THE USE OF AN INNOVATION CLASSROOM

A Perspective in the Introduction of ICT in Elementary Schools

Miguel Ángel Rodríguez, José Del Carmen Barrios and Ernesto Sánchez Schultz

Conéctate al Conocimiento Project, Clayton, Panama

Keywords: Collaboration, Knowledge, Aula de Innovación, Innovation, Classroom, Concept Maps, CmapTools,

Panamá.

Abstract: In Panama, ICT's (Information and Communication Technologies) are implemented in elementary schools

through the Conéctate al Conocimiento project (Tarté, 2006). This project has reached up to more than 700

schools across the country, providing them with the tools to create a national knowledge network. All this

effort is towards the promotion on knowledge construction and collaboration in such construction. The

aforementioned requires constant practice and feedback if what one pretends to achieve is that the individual

can express through the tool without being limited by it, that the tool becomes a springboard to build,

express and share his/her knowledge. This paper will show an approach to the introduction of ICT's in

schools through a new model called Aula de Innovación (Innovation Classroom). We also show examples

that support the validity of the model, it is not a recipe book that can be applied in any context, but a

concrete experience that allows us to guide and point out some key issues in school activities regarding the

use of ICT's. The objective of this paper is to share an approach in the use ICT as a tool to collaborate in the

building, sharing and publishing knowledge.

1 INTRODUCTION

The introduction of ICT in education, to be more

precise, in educational tasks, has always been a topic

for debate. Nowadays, no one rejects the importance

that the presence of ITC’s has in the integral

education of our students, regardless of the

educational level; however, the topic takes relevance

when we think in which is the best manner to carry

out such a task. The traditional instructional models

are starting to yield terrain to learning environments

that are better self-regulated, in which the spatial and

temporal symmetries are starting to be modified by

the people and the educational institutions are

becoming organizations that learn in community.

This last item is not a generality, much less in Latin

America, where much of the educational models

lack on ICT integration, sometimes for budgetary

deficiencies and in other cases because of

pedagogical model driven and centered solely on

ICT’s.

Conéctate al Conocimiento project is introducing

progressively ICT’s in elementary schools in the

Republic of Panama, this is done in an environment

which allows the students and teachers to construct,

publish and share knowledge, which is Conéctate al

Conocimiento main objective, in order to have a

future society with individuals that had the

opportunity and developed the abilities that allow

them to be competitive. It is then, when we see

technology performing a role of mean and support

for a network of people (students, teachers,

community in general), so the ICT’s potentiate the

capacity to perform meaningful educational

transformations. The bet for the incorporation of

ICT’s has been the model of the Aula de Innovación

(AI, its English literal translation is Innovation

Classroom) which is the place where all the

computational equipment is placed. The physical

design of the as well as the functional design were

conceived to avoid “techno centrism” and made the

AI a place for the construction of knowledge,

leaving aside the traditional “computer lab” where

the students go to learn about software and

computers and where the machine has a leading role.

The pedagogical model behind the AI implies the

use of computers with the final goal of learning

sciences, mathematics, language, etc. and to allow

the student to develop the higher thinking abilities

during the learning process. In order for the

173

Rodr

ıguez M., Barrios J. and S

anchez Schultz E. (2009).

THE USE OF AN INNOVATION CLASSROOM - A Perspective in the Introduction of ICT in Elementary Schools.

In Proceedings of the First International Conference on Computer Supported Education, pages 172-179

 SciTePress

aforementioned isn’t just already spoken and heard

poetry, Conéctate al Conocimiento is trying to

abruptly land all the epistemological ideas about

ICT’s and education, in a model that possesses four

important components: a) Equipment, b) Permanent

training, support and follow-up c) Empowering the

schools by giving them an active role in the process

and d) Creating support networks among the peers to

make it a self-sustainable process.

Encompassing all of the above, the AI becomes a

space that affords that processes such as

collaboration, knowledge construction and

meaningful learning can take place. This article

describes what is an AI? Which pedagogical model

it implements? The role of the AI coordinator (CAI)

and which are Conéctate al Conocimiento

projections to include other models according to the

necessity and always looking for educational equity.

2 WHAT IS AN INNOVATION

CLASSROOM?

An Innovation Classroom AI is physical space

designed specifically for knowledge building and

meaningful learning. This space is equipped with

technological tools that promote communication and

knowledge sharing and publishing among the

schools. The main objective for an Innovation

Classroom is to serve as a platform to a great

national school network promoted by the Conéctate

al Conocimiento Project (Tarté, 2006). This network

is propeled by students, teachers, parents and the

community in general.

The whole concept of an Innovation Classroom

is oriented towards promoting the use of technology

as an excellent tool to obtain better results in the

learning process. But the role that technology plays

is secondary because it is just a tool and not the final

goal, which sets us apart from the common techno-

centered approach. Conéctate al Conocimiento

Project is formed with the goal of developing a

Panamanian society which is able to take advantage,

with equity, of connectivity, and at the same times

enhances innovation

The AI concept is being implemented in

government elementary schools across all the

country. There are around eight hundred AI's built

and equiped which are distributed in all the country's

provinces and reservations. Each AI is equiqued by

the project with computers, printers, digital cameras,

projectors, scanners, a server with a public IP and

Internet access. Through the IC the community gain

access to the Internet, the schools can network and

access services such as e-mail, a meeting space

called "Punto de Encuentro" (meeting point),

discussion thread, chat service, content publishing

and distance learning system. The project provides

every service needed in the AI, such as equipment,

structural fittingouts, furniture, services and support.

3 WHAT DOES AN AI HAVE?

The AI includes tables, chairs and computer

equipment. The computer equipment will be

organized accordingly to the description in the

Diagram No. 1 (See figure 1).

The equipment is assigned to the AI in

accordance to the number of students of the

classroom with the most population, divided into

two which will yield the number of computers, the

computers are assigned one for every two students in

order to promote sharing and collaboration, and

teamwork. To these computers it is added a printer, a

scanner, a server, a digital camera and a projection

screen. Besides all this, the AI has Internet access.

The server is prepared in the project with the

corresponding information for the school; the

technician in charge of the installation should verify

its configuration.

The computers in the AI are connected to a

Local Area Network with Internet access, the LAN

could be via structured wire lying or wireless access.

The AI counts with one computer which is assigned

to the CAI teacher.

The computers that the students, the teachers and

the CAI use were originally programmed with a

group of software that will allow them to carry out

their learning activities. These computers come with

the following configuration: Windows XP

Profesional Operating System, Microsoft Office,

CmapTools (A knowledge modeling kit to build

concept maps), Scanner management software,

Printer management software.

Recently, the program Spark has been added in

the newer installations and maintenance roll-outs

due to the necessity of intercommunication and

collaboration.

The server that contains the students work: Linux

Operating System, CmapServer Program (software

for the concept map application), Printer

Management Software.

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174

Printe

Rack

&Server

Students’ computers

Work tables

Figure 1: Diagram of the AI.

4 WHAT'S NEW IN THE AI

MODEL?

The AI was thought of as a different conception

from the traditional computer lab. The differences

between these two approaches include physical and

spatial distribution, its purpose and the manner in

which the users interact within.

4.1 How is a Traditional Computer

Lab?

Figure 2(top) shows a spatial distribution for a

typical “computer lab” of and educational institution

in Panamá. This model presents some limitations

such as that the teachers can move in the lines to

help students, but, once they are in a row, they are

no able to observe the following rows and quickly

grasp what the students are doing in order to offer

help. The teacher’s role consists of “explaining”

how the applications and equipment operate so the

students start learning about the machine itself and

not about the topics covered in the educational

curriculum or develop abilities with the help of the

computers.

Computers are spatially distributed in exactly the

same manner of rows and columns that the chairs in

a traditional classroom (Figure 2 bottom). The

interaction among the individuals is limited by the

presence of the computers that block any exchange

of ideas or opinions among the students that are not

physically close.

Figure 2: Comparison between a computer lab (Top) and

Innovation Classroom (Bottom).

CAIs’

Station

Screen

Cabine

Projector

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4.2 What is the Approach of ICT in the

AI?

Accordingly to the constructivist model of Conéctate

al Conocimiento (Tarte, 2006), it is necessary to

have a twist in the approach of the use of technology

in education. Traditionally the incursion of

computers into schools, by itself, does not solve the

educational problem, because introducing

technologies without a pedagogical model behind

will make us stay in the first wave (Scardamalia &

Bereiter, 1994). In this wave the introduction of the

tool becomes the objective itself. To move on to the

second wave, technology has an objective, which is

the use of technology regardless of the pedagogical

objective, as Papert said it is a techno-centered

model (Papert, 1993).

For instance, offimatics courses and seminars

where the teacher learns how to use different tools

(word processor, spreadsheets, etc.) without taking

into consideration its pedagogical applications

within the classroom, in other words, how does the

teacher use it to promote learning among the

students? In the third wave, technology becomes an

affordance, it is used as means to achieve a goal, in

the educational case, the goal is the developing of

skills that allows the people to learn how to learn

(Novak and Gowin, 1984). Conéctate al

Conocimiento aims to surf the third wave, this aim is

materialized through different complementary ways,

such as: Teachers' training, Support and Follow-up

visits to the schools, and the supply of all the

necessary technological tools needed for such a task.

The teachers' training is based in theoretical

fundaments from the Meaningful Learning Theory

of Ausubel and the Constructivism Approach from

Vigotsky theory, using tools like concept maps

(Novak, 1984) powered by CmapTools (Cañas et al.,

2006) as a tool for sharing and collaboration. All the

tools are the means for the students could develop

different collaborative projects, that are a learning

strategy that integrates the approaches of

collaborative learning and projects based learning, in

which the students develop the necessary skills to

learn how to learn.

4.3 Who is a CAI?

A CAI (Spanish acronym for Innovation Classroom

Coordinator) is a teacher in charge of the physical

space of the AI. The CAI has different roles, among

them pedagogical and technological advise. The CAI

does not substitute the grade teacher during the time

in the AI, because the CAI works co-ordinately with

the grade teacher, in this model the grade teacher

provides the topics to be addressed within the AI and

the CAI provides the technical know-how to better

take advantage of the tools offered by the AI in

order to promote meaningful learning. The CAI also

complements the teachers’ role as a coach for the

students. The ideal CAI should fulfil a profile

defined by the following aspects:

• CAI takes part in the design and implementation

of Collaborative Projects within his/her school and

with other schools, nationally and internationally.

• Promotes the use of all the technologies provided

by the AI and search for additional technologies to

make them available to teachers and students.

• Plans and takes part in the activities of the AI

jointly with the grade teacher. Empowers the

teacher to the point where he/she can perform with

confidence in the AI without needing the CAI's

support.

• The CAI's effort towards training and formation

for his/her peers are extended beyond the teachers

of his/her own schools (for instance: educational

community, other schools, institutions, etc.)

• The CAI implements a flexible system for the use

of the AI which allows for its the optimal usage

(for instance: through reservations made via e-

mail, electronic agenda or other means). The use

of the AI is extended beyond the normal school

schedule, to include users that do not belong to the

school itself.

• The CAI makes records regularly and draw

conclusions from them. Besides, he/she shares the

conclusion with the school teachers (for instance:

the CAI organizes disclosure meetings that help in

the training of the school teachers).

5 PROMOTING THE CREATION

OF A COLLABORATION

NETWORK

As we have already mentioned, each school that

joins Conéctate al Conocimiento Project has its own

server, where the CmapServer (Cañas et al., 2004)

software is installed, this is the complementary

software of the CmapTools client software and it

allows the school to have a place in the Directory of

Places (list of concept map servers and Internet

resources) (Cañas et al., 2004) de CmapServer.

Currently when the CmapTools client software is

started and the user goes to “Shared Cmap in

Places”, selecting “All Places” it can be observed the

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large quantity of places that starts the name

“Conéctate Escuela… (Panamá)” (figure 4), which

are all the places that belongs to Panamanian

elementary schools where the students and teachers

are saving their contents (concept maps, images,

presentations, videos, etc.) with the huge possibility

of sharing them with others (Figure 3). Besides all

these, every resource that is stored in a CmapServer

can be accessed through any Internet browser and

Google indexes all the contents in the school server

thus one simple search in Google of any topic from

common to the elementary school curriculum (for

instance: Hidroelectricas de Panamá [Hidroelectrics

fo Panama]) could yield results that point to concept

maps or resources from students in Panamanian

elementary schools.

Currently, the IHMC team is implementing and

improving an Internet concept map search engine:

http://www.cmappers.net which makes it easier to

look for concept maps related to a specific topic and

also offers the opportunity to share them.

Figure 3: View of the CmapTools software that shows a

little part of all the places (servers) that belong to

elementary Panamanian schools.

6 SOME SUCCESSFUL CASES

6.1 School Network Creation (Case de

Bocas del Toro Province)

Students and teachers from the Bocas del Toro

province are part of a mutual support network that is

growing up as we speak. Blogs, Knowledge Models

(Cañas et al., 2003) digital magazines are some of

the contents resulting form the interaction of the

network members. Project facilitators initially

promoted and favored the birth of the network,

however, step by step, the network took on a life of

its own having students and teacher thinking and

finding new manners to collaborate. Thus the

network became an item to be described rather than

be driven. Here are some of the spaces that teachers

have created to collaborate and publish

(http://reddecolaboracionbt.blogspot.com/, this is a

blog that contains the links to the others schools’

blogs of the network).

6.2 Collaborate to Learn

The Republica de Nicaragua school, located in

Colón Island, Bocas del Toro province, have carried

out several collaborative activities with other

educational centers in the country through the use of

the tools in the AI. This has allowed the students to

live experiences through collaborative projects.

Among these projects there is “La Estadistica”

(Statistics) (2007) where teachers and children from

the Finca 41 school in Changuinola. Most recently,

they participated in the “Solo Buenas Noticias” (Just

Good News) (2008) with students from the El Perú

elementary school in the Coclé province. Besides,

the school is part of the “Bocas del Toro School

Collaboration Network.” Additionally, this school

participates a research, jointly with other

Panamanian school that takes part in Conéctate al

Conocimiento project. The idea is to compare the

learning that takes place when students collaborate

versus those where there was no collaboration, using

concept maps to watch and record the changes in the

students’ learning. Being collaboration one of the

main strategies of Conéctate al Conocimiento, it is

important that teachers and students learn to

collaborate in order to take advantage of the variety

of topics, contents and information that can be built

and share through collaboration.

Figure 4: Sixth grade students from the República de

Nicaragua school using MSOffice to create graphics in the

statistics project.

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177

Figure 5: A screenshot of the El Peru server where all the

resources made by the students are located

(http://elperu.conectate.gob.pa).

6.3 The Students are the Protagonists

Students from the El Perú elementary school in the

Coclé Province, Panamá, have developed a series of

experiences through the Collaborative Projects. One

of these experiences is titled “Solo Buenas Noticias”

(Just Good News). This project was designed and

implemented by teachers and students, with the

support from Conéctate al Conocimiento facilitators.

The students learned to teamwork, how to take

advantage of the Internet as a space not just to look

for more information regarding the topic of interests

but also as a place where they can make public their

knowledge about the social topic of interest in their

“Map of the Month” using CmapTools. They have

created videos where the students wrote the scripts

(using word processing tools) as well as editing

them using video editing software. The videos

allowed the students to present their opinions and to

contribute to the publications of topics related to the

community where the school is located. The teacher

Yessenia Fuentes, the school CAI, assures that the

students have become more independent, the make

better judgments when exchanging opinions about

the topics they are addressing, the on-line interaction

with students that are not physically close-by using

communication tools (such as Skype or Windows

Messenger) has had a positive impact, because the

students worry about such things as their

orthography, diction and idea coherence,

additionally it helps the introvert students to be more

communicative and open. All the students’

productions are available in the school server via

CmapTools or via web browser at

http://elperu.conectate.gob.pa.

6.4 Jaqué “A Conected Community”

Technology Access in Remote

Areas

Jaqué is a remote community in the South Pacific of

Panamá, bordering with the republic of Colombia, it

has an approximate population of 2,600 which 1,200

of them are Colombian displaced people, the rest are

national Panamanians from several different ethnic

groups such as Emberas, Wounaan and African

American. Because of the remote location of this

community, it lacks efficient communication means,

just to public telephone that rely on satellite antenna

(most of the time they are out of order and when

they are in working conditions the settlers has to

stand in long lines waiting to use them); one local

radio station which belong to the church and the

telegraph are the only means the inhabitants count

with to communicate with family in the rest of the

Panamanian republic, there are no signal from

television channels, radio stations and of course

there’s no Internet access. National or international

news arrive weeks later in form of newspaper

clippings stapled to a bulletin board next to public

telephone (Figure 6).

Figure 6: (Top)Bulletin board where the member of the

community received the news. (Bottom)Teachers, students

and members of the community taking advantage of the

AI resources.

Wishing to fulfill with the goal of equity and

quality in Education, Conéctate al Conocimiento, is

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178

reaching out to many remote and “disconnected ”

communities such as Jaqué, transforming the life of

its inhabitants. The Marcos Medina Ambulo

elementary school in Jaqué was furbished with an

AI, the Conéctate al Conocimiento facilitators lived

and shared with the community for three consecutive

week, with the community and help the inhabitants

including teachers, students, and representatives

from several community sectors to use e-mail to

communicate with their family in other parts of the

country. This has improved the communication

opportunities through the use of Internet as a mean

to be informed and communicated. The teachers

learned to successfully use concept map in their

classes with and without the use of CmapTools.

Using concept maps, teachers and community

members are carrying out knowledge capture some

of the processes of the activities that native group

within the community carry out. For instance the

Red de Mujeres de Jaqué (Jaqué’s Women Network)

a group of women that manufacture papers using

manual processes and organic elements.

6.5 Use of the Forums during the

Encuentro de Niños Innovadores

(Innovating Children Summit)

The Encuentro de Niños Innovadores (ENI) was a

great event, organized by children for children

organized conceived to provide the students, it was

conceived as an opportunity for the students to share

their learning. The schools that organized the event

were 22, and they presented 11 different projects,

that is two schools worked collaboratively in one

project. Comparing these numbers to the large scale

in which Conéctate al Conocimiento operates they

are not a significant sample of the students covered

by the project. Because of the above, an on-line

version of ENI was organized by Conéctate al

Conocimiento, called “ENI Virtual”. The objective

of this version was to allow the children that could

not be present physically, to access the event on-line

in schools that have an AI with Internet access. The

web site that was created for such task

(eni.conectate.edu.pa) consisted of a Web page that

described the event, a live broadcast room for each

project and the Forums room. A forum room was

enable for each one of the topics presented during

the event, both had the same name for a easy

recognition. The users could access any of the forum

rooms and write their comments, there was no limit

to the number of comments a user could make, or

the times he/she could access a given room. Every

school received a generic user to grant the students

access. The students’ comments are being processed

and analyzed to grasp in which manner they

interacted in these forums.

7 CONCLUSION AND THE NEXT

STEPS

The implementation of ICT in Panamanian

elementary schools through the use of the AI is

being carried out in a fashion that has no precedent

in the country. The approach that is maintained is

one of taking advantage of the ICT’s to build, share

and publish knowledge, integrating knowledge tools

such as concept maps and technological tools such

as CmapTools. It can be appreciated the growth of a

network of schools that increasingly need support

and follow-up, at this point where connectivity in the

AI takes an additional relevance because of projects

that are taking shape and could be considered as our

next steps:

The creation of a distance-learning platform that

would allow the training of teachers, students and

community members in a national scale, with an

autodidact character, using a non-lineal structure and

free access to the constructivism-based resources.

At this moment, Conéctate al Conocimiento is

developing the website Punto de Encuentro is

conceived as an on-line space in which an member

of the Conéctate’s community can share and create

new Experiences and participates in collaborative

projects. It is understood as an experience

everything that is within the context of CaC

(learning experiences, educational activities,

educational events, news…). Sharing these

experiences implies that the user can report his/her

experiences and know other users’ experiences; this

is to interact with other users (There is an integration

of tools to communicate the users each other like

chat, e-mail.)

The user should meet, literally, with other users

in the moment that he/she accesses the PE. That is

why the initial interface is fundamentally a global

panoramic that allows to see who is connected at

that moment. The manner in which the users can be

seen is through a geopolitical distribution of the

educational regions. Using a map of the regions, it

could be seen, in real time who is connected and

where he/she is. The idea of this background is to

create the visual sensation of a human network.

The experiences are reported using resources.

The resources can be text, concept maps, videos,

images, url addresses, file attachment, and others.

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179

The experiences as well as the resources should

allow annotations (comments) from other users, in a

manner that “discussions” are generated around the

experiences (in resemblance to forums.) besides

establishing a experience and resource ranking

(What do you think about my experience? To be

graded with stars, from 1 to 4 stars. An experience

can be an isolated event, or it could be part of some

project activity or a course that is being taken by the

user.

This platform intends to become the online

extension of Conéctate al Conocimiento, creating

innovation by becoming the first platform for the

integration and communication among different

schools, teachers and students (lately), overcoming

geographical, cultural and social barriers and

allowing them to share in a common space where

they can exchange experiences, contributions and

knowledge.

The massive installation and use of the Nicho

environment. Nicho is a software environment that

provides teachers and students in a school, or group

of schools, with their own unique user id, an email

address, chat, and a personal space for storing

documents; this same environment configures

CmapTools and a CmapServer for storage of

knowledge models. In Nicho, students and teachers

are able to access their “space” and their

communication tools from any computer in the

school, and from outside the school, e.g. at home or

an Internet café. Nicho was designed for Conéctate

al Conocimiento, and is being deployed and used to

provide a collaborative environment to public

schools throughout the whole country.” (Lott et al,

2008).

The implementation of a model 2 in the school

(taking the AI as model 1), it is based on portable

computers (laptops) instead of desktops computers.

This model has already been put to practice in

several schools (especially in schools that are hard to

reach), however, it is still in the development stage.

It will be implemented in a larger scale across the

country later.

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