"In the distance education process that started across Europe due to Covid-19, the need to increase the application capacity of education and training institutions of online, blended, distance education and training; to develop the digital pedagogical competence of educators in order to provide high quality inclusive digital education; to develop and use high quality digital content such as innovative online resources and tools has emerged.EGLA from Finland, Izmir Provincial Directorate of National Education, ARKAS Science and Art Center, Private Gaziemir Ugur Secondary School from Turkey and Tallinna 21. Kool from Estonia have initiated a Strategic Partnership in the field of school education. The purpose of this partnership is to network among institutions across the EU, to bring together digital technology providers and experts in educational technologies and related pedagogical practices to share resources and expertise.The total duration of the project is 24 months. LTT 1 activity will be conducted under the leadership of the Tallinna 21. Kool from Estonia. In this workshop, material development training with methods and techniques related to new approaches; Educational scenarios and interdisciplinary modeling, interactive videos, visuals, mind maps, Web tools for coding studies, distance measurement and evaluation, distance lecture materials will be produced. LTT 2 activity will be created under the leadership of the European Green Lean Association EGLA. With this LTT, our teachers will be trained on how to design and develop their own digital games. As a result of LTT, teachers will gain the competence to create their own course contents using their new digital skills and competencies. Good examples and practices will be integrated into the lessons.In the project process, a total of three TPMs on ""Quality Assessment of Digital Materials"" and ""Quality Assessment of Digital Game Materials"" will be held in addition to the project kick-off meeting.In LTTs to be held on ""Digital Material Development"" in Estonia and ""Digital Game Training"" in Finland, trainers from partner institutions will participate in short-term joint staff training activities. Administrators and teachers (Technologies, Science, Social Sciences, Mathematics, Applied Courses, Foreign Languages, Classroom Teachers) who have an ICT-related infrastructure, and who want to improve themselves, who will use and disseminate the information obtained during the project process in education and training activities, and who will provive with sufficient language level Information will participate in these activities. Participation criteria will be announced on the board accessible to all teachers. The final participants will be determined by one-on-one interviews with the participants by a five-person selection commission consisting of individuals from different institutions.Our project will have four outputs.O1 PortalO2 Digital Materials Development, Preparation of event plans and materialsO3 Digital Education Games DevelopmentO4 Digital Education GuideOur project is innovative in the fields of both developing the digital competencies of teachers and producing digital course contents, lessons, distance measurement and evaluation web tools in accordance with their needs, and improving the capacity of partner institutions.As the dissemination activity of our project, a conference will be organized by the İzmir Provincial Directorate of National Education. This event will include Teachers, Official and Private School Institution Managers, Assistants in Schools, Academicians, Parents, NGOs working on Education and Informatics, Policymakers, Written and Visual Press representatives and Foreign participants. Academicians will make thematic presentations on Digitalization in Education and Distance Learning; the project, outputs and prepared materials will be presented to the participants by the project team; In addition, teachers participating in learning, teaching and training activities will share their experiences based on their training and observations. The emphasis and program of the conference will be the dissemination and promotion of the project and the Diji-Tech e-Platform, which will be visited frequently by all European teachers."

Taking its name from the European Green Deal, GREEN NIGHT stands on the main pillars and policy areas of the strategy with a general outlook on how science can support the aims and targets set out for Europe?s near future. The current global climate emergency urges an immediate and large-scale response from the countries. For the first time, climate change and environmental issues are seen to have migrated to the center of global policymaking. As a result, GREEN NIGHT highlights the importance of raising awareness of the general public, especially young people, on the necessity of the green transformation for the future of our planet. GREEN NIGHT acknowledges that it is essential to protect and restore natural ecosystems for sustainability. Doing so, GREEN NIGHT will focus on main action areas of energy, food, waste, and transportation, and demonstrate the leading role that sciences have in how to achieve this transformation. GREEN NIGHT project brings together four of the ten higher education institutions in Izmir, Turkey as well as the provincial directorate of national education. The consortium represents the scientific research ecosystem and educational management in ?zmir. The HEIs cooperate in local, national and international research projects, joint social responsibility campaign and activities all of which create strong institutional linkages between HEI partners. IZMEM, being the highest local public body responsible for the coordination of educational activities in preprimary, primary and secondary level in ?zmir, brings the public educational expertise into the project. The night activities will be carried out in four campuses around the city, each with its general theme selected from the main topics. Scientists and researchers from a wide range of disciplines will be able to create workshops, seminars, demonstrations, hands-on experiments, games, competitions, shows, or simulations.

<< Background >>There is evidence to show that students participating in entrepreneurship education are more likely to start their own businesses. A global study of entrepreneurship education in schools found that there is a considerable untapped opportunity to promote economic growth and reduce unemployment by expanding access to entrepreneurship education to ALL secondary school students (Educating future Founders Report, 2020). Entrepreneurship education programmes aimed at secondary school students can reduce the risk that a young person will become unemployed later in life. Recent research from MIT and the London School of Economics also corroborates that exposure to innovation and entrepreneurship at an early age can have lasting impacts.It is critical that the potential of all young people is encouraged at an early stage. Therefore entrepreneurial education must start early. Earlier interventions expand options and allow students to build on their knowledge at a later stage. Equipping students with entrepreneurial skills have a greater effect on the development of non-cognitive skills such as teamwork, self-esteem, and self-confidence which do not fade and can last a lifetime. However, entrepreneurship is a messy and complex process that is not linear. Teachers must be equipped with the appropriate tools so that they can implement good practice in the classroom. They need material and tools that are relevant, right-sized and easy to digest. Despite this, most entrepreneurship education programmes focus on learning about new venture creation rather than using tools to actively engage in these activities. Students are often required to come up with a business idea very quickly at the beginning of the semester and then perform planning activities and show economic viability at the end of the programme. Insufficient attention is paid to solving problems, coming up with ideas and acting on them. We argue that entrepreneurial education should move away from approaches that focus on “about” and “for” and focus more on the “how” and “through.” While it is still important to help teachers to develop some traditional entrepreneurial competencies (e.g. identifying markets, generating business models); this is no longer sufficient. It is crucial to follow a structured innovation process that is supported by tools and templates and promotes. This must be right-sized for the students making it easy to absorb and implement. It is also imperative to create an environment conducive to creativity, problem-solving and risk-taking to engage students and ensure that nobody is left behind.A design thinking approach focuses on developing empathy and identifying needs and generating solutions to address those needs. It advocates an iterative approach with key stages e.g., empathise, define, ideate, prototype and test. Essentially it is about showing how to look with fresh eyes, identifying opportunities and problems, and testing and implementing ideas.A design thinking approach to entrepreneurial education allows teachers and students (a) to follow a process, (b) to apply templates and tools and (c) to come up with problems and ideas. It enables them to understand the mindsets of entrepreneurs and develop a tangible skillset. It fosters a student-centred process and work can be graded on the development of competencies rather than output.<< Objectives >>Our project (DE-THINK) will provide teachers with the self-efficacy, competencies and tools to equip their students with these skills. It will build entrepreneurial education readiness and help them to rapidly leverage innovative and focused entrepreneurial principles easily in their own environment.DE-THINK aims to equip teachers with the ability to integrate a structured, easy to implement entrepreneurship programme into their courses by teaching them how to use our toolkit in practice. Our approach advocates a shift from considering the educator as an “imparter of knowledge” towards a “coach and facilitator”. It will ensure that students are engaged with the module being taught and as a result, it will increase the inclusiveness of all students and they will learn and retain more.DE-THINK will allow teachers to follow a structured process to innovation and entrepreneurship, It will adopt a pragmatic perspective and focus on equipping teachers with the methods, templates and tools so that good practices can be easily absorbed and applied in the classroom. The toolkit will be relevant, right-sized and easy to digest. The approach is flexible and will present teachers with a suite of options that can be customized to a specific context. DE-THINK will focus on showing teachers how to use visual templates and tools to guide students along the process. Additionally, it will provide teachers with the self-efficacy and competencies to enable their students.<< Implementation >>CONDUCT RESEARCH: This activity will help to identify the real needs of the teachers and ensure that we have validated our objectives and proposed solution.Capture the voice of the user: This activity will ensure that all solutions will focus on the real needs of the user. It is imperative that they are relevant, useful, right-sized and easy to implement. DEVELOP TRAINING: This will help us to teach innovation and entrepreneurial concepts that focus on how to follow the process, what to do at each stage and what methods and tools to follow.APPLY INNOVATIVE APPROACHES TO TEACHING: We aim to use visual templates and tools that can allow students to move through the process easily. PROVIDE TRAINING FOR TEACHERS: This will help us to generate awareness of the approach used in the project, increase engagement of the teachers, help to embed the topic in schools.PILOT TESTING THE TRAINING: This will help us to identify if the training is as successful as we hope and show us how it can be improved.CREATING AN E-LEARNING TOOLKIT: This will help us to provide quick and easy access to the learning content in a user-friendly way and show learners how digital technology can be used to deliver subject-specific learning.SHARING, PROMOTION AND EXPLOITATION ACTIVITIES: This will allow us to promote and exploit the project’s results and enable the widest dissemination of knowledge from the project and generate the largest impact.MANAGEMENT ACTIVITIES: This will help us to approach the project in a systematic way. It will allow us to implement good collaborative practices to meet deadlines, expectations, and budget, reduce and manage risk and successfully produce the outputs in time and within budget.QUALITY ASSURANCE AND EVALUATION: These activities will help us to ensure that we work to high standards and that all partners are aware of these standards. It includes defining criteria, processes and procedures, generating documents, monitoring processes and implementing a process for feedback and improvements. TEAM BUILDING ACTIVITIES: Activities such as face to face and online meetings, creating a project charter, reflection activities will help us to create relationships and build a strong team. This will enable us to communicate information between the partners effectively. It will help us to share new ideas and good practice. It will also help us to resolve problems, make decisions and settle disputes. This will ensure we are working as a team and help produce the results as described and within time and budget.In summary, the project activities lead to the successful completion of the results within time, budget and quality targets which then allow us to complete the project objectives and achieve the desired impact.<< Results >>DE-THINK will produce the following formal project results (PRs). PR1 Curriculum and Syllabus builds upon the needs analysis completed for the proposal stage. It is based upon a structured approach and will employ focus groups and surveys to refine the needs and define the learning objectives, curriculum and content. PR2 Learning Content focuses on the process, methods, templates and tools, required to satisfy the learning objectives. Attention will also be paid to showing teachers how to engage and empower students to become active players in innovation and entrepreneurship. Results from preliminary research completed for this proposal suggest that the content should enable a six-step iterative process using defined methods and templates e.g.,1.Team building skills [e.g., team canvas] 2.Define the challenge or problem [e.g., problem definition, user stories, persona, initial journey map] 3.Brainstorm for ideas [e.g., creative problem-solving techniques] 4.Prototype solutions [e.g., screen ideas, storyboard, sketches, Lego mockups] 5.Develop the solution [e.g., revised journey map, lean canvas] 6.Pitch the idea [e.g., selling the idea and the people]Additional content such as the rationale for the material, how to engage students and lessons learned will also be included. PR3 e-Learning Toolkit will house the curriculum and learning contents. It will be tested by teachers in a comprehensive pilot study. PR4 Recommendations Handbooks will show teachers and secondary schools how to use, uptake and implement the PRs in a coherent way. It will also show educational authorities how to enhance and support the approach across their educational system.

Europe has been witnessing a rapid increase of scientific developments, innovation and creation in the 21st century and transforming into one of the largest and leading scientific hubs of the world in terms of the scientific production and activities. However, the pace of science and technology production is not equally distributed all over the Europe and there are still serious gaps among countries concerning to the rate of scientific research and development activities. Moreover, all outcomes of this excellence and developments in science still cannot be instrumentalised enough to totally eliminate some serious social problems in the European societies. While this proposal pursues the general philosophy and goal of the European Researchers’ Night scheme as to provide a platform for bringing researchers and public together and motivate young people for a scientific career pathways, it also aims to emphasize on how scientific activities and developments can contribute for uniting European society at national and international level by raising awareness on the power of the science for social cohesion, dialogue and also individual development. Stemming from this general rationale, all activities of the “Science Unites All” (SCI-ALL) Researchers’ Night are constructed on the four main themes. These are: (i) Science unites generations, (elderly people, young people and all adult groups); (ii) science unites cultures; (iii) science unites genders; (iv) science unites stakeholders (research institutions and academia, research and development units of the companies, non-governmental organizations working on scientific development and social media settings that disseminate the scientific knowledge).

The European Credit System for Vocational Education and Training (ECVET) aims to formally recognize the knowledge, skills and competences acquired by individuals in another country, and to facilitate the transfer of credits between the EU and Program (Erasmus +) countries. Within the scope of the Erasmus + Program, our project named ““Express VET Mobility Database and Guides for ECVET Cluster of Countries – VETExpress” has been implemented for 33 months and activities have been carried out to increase the recognition and applicability of the ECVET system. Outputs supporting the ECVET system were obtained within the scope of the project.“Student, Parent, Teacher and School Guides (O2)”, one of the project intellectual outputs, was made available to competent institutions and stakeholders who intend to support and use ECVET for mobility activities. The guidelines have been prepared with the objective of explaining ECVET's facilitating role in transnational mobility activities to all stakeholders in a user-friendly (easily understandable / applicable) approach. “Recognition of Prior Learning” is not supported by the legal framework of many European countries. For this reason, recognition of prior learning between schools and for selected achievements can only be realized through the implementation of pilot projects. With this project, the results of many previous ECVET pilot projects were disseminated. The International Conference, which was planned as the last of multiplier activity and held in the last stage, shared all the outputs and evaluations obtained in the project with the Turkish and European beneficiaries.The qualifications and the experiences of the project coordinator and the partners, stand out as a different aspect of the VETExpress project than many previous projects. Each partner in the project (Germany, Italy, Turkey and Spain) represents a different cluster of ECVET countries. Thus, with the partnership structure of the Project, it was possible to represent different clusters of ECVET. In this context, the outputs of the Project, such as the Current Situation Analysis and the Policy Documents (O5) on ECVET, have made this project a significant added value that cannot be achieved by a single country at a European level. As the project coordinator “Ministry of National Education-DG for VET” and the partners included all the relevant stakeholders, decision-makers and policy-maker institutions of the each partner’s region in to the Project studies. In addition, the participation and contribution of the individuals in our target group, such as students and parents, to the activities and outputs were provided.The main activities realized within the scope of the project are planned in a way to support the project outputs. During the development of the outputs “student, parent, teacher and school guides (O2), common templates for ECVET (O4), and Vetexpress Platform (O3)” each project partner has completed their preliminary preparations by conducting Needs and Current Situation Analysis (A4) in their own country. Draft guidelines and templates were prepared by the responsible institution with the support of all partners, and improved during the transnational project meetings.Furthermore, related documents were used in the short-term joint personnel trainings (C1) and guides and templates were developed by taking the opinions of the participants. In the first multiplier (E1) event, participants contributed to their development by evaluating the guidelines and templates developed. In line with the comments received, guidelines and templates were finalized. Simultaneously, Vetexpress Online Platform (O3) has been developed under the responsibility of our project partner İzmir Provincial Directorate of National Education.The platform was drafted according to the comments of the project partners, the results of the needs analysis, and the final version of the guidelines and templates. In the short term joint personnel training (C2), the participants were told to use the platform, they were provided to make an application on a case study and their evaluations were taken and used to update the platform. In addition, during the implementation of the Vocational Education Student Mobility activities (C3, C4), the platform was piloted and thus tested and evaluated with a real study. A Policy Document (O5) has been prepared according to the results and situations encountered during the project process. Each project partner has prepared a Policy Document for its own country. The draft Policy Document was officially shared with the relevant institutions and their evaluations were taken. In the dissemination workshop held in Ankara with the participation of stakeholders, policy documents and project outputs were introduced and evaluated. The project outputs were shared with the participants during our last activity, the multiplier event (E2).