The 3rd Annual Innokas Research Retreat

Every composition has an entry point!

Every six months, the research group of Innokas Network gathers for a self-organized retreat. It is becoming one of our most inspiring and joyful ways to nurture shared expertise and a sense of coherence as a team. This spring’s retreat brought us together for two full days of collaborative work, meaningful discussions, and exciting group activities on the Central campus at the University of Helsinki. The atmosphere was warm and encouraging from the very beginning as we shared our knowledge and explored means for professional growth both individually and collectively. These two days also gave us the opportunity to reflect on our developing professional identities and to acknowledge each other’s strengths.

Members of Innokas Network research group.

During the retreat, we explored topics related to science popularization and publishing, the team’s on-going research and projects. Through collaborative discussions, we further elaborated our team’s research interests and expertise. We participated in playful science visualization tasks that helped us reimagine how research can be communicated in engaging ways. We also began shaping the next Campfire research-practice partnership event, where Innokas Network’s researchers and teachers come together to share concerns, discuss new ideas, and initiate potential practical research projects. The days were full, rewarding, and inspiring. Amidst the scheduled online meetings and distributed preparation of articles and projects, this retreat presented a rare moment away from our daily routines to meet face to face and harness this team’s potential to contribute to education by co-creating, planning ahead, and developing means to support both educational research and practices.

Research group during a coffee break enjoying the sunshine.

Although our schedule was packed with workshops and deep discussions (including a lovely mindfulness session led by Esa Pavloff-Pelkonen to kick things off), the retreat was ultimately defined by the people who contributed their duration, insights, and creativity to it. We extend our warmest thanks to everyone who participated, presented, and organized to co-create this shared lived experience. We would love to hear or read your thoughts – what have been your favorite or most inspiring team-building or co-development activities?

Joakim Laine & Johanna Airaksinen
Doctoral researchers from the Innokas Network research group

Exploring Nordic Education Trends at NERA 2026 in Aarhus, 4.–6.3.2026

Mange hilsner fra solrige Aarhus, Danmark!

We had the opportunity to attend the Nordic Educational Research Association (NERA) Conference 2026 at VIA University College. The theme of this year’s conference was “Courage and Agency in Education for the Present,” which felt particularly timely, reflecting the uncertainty and rapid change that students, teachers, researchers, and education professionals are currently navigating.

Over the three days, the program offered a rich mix of keynote talks, symposia, and presentation sessions. We also had the opportunity to present our own PhD research as posters. One of the most rewarding aspects of the conference was engaging with diverse perspectives on current educational issues within the Nordic countries. Common themes included, for example, the role of AI in teaching and learning, questions around appropriate screen time, and the use of smartphones in schools, particularly in relation to student well-being, learning outcomes, and classroom practices. Many discussions also opened up exciting possibilities for future research collaborations, providing us with valuable moments for reflection on our own research contexts and ideas.

Satu and Tea presenting their PhD research at the poster session.

The social program offered opportunities for networking, e.g., while admiring and contemplating modern art at the Aros Museum. Aarhus proved to be a pleasant conference city, where it was easy to wander around on foot or by bike. The sunny weather was a bonus, giving us a glimpse of the coming spring.

We would like to warmly thank the organizers for facilitating and hosting the event! 

Satu Kulmala & Tea Laine

Doctoral researchers from the Innokas Network research group 

Partnerships brought together

The National Network of Education Research-Practice Partnerships (NNERPP) brings together research-practice partnerships (RPP) in education to connect and share. Innokas Network is honored to be a part of this community. In the NNERPP Yearbook we reflect on the past year’s highlights and successes such as our new AI-themed projects and remote lessons.

Read more about our thoughts about this past year and get to know other RPP’s in the NNERPP Yearbook: https://tinyurl.com/NNERPPyearbook25.

Laura Salo/Innokas Network

Empowering Research-Practice Partnerships Across Europe: network kick-off in Paris 16.-18.9.

It is a wonderful honor to start to work on building a European level research-practice partnership (RPP) network. Earlier this year, Innokas Network joined the U.S. based National Network of Education Research-Practice Partnerships (NNERPP) in order to deepen our shared knowledge on RPP’s across contexts. The coordinating university of NNERPP, Rice University, hosted an expert group of RPP-researchers at the Rice Global Paris Center September 16-18. Representatives from the U.S. Germany, UK, Switzerland, France, Sweden, Norway and Finland came together to share RPP-related experiences, discuss the central features of RPP’s, envision what this European level network would look like and decide on next steps.

Two exciting days filled with interaction around first, getting to know one another second sharing and co-developing a base for what we envision for the network. It was a great opportunity to come together in the same space and time to discuss contextual issues, principles and experiences.

We are grateful for the organizing team for their efforts in bringing us all together and facilitating structured and meaning exchange of ideas. Equally we are thankful to all the participants as they stepped up to bring their own valuable experiences and views to the table.

RPP’s are an effective and meaningful approach to educational transformation and the field would benefit greatly from shared knowledge, research across contexts and joint initiatives.

Looking forward to what’s to come!

Tiina Korhonen & Laura Salo

Get excited about programming with EU Code Week! 

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“EU Code Week is a grass-roots movement that celebrates creativity, problem solving and collaboration through programming and other tech activities. The idea is to make programming more visible, to show young, adults and elderly how you bring ideas to life with code, to demystify these skills and bring motivated people together to learn.” https://codeweek.eu/about 

The Innokas network, together with the Finnish National Agency for Education, challenged teachers, schools and educational institutions to get excited about programming and computational thinking in Finland! We hosted exciting and versatile distance learning lessons for students of different ages, from preschool to middle school. Schools were also invited to organize their own coding event with their students and to add their event to the EUCodeWeek.eu -page.  

In October 2023, nearly 15000 students and their teachers registered to participate in nine distance lessons with the topics ranging from coding games, to programming without devices, to artificial intelligence. It was truly an engaging and innovative way to get excited about programming and learn together! 

On the EU’s Code Week website, you can find tips, materials and courses for implementing events, as well as the English-language social media channels maintained by the European Commission, where you can follow the activities of the code week throughout the year. 

Guests from Beijing at last! 

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好久不见! , ”Long time, no see!” is a Chinese phrase for not seeing someone for a while. This is what I and my Chinese guests said to each other when we met on this May. 

The Global Education Community (GEC) and Global Innokas Network has given me many opportunities to meet new people around the world. During our trips to China we have for example met Joan, a journalist of Education. On this spring she came to Helsinki with Wang Xiaofeng (a principal in a rural school near Beijing) and Hongdi (a voluntary teacher in Beijing area). They all wanted to visit Nuuksio National Park and our school – both visits went well! 

On Sunday the 21st we wandered in Nuuksio National Park and I told my visitors about Finnish Nature and the Nature School of Haltia. My visitors were amazed how important role the Nature has in Finnish everyday life. We also visited Haltia’s exhibitions where Joan, Xiaofeng and Hongdi were able to learn how animals survive during wintertime or how bear or birds live. After that we came to my house to talk and to have dinner together. 

On Tuesday the 23rd my guests came to visit our school. They were impressed how well organized everything is and how much is going on all the time. Joan, Hongdi and Xiaofeng followed me and my students (4th and 9th graders) to Riistavuori Senior House where my students performed their poems to seniors and where seniors performed their poems to my students. My Chinese guests wondered, how come we are having this sort of cooperation. Well, the idea comes from our National Curriculum, doesn’t it! 

I hope I see my Chinese colleagues in a future, either here in Finland or in China! 

A Visit to Riistavuori Senior House
Joan and me
My Chinese colleague making an interview

Raini Sipilä, Helsingin Suomalainen Yhteiskoulu 

On the road to innovation

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We had the opportunity to visit the Maker Faire event in Orlando, Florida in November 2019, to discover the latest in maker-activities. It was interesting to see how maker-activities were realized overseas! The event was characterized by a strong sense of community where families and people of all ages both participated and presented their own innovations and crafts. We had the possibility to meet with local organizers and networkers and discussed how this great event was organized with voluntary efforts and local flavors.

The range of activities was wide ranging from simple art and textile craft to Robot Ruckus fighting robots. Both traditional making and novel technologies were presented side by side with great pride and joy in making! Faire visitors were greeted by a drumming band and could easily spend the whole day discovering and doing together with family and friends. We got many great ideas to take home from the overall atmosphere and presentation, working together as a community to single maker-ideas!

Laura Salo, Asta Ansolahti & Tiina Korhonen

Innokas Network

EU CODE WEEK @ Jalavapuisto school, Espoo

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I decided to build most of this years EU Code Week events in our school around the Cody Color -game that the Italians introduced to me in the EU Code Week summer school where 25 leading teachers got together to network and learn new things. Thank you Italy!

I started by cutting sheets of paper about 30 cm x 30 cm and introducing the rules to the game to my own class. The instructions you can find here: Color challenge. It’s never too late to try! The kids really loved it.

We spread around the hallways to play. We practiced on a 4 x 4 grid although we later tried on a much bigger one. This grid was excellent for 2 kids but even 4-5 could fit, as long as they knew their steps.

After my class learned the game well we sent invitations to teachers in our school to book us on Code week to come and teach it to their classes. We got many invitations and spent many hours on week 41 teaching other children in our school. On one particular lesson we had 10 spots in the gym for anyone to come and try. For first time users a good hint is to draw a small red dot on the back of your right hand and a yellow one on the left hand. Makes turning the right way a lot easier.

At the end of that class my class tried out the massive 12 x 13 grid with 24 children at the same time! It was super fun but the grid being so big you could only figure out your path so far and some of the success was pure luck.

We also tried the Battle Royale on the website to prepare us for the night school and beating all the parents. After playing on the floor the kids got a hang of the website game really quickly.

On Thursday the 10th of October we had a coding night school. The kids came back to school at 5 o’clock with a lot of parents who had accepted our code challenge. We started with about 50-60 people on the Battle Royale. Everything worked really smoothly. The parents got super excited too! But as hard as they tried they couldn’t beat the kids -some came close 🙂

On the same evening we also tested the code.org website and their Hour of code activities. We got quite a few diplomas printed for completing it!

And we also had time for doing the pixel art posted to EU Code Week teachers group in Facebook by Catherine Swain. Thank you for the fun idea!

But no night school would be fun without pizzas, playing tag on the dark hallways of the school and sleeping altogether on the gym floor. We’ll do all this again next year!

And this excellent 4K class has well deserved their certificates of recognition for contributing to the success of EU Code Week 2019. Good job!

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EU Code Week Ambassadors and Edu Coordinators meeting 4.-5.9.2019

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I had the privilege of attending EU Code Week Ambassadors and Edu Coordinators meeting in Brussels on September 4.-5. on behalf of Finland’s Ambassadors and Edu Coordinators. The two days were full of networking, key speakers and planning. I also introduced Innokas network as one of Finland’s best practices on the field of coding and innovations.

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On the first day we heard from Nadia Aime and her personal story on how it has lead her to work toward bringing equality in coding for all. We also heard about the Code Week pilot Summer school. You can read more about the summer school in my blog here.

Then it was time for best practises. I introduced the Innokas network, it’s story and all the things we do. You can read more about the Innokas network here. Other best practises came from Poland, Italy, Luxembourg, Romania and Austria. They covered topics like computational thinking, tips and tricks for engaging code week and connecting the national digital education with the code week website. Day one was finished with a networking dinner.

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On Thursday we got to see a sneak peek at the new redesigned EU code Week website. It should be out any day now, so keep a look out for the orange! We also got to hear three interesting presentations.

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Claire Sears from the British Council told us about their work on training all the teachers in the Western Balkans. She also introduced the online courses they have for all teachers. 

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Loubna Azghoud from the Women in Tech Festival presented us with their Code festival for 2019. The subject this year is Code & Fly to the moon. Read more about it on their site starting September 9th. 

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Deidre Hodson from DG Education, Youth, Sport and Culture introduced the SELFIE. It’s a free, easy to use tool to help schools find out where the students and teachers are in regards of digital learning and digital competences.

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The Innovative school model by Innokas and the holistic approach on embedding technology in teaching and learning introduced by SELFIE and european Commission have a lot in common in my opinion.

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We also worked on brainstorming for the Code Week vision of the future and mind mapped for the actions of Code Week 2019. The countdown is on! 26 days and counting!

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Anu Kahri,
EU Code Week Leading teacher in Finland
Classroom teacher, Jalavapuisto school, Espoo, Finland
Innokas-trainer

EU CODE WEEK summer school 2019

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I had a great opportunity this summer to participate in Brussels in the first ever EU Code Week Pilot Summer school! 25 EU Code week Leading teachers from 16 different countries were welcomed on Tuesday the 9th of July by Commissioner Maryia Gabriel. Her goal is to get 50% of all schools in the EU area to participate in EU Code Week by 2020. That leads us straight to the Leading teachers’ goal of building a stronger network and spreading the idea that Code Week is for everybody. 

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On the second day of EU Code Week Pilot Summer school we worked on parallel workshops. It was hard to choose, because you only had time to participate in 2 of the 4. There was workshops on tinkering and making, robotics and makeblocks, micro:bit, visual programming and, game design. During the workshops we talked about developing technologic and information literacy and, competences like problem solving, creativity and collaboration. 

My favorite workshop was working with Pocket Code. With Pocket Code you can create, play and share games and animations that you develop with your phone or tablet. It was super easy and fun! 

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In the afternoon we worked with Computer Science Fundamentals and the code.org curriculum in particular. 

Day 3 of the EU Code Week Summer School focused on building a MOOC together. We started by listing advantages and finding solutions for existing challenges on the following topics: 

  •  Visual programming 
  • Robotics 
  • Tinkering 
  • Unplugged activities 
  • Coding with all subjects 

On day 3 we also got to play a royal battle on CodyColor which was introduced to us by Leading teacher Stefania Altieri. The aim on the game is to keep your robot moving on the platform as long as possible. You have a 4 X 4 grid and you can choose where your robot “walks in to the grid” but after that the moves are pre-determined by the colors in the squares. It was a super fun game that I will definately play with my kids at school. As an unplugged first, so that they learn the directions and then the actual battle.  

On Day 3 we also got to visit the House of European History museum. The museum aims to become the leading museum about transnational phenomena which have shaped our continent. The museum explores the historical memories, diverse experiences and common ground of the people of Europe and how these relate to present day. It was a very interesting and interactive guided tour via a tablet and I got to experience it in Finnish! The House of European History can be experienced in all 24 EU official languages. 

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On day 4 – our last day – we learned how to organize a hackathon but mainly focused on the future. We worked on our action plans for the coming EU Code Week. Many different ideas and many different ways on how to put these ideas into practice were shared. It is very important to share and to create a network. We recieved our diplomas for the good work we’d done during the week and said farewells to all new friends near and far, knowing that a new network is supporting us from now on.  

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Do you want to learn more? Watch the video and sign up for the MOOC!

EU Code Week – Deep Dive MOOC

 

Anu Kahri 

EU Code Week Leading teacher in Finland 

Classroom teacher, Jalavapuisto school, Espoo, Finland 

Innokas-trainer 

 

PS. Brussels is known for it’s Manneken pis but did you know that it has inspired two other statues… The Jeanneke Pis and the Het Zinneke. Make sure to find all three if you ever visit the city 🙂

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