The third LMDDC workshop is now behind us. Time for our usual recap, where we share our overall observations as well as technical and practical recommendations.

In contrast with the first two iterations of EdTech Speed Dating, we took on the challenge of integrating the third edition into a much larger conference, involving not only the global LibreOffice community, but also many organisations promoting free and open source software and solutions – to name a few, the Open Source Programme Office and the Open Source Observatory (OSOR) of the European Commission, the Ministry of Higher Education and Research and the Ministry for Digitalisation (Luxembourg), Direction interministérielle du numérique (France), Zentrum Digitale Souveränität (ZenDiS), the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE), and the Digital Learning Hub (DLH).

As we expand our operations, it was inevitable that this would happen sooner or later with our bi-annual knowledge dissemination events. We are delighted to have organised this conference in collaboration with The Document Foundation, which chose Luxembourg for its 2024 annual meeting, under the aegis of Paolo Vecchi, member of the Foundation's Board of Directors and CEO of Omnis Cloud.

The conference occurred on 10th and 11th October in Belval, at the Terres Rouges building, and was co-hosted by the Digital Learning Hub and 42 Luxembourg. We are grateful that special guest Ms Stéphanie Obertin, Minister of Higher Education and Research and Minister of Digitalisation, joined our CEO Thibaud Latour, and DLH Managing Director Serge Linckels for the opening speeches.

On the specific EdTech Track, there were three distinct moments: an « EdTech Speed Dating with Skilltech Tools » stand on both days, an EdTech Conference Track on Thursday afternoon and a « three + one » EdTech Workshops on Friday morning.

INTRODUCING SKILLTECH.TOOLS

The main objective of the LMDDC was to officially release the first version of our online platform https://skilltech.tools, after several months of intensive preparation, and to give participants a first taste of three particular tools on our booth and explore them further in hands-on working sessions.

This major initiative is another way in which we are fulfilling our mission as a "digital activator and accelerator for the education ecosystem", based on the widespread observation that technological advancements have brought new opportunities to education. We have developed this unique portal to offer educators free access to open source authoring tools to enhance the teaching and learning process in traditional classrooms and remote environments. The fundamental message is that it is possible to find non-commercial software that can be as effective as, or even better than, some commercial alternatives (which usually come with vendor lock-in). 

We have carefully selected a set of ten tools that we have tested and found to be easy to use,  valuable and innovative. Our choice has also been influenced by specific needs and requests; the first one is recent and stems from dialogue and engagement with the local educational community in our previous workshops, EdTech Speed Dating with AI and with VR. Prior to that, the preliminary study conducted before the LMDDC was fully operational and laid the groundwork for our strategy and actions, had already yielded relevant insights into user preferences.

From this, four primary categories have emerged: 

• Educational videos : hosting, streaming videos with auto subtitles and auto subtitles translation (as a drop-in alternative to YouTube, Vimeo)
• Digital learning activites: 360 visit editor, interactive presentation software, virtual classroom software
• Communication : collaborative text editing software, collaborative bookmarking, form generation, online PDF edition
• File sharing : secure sending of big files securely and real-time file sharing

The first solution, skilltech.tube, is in high demand and widely expected. Video hosting plays a central role in the digital learning strategy of training organisations, and there has been a persistent request for a sovereign tool without advertising or tracking. Our alternative to YouTube, Vimeo and Dailymotion, skilltech.tube is powered by the reliable Framasoft Open Source project called PeerTube. It allows teachers and trainers to host, upload, stream and share ad-free and without tracking educational videos to eliminate disruptions during the learning process. Its latest feature includes automatic generation of video transcripts and subtitles in the language of the video using the open source Whisper AI model. We have created a plug-in enabling the translation and further manual editing of the generated subtitles in over a hundred language pairs using Opus-MT, an open source neural engine translation software projectdeveloped by the University of Helsinki and funded by the Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.  

The second tool, Send, is an old project from the Mozilla Foundation which they discontinued but it was taken over by a developer from The Netherlands, Tim Visée. It serves as a replacement for WeTransfer and WeSendit. While major organisations – like the University of Luxembourg – have their own solution, smaller entities still rely on commercial solutions. In order to offer an alternative and maintain full control over the location of the data throughout the process, we decided to offer a free, locally hosted equivalent to our stakeholders.

The third tool is stirlingpdf, a very useful web-based solution for performing specific editing operations on PDF files from your web browser which would typically require a paid licence. This includes splitting, removing, merging pages, adding watermarks, and creating a chain of actions. 

If you attended our second EdTech Speed Dating with VR, you may recall the fourth tool: the 360° Tour. Followingskilltech.tube, this functionality is the second most sought-after. This tool enables the creation of fully customised immersive online educational courses based on 360° pictures. Imagine a Google Street View-like experience where you can navigate through your 360° images, link them together, or add Points of Interest, where you put text images. We are currently developing the ability to incorporate interactive content, typically h5p content (interactive quizzes, etc.), into the VR tour. Learners can take the tour on any browser - desktop, laptop, mobile - and it’s also compatible with VR headset for an optimal experience. The visit can be exported as basic static HTML/CSS/JavaScript package and  hosted on a website or server of your choice. It can also be accessed through a secret link that can be shared with your audience or embedded in your LMS. The viewer is also available under a MIT license.  The code of the 360° Tour software is available on the LMDDC GitHub account under an AGPL license.

Next is Linkwarden, a collaborative bookmark manager that helps organise a technology and market monitoring by saving, sharing and organising web pages. Users can create customised collections of bookmarks and share them with their team or students, or even make them public. This tool is great for organising a project, fostering seamless collaboration and is once again released under an AGPL license.

etherpad is a collaborative, real-time online editor similar to Google Docs. It allows authors to write and edit a text document in their browser with colleagues in real time, and to view all participants' edits instantly. Teachers can take ownership of a specific pad and control who can contribute by sharing the link. We opted for Etherpad for its extreme simplicity.

Grist serves as an all-in-one data management solution that combines spreadsheets with the power of a custom database, and the option to create online forms to input data. After creating a standard spreadsheet, users can create the corresponding web form to fill in the data in that spreadsheet with just a few clicks. It's an easy-to-use, straightforward tool that offers numerous possibilities for on-line spreadsheet data collection and editing.

One of our favourite tools so far on the platform is PairDrop, which, despite the name’s resemblance to an Apple product, is a deliberately chosen moniker. It serves as a cross-platform, real-time file sharing solution, enabling the seamless transfer of any file from one device to another, whether they are in proximity or miles apart. Unlike WeTransfer (or our alternative Send in skilltech.tools), everything happens in real-time via WebRTC rather than asynchronously. Additionally, users can establish temporary virtual rooms, not necessarily on the same network, to easily transfer files, and to join these using a QR code. It is compatible with any device equipped with a contemporary web browser.

Claper, utilized by Pierre de La Celle for his presentation at the EdTech Conference Track (see video below), is an online interactive presentation software. It stands as an open source alternative to Mentimeter, Kahoot and Wooclap that can be hosted locally on your server. Claper empowers teachers to engage their audience through interactive polls and quizzes. Throughout the presentation, the learners can react by using their mobile phones or laptops, while real-time poll results are displayed on screen. The user interface is intuitive and easy to navigate, making Claper an excellent tool for captivating an audience, particularly in the education sector where such level of interaction is paramount. We sponsored this project and commissioned its creator Alexandre Lion to integrate OIDC authentication into the project and make it available to the Claper community. Such Single-Sign-On protocol allows Luxembourg teachers with an IAM identifier to be seamlessly identified to Claper through skilltech.tools.

Finally, BigBlueButton is a virtual classroom alternative to Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Skype and Cisco Webex. It integrates easily into a learning management system (LMS) and keeps the learners engaged with real-time interactivity using polls and getting them to work together on the whiteboard. It is open source, ad-free and installation-free, as all you need is a modern browser to join an online meeting or virtual classroom. It also bundles a lot of educational tools (whiteboards, breakout rooms, slide integrations, etc.) directly into the browser.

See Pierre de La Celle's presentation below for a summary of all the tools!

EDTECH CONFERENCE TRACK

We have integrated all ten of these open source software into our platform, which is hosted on our infrastructure located in the RESTENA Foundation data center in Luxembourg; some of them were fully developed internally by the LMDDC, but most of them are active projects that we have integrated as is. In some instances, we have also developed add-ons and plug-ins that we shared back as a contribution to the original project community (such as the PeerTube auto-translation feature, or the commissioned OIDC functionality in Claper). All our software codes are on our internal Git and we are mirroring it on Github to make them publicly available, such as the 360 Tour and the PeerTube auto-translation plug-in (both AGPL).

The platform itself is based on the open source authentik project, enabling seamless access and authentication to all tools once logged into the platform.   

We are currently prioritising access for teachers and trainers based in Luxembourg because we want to provide an optimal user experience. They can login to skilltech.tools via their IAM account from CGIE. However, other members of the ecosystem like private trainers or training organisations from Luxembourg can request free access online and will receive their account after an eligibility check. Interested parties from other organisations are welcome to send their request to contact@lmddc.lu, briefly mentioning the reason(s) for their interest in the platform and the organisation they represent.

The LMDDC has reached a significant milestone in its mission to assist and empower educators. We anticipate a seamless integration of our solutions into their everyday work on skilltech.tube, marking an exciting step forward.

The second main moment of the conference took place on Thursday afternoon during the EdTech Conference Track. This event featured a series of 30-minute presentations, case studies, and technical talks. We brought together a diverse panel of experts who provided a comprehensive perspective on their utilisation of Open Source software into their respective work and areas. All the presentations are available on our video platform at the following link : https://skilltech.tube/w/p/sqQBZm44UTJXW1uBM9vNYj but you will find below a summary of each one: 

Pierre de La Celle, LMDDC’s Platform Manager, officially launched skilltech.tools and unveiled the initial batch of tools available to the local education ecosystem.

Alexandre Lion, the creator of Claper, detailed how his solution can help tackle the problem of teachers' dwindling attention spans by enlivening presentations, thus contributing to shaping the future of education.

Yiannis Salmatzidis, Executive Director and Technical Manager of the Information Technology Centre at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH), introduced to the LMDDC through 1EdTech Consortium and EUNIS, explored the strategic benefits of adopting open-source software in public universities with real-life examples and projects, such as UniverSIS, which is an all-around solution for managing the full operations cycle of an academic institution.

Christian Grévisse from the University of Luxembourg, examined the « Challenges and Opportunities for Open* in Academia », encompassing Open Source Software, Open Educational Resources, or Open Access, while presenting some actions developed at his institution. 

Paolo Dongili highlighted the « SchoolSwap » project, an initiative in South Tyrol designed to collect, clean, repair and install donated PCs born during the COVID-19 lockdown to bridge the « digital divide » among students. 

Cynthia Wagner from the Fondation Restena presented the « LuCySe4RE project », an initiative aiming to enhance cybersecurity services for the research and education community by implementing a security event management platform using state-of-the-art open-source tools.

In remplacement of Diego Magnacco, Paolo Dongili emphasised another remarkable project in Italy in his second talk, The « Free Upgrade for a digitally Sustainable School », which has benefited 16000 students and 2000 teachers through the adoption of open-source software in their institutions.

During the last panel, the two speakers, Emiel Brok from SUSE and Markus Scherer from the University of Luxembourg, focused on how the Luxembourg Centre for Educational Testing, a research unit of the University of Luxembourg, administers standardised tests with thousands of students each year to objectively assess key skills, academic performance and teaching quality, all delivered on a SUSE Linux Enterprise Server.

EDTECH WORKSHOPS

The third and last moment took place on Friday morning, during which we conducted four hands-on workshops. We provided guidance to our participants on the use of three tools on skilltech.tools : 1) skilltech.tube, our platform for ad-free and tracking-free video hosting and live streaming. Pierre de La Celle demonstrated how to upload and share educational videos; 2) The 360° tour, Ludovic Kiefer showcased how to easily create interactive and informative tours using 360° photos. 3) Claper, a new tool for creating interactive presentations similar to Wooclap, Kahoot and Slido, was introduced by its creator, Alexandre Lion.

4) The last session was led by our colleague Emeline Petit from WIDE ANDCO, a social enterprise offering expertise, training and programmes in the areas of gender equality, digital skills, and entrepreneurship, and is also carrying the Women in Digital Empowerment initiative. Emeline introduced Hackenator, an educational game on cybersecurity for teenagers aged 13 to 16 available in French, German and English, which was co-developed by her organisation and the LMDDC. We encourage you to give it a try! Visit www.hackenator.lu

You are welcome to view the videos, inquire, and help us spread the word about skilltech.tube, until our upcoming workshop at the end of March. Stay tuned!