A group of lecturers, students and local teachers joined the Digital Learning across Boundaries Erasmus project five-day visit to Østfold University College in Norway mid-April 2017, along with participants from Bruges, Aalborg and Northampton. The main purpose of the visit was to create an online course on the theme of Technology Outdoors, and we now have four weekly episodes based on Creating Trails, Art in the Environment, Wild Writing and Science Outdoors.

As well as creating the Technology Outdoors MOOC, highlights of the trip included a visit to Spetalen Primary School and to their Forest School by the sea, where we held an outdoor Digital Playdate, and an overnight expedition for students to see the black grouse mating ritual, known as lekking.

Watch a slideshow of our visit here:

First year ITT student Charlotte Bennett said,  ‘I had an amazing time in Norway. I have learnt so many new skills and met lots of amazing people. I have loved being part of the project so far, can’t wait to start next year’s project!’

Senior Lecturer Helen Caldwell said, ‘The visit gave us a chance to meet the people we’ve been working with digitally all year and to bring this year’s projects to a conclusion via our online course so that we can share with them with the rest of the world. It was rewarding to see such a large and varied group of people work together to create the online course.

We would like to invite anyone with an interest in the field to join in the MOOC, and think about how technology can support outdoor learning and facilitate international collaboration. The course is designed to take around 2 hours a week but it is fine just to dip in and out of the online materials.

The overall purpose of the project is to develop digital learning across physical, subject, linguistic and cultural boundaries to promote cross-border collaborative learning. Next year’s focus is on STEM to STEAM, bridging the disconnect between the science and arts. We will look at ways in which creativity, wonder and imagination, which lie at the heart of the arts, can be blended with the critical thought and enquiry of Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths.