Estonia. Small in size, great for research.

The Estonian Biobank (est. 2000) is a prospective, longitudinal, volunteer-based biobank with 200,000 participants. It includes regularly updated information from health records, questionnaires, DNA, plasma and cell samples. All DNA samples have been genotyped and the whole genomes of 3000 and whole exomes of 2500 individuals have been sequenced.  The biobank operates according to national and international law, is based on a broad informed consent and is open for research and innovation. The biobank is hosted by the Institute of Genomics and research based on the collected data is part of the studies of PhD and masters’ students mostly at the University of Tartu, and our staff is very active in international collaborations with researchers from across the world In addition, we take care of regularly organizing training courses on personalized medicine and pharmacogenetics for doctors in Estonia, to assist in implementing research results into practice.

During the past 5 years the Estonian Biobank has grown considerably and launched several studies piloting the return of results to biobank participants in collaboration with the medical community. For example, individuals with high risk variants for hereditary breast cancer and familial hypercholesterolemia have been re-contacted and counselled, and more recently individuals with high polygenic risk for breast cancer and coronary artery diseases participated in a clinical study where they underwent medical examination to evaluate the potential use of PRS for disease prevention. During these projects, more than 2,000 biobank participants have been referred to medical specialists in the respective fields. In total, more than 5,000 people have received counselling as part of several research projects. Our other research efforts focus on association studies based on the genotype data of 200,000 participants coupled with extensive health records, medication use and clinical lab measurements.

Estonian Biobank holds genomic and health data from 20% of the country’s adult population. With a world entering the genomic medicine and precision prevention era, there is globally an urgent need to test, adjust and learn how to implement the genomic knowledge in everyday medical routine. Population biobanks such as Estonian Biobank offer an excellent opportunity for a quick and efficient learning curve due to the unique availability of broad-scale genomic data and risk models. In addition, Estonian legal system supports data exchange, based on the participants’ broad consent and Estonian E-Health database permits for the central data exchange, currently from the healthcare providers to the biobank, but in the future also from the biobank to the healthcare system.

Over more than 5 years we have performed the return of results projects to the biobank participants, involving monogenic diseases such as familial hypercholesterolemia, familial breast and ovarian cancer, rare disease such as selected CNV’s and lysosomal disorders, polygenic scores in breast cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, etc. The projects have been performed in collaboration with MD’s both in primary care, large hospitals, and also directly to the subjects visiting biobank.

Overall, we have learned that there is indeed a great demand for the health-related genomic information among the research subjects. The genomic risk estimates are generally well tolerated. We have seen that despite the truely liberal and accessible medical system in Estonia, there is a significant underuse of genomic data. For example, most of our subjects receiving data on actionable high-risk findings have not been discovered by the healthcare system so far. This demonstrates the obvious benefit what joining a large-scale population biobank could provide to its subjects. We see a need for redesigning the clinical guidelines, as well as designing the healthcare service models, in collaboration with clinicians and healhcare providers. Last, but not least, the biobank can support companies to help design the novel risk models and analysis tools, based on our prototype solutions.

The presentation focuses on the three pillars of a smart city and how these have been implemented in an extensive pioneer smart city project (SmartEnCity) in Estonia.

The first pillar SUSTAINABILITY has been achieved through the large-scale renovation of the Soviet-era apartment buildings to nearly zero energy buildings and sustainable transport solutions (bike share system, fast chargers for electric vehicles, biogas buses, reuse of electric car batteries).

The second pillar DIGITALISATION includes technological solutions that allow measuring the environment in both renovated houses (smart home technology) as well as urban space (Smart LED streetlights, environmental sensors) and mobility of people in real-time.

The third pillar SOCIAL INNOVATION focuses on creating an inclusive smart city to affect the acceptance and diffusion of sustainable and smart solutions among the citizens.

Throughout the project, there were various ways to reach people: trainings, the Ambassadors program, public engagement events, and the selection of an art mural for the walls of the renovated houses. Digital solutions enable to collect data and social innovation solutions ensure that all population groups are included in this data. Based on the data collected by smart city solutions, a city information portal and Population Mobility Monitor (PMM) have been created, where spatio-temporal dynamics of human mobility and environment can be monitored and visualized. In this way, the smart city solutions offer support in the development of the city and data-driven decision making for the city government, service providers and the residents.

The FinEst Centre for Smart Cities is interested in research and innovation activities that are triggered by urban challenges. For this, we have mapped top 10 challenges of Estonian local governments followed by a global open idea competition. Based on this, four large scale smart city projects were initiated in 2021 and two pilots will follow in 2022. These pilots involve each at least two cities in the key domains of smart city (e.g. energy, mobility, built environment, governance and data).

Novel technologies have been seen as a potential to decrease inequality in education. It became evident during the distance learning situation when it became evident that not all the students’ benefit from such a teaching arrangement and not all the teachers are aware of how to integrate technologies into teaching more meaningfully. Analyses based on the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) data suggest that the way technology is blended into teaching and learning practices is crucial for ensuring that its use can lead to better student outcomes. Obviously, successful teaching depends precisely on how teachers integrate technology into their daily relations with students, whether they are able to create a supportive environment for their students and employ technology in a way that amplifies the teacher’s role.

Teachers are seen as key players in realizing the successful change at the classroom and school levels. As a consequence, teacher training programs need to be designed in a way that they promote teacher agency in the development of new types of pedagogies around the use of technologies. Traditional teacher training for adopting technologies has often taken an individualistic stance, focusing on teachers’ individual skills and beliefs. More recent models based on sociocultural learning theories have recognized that in innovation driven domains professional learners need to co-construct knowledge and appropriate practices, and there is now growing evidence that these lead to more effective adoption of technology in the classroom. This presentation will shed some light to the studies carried out in Estonia, which have demonstrated that social practices in teacher professional learning are an important factor in the process of adopting teaching strategies integrating novel technologies.

“Advances in conventional music teaching through video conferencing technologies“

Remote collaboration is very challenging in matters that need to take place in the most accurate time synchronization between participants. In audio and video systems, network traffic and acoustic movement of sound there is always delay, which is particularly detrimental to collaborated music performance. It is especially noticeable with the common remote communication tools. During the Covid-19 pandemic, latency (i.e., the delay experienced by remote parties in communicating with each other) has become familiar to everyone involved in musical collaboration and teaching.

The Italian Conservatorio Giuseppe Tartini and the GARR research network consortium have been developing the LoLa system for more than 10 years, enabling connections with delays of just a few milliseconds at hundreds and even thousands of kilometers between the remote participants.

The LoLa system was introduced at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre in a concert “Music without Borders” on 5 October 2017 that served as an introduction to the 2nd Eastern Partnership Ministerial Meeting on Digital Economy. The EAMT has since then been a forerunner in the implemantention of the the technology in the Baltic region as well as in the EU Eastern Partnership countries thanks to the EaPConnect project that has set out to create a regional research and education network in Eastern Europe and the Southern Caucasus with the objective to decrease the digital divide, improve intra-regional connectivity and facilitate participation of local scientists, students and academics in global research and education collaborations. It must be noted that the LoLa technology requires a fast symmetrical (equal speed in both directions) network connection to work properly,

The user experience of the LoLa system differs from the use of web conferencing applications such as Zoom in that the application itself is very simplified and the user can customize only a few technical settings in addition to choosing contact partners’ IP addresses. The picture and sound quality of the connection is excellent, and the people in remote locations seem to be present with a surprisingly authentic feel. At reasonable distances (from hundreds of kilometers up to a couple of thousand kilometers) the connection is essentially latency-free.

With the help of LoLa, it is possible to seamlessly produce performances in which the performers are located at long distances from each other. Teaching musical group performance remotely is finally possible with the help of LoLa, and in the future the system will probably enable even more possibilities for multi-point connections and improved visual projection. Multi-channel audio streams are already supported, leading to interesting possibilities for remote music production and multi-speaker sound reinforcement.

Some research has been carried out to investigate the didactic challenges that occur, when traditional music teaching is mediated through video conferencing technologies. There is a need to develop, test and improve the use of technology in music educations, creating at the same time new skills in teachers in using distant education tools, and preparing students to work in a world where technology exists also in the arts field.

We do have a quite important set of results, discoveries and better technical tools, too, resulting from a significant participation by teachers, and students.

Organizational integration, international outreach and ongoing technical developments must move forward hand in hand all the way.

EXPO Dubai presentation

Digital competence for learning – we need to know what it is

Prof. Margus Pedaste, University of Tartu, Estonia

Digital competence is one of the competences of the 21st century, which has been theoretically described by several expert groups but the dimensions of which have often been indistinguishable in empirical studies (as in the case of the DigComp framework). Thus, there are remarkable difficulties in increasing teachers’ and learners’ understanding of learners’ digital competence. This results in failure in online and distance learning, which is in high demand in the new era of having to cope with the challenges related to COVID-19. However, in addition, the meaningful and purposeful use of digital devices, digital learning environments and digital content might be beneficial in every learning environment, including face-to-face settings, where the digital learning technologies should be organically integrated into the learning process. We have developed a solution for increasing the understanding of learners’ digital competence for learning – DIGITEST. This increased understanding leads to successful application of digital technologies in learning and results in the empowerment of the learning process to better achieve various expected learning outcomes.

DIGITEST is a psychometrically validated test for assessing learners’ digital competence for learning in 10 dimensions. Dimensionality is valuable for adapting the learning process and improving the digital competence according to the specific needs of learners. According to Confirmatory Factor Analysis, DIGITEST is suitable for assessing four dimensions of learners’ attitudes towards digital technologies (social aspects, perceived control, behavioural attitudes, behavioural intention to use digital technologies); four dimensions of skills needed for applying digital technologies in the learning process (creation of digital content, programming digital content, communication and collaboration, performing operations in digital learning environments); and two dimensions describing behaviour in digital environments (legal behaviour in the digital world, protecting themselves, others, digital devices, environments and content in the digital world). Only items that are of good quality according to the Item Response Theory (IRT) analysis have been used in the test. IRT dif-test revealed that the test items are applicable in different age groups from 10 to 16 years of age. The test has also been validated using predictive validity analysis. DIGITEST is implemented online (on a computer or tablet) and takes 45–60 minutes to complete. So far it has been applied in the context of Estonia, and we are seeking international partners who are interested in applying the test in their context to validate it psychometrically in the international context and in various languages.

• CV: https://www.etis.ee/CV/Margus_Pedaste/est?lang=ENG&tabId=CV_ENG
• Latest video: https://vimeo.com/468919812 – What Are the Best Practices of Estonia in Coping With the Pandemic and What Has It Learned for Future Education?

Strengthening teacher agency in pre- and in-service teacher education

Teacher workforce is drawing attention internationally. On the one hand, the accumulated research knowledge (Hattie and Yates, 2013) and the current profound transformations of education purposes and practices emphasise the key role of teachers in ensuring the high quality and equity of education. On the other hand, many countries are struggling to ensure a sufficient number of qualified teachers who are engaged professionally and committed to stay in the teaching profession. An important question for policymakers is how we could come out from such an unsustainable situation and ensure the high quality of the teaching profession.

Different researchers (see, e.g., Priestley, Biesta and Robinson, 2015) propose that over a longer timeframe, supporting teacher agency at the individual, cultural and structural levels is the only sustainable way to maintain everything that is valuable in education as well as to make improvements in education. For this reason, supporting teacher agency has become an important aim of teacher education in different countries, including Estonia.

In a broad sense, agency refers to active participation in situations and influencing these situations. So, while identity refers to who the person is, agency shows what the person is doing. Our research group is drawing on the ecological model of teacher agency (Leijen, Pedaste and Lepp, 2020). We understand teacher agency primarily as a decision-making process. A teacher achieves agency when she/he can consider alternatives for action and is able to judge which option would be the most appropriate in a given practical situation in light of her/his greater professional purpose. Agency is not present if the teacher does not have alternatives to consider or if she or he is following routinised patterns. We have developed pre-service and in-service teacher education courses to support and strengthen teacher agency. We have also developed different questionnaires to measure teacher agency (see, e.g., Leijen, Pedaste and Baucal, 2021).

The presentation will cover the following topics: the changing role of teachers, the ecological model of teacher agency, measuring teacher agency, and strengthening pre- and in-service teachers’ professional agency in teacher education.

Circular economy and concept of zero waste in agriculture

Availability of soil resources and its quality is becoming more and more important issue in the World. What are the management practices preserving soils, from where will come pure and valuable nutrients and carbon recourses to maintain or improve soil quality? Concept of circular economy, with zero waste principles is not new. Centuries ago, it was everyday practice to consume food locally and return food residues to the field directly or via animals. Nowadays, in the conditions of specialization and urbanization the food and other agricultural products are processed and consumed far away from local origin. Also the residues are concentrating and creating waste and pollution problem in the urban areas, leaving soils without valuable nutrient and carbon sources. Composting is one of the easiest way to turn such kind of residues to the fertilizers. However, there is need of animal fodder and raw material for different products what can be extracted before the residues are returned back to the soil. Some of such kind of solutions, such extraction bioactive compounds from fruit residues for food and cosmetics additives, growth of flies, use of industrial waste ashes with composts as growing media, treating the waste with algae will be introduced, as well smart tools of precision agriculture to help make smart decision on the field.

“Natural resource valuation on the example of algae”

Estonian government’s national long term development strategy “Estonia 2035”, the vision for future promotes blue biotechnology as a combination of innovation and technology towards the development of new products from marine resources. Macroalage, being a potential biomass, contributes innovative solutions for socio-economical challenges towards a sustainable future. Around the globe, marine algae are utilized in various fields as functional materials starting from agriculture, food, feed, therapeutics, cosmetics, bioplastics, energy sources (bioethanol and biogas), water treatment, carbon footprint reduction, etc. In Tallinn University at the school of Natural Sciences and Health, with guidance of Prof. Dr. Rando Tuvikene, our research team focuses on the biomedical potential of various seaweeds. Among the Baltic seaweeds, Furcellaria lumbricalis is a popular red algae found in Estonia. Towards a sustainable development strategy, the utilization of algal resources leads to the development of high value biomolecules with excellent therapeutic and commercial potential. Due to the presence of various active biomolecules, algal polysaccharides are utilized as anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, anticancer, anticoagulating and immunomodulating agents.  In the current scenario of viral pandemic situation, when tested, various algal polysaccharides are found to be inactivating the Covid-19 virus proteins, by the polysaccharide protein interactions, which promise the development of near future antiviral therapeutic products from algae.  In a nutshell, macroalgae is an excellent example of the efficient use of renewable natural resource towards circular economy by complete utilization of its components gaining maximum value, simultaneously encouraging the efficient waste management through biotechnological approaches.