Aimed at raising awareness and introducing and exploring various IT teaching methods and technologies, the year-long project started under normal circumstances, but a large part of it had to be carried out in the ‘yellow-and-red mode’, or online. But perhaps it was meant to be – the promotion of Zooms and Teams would have been part of the project anyway.
One of the project leaders, Birgy Lorenz, said that there were some things, though, that did not get done, due to the circumstances – it was not possible to visit other successful universities to gain experience in similar projects, or to involve more students or introduce the IT study solutions to general education schools. “The initial plan of holding lunch seminars once a month, where thematic presentations would be combined with a light lunch, also gradually had to be adapted to the situation and moved online (a few seminars were held face-to-face). However, the competition for mini-projects on IT studies proved to be a success, having brought in so many requests from the people interested that another round had to be organised.
According to Lorenz, we have also set an example – the subject didactics and the educational technology competences of the lecturers have boosted interest in the institutes of other universities. Kalle Tammemäe is glad: “We have been lucky because by today, the university has set itself the goal of boosting didactics-related activities in all of its schools and in the regional college, and establishing didactics centres. We have reached the crest of the wave with our focused activities at the right time, which is good, and now the aim is to take this potential to the next quality level, looking further into the future.”
At the beginning of the year, the Centre’s leaders (Birgy Lorenz, Kaido Kikkas, Kalle Tammemäe and others) are looking into the future with interest. The lunch seminars will continue and right now, the dreams involve joint mini-studies, interesting and engaging applications, activity suitcases, card games and much more.
Projects of the IT Didactics Centre supported in 2020
Ago Luberg (Department of Software Science) – development/setup of the publication platform for teaching materials, aimed at creating and introducing a convenient tool for the publication of the teaching materials;
Nadežda Furs-Nižnikova (IT College) – the Idea PUZZLE, aimed at making the cooperation between the supervisor and the supervisee more efficient before writing the draft of the thesis, and at introducing a tool to visualise various components of the thesis and their progress.
Mall Maasik (Department of Health Technologies) – IT security in healthcare, which helps to create an e-learning tool for people outside the IT domain to carry out the IT risk assessment of a healthcare institution. The educational tool is intended for use in the curriculum of health technologies.
Hany Mina (eHealth lecturer) – the use of special software in medicine to improve the ability to collaborate and the quality of teaching, using visualisation of different data and the transfer of data between systems.
Kristjan Karmo (IT College, lecturer of Scripting Languages and Introduction to Speciality) – the ScamLab, a laboratory for cyber fraud investigations at the College. The tests can be carried out by both students and lecturers, who will receive appropriate advice and assistance to analyse or test fraud. The project involves the employees of both the IT College and the Centre for Digital Forensic and Cyber Security.
Siim Vene (IT College) – introduction of a system of automated detection of the examinee and verification of the activity, which helps to conduct an analysis of the service providers on the market to identify the most suitable solution for the School of IT at TalTech to allow identifying the persons taking the exam online and restrict or prevent the possibility to use other resources during the exam.
Andres Udal (Department of Software Science) – introduction of integrated student surveys to the ISC study system to improve the efficiency of the studies, allowing a deeper look into student satisfaction surveys during the courses.
Ago Luberg (Department of Software Science) – onboarding into a subject, which is aimed at introducing a subject to (new) students in a less formal way and letting students know that they are welcome to the course, and also to receive feedback from the students.
Aleksei Talisainen’s “Internship hub” – to create an information exchange platform bringing together lecturers, educational institutions, students and entrepreneurs proposing opportunities for internship or ideas for writing a graduation thesis.
