September 28, 2009
Spain
Lack of education is one of the primary concerns in our society. Spain has one of the lowest levels of education above required studies among OECD countries. However, as shown on the OECD report "Education at a glance" released this month, Spain has made great progress in recent years, with 51% of Spain’s population between 24 and 64 years now having received secondary education. However, this figure is still far from the average of European Union Countries at 71%.
Addressing this problem over 12 years ago, "Severo Ochoa," (a state secondary school from Alcobendas) conducted a research project about how coordinated use of an Educational Agenda between parents, teachers and students could improve academic performance. The favorable results encouraged a team of experts to develop an annual school agenda for all of the city’s secondary schools, working as the central component of the Tutorial Action Plan.
Fostering the introduction of technology to the educational environment
To continue with this initiative and with the objective of maximizing its advantages and outreach, last year Exlibris Ediciones along with the team of experts that created the paper Educational Agenda decided to build a virtual platform. They found that the most effective development technology available for their needs belonged to EBD, a pioneering proprietary-software provider for web applications development. Together they designed The Stergo Cooperative Virtual Platform as a compliment to the Educational Agenda.
Stergo is a multi-language platform that supports all of Spain’s official languages and most foreign languages -utilizing the most cutting edge collaborative options available and allowing cooperation between students, teachers and parents. It is an instructional resource kept on hand at educational centers, updated yearly, with contributions from secondary schools that have incorporated its use and can be operated independently to suit the unique needs of the individual school.
"This new tool enables learning, planning, improves performance, and improves academic performance. It does this by providing unique advantages to students, teaching staff, and parents," points out Eduardo de Porras, Exlibris Ediciones General Manager.
Learning how to learn, digital competition and personal autonomy
Stergo allows students to individually manage their time, plan personal work, and obtain an evaluation of the study methods that have been used and the resulting outcomes. In terms of academic staff, it enables them to provide work to the students, assign tasks, help with work planning, and creates new communication channels. In addition, it provides parents with a visualization of school and family tasks, information on relevant subjects, and tools for preparation that is required of students, as well as active communication with the academic staff.
Given the aforementioned benefits, initiatives are underway in order to make Stergo more accessible for a higher number of students. In other words, for each center incorporating Stergo, 2% of the Educational Agendas will be delivered free of charge so they can be assigned to families with low incomes. Also, 1% of the sales proceeds are assigned to finance an educational project in a developing country, chosen by the platform users.
"We believe it is important to collaborate on these kind of initiatives that provide real advantages to society, contributing to the enrichment of the educational community by means of new technology applied to different fields", assures Raul Martín, EBD Chairman and Founder. "We are willing to keep collaborating on these kind of projects, thus providing our tool to companies and institutions that promote cultural and social development", adds Martín.
EBD
T: +34 932 667 471
info@ebdsoft.com
