. schools) and informal setting (e.g. home)

Target group(s) Pre-school and school children and teachers, migrant children and their parents.

Number of users5 schools with 10 classrooms in each country; in total 150 classrooms. The classrooms are selected according to socio-cultur-al criteria such as the presence of a large group of immigrants.

Educational Sector(s) Pre-school and primary school

Category of the Learning Activities Combination of formal, non-formal, informal

Web 2.0 technologies used... Podcasts, movies, ebooks, blogs, games

Methods to support inclusion Teachers are the main tutors; ebooks, podcasts, movies and blogs become spaces and objects that children and teachers can manip-ulate to lead to the creation and learning.

Short description and key characteristics

P.IN.O.K.I.O. aims at promoting intercultural dialogue against social exclusion, using fairy tale characters as a ‘way’ of communication for pre-school and school children, migrant children and their parents. In this regard the project is focussed on the development of some of the eight key-competences recommended by the EC as “those which all indi-viduals need for personal fulfilment and development, active citizenship, social inclusion and employment” (Rec.2006/962/EC).

The project ‘core activities’ are the production of online tools for teachers and children; teacher training; the testing of methods and tools with children, migrant-children and

2

their parents focusing on intercultural dialogue that addresses social exclusion; testing 'Creativity Labs' for the development of expertise in combating poverty and social exclu-sion.

Key characteristics

P.IN.O.K.I.O. (10/2009 – 09/2011; http://www.pinokioproject.eu) is co-funded by the Lifelong Learning Programme – Comenius Multilateral Project with approximately two hundred fifty thousands Euro and wants to promote intercultural dialogue and creativity against social exclusion.

Selected children’s stories characters and situations are used working with children to:

| support their motivation for learning and transmit cultural, civic and social values such as: equality and gender equality, civil rights and non discrimination, awareness and respect of diversity,

| promote children literature as a ‘tool’ for combating social exclusion through inter-cultural dialogue,

| create a sense of European citizenship,

| help promoting creativity, competitiveness and the growth of an entrepreneurial atti-tude,

| enhance the quality of European dimension of teacher training starting from the European countries involved.

The schools engaged cover four countries (Italy, Portugal, Switzerland – as silent part-ner- and United Kingdom) and the partnership covers also Greece and Belgium. The im-plementation of P.IN.O.K.I.O is supported by the partner CIRDFA for teacher training methodologies and e-learning support – The Interuniversity Centre for Education Re-search and Advance Training for the University of Ca’Foscari in Venice (IT).

Dimension of learning and inclusion

The constructivist learning approach used consists in allowing children and teachers ma-nipulating stories which aim is to create and learning. Podcast, ebooks, emovies, slide-share etc. as ways to Plan, produce and share stories. Blogs as Virtual Learning Environ-ment to collect class narratives. Become the activity that channels the energy and the process of learning and creation of children through utilizes the fable. There are learning outcomes represented by the key competencies; fables characters and situations are as-sociated to key competences. The main contents are the metaphors, images and charac-ters of fables.

The idea is to use the fable as a resource and the technology as a means to tell the story of involvement and sense making on a community that has diversity, fragmentation, hu-man drama that must be resolved through this activity. For example, where there is dif-ficulty dialogue for the presence of immigrants or bullying.

Innovative elements and key success factors

Technologies allow training children on skills and facilitating the processes of interpreta-tion, appropriation and creation. It is a bottom-up model; “we give only inputs and tools

3

to use the semantic resources of the fables. The teacher recast tool and resources for in-volving children in the process of creating meaning, which becomes unique and authen-tic” (Interview with a project partner).

Example:

§ KC5 Sindbad is a boy who was rich and lost all his money. He managed to sail all over the world, and learned many things about life and about himself. All his life is a series of learning.

§ KC6 Sindbab is sociable: he acts nicely with people of different cultures, ages and so-cial groups.

§ KC7 When Sindbad falls in poverty, he decides to travel on his own to make a life for himself; besides, even when he becomes rich again, he still wants to work and travel be-cause he enjoys adventures and learning.

§ KC8 Sindbad travels in many seas and countries, and learns about different customs (clothing, housing, eating…) and becomes aware of the cultural differences.

A learning community has been set up and an extensive effort is made to support the learning process especially through training activities and newsletters, while the devel-opment of the web site, which will also represent a learning channel, has been recently restyled.

Figure 1: Example of wall poster

“In the teacher sessions, academics/researchers intend to work collaboratively by re-sorting to stories form different authors and nationalities which represent quite differ-ent worlds/world views from the ones children are used to interact with. Different stor-ies allow children to express their own feelings and anxieties towards a world displaying divers aspects and situations as well as easily identifiable characters who allow children

4

to use their imagination and develop both a sense of safety and self assurance” (Pinokio Newsletters 3, June 2010; see Fig.2)

Figure 2: Ideational Text and Human Values (Pinokio Newsletters 3, June 2010)

The method used to support inclusion integrates Web 2.0 tools, which becomes in itself a tool for bringing people together. This is possible because they are simple to use. The blog is such a learning environment where the teacher can tell what happens in the classroom. For example, children make a drama about Pinokio, the teacher can now up-load pictures and tell what happened. The parent can immediately see what has happened, may be invited to participate by children or even they themselves can decide to do so. Then the environment allows the actors involved in the new history of being integrated: “We know there is a strong component of immigration, in all countries and we know that foreign children are carrying pictures of symbols and stories that may came in conflict with those of natives. Meeting each other through input comes from the fable and technologies as a tool to access the story, creates opportunities to create a new history, where the stories of children joining and are integrated. It is not only a pro-cess of dialogue, but it also created ‘the new’ that happens through a narrative of a story. The children use the resources for expressing their own reality”. The end goal is to create an educational and social impact. Children should achieve greater social inclusion with peers and this extends to other families.

Problems encountered and lessons learned

At this stage of the project we can not say much on problems. The only element we can quote has to do with a cultural aspect of the organizational dimension: as it has been re-ported by an interviewee, “integrating the web 2.0 logics into the organization of the project is still an hard job; if we want actually enhance co-creation activities we must overcome the struggle between the ‘new world’ and the ‘old world’, which is still there”.

5

Collaborating institutions in LINKS-UP

Institute for Innovation in Learning, Friedrich-Alex-ander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen, Germanywww.fim.uni-erlangen.de

Arcola Research LLP, London, United Kingdomwww.arcola-research.co.uk

eSociety Institute, The Hague University of Applied Sciences, The Hague, The Netherlandswww.esocietyinstituut.nl

Servizi Didattici e Scientifici per l’Università di Firen-ze, Prato, Italywww.pin.unifi.it

Salzburg Research Forschungsgesellschaft, Salzburg, Austriawww.salzburgresearch.at

European Distance and E-Learning Network (EDEN), Milton Keynes, United Kingdomwww.eden-online.org

6