IN-TELE: Internet-based Teaching and Learning
Studying the teaching capabilities of the Internet
The IN-TELE project is developing new solutions for the use of the Internet for learning and teaching in schools and for educational collaboration between schools. Its main goal is to create, apply and test the organisational, technological, pedagogical and psychological conditions for the development of media competence of students and teachers in a modern Europe. By combining all these elements, IN-TELE seeks to provide a service which evaluates all elements of integrating new technologies into the learning environment and to come up with concrete solutions for improving pedagogy using technology as a tool.

The development of a joint European identity
IN-TELE is using 16 schools from four European countries to test its new solutions. The project is lead by three university-based research groups and two independent research organisations. The participating schools are located in Sweden, France, Germany and in the United Kingdom.
The technological, pedagogical and psychological results of the project are being scientifically evaluated and made available across Europe for exploitation. A step-wise methodology has been developed to establish sustained Internet-based linkages and multimedia communications between the European partners. The technologies used include electronic mail, World Wide Web pages, mailing lists, and other synchronous and asynchronous Internet services.
The main objectives of IN-TELE are to create a conceptually innovative technological basis for Internet-based learning and teaching between the participating schools that is tailored to the specific educational strategy, to develop an integrated working environment for the use of Internet-based information for preparation and presentation of oral and multimedia presentations to be used by the students and teachers, and to develop and implement a curriculum for training teachers, Internet-based teaching and learning.
The project also disseminates the developed materials to help other schools with less support gain improved access Internet-based teaching and learning; provides psychological, pedagogical and media didactic support for the participating schools; supervises a joint thematic project on European identity by the participating schools.
The IN-TELE solutions are developed for average schools, dealing with the problem of low budgets, the lack of experience among teachers and authorities and the teachers' serious fears of new technologies. IN-TELE is bringing together IT-vendors with local authorities for education and telecom companies to help develop the future educational IT market and to help commercial enterprises access that market.
By adopting its own exploitation plan, IN-TELE can use the expertise of the commercial IT companies involved to market the results on a European scale. This can start when the first configuration of the IN-TELE technology platform is available and it can be part of an ongoing activity, leading to an elaborate exploitation plan for the four European regions participating in the project.

Building on proven technologies
Based on existing and well-proven technologies, the network is formed from corporate and academic intranets with internet capabilities. The ISDN links are used for videoconferencing, delivery of symposia by subject experts. The developments also offer a tool for the diagnosis or evaluation of the manufacturing process in real-life situations, thereby reinforcing the importance and consolidation of the learned material

Further development
The project outcomes will be used to enable the exploitation of such learning networks by the multinational industries, SMEs, universities and colleges involved. They will train their employees and students, thereby demonstrating the versatility, usability and efficiency of the framework and telematics network for on-the-job training, tutoring and assessment. This will be used in the drawing up of an exploitation plan for the technology developed.