General presentation
This blog presents the various initiatives and projects led at École Centrale de Nantes in order to improve the learning processes by the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). In french, this is described by the term “EAT-TICE : Enseigner-Apprendre avec les Technologies, Technologies de l’Information et la Communication au service de l’Enseignement“, which means Information and Communication Technologies applied to Teaching and Learning.
To ensure regular updates by the educative community at Centrale Nantes, the blog is preferabily written in french. We address however issues that can raise interests from international visitors. That is why some posts are bilingual. To have an overview of all our entries writtent in english, please have a look at the english tag on our blog.
Context and objectives
École Centrale de Nantes (ECN) is a top-class French engineering school belonging to the group of École Centrales (gathering 6 institutions, 5 in France and 1 in China). As all Ecoles Centrales, ECN aims at providing the industry with top engineers and managers being able to handle complexity. But it remains true that yesterday’s bridges have been designed with pens and paper. We believe that tomorrow’s most complex systems must also be designed with the simplest tools. ECN has committed itself to make this simplistic motto as true as possible, including a large use of Information Technology (IT). We have developed a strong and efficient policy towards engineering students and faculty appropriation of information technology and appropriate tools.
In our pedagogy, we try to develop autonomy and involvement of students during their scholarship thanks to problem-based learning (25% of student work is done in total autonomy). This is very challenging in terms of student involvement because the classical teaching model is evolving and students might think that more liberty will imply more free time and less work which could lead to a raise of failure rates. However, it must be noted that most problems are solved in a technological context. IT is an essential part of the global skills that every engineer must have, learn and develop.
École Centrale de Nantes has initiated or taken part in various projects in the field of ICT applied to Education:
- open distance learning master course hTech ;
- development of the use of Tablets PC by both students and teachers;
- blog support associated to specific courses programs (like our Webstrategies and development courses);
- application of Script Concordance Tests to assess students’ skills in Computer Science;
- …
This blog has been officially launched in May 2010. The community managers of the blog are Morgan Magnin (project leader for ICT applied to Education at École Centrale de Nantes) and Guillaume Moreau (IT Director at École Centrale de Nantes).
Contact
For further information, you can e-mail us at eat-tice [at] ec-nantes.fr
Legal issues
Editors: Morgan Magnin, Guillaume Moreau
Web hosting service: École Centrale de Nantes / Guillaume Moreau (IT Director)
Morgan Magnin, PhD, is an associate professor at the Computer Science and Mathematics department of École Centrale de Nantes, a french top engineering school. His long-term interests for Information and Communication Technology applied to Education (which is called, in french, Technologies de l’information et de la Communication pour l'Enseignement - TICE) conducted him to be nominated as Project Manager of these fields at Centrale Nantes. He works for the Chief Information Officer (Guillaume Moreau) and the Head of Studies (Philippe Dépincé). He is co-lead of various projects involving ICT. The project "Most complex systems with simplest tools", that aims to improve pedagogical methods thanks to Tablet PC, is one of them.