EnhancementDevelopment

 

Background 

So, why was the development of a new portal necessary?

Before the creation of this new portal another one was already functioning inside the webpage of vivoscuola, but in the last years, the information inside that portal were not updated and new educational paths were not described. The idea was to create a new user-friendly instrument, easily to be updated every year.

 

Goal

The main goal was to have an instrument useful for different categories of users, such as students, teachers, parents and for the public administration. All educational paths offered by all schools of Trentino are equally represented and all the information needed about the schools (link to their webpages, location, etc.) are easy to reach.

Differences from the existing tool:

The revised format allows to search the information from a very generic starting point, as for example the sectors in the case of VET schools (agriculture, industry and craft, services) to an extremely specific description of each single educational path inside those sectors. This gives an insight into the range of diplomas and qualifications in each sector.

Description of the developed program, Target Groups:

At this stage, the portal is particularly useful for students, who must choose between secondary schools and VET schools after completing the middle school, but in the future, we would like to insert one section about professions and another one about the tertiary level of education (universities, courses post-diploma)

Structure:

The structure of the portal is quite simple and accessible, there are now very few sections.

The schools are grouped in four main boxes, which are the main typologies of schools at the national and provincial level.

 

Implementation

Actors: who was involved in the development of format?

Internal working group (autonomous province of Trento)

Final check by schools’ directors and reference teachers for guidance of each school

What was needed to realize, test and finally evaluate your planned format?

Promotion of the new portal through the homepage of the province dedicated to the educational system (vivoscuola)

Description of your testing phase:

1st: Analysis of the existing portal and its subcategories

2nd: Integration of the missing contents

3rd: Meetings with the working group to organize the implementation

4th: Implementation/programming (about 3 months)

5th: Application and use

 

Evaluation

Stakeholder/ target groups involved:

Autonomous Province of Trento, Teachers and schools’ directors

Time Frames: October 2020 - November 2020

Methodology: Examination of the feasibility, Check about the new content, Revision of the implementation

Results

positive aspects:

- A provincewide portal of educational offer is useful for students, parents, teachers and for the public administration

- The information is equally distributed for each school

- Information about courses, diploma and qualifications and the direct link to the website of each school are easy to find

Needs for improvement:

- There are still too many passages to do to arrive at the final information

- For some of the contents it was necessary to connect outside the portal to other webpages

Lessons learned: What have we learned from the implementation and evaluation processes? What do we have to consider implementing such kinds of programs in our region/institutions?

We started with a the top-down approach, but the revision work from the side of the schools was useful to understand better their needs and to adjust the final format. Continuing asking their needs and their feedbacks will improve the platform once we will decide to insert new sections. This way we will find out which search fields might need to be completed and the platform can be made even more user-friendly.

Next Steps: We are planning to insert two additional sections about professions and about the tertiary level of education. We are also planning to make relevant those courses in the VET schools and secondary schools, where it is possible to access an apprenticeship (dual system)