The results of a research group from the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) and the University of Barcelona (UB) created five years ago to rethink classrooms have now become the company Smart Classroom Project. The four researchers involved and now also entrepreneurs (Maria Casanovas, Guillermo Bautista, Anna Escofet and Marta López) apply the knowledge acquired in the redesign of classrooms in all types of educational and training centers.
Guillermo Bautista explains that it was the same educational centers and administrations that contacted the research group in 2018 to advise them on the improvement processes and made them see the possibility and need to transfer the knowledge developed enriched with real experience through more of 25 redesigned spaces in schools and other educational centers. Currently, the company is receiving requests from centers in other areas of Spain and Latin America.
The main objective of the Smart Classroom Project is to facilitate the processes of improvement of educational spaces so that the implemented changes are made with and from the scientific and pedagogical base, involving the main agents who are impacted by these changes. “We carry out a very participatory accompaniment to advance their progress based on an improvement of the scenario according to scientific criteria”, in the words of Bautista.
Smart Classroom Project is aimed at infant, primary, secondary, vocational training centers, universities and other training entities, such as language centers and continuing education centers. In the future, the co-founders consider the scalability of the services, with the possibility of developing a platform that allows standardizing co-design processes, as well as other tools, mainly digital support, that allow progress in research and consulting in this field.
