Breaking Barriers, the daily challenge faced by teacher Cappiello between coding, AI and personal growth
With over twenty years of teaching experience, Professor Paola Cappiello, now an English teacher at the Nicolò D'Arco secondary school in Prabi, in the province of Trento, continues to reinvent herself every year. What sets her apart is undoubtedly her tireless desire to integrate educational technologies to make lessons more inclusive, engaging and meaningful.
Her first contact with the Fondazione Mondo Digitale was about seven years ago, on the recommendation of a colleague. Since then, she has participated in many of our activities, experimenting with different tools for educational innovation. The discovery of the CS First platform, in particular, marked a turning point in her approach to teaching.
From storytelling to coding: a method for talking about values
In the workshop “Adventure on the high seas”, students reworked videos from the course to create stories with a positive message, modifying sprites and dialogues on Scratch. One of the most touching stories that emerged was that of a Tunisian student who brought to light episodes of discrimination he had suffered. This is a concrete example of how coding and storytelling, when combined, can become powerful tools for expressing oneself and addressing sensitive issues such as racism and inclusion.
Breaking Barriers, from training to the classroom: the art of adaptation
Thanks to the Breaking Barriers project, Professor Cappiello participated in several webinars on coding and storytelling, artificial intelligence and geography with Scratch, finding them stimulating and full of ideas.
However, she is keen to point out that bringing what she learns into the classroom does not mean replicating every step faithfully, but reworking the content in a sustainable way that is consistent with the times and contexts of her school.
‘60-minute lessons fly by. Some activities need to be simplified or reorganised to suit the reality of the classroom, but the important thing is to find the right way to make them work with your students.’.
A concrete example is the attempt to use a map of the city of Arco in a geocoding activity, which required some technical modifications to work with Scratch. Even the design of the quizzes involved careful consideration of the inclusiveness of the answers.
In any case, Paola has always chosen the path of adaptation, with patience and creativity.
The value of time (and relationships)
Student feedback can be summed up as pure enthusiasm. The activities are so engaging that “time flies and they don't even notice”. After the first coding lesson, the students couldn't wait to continue. Paola has found the right balance between traditional approaches (writing dialogues on paper) and digital tools to engage everyone.
She also experimented with self-assessment sheets to reflect on group work. In one significant episode, a particularly bright but stubborn student had a moment of crisis due to a disagreement with a classmate. After calming down, he recognised the validity of the other person's idea. It was a small but profound lesson in personal growth and collaboration.
Space for everyone: valuing diversity
Girls also distinguished themselves in the projects, demonstrating how coding can be an accessible and inclusive tool. In one group, for example, a student with less digital experience wrote the story by hand, dictating it to her classmate who was more familiar with digital technology. Another solved a technical problem on her own, reviewing the lesson videos with determination and a touch of stubbornness.
‘You change partners to enrich yourself,’ says Paola, who tried to encourage mixed groups and role rotation, despite initial resistance from the students.
The teacher as an eternal apprentice
A powerful message that emerges from her testimony is that teachers are also in continuous training. Despite her long career, Paola describes herself as “eternally curious”. She recounted a technical challenge in a project on pollution: neither she nor the university trainers could solve a problem with the transition of backgrounds. After several attempts, she found the solution on her own. This moment helped her rediscover the value of patience and of stopping to start again, a lesson she now passes on to her students.
‘Being a teacher today means experimenting, falling down and getting back up again. There is no age limit for putting yourself out there: there is only passion.’
The Breaking Barriers project
The Breaking Barriers project is the result of a partnership between Fondazione Mondo Digitale and Google.org to build a more equitable educational future and promote equal opportunities in science and technology.
