By Maria Teresa Godinho, Future Classroom Lead Ambassador for Portugal 

The Portuguese Directorate-General of Education (DGE), in partnership with European Schoolnet (EUN), is promoting the initiative "Learning Labs / Future Classroom Lab “.  It is intended to disseminate to teachers, schools and other educational providers, guidelines and resources produced by EUN that support the construction, operation and implementation of innovative scenarios of teaching and learning, as well as building a network of teachers to spread the integration of innovative practices at national level.

The FCL initiative began in September 2014 and is promoted by a team of teachers (LL Ambassadors) of  the Resources and Educational Technologies Team  (ERTE) of DGE.

Workshops LL / FCL

Workshops of the LL / FCL initiative are one of the activities that the team of ambassadors has developed. The workshops, last for three hours and are organized following a format that is replicated and adapted to the various contexts of  schools, in-service teacher  training centers and other training institutions (regional meetings, conferences, etc.).

Following a brief presentation of the LL / FCL initiative, participants try some digital tools (Aurasma, Socrative, Popplet, Padlet, Sketchup, Weebly, Plickers, ...) that support innovative learning activities.

The participants in these workshops where pre-school, lower and higher secondary teachers, some school principals, and directors of in-service teacher training centers, among other stakeholders.

Between  April and June 2015 32 workshops where held in various parts of the country with the  participation of 743 teachers.

In October and November 2015 the following workshops took place:

Primary School Pero Vaz de Caminha, Oporto
In-service Teacher Training Centre Tua and Douro Superior / Secondary School of Vila Flor, Bragança
Marco deCanaveses and Cinfães Association of Schools in-service Teacher Training Centre,Oporto
Primary School and Secondary Lima Freitas, Setúbal
Minerva School Association in-service Teacher Training Centre, Coimbra
Secondary School Sampaio, Sesimbra
High School Manuel Martins, Setúbal
Secondary School Marques de Pombal, Lisbon
High School Palmela, Setúbal
Cascais County Schools in-service Teacher Training Centre