The project was based on two simple but powerful ideas: 1) helping teachers to exploit the variety of software available in order to develop innovative and creative activities with their students; 2) sharing not only educational materials but also pedagogical competences.

In this paper we describe two activities proposed by the Italian team that well illustrate the spirit of this project. Though different in aspects concerning the length of the activities, the content knowledge addressed, the kind of tasks proposed and the ICT tools used, the examples we describe share several qualities. In both cases students were asked to create a particular product according to their interests and experiences and directed to a public outside the classroom, and therefore real. In both cases they were also requested to use creativity and they were totally free to conduct the activity, leading them to feel protagonists and responsible for their own outcomes. Both activities can be easily adapted to different educational situations, because their strength depends on the underlying ideas more than on the products developed.

The innovation of these examples is not the methodology nor the technology applied, but rather the way they are used. These examples suggest that working in inventive ways may actually be effective and not difficult nor expensive to implement. To this end, teachers need to use creativity in their pedagogical planning and learn to look at ordinary tools with different eyes.