Go-Lab partners connected in the JTEL (Joint European Summer School on Technology Enhanced Learning) Summer School with young researchers in technology enhanced learning to exchange ideas, demonstrate current work and create a basis for future collaboration. JTEL Summer School has been created to support young researchers in their knowledge and career development and to connect them with experienced researchers, research institutes and companies doing research in the area of technology enhanced learning.

With JTEL’s motto “Access to experts, Collaborate in research” in mind, the Go-Lab workshop “Create, Experiment & Collaborate on Inquiry Learning with Online Labs” took place on Wednesday, April 30, 2014 in Malta. The Go-Lab project was successfully presented to the PhD students and researchers in the area of Technology Enhanced Learning. They experienced interesting explanations, hands-on activities, and discussions and gave a lot of great feedback and support.

Dr. Denis Gillet started the workshop with a compact introduction on the Go-Lab goals to support STEM teaching and learning through the use of online labs and inquiry-based learning spaces. Afterwards, the Go-Lab platform was demonstrated and showed examples on how to create an Inquiry Learning Space. The participants had hands-on experiences with the Go-Lab Portal, while creating their own inquiry learning spaces using existing online labs and apps available. Furthermore, the participants also used the Go-Lab bartering platform prototype, named Golabz Tutoring, to share their expertise and offer each other real-time support during the hands-on session, while creating their own Inquiry Learning Spaces. At the end of the workshop, each group of participants presented their inquiry learning spaces using the HYPATIA, Faulkes Telescope, and RED labs.

This half-day workshop has given participants an overview on inquiry-based learning, the Go-Lab project, the Go-Lab Portal, online labs, and the tutoring system. At the same time, the Go-Lab Workshop at the JTEL Summer School has opened opportunities to researchers in other European or national-funded projects. For instance, the Go-Lab project and EU STREP project weSPOT have initiated an active collaboration by sharing and exchanging lab/app tools and best practices. Furthermore, in a collaborative effort, Go-Lab apps were integrated into the weSpot platform.