Virtual School and College Education for Teenagers and Young Adults (VISCED)

Start date: 1 January 2011
End date: 31 January 2012
Funder: ED Education and Culture DG - Lifelong Learning Programme
Primary investigator: 00930180

VISCED Project Summary

VISCED aims to make an inventory and to carry out a systematic review at international and national levels of innovative ICT-enhanced learning/teaching "Exemplar" initiatives and "e-mature" major secondary and post-secondary education providers for the 14-21 age group (including Virtual Schools and Colleges). This inventory will supply adequate comparative data, statistics and analyses to underpin policy recommendations, critical/key success factors and teacher trainer recommendations - for policy-makers, advisors, government, education authorities and the e-learning industry in the EU. The review will be valorised by pilots at five schools in three countries.

The key aspects of innovation that the project is looking for in schools and colleges are "innovation in scale" and "innovation in sustainability" - that is, large-scale routinised solutions aligned with pedagogy and institutional/national goals, from socio-economic contexts with some relevance to EU realities. Success will be reached by adapting, piloting and transferring innovative approaches which already exist in other countries outside the EU (or in the EU) but not widely known, e.g. for linguistic reasons.

Good practice examples of fully virtual schools and virtual colleges will be studied as well as all major ICT-based "notschool" initiatives.

There is a learner focus on those not in, or in danger of not being in, employment, education or training (NEET) but there is not an exclusive focus on NEET - other types of inclusion issues will be analysed including facilitation (e.g. by university courses delivered online to schools) of more students from lower socio-economic groups to go into higher education.

The project will take a global viewpoint in line with the latest thinking of analysts that there are models in a wide range of countries that are relevant to Europe, in both public and private providers. We shall ensure that conclusions are relevant to all EU countries, largest to smallest.