1. Rapid Fire: Prototype
Tactiléo : An example of innovation in E-
education
Maxime Legrand – 26/04/2012

2. Project Education
A European consulting firm dedicated to the development and promotion of
strong links between Education, Research and the business world
Project Education has advised and helped more than 50 projects across all fields of
Education and innovation, from natural sciences to social sciences and humanities
Project Education has considerable experience in advising higher education
institutions, government institutions, research teams and small and medium
enterprises reach their goals of academic excellence and innovation. Project
Education has also advised consortiums and clusters on the deployment and
implementation of their projects, both in Europe and globally.
Our consultants are often called upon to work on promotion strategies for projects,
but often the project leaders realise they also need assistance with developing a
commun strategy for all partners and encouraging teamwork. This is the key to
success in all projects.
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3. The promotion and dissemination mechanism for
innovative projects
Public / private collaborations
Academic
Private partner
actors
Other
companies
Technological sourcing
Development outside Development outside
core business Licenses core business
Spin-off
&
patents
New product inside the
core business
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4. What is a prototype ?
 The Oxford dictionary defines a prototype as: “the first example of
something, such as a machine or other industrial product, from which all
later forms are developed”
 The prototype creation and imagination phase is the key moment when
both technical conditions and commercial constraints meet
 The analysis of market needs and potential uses is crucial at this early
stage in a project
 The prototype needs to respond to market needs: a perfect example of
this is the iPhone, which was initially a Humanities and Social sciences
based prototype, responding to society’s needs, before becoming a
technological prototype!
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5. Important things to remember when developing a
prototype with other partners!
 “Almost everyone is able to imagine and create a prototype, but very few
people are able to think beyond their own fantasies in order to take
society’s needs into account”
 What is essential when imagining and creating a prototype in a group is
that each partner identifies what they can bring to the project as an
individual and then jumps into the collective movement in order to think
only about the project as a whole!
 “The true strength of each human being is in his ability to overcome his
own individual condition” Albert Camus
This is exactly what you need to do when imagining a prototype!!
Move past your own condition and think about the project’s strategy
as a whole. That’s where the prototype’s success lies!
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6. The birth of Tactileo : From one project to another
The beginning of the project
Digital Benchtop Applied to natural sciences
+ & physics…
Touchpad
…Then on to use in new
Create a complete touch subjects
environment (Litterature, English…)
The end of the project
« The class of the future »
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7. Partners with very diverse interests
Leader of the consortium.
Sell their virtual Its main goal was to find
contents new partners
Undetermined
interests
Finance the institute
Supply the and find new
consortium experimentations for
with contents their researchers
Sell devices
Finance the institut and Only a few of the The partner left
improve their research. A team wanted to the consortium
partner really involved participate in the
project
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8. A negotiation at all times,
until the very end of the project
 24 hours before the call for tenders
deadline, we noticed an
administrative rule : up to 30% of the
grant could be allocated to R&D.
 So it was necessary to start a 2nd
round of negotiations with several
partners to reduce their grant
application
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9. A new and innovative classroom:
For dynamic and collaborative learning opportunities
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10. Tactiléo's digital tables :
Wortking both with the virtual and the tangible
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11. How to rally project partners and encourage
innovative teamwork and thinking?
The aims of workshops:
Using creative and innovative atmospheres and locations to encourage team-work and new ideas
Alternating plenary sessions (for decision) and group workshops to move ahead and imagine /
create
Encouraging very diverse partners to work together, to imagine the future and to put aside current
constraints
A means to moving quickly forward on the project
Some testimonials from the e
ing and « I really felt like w
Tactiléo workshops: A fascinat to
«
ay » were being listened
inspiring d »
and understood!
ay of
ops were a w ideas
« The worksh ith concrete y
ouch w t’s ver
gett ing in t ons… and tha ing a sionnat
e
c i si
and de g when dev fferent
elop u p of pas ogether
rin di « A gro getting t
reassu ith so many indivud
a ls
te »
projec
tw r s» to crea
partne
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12. A moment to share
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13. Questions? Comments?
Thanks for listening!
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14. Annex / The framework of the call for projects:
Prototypes in e-education
- Acquiring fundamental knowledge
The stakes at play - Evaluating by competencies
that justify the call - The generalisation of digital tools for pedagogy and education
- The personalisation of student pathways
for projects - Improved integration of special-need students
- The development and implementation of prototypes for e-education and e-teaching.
The aim of the call - The prototypes are to aim for the use of digital technology in teaching, across one or
for projects several links in the field (content, tools, platforms, pedagogical material)
- By confronting the imagined solutions and innovations to real-life conditions of use
- Surpassing the experimental level
- Improving and validating:
How are these aims - The technology and usages suggested
to be achieved? - The impact in a teaching environment
- The economic model and its sustainability
The reasons - Costly projects
necessary for - The experimental nature of many of the projects
- The lack of immediate market response
public funding
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15. The aims of the Tactiléo project
 An ambitious project dedicated to helping students, Tactiléo aims to build and implement an ecosystem within
the classroom that will allow for truly digital and innovative teaching : collaborative, nomadic and taking full
advantage of the scope of tactile technology (telephones, tablets, digital tables and lab benches) already used in
classes or yet to be implemented.
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