The Touch Bench - try to match it, Stockholm Next Up schools!

Next Up is the competition where eighth graders are inspired to IT professions by solving reality-based cases. On Tuesday, Next Up West was decided, where classes 8A and 8B from Almåsskolan in Lindome went home with SEK 15,000 as winners. In two weeks, on April 7, Next Up Stockholm will be decided. The question is whether any of the nine 08 schools can match Almåsskolan's solution to Ericsson's mission to develop the digital classroom of the future: "Touchbänken", which with a neat and simple concept bakes in all the supporting elements of digital learning.

Nine schools in the Gothenburg region, with a total of just under 400 pupils, have been working with cases from Ericsson, Hogia, IBM, Cybercom and Framtiden as part of their teaching during the first two months of the spring term. The aim is to increase the students', and especially the girls', interest in a future in IT. On Tuesday, it was time for the schools, represented by teams of five boys and girls, to showcase their solutions to experts from the partner companies, on a final day professionally organized by our partners Universeum.

This is the second year the competition has been held in the West, and the set-up of this year's final day was that the teams first had to rehearse their presentations in the morning for experts from all the competition's partners (in addition to the case companies above, also from the competition's silver partners, see below), who gave their feedback on the solutions from different perspectives - the technical, the product packaging and the marketing. In the afternoon, the side presentations were made live, in front of jury members and an audience of 300 in the Universeum foyer.

The winner Almåsskolan's solution was a response to Ericsson's case, which was entitled "What will tomorrow's digital classroom look like, where everyone is eager to absorb new knowledge?" The second place winner Frillesåsskolan (who took home SEK 10,000) also had the Ericsson case, while the third place winner Assaredsskolan (SEK 5,000) developed a solution to the Future case "How can the housing of the future be a place for learning?"

For those who are oriented in the digitally supported educational methods that are being developed can not be anything but impressed by how well Almåsskolan manages to weave in supporting elements. Please take a few minutes to study the report that makes up one part of the competition entry (the movie is the other part, see below). Here you will find individualized monitoring of learning (= learning analytics), the use of rewards (= gamification), collaboration and cooperation via other platforms such as interactive whiteboards, touch pens and tablets (= collaborative learning) and the opportunity to follow recorded briefings (= flipped classroom).

In two weeks, on April 7, the Stockholm version of the competition will be held in the Kista NOD building. Today is the last day for submissions from the nine participating schools. The Stockholm competition also includes Ericsson's digital classroom case, and we'll see if any of the schools competing with this, or any of the other cases (IFS, Atea, IBM and Hogia) can match Almåsskolan!

Fredrik von Essen

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Next Up West's silver partners: Academic Work, Atea, Capgemini, IP Only, Ius Innovation, Lindholmen Science Park, Sigma, Tripnet and Västtrafik.