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Let’s Explore Our Cultural Heritage with Technology and Art

The meetings between the pupils of two first years of the secondary school of I.O. Pestalozzi (lead school) and their “colleagues” from four schools in four European countries – Lithuania, the Netherlands, Romania and Turkey – participating in the Erasmus Plus Project “Let’s Explore our Cultural Heritage with Technology and Art” have just ended.

This KA2 project foresees four mobilities, which for obvious reasons are currently suspended, of small groups of 6 students, accompanied by 2 teachers, over a period of 24 months.

During these short virtual tours in three of the five countries involved, the first stop was “our beautiful Sicily”. The meeting was coordinated by the Headmaster, prof. ssa Elena Di Blasi, who is making internationalization one of the bulwarks of her management and teaching activities: “I started working on Erasmus Plus, together with the partner schools, in the middle of the Lockdown – says the headmistress – a year ago, despite all the concerns, I took on the coordination of the application for this project. A seed planted in the “middle of winter” is timidly beginning to appear on the fringes of this spring: a small taste of what we all hope will once again become a real journey. Stay tuned!”

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DigiFrame: Teachers’ Framework on Digitalisation & Innovation

Syntra West and Syntra Limburg started this Erasmus + project in March 2021. With partners from Denmark, Finland and Ireland, we focus on the digital skills of our teachers.

We are developing a 360° Assessment Tool to map digital skills among teachers and a personal learning path to strengthen these skills. We are investigating how to strengthen the innovative climate within our organizations.

Knowledge gained within the project will be shared online and through events in the partner countries.

More information: syntrawest.be

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Portuguese news

Restaurante Pedagógico

Neste contexto de pandemia e de ensino remoto, as boas práticas tiveram que ser reinventadas.

A distância impede-nos de sentir os odores e as texturas, assim como de degustar os sabores dos diferentes pratos produzidos pelos alunos de Cozinha/Pastelaria, que ficariam mais completos com a harmonização das bebidas propostas pelos alunos de Restaurante-Bar.

Porém, graças ao trabalho elaborado pelos alunos de Multimédia apresentamos o Restaurante Pedagógico da Escola Secundária de Felgueiras.

Neste projeto estão envolvidos os docentes e alunos (atuais e ex-alunos) dos Cursos Profissionais de Cozinha/Pastelaria, Restaurante-Bar e Multimédia.

Veja o vídeo https://youtu.be/DxPWlVlivFw

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FICA Project

O Projeto FICA (Força de Intervenção e Combate ao Absentismo/Abandono Escolar) teve início em setembro de 2019, como forma de dar resposta às metas do Projeto Educativo que visam a diminuição do absentismo e abandono escolar e, consequentemente, a conclusão com sucesso dos cursos frequentados.  

Atualmente, o FICA é constituído por uma psicóloga e quatro professores da Escola Profissional Dr. Francisco Fernandes (www.enneproject.eu/pt-pt/schools/instituto-para-a-qualificacao-ip-ram/) que, em articulação com os coordenadores/mediadores de curso e com os encarregados de educação, tenta gerir comportamentos desviantes ou de risco, que possam comprometer o sucesso escolar. 

Os formandos sinalizados encontram na equipa um ambiente de confiança onde podem, livremente, partilhar os seus problemas, permitindo assim a definição de estratégias conjuntas que procuram a melhoria da sua situação escolar.

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European Strategic Plan Implementation : “Web Marketing Accelerator” training course

Into the Erasmus+ KA3 Digital Tourism Project, the High School “Scarpellini” (Foligno-Italy) organises a training course on “Web Marketing Accelerator”.

The course will be lead by Valentina la Magna, teacher at the school and expert in Web Marketing. The course is organised in 10 classes totalling 30 hours – 3 hours per lesson. The first part is focused on theorical studies which will be followed by practical exercises to allow the students to achieve the necessary skills to work on the High School’s social editorial plan until the end of the school year.
The tutor and other teachers will monitor all students.

The main mission is to guide all students to develop a web marketing strategy to be used in the tourism sector. They’ll have a work experience in the related enterprises and they’ll acquire skills to be used in the labour market. The first four modules are focused on the web competencies: introduction, communication styles, advertising in 2020 and CRM (Customer Relationship Management – a process in which a business or another organisation administers its interactions with customers, usually using data analysis to study large amounts of information). The course will begin shortly and fourth- and fifth-grade students will get involved. The internationalization plan developed by school allows to include all different activities that will be carried out by the school. The skills the students will acquire within the course on Web Marketing will be immediately applied. When they will conclude their studies at school they will be involved in work experiences abroad – in July and August 2021.
The opportunity is within the European Project KA116 “W.I.I.P. Widenening Inclusion and Internationalization Plan” and allows the fifth-grade students to have a five-week trasnational work experience in specialised enterprises. Fourth-grade students will instead implement what they have learned next year. In the meanwhile, they will go on by updating all school communication channels. In September and October 2021 they will be included within the KA116 UPVET, Carta della mobilità (Mobility Card), and they will have a five-week work experience abroad in specialised enterprises as well.

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Presentation of the National Calls for VET Staff and Learners

The European Commission states that “education, training, youth work and sport are key to promote common European values, foster social integration, enhance intercultural understanding and a sense of belonging to a community and to prevent radical radicalisation”.

The Erasmus+ programme, besides of enhancing the academic and professional course of its participants, also improves the knowledge of new cultures, new languages, intercultural communication and interaction, and the sense of what it is like to be a European citizen.

The mobility actions for VET learners and staff strengths the employability of its participants, facilitates entrance in the labour market and it also foster their personal development.

The ENNE project has as an objective the enhancement of VET quality and attractiveness, with a specific focus on mobility opportunities. VET staff and learners will be encouraged to take part in VET mobility experiences. Each country will make available mobility grants for learners willing to take part in a WBL experience abroad and for job-shadowing activities for teachers. These mobility experiences aim at the:

  • Promotion of peer-learning methodologies among VET staff;
  • Promotion of the acquisition of soft skills for VET learners;
  • Promotion of WBL (Work Based Learning) and mobility for VET learners and staff.

With this is mind, the project partners will soon launch two national calls: one for VET Staff and one for VET Learners.

Internal call for VET teachers to apply for a Job-shadowing activity abroad; followed by the evaluation, selection and implementation of the Job-shadowing experience:

Most of teachers have little to no experience in careers outside of education and may have difficulty to understanding clearly how students will apply the knowledge and skills acquired during their academic courses. Because of this, activities such as Job-shadowing based on best practices can be of great value for these teachers. The implementation of Job-shadowing abroad aims at:

  • Give teachers the opportunity to observe and learn the best practices developed in other EU countries;
  • Inspire new ideas for teaching in VET;
  • Give hosting organisation the opportunity to interact with a teacher coming from another country and discuss about today’s educational challenges and opportunities;
  • Create/strengthen connections between teachers and the potential partners capable of providing them with expertise and resources for their classrooms and schools.

Internal call for WBL experiences abroad for VET Learners, followed by the evaluation, selection and implementation of the WBL experiences:

Transnational mobility aimed at acquiring new skills is one of the fundamental ways through which individuals, particularly young people, can strengthen their future employability and foster their personal development. VET enables these young learners to acquire the knowledge, skills and experience they need to succeed in the labour market, whether for a specific job or for a wider range of occupations.

Based on the experience and on the inspiration of role models videos, previously developed and released by the project partners, VET learners will apply for this call, presenting their own Work Based Learning project.

These two national calls will be directed to the associated partners of the 5 National Networks ENNE (Portugal, Italy, Germany, Bulgaria, and Belgium). Teachers and learners will have to submit their applications, which will be evaluated by the project partners, and the selected participants will have the opportunity to participate in the mobility activities, offered by the ENNE project.

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Partnerships for Work Based Learning

“Creating VET business partnerships for WBL” is one of the Erasmus+ projects that Wisamar Bildungsgesellschaft in Leipzig is involved in. The project aims to develop partnerships between vocational schools and companies in North Macedonia, Greece, Turkey, and Bulgaria to offer students of those vocational schools practical placements where they could experience work-based learning.

The vocational education in these countries is still rather theoretical and school-based and the students don’t have an opportunity to train and develop their skills and competences in a real-work environment. On the other hand, in Germany and the Netherlands, two other partner countries involved in the project, a dual system in vocational education is fully established. German and Dutch students spend a large part of their vocational education in their training companies and after finishing their education they often become regular employees of the company.

To share German experience with the dual system, Wisamar is organising training in Leipzig for representatives from each participating organisation that should take place in May 2021, due to the current situation possibly only online. Experts on the dual system will teach the participants how to establish business partnerships and how to train teachers from schools and mentors from the companies to organise practical placements for the students. The practical placements in North Macedonia, Greece, Turkey, and Bulgaria will take place in summer 2021.

Also, together with its partners, Wisamar is creating an online platform that will be used by both the companies and the students. The platform will be a place where the vocational students can promote themselves in front of their future employers with their skills and competencies while the companies can evaluate the work-based learning of the students.

The partner organisation Dutch Foundation of Innovation Welfare 2 Work supports the project by a based learning guide for schools and companies and learning diaries for students. The other partners in this project are the Foundation “Nikola Kljusev” from North Macedonia, Institute of Entrepreneurship Development from Greece, Osmaniye Provincial Directorate of National Education from Turkey, and Horizont ProConsult ltd from Bulgaria. The project runs from October 2020 to March 2022.

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VET Digipals

International exchange “light”
To share VET learning experiences internationally and digitally with (student) colleagues abroad. Is that possible? And how do you get started?
 
It can easily be done via the VET DigiPals approach, in a few simple steps: 
 
Step 1. Find the learning experience you want to share
In this step you involve your (fellow) students as much as possible: together you look for a learning experience that you find interesting to share. This can really be anything: a product, an approach or technique, a part or ingredient, an instrument or tool.

Below we give some examples for inspiration:
Students from the 7th year of Childcare at a Flemish school are given the assignment to develop a kamishibay (Japanese storytelling theater), with an accompanying story bag. They present the development process and the results digitally and in French to fellow students in a French-speaking school.
Students from the last year of “Marketing” from a school in Barcelona work out a marketing plan in digital collaboration with and for a Flemish VET-school, involving the students of the school.
Apprentices from the “Traiteur” course from a school in Northern France convert a regional recipe into a dish and share it digitally with Flemish apprentices.
Welders from a school in Rome digitally show how they restore antique metalwork to apprentice welders from a Flemish school who are mainly active in shipbuilding and repair. Then it is the turn of the Flemish welders to share one of their specific arts with the welders from Rome.
 
Step 2: Briefly introduce your idea to us
You can quickly pass on your idea to us via an online form. In this form we ask for some contact details, the preferred language in which you want to share your idea, and ask the following question: “Which part of your training process do you want to share and with whom (teachers, students, …)? Do you already know how? ”
You can find this form here. Please use Google translate to translate the form. Your answers can be in your native language.
 
Step 3: We will contact you to support you in the further development of your idea, and to look for a partner school together with you.
We will find out, among other things, how to internationalize the sharing of the learning experience, and support you in looking for and consulting with a foreign partner. In this way a concrete planning is established.
 
Step 4: Do!
You organize the digital learning sharing experience, together with the foreign partner. We are happy to be there as support and to learn from your experience.
 
Step 5. You participate in a short evaluation of the experience
We do a short survey of your experience, to learn more from this and to take that knowledge with us in the further development of the VET DigiPals concept.
Interested? Convinced? Fill out the online form or contact ben.bruyndonckx@connectief.be for more information.
 
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“Experience differently” CALL 2020

The GO! Next Level X students in care and educator-counselor do an internship in the Martha Flora nursing home in Maastricht, the Netherlands.
They accompany and care for care recipients and organise activities independently, guided by a mentor.
They keep an internship journal and a blog. The students visit a Dutch school with the same curriculum. Teachers learn from the differences in approach, pupils gain insight into the work field. They get more self-confidence and learn to take responsibility.

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An internship in a practice enterprise

There have been major changes in the labour market in the past year and the practice enterprise has not missed the boat as a business-oriented,
didactic solution. COFEP has adapted to the changing circumstances and the needs of the contemporary education and training landscape and creates, together with the schools involved, a tailor-made solution, both online and offline. It is therefore possible to organize a practice enterprise (partly) from home or in a classroom setting.

COFEP offers a full alternative to internships: a practice enterprise with tasks and assignments according to the objectives of the internship and the training.
A Practice Enterprise is a trainee-run company that operates as a real business. It silhouettes a real enterprise’s business procedures, products and services. A Practice Enterprise resembles a real company in its form, organisation and function.
We provide schools with a full order book, an active mailbox and a network with other practice enterprises to put administrative, commercial, financial and logistical profiles to work. The school or training centre provides an internship supervisor or mentor who does the day-to-day follow-up of the students, gives them feedback and eventually evaluates them, just like an external internship. COFEP takes care of the training and support of the supervisor.

Within COFEP, the Belgian network of practice enterprises is promoted. The practice enterprise is a learning company within a simulated economy, ranging from retail businesses to wholesale businesses, from marketing companies to transport companies, from  contact centres to accounting firms. 

The trainees are prepared for the real business world by putting them to work in practice enterprises. Their entrepreneurship is stimulated by immersing them in a business reality with ERP business processes and national and international collaborations. Worldwide, there are more than 7 000 virtual companies run by trainees from secondary education, higher education and adult education. 

A traditional internship in a real company was particularly hard to come by this autumn. Thanks to COFEP’s practice enterprises, schools were able to create challenging workplaces for all their students. They learned a wide variety of things on the job, from processing orders in ERP software to negotiating in a foreign language with native speakers. The trainees are given a wide variety of tasks to handle and take responsibility for their own virtual company.