The document summarizes the tasks and targets of the Bundesministerium für Unterricht, Kunst und Kultur (BM:UKK) Department for IT Systems for Educational Purposes in Austria. The department plans IT infrastructure for schools, supports educational technology initiatives, and coordinates projects like the Virtual School Austria platform. The Virtual School Austria provides online educational resources and aims to increase quality e-content for teachers through collaborations with other organizations.

1. Bundesministerium für Unterricht, Kunst und Kultur, BM:UKK Department: IT-Systems for Educational Purposes http://www.virtuelleschule.at Overview of Project Tasks and Targets of BM:UKK

2. Regular tasks of the Department Soft- and hardware planning and support for classes Resources and support for thematic educational issues Change agent functions for IT in education Planning and coordinating data security for education Planning and coordinating for computers and their use in class Multimedia applications for the use of new technology in education Ergonomic health and safety Supporting documentation and information systems in class Documentation of projects with ICT integration Evaluation and documentation of professional literature Software for humanities

3. Main Targets of Department V/3 To develop and enhance eContent for use within curriculum material (Learning Objects, Learning Modules, Learning Sequences & Leraning Courses) and utilised in the school environment To encourage the use of eContent within class projects that are underpinned by a diverse range of pedagogies To evaluate and enhance the interdisciplinary modules resources of presentations, digital videos and other forms of multimedia To modify the current bank of Learning Objects to include practice orientated teaching objects To enrich existing eContent of Learning-Content for interdisciplinary teaching to enrich the current interdisciplinary eLearning Content

4. Virtual School Austria At the core of ViS:AT is free access to subject oriented resources. The resources are developed by teachers drawn from various subject disciplines and school types. The eContent Material, which includes lesson plans and teaching materials, is proofed by various teams according to project guidelines to ensure the quality of the published material. The various projects are organised within the Virtual School according to syllabus, pedagogy and cross-cultural dimension. The Department‘s main project currently is; Virtual School Austria (ViS:AT) http://www.virtuelleschule.at

5. History of the Virtual School Austria ViS:AT was initially established as an interface between Austria and The European Schoolnet in 1997. ViS:AT was set up nationally to present via the Internet an overview of the Austrian educational contribution and its involvement with ICT projets. Italy Lithuania Luxembourg Malta Norway Poland Portugal Slovenia Spain Sweden Switzerland The Netherlands United Kingdom Austria Belgium Czech Republic Denmark Estonia Finland France Germany Greece Hungary Iceland Ireland lIsrael BM:UKK is a coorporate partner in the EUN Network and member of the Steering Committee

6. ViS:AT: Overview for ICT projects systematic collection and categorisation of Learning resources we are integrating the existing online environment in Austria increasing use of eContent increasing the quality and quantity of Learning Objects and Learning Resources exemplar development of scenarios according to national curricular supporting stakeholders to enhance their materials on the internet to enable teachers to find existing resources easily

7. Collaborations: Overview Interested institutions have the opportunity, through ViS:AT, to form project partnerships. These partnerships are drawn from: Formal Education: Schools of all schooltypes, Teacher Training Institutions University Level: University of Applied Sciences Educational Stakesholders: Ministries, Public Authorities, Educational Servers Business Companies NGOs, NPOs, Museums

8. Collaborating with Educational Organisations Bildungspool of BM:UKK http://bildungspool.bildung.at E-Teaching Austria (Servies for Laptop classes) http://www.e-teaching-austria.at e-LISA-Academy http://www.e-lisa-academy.at

9. Collaborating with Educational Servers In Austria, 9 Educational Servers are running; each province runs their own server. Closely working with: Education Highway OÖ TIBS (Tiroler Bildungsservice) Bildungssever Burgenland Informatikserver Steiermark

10. Collaborations with Private Companies Interested companies have the opportunity, through ViS:AT, to cooperate with educational organisations by: Exchanging experience and information in order to integrate ICT into everday aspects of school life Contributjng to the development of eLearning material and delivery of eLearning in the classroom IBM , Österreich Club of Rome mc station Promethean

11. ViS:AT Networking ViS:AT networks with the Austrian Neighbour countries ViS:AT cross-links different intiatives in Education ENIS – Europäisches Netzwerk Innovativer Schulen, Österreich

12. ViS:AT Dissemination and Utilisation Channels: The BM:UKK uses the following channels to disseminate information in Austria Newsletters e-Teaching-Austria, schule.at, eLISA Academy, Informatikserver Steiermark, eTwinning, Lebenslanges Lernen National Agentur, IMST-Netzwerk, Science Center Netzwerk Networks ENIS Österreich, Teams of the Subject Oriented portal All Schools in Austria via administrative e-mails Websites BM:UKK, 9 educational servers Institutions project relevant institutions, museums, private companies

13. ViS:AT Support ViS:AT supports the activities of tutors and teachers through financial & organisational support Lectures & Training Dissemination & Utilisation participation in international educational conferences

14. ViS:AT Organisational Structure ViS:AT is divided into the following areas National subject orientated portals and ICT projects Special projects International Projects Partnerships Conferences, Workshops and Presentations Evaluations

15. National subject orientated portals The subject related portals refer to the education ministry‘s guideline Electronic Content for Austrian Schools: Creation, Distribution and Maintenance from 2003 and to the eContent initiative of the Ministry of Education. The Subject Oriented Portal is organised by BM:UKK and Eduhi the Gegenstandsportal ViS:AT EU Projekte” is an EXCHANGE Portal for eCONTENT between AUSTRIAN EDUCATIONAL PLATFORMS and EU Projects for regular subjects but also interdisciplinar teaching topics the Subject Oriented Portal (Gegenstandsportal) was established in 1997 and is financed by the BM:UKK there are 40 subject oriented portals: http://www.schule.at/gegenstand they publish and link quality proved content

16. Exchange Portal: ViS:EU The Subject Oriented Portal is organised by BM:UKK and Eduhi ViS :E U is an E XCHANGE Portal for eContent between Austrian Eductional Platforms and EU Projects, but is a national ICT-project The targets are: to exchange existing materials between regular subjects and projects the dissemination of the results and information in standard/regular subjects the networking with other initiatives in eLearning the u se, r e- u se und enrich ment of existing eContent, etc. Subject oriented portal ViS:EU Materials, which are established for EU projects can be easily integrated to the regular subjects Materials, can be easily asked by teams to provide for EU projects

17. Special Projects In special projects, teachers and students, together with specialists from different institutions, can create or adapt multimedia and interactive learning material Use in schools In open learning environments PastPerfect Net-Music LegoLeague Games in Schools Examples of current projects : IT&Gender Toolbox Mobile Learning ViS für Kinder

18. International Projects and EU Projects ViS:AT supports international ICT initiatives with activities at national level and actively cooperates on diverse projects.

19. eContent: Collecting Resources and Quality Assurance 1) Inviting schools and institutions to provide eContent According to the relevant project-proposals the BM:UKK invites schools and institutions (e.g. museums, science-centers, NPOs, NGOs, public institutions, ministries, etc.) to provide existing eContent for the relevant projects. 2) Storing of eContent The eContent can be stored on own webservers of the schools and institutions. eContent which will be provided for the relevant projects has to be stored on the BM:UKK-server. 3) Quality assurance and checking eContent A committee of assessors will check this eContent according to: copyright, connection to the national curricular, didactical principals, functionality, technical function, criteria of eContent (“Ten principles for Creating eContent”) 4) Improving and enriching eContent The committee gives advance and support about how to improve and enrich this eContent. In trainings, the authors get help from experts (organised by BM:UKK) to improve their content according to the guidelines of the relevant project. Experiences of other projects will be implemented. The following structure is demanded: short scenario: the main items are: author , target group , duration , learning objective , reference to the curriculum , added value to traditional materials 5) Contracts with the authors The authors will be contracted by BM:UKK to abandon the materials to the BM:UKK plus to the EU project. Payment for the eContent is possible. 6) Uploading of the proved and enriched eContent The proved and enriched eContent will be uploaded to the main project-portals. 7) Dissemination The materials will be disseminated to different educational portals in Austria: ViS:EU

20. Conferences, Fairs, Workshops, Competitions March: Springday (competition) April: Gegenstandsportaltreffen (Bad Hofgastein) (conference, workshop) May: Netdays (Salzburg) (competition) Schoolhomepageaward (Salzburg) (competition) BildungOnline (Hall in Tirol) (conference, fair, workshops) November: FutureLearning (Wien) (conference) Interpädagogica (in Vienna, Graz, Linz or Salzburg) (fair, workshops) ENIS Conference (conference) December: eLeraning Conference (Eisenstadt) (conference, workshops) BM:UKK is organising conferences, fairs, workshops and competitions on a regular basis:

21. Evaluations Current examples are: eContent Evaluation the use of eContent was evaluated Whiteboard / Activeboard Evaluation Interaktive Schultafeln im Unterricht in geisteswissenschaftlichen Fächern (Verein BildungOnline) Evaluierung von Whiteboards und deren Einsatz sowie Erstellung von Lernobjekten für den Einsatz im naturwissenschaftlichen Unterricht (Eduhi) Evaluierung von Whiteboards betreffend Einsatz beim Sprachen lehren/lernen (Salzburg Research Evaluierung von Whiteboards betreffend Einsatz im berufsbildenden Schulwesen (Burgenländischer Bildungsserver) Net-Books Evaluation Notebook Evaluation BM:UKK evaluates according to actual needs in ICT:

22. Workshops and Training ViS:AT supports and organises regularly Workshops Face to Face Workshops These workshops are organised by the particular project teams Online-Workshops Online-Workshops will be offered on demand

23. Prospectus and long term goals of ViS:AT Further develop ViS:AT as a centre for interdisciplinary ICT projects nationwise by disseminating respective information about EU initiatives and possible cooperation partners That ViS:AT further contributes to the e-content development and classification and takes an active and leading role in the development of the Austrian educational content pool. Continue ViS:AT‘s role in collecting, developing and presenting quality ICT applications in education. Part of this role will also see ViS:AT initiate and enable projects with a thematic focus. These projects are designed to show how interdisciplinary teaching with the use of ICT can be implemented in class as well as in open learning environments.

24. Expectations of EU Projects Networking with other projects Teacher training from the beginning of the projects Parallel plattforms for pupils from the beginning of the projects Communication between partnerschools Exchange of experiences with other project-partners form other projects Quality Assurance, common concept, common guidelines also applicable for other projects

25. Contact Bundesministerium für Unterricht, Kunst und Kultur Abteilung IT/3, IT-Systeme für Unterrichtszwecke Virtuelle Schule Österreich http://www.virtuelleschule.at e-mail: [email_address]