Teaching with Hardware

We bring modern technologies to teachers and schools so that every student can have an opportunity to succeed in a technological world.

Courses Materials Research

In a nutshell

Since 2018, we have been creating educational resources, providing teacher training and conducting research.

Thanks to our activities, practical physical computing projects developing digital skills have been introduced to hundreds of schools across Slovakia.

About Teaching with Hardware

Teaching with Hardware (Učíme s Hardvérom in Slovak) is a project focused on innovating how digital skills and computer science are being taught at schools. Using mostly the BBC micro:bit, a programmable educational device, students can create practical hardware projects. The mission of the project is to introduce practical STEM projects with cross-curricular overlaps into ICT lessons, which will show students new possibilities of using hardware and software solutions in their daily lives. We provide methodical support for teachers across Slovakia.

Since 2018, we have trained more than 1,500 teachers from more than 700 schools. We have prepared multiple teaching resources, video courses, organised dozens of webinars each year and developed our own educational platform, primarily intended for teachers and adapted to the needs of hybrid education.

Courses and webinars for teachers

The main problems our project addresses are a lack of up-to-date training for teachers and a lack of high quality teaching resources for new technologies. The current educational system is very slow in catching up with technological innovations. Although there is a long-lasting discussion on how schools should prepare for the green and digital transition, the matter is often condensed into handing out new tablets to students without any further support. This is even further exacerbated by the fact that a part of ICT teachers are formally unqualified for the given subject.

We have therefore created multiple high quality online courses combined with both online and offline sessions. We also travel to different parts of Slovakia to organize in-person workshops throughout the year.

BBC micro:bit
STEM
AI
Python
Smart Home
3D printing
Robotics
Project Based Learning

Materials

To address the lack teaching resources on STEM topics, we have created multiple resources, including our flagship workbook for the BBC micro:bit with 22 lessons and 22 teacher guides.

Every region of Slovakia
We make an effort to include in the project schools from every region of Slovakia.

Research

Ever since we started back in 2018, we have conducted research in the field of computing education. Multiple members of our team have finished a PhD in education and are also teaching at universities.

A selection of our research:
  • N. Kvassayova, M. Klimo and M. Kvassay, "The Use of BBC micro:Bit in Automatic Irrigation System Through Cross-Curricular Teaching of Biology and Informatics," 2023 IEEE 12th International Conference on Intelligent Data Acquisition and Advanced Computing Systems: Technology and Applications (IDAACS), Dortmund, Germany, 2023, pp. 1114-1119, doi: 10.1109/IDAACS58523.2023.10348638.
  • Kvaššayová, N., Cápay, M., Petrík, Š., Bellayová, M., & Klimeková, E. (2022). Experience with Using BBC Micro: Bit and Perceived Professional Efficacy of Informatics Teachers. Electronics, 11(23), 3963.
  • M. Cápay, N. Kvaššayová, M. Bellayová, M. Mansell and Š. Petrík, "Programmable Hardware BBC Micro:Bit as a Tool for Developing Teacher Competencies," 2022 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON), Tunis, Tunisia, 2022, pp. 1496-1501, doi: 10.1109/EDUCON52537.2022.9766487.
  • Kvaššayová, N., Mansell, M., Cápay, M., & Bellayová, M. (2021, June). The BBC micro: bit in Slovakia. In 2021 International Conference on Information and Digital Technologies (IDT) (pp. 359-365). IEEE.
  • Klimo, M., Kvaššayová, N., Kvaššay, M., Mansell, M., & Kleinová, B. (2021, June). 3D Printed Face Shield as a Help for Nursing Homes During COVID-19 Pandemic. In 2021 International Conference on Information and Digital Technologies (IDT) (pp. 353-358). IEEE.
  • Mansell, M., Kvaššayová, N., Cápay, M., Bellayová, M. 2021. BBC micro:bit ako súčasť projektu ENTER. Didinfo 2021. 2021.
  • N. Klimová, "Wearables: Educational Projects Made with the BBC micro:bit," 2020 18th International Conference on Emerging eLearning Technologies and Applications (ICETA), Košice, Slovenia, 2020, pp. 323-329, doi: 10.1109/ICETA51985.2020.9379247.
  • Klimeková, E., Mansell, M., Mayerová, K., & Veselovská, M. (2019). Case study on physical computing with NodeMCU on summer school. In Robotics in Education: Methods and Applications for Teaching and Learning (pp. 65-70). Springer International Publishing.

Awards

  • 2023 - IT Gala - IT Person of the Year - 2nd place (Marek Mansell as executive director)
  • 2021 - Forbes 30 under 30 (Marek Mansell as executive director)
  • 2018 - Edu Accelerator by Pontis Foundation (Project Teaching with Hardware)
  • 2018 - Nexteria Award for Change (Marek Mansell as executive director)