The Future of Schools from a European Union Perspective: Selecting, Analyzing and Disseminating the Most Innovative Approaches towards the School of Tomorrow
What can we learn from European Union (EU) school projects about future learning approaches? The EU has invested massively in information and communication technologies (ICT) projects promoting innovative use of new technologies in school settings. The aim of the project ‘School Foresight’, with partners in Bulgaria, Estonia, Greece, Romania, the Czech Republic and Sweden, was to select and reflect on the best projects done so far. These projects were popularized and presented at the European Science Week in the autumn of 2004 and reached more than 10,000 students in five countries. This article describes and discusses the School Foresight project and the selection process of innovative EU projects showing the way towards the school of tomorrow. A number of best cases will be presented and discussed in a European, American and global context. The school of the future is both a question of what is possible and what is desired. Different scenarios might be preferable depending on local context, history, language, etc., or, are we all moving into the ‘global classroom’?