Digital Education
A Cow in the Classroom
Initially, some primary school teachers founded a company to teach children about the state of Salzburg using a 16-square-metre map. As part of the project "Understanding Salzburg," 100 primary schools now have such a map. The project was so successful that they considered a digital expansion, and this is where FH Salzburg comes into play.
The project "EdTech Salzburg – Augmented Learning Lab," funded by the state of Salzburg's WISS2025 programme, is led by FH Salzburg in cooperation with the University of Education and the University of Salzburg. Since 2021, the team around project leader Markus Tatzgern has expanded the physical map with technologies such as Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality. Since the project began, more than 370 children from four primary schools in the state of Salzburg have thoroughly tested the digital application. The students could learn interactively with the help of a specially developed app and go through the content at their own pace. The application is intuitive and playful: when the children point their tablets at different spots on the map, they receive specific information. For example, they can explore the geography of their state or the anatomy of a cow, the work of farmers on a farm, or the journey of milk from the cow to the breakfast table. All this can be done without leaving the classroom, thanks to Augmented Reality.
Bildergalerie
- Steht eine Kuh im Klassenzimmer Galerie
"The goal of the project was to connect physical and digital learning environments and to develop new didactic concepts so that primary school children can explore the world intuitively and playfully," explains project leader Tatzgern. In addition to the new technology, the project also examined the students' learning potential.
In addition to the app, which has been available in the Apple Store since the summer, the researchers have also made the app's code accessible as open source. This allows schools or companies to develop the programme according to their needs. The project partners are available as contacts to help integrate digital technologies into advanced didactic concepts.