Deliverable 6.1 Pilots Deployment Plan

This report addresses ARETE Pilots 1 and 2 deployment plan and its implementation steps, including the definition of language and country requirements, research carried out within each pilot, recruitment of pilot operatives (teachers) and their training.

ARETE Pilot 1 aims to study the effects of WordsWorthLearning’s (WWL) interactive Augmented Reality (AR) solutions to teaching and learning English language literacy skills with primary school students typically underperforming in English language literacy tests.

Pilot 1 pre-tests will be conducted between September and October 2021 (M23 and M24); the intervention phase will take place from November 2021 till April 2022 (M25 till M30); post-assessment will be conducted from May to June 2022 (M31 to M32).

The goal of Pilot 2 is to test the efficiency of CleverBooks (CLB) Augmented Reality application for STEM education as a tool to help improve pupils’ test-score by up to 33% and increase retention rate by up to 100%, while developing 21st century skills and focusing on personalized learning through kinetic, audio and visual educational approaches.

Pilot 2 pre-tests will be conducted between September and October 2021 (M23 and M24); the intervention phase and post-tests will start in November 2021 and be finalised by April 2022 (M25 till M30); retention assessment will be conducted from May to June 2022 (M31 to M32).

Due to the participation of humans and of minors in the ARETE pilots, as well as the disruptive nature of the AR technology being tested in schools, significant attention and time were put on addressing ethics and data protection requirements and to ensure compliance with GDPR . Thus, during the piloting phase a set of ethics-related documents, coordinated by UCD and prepared by the pilot managers (WWL and CLB) with the support of EUN and UNW, will be employed.

The recruitment process for Pilot 1 and Pilot 2 operatives is being conducted via a 2-step recruitment approach that allows to incorporate early feedback from target groups and better plan for the pilot implementation stage. The 1st step, which consisted of identifying teacher coordinators has been successfully conducted and resulted in the recruitment of 10 teacher coordinators. Three teacher coordinator workshops are also foreseen over the course of the project: the first one in June 2021 (M20), the second in November 2021 (M25) while the third one should take place in March 2022 (M29). The 2nd step, which consists in recruiting pilot teachers, is currently ongoing.

A COVID-19 risk analysis was carried out at the WP6 level in order to evaluate the impact of the current health situation on the deployment of pilots to schools.