The wheels are finally rolling! The Vrije Universiteit Brussel #DataBuzz (operational at schools as of next academic year 2019-2020), has at its root aims to build critical data literacy skills for children aged 10-18 in the Brussels region.

Providing already several experiences with school groups at a remote location before the start of next year, our team will work with schools employing a mobile unit (the DataBuzz) equipped with innovative and emerging technologies to deliver learner-centred authentic data and problem-solving workshops.

The bus is high-tech as well as high-touch. High-tech in that it is equipped with a variety of existing and emerging tools, often difficult or costly to buy for a single school. Technologies available include Occulus rift VR, Ambulant eye tracker, iMotions Data Capture platform, Affectiva Emotional Recognition, Cameras and coordinated master view, NUCs and large multi-touch and touch screens, Drone, Air quality sensors, wearables (shimmers and fitbits) and arduino kits to name a few.

High-touch in that although the lesson plans are created according to theme and target age, they almost all involve and demand of students to tap into to their authentic spaces, contexts and realities whilst collecting data on the theme in question, visualising it and connecting, creating and collaborating to draw real value from the experience whilst developing data literacy skills. It combines therefore knowledge on and from Educational Research, Edtech and Educational Practice to achieve its ambitions and to mutually give back to research and societal change and educational transformation.

These aims are realised across 7 thematically targeted lesson plans (several being the results of partnerships with additional experienced educational actors): MobileDNA, Escape the Buzz, Edubox, Quantified Self, Smart Spaces, (Y)AI!, Personal Data. On the flip-side to skills development, it will also be using triangulated objective data traces via wearables and sensors to better understand behavioural change and the potentials of learner analytics with secondary school students, teachers and schools in the aims of better understanding and promoting self-regulatory strategies.

Research will also be done on motivational uses of smartphones for education, and student perceptions on data, the value of data and behavioural reactions to societal transformations.

See project DataBuzz - imec-SMIT Smart Education Press releases:

• Website: https://databuzz.be
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pg/DataBuzzV
• Twitter: https://www.facebook.com/DataBuzzV/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/databuzz_vub/