"The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a crisis in which, more than ever, access to education has become one of the most important factors for social change: students are committed to socializing in the new format and teachers have a duty to adapt to new educational practices. The negative consequences had a particularly strong effect on the access to quality educational resources among Bulgarian students living abroad.In this regard, DSchB.BG project aims to ""add value"" in preparing the education system to meet the challenges of the sudden transition to e-learning, by providing open access to educational resources, promoting digital learning and supporting teachers to improve their digital competences, preserving the inclusive nature of the educational process among Bulgarians abroad.The project is a specialized version of the conceptual idea to build an interactive textbook format of electronic educational resource planned as a theoretical didactic justified technology model for effective implementation of the educational cognitive process aimed at key competences, knowledge, and skills of students in the dynamic and increasingly digital 21st century.The project aims to promote the interdisciplinary organization of educational content for Bulgarian schools abroad, using innovative didactic approaches and learning environments that offer a sustainable model for digital learning, applicable in emergencies of different nature. The model can be adapted to the education systems of each of the EU member states. In this regard, the strategic partnership between the St. Cyril and St. Methodius University of Veliko Turnovo and two of the organizations of Bulgarians abroad - - the Association of Bulgarians in Cyprus and the Greek-Bulgarian Association for Culture ""Paisiy Chilendarskii"" for strengthening cooperation and building working networks between universities in Bulgaria and Bulgarian schools abroad for the needs of digital education.At the second thematic level, the project aims to increase the professional training of students - future teachers, by including them in the process of approbation of units through remote access and work on the Internet with children from Bulgarian schools abroad, as well as to increase training of prospective students from Bulgarian schools abroad for admission to Bulgarian universities, making them more flexible and adaptable to the new learning environment in the digital 21st century.The project is being developed by a team of experts from various scientific fields and IT specialists, but it is targeted at a target group that is outside the country. The target group includes students from Bulgarian schools abroad, as well as those who do not go to school for any reason, teachers of Bulgarian language and literature, history and civilizations and geography and economics in grades 1-7, principals and other pedagogical specialists, parents, and representatives of the Bulgarian diaspora.As a result of the strategic partnership, three / 3 / intellectual products will be realized and promoted:1. The E-Learning platform 2. Interactive OER for students with free access 3. Methodologies/guidelines The successful dissemination and use of the project results will create conditions for free access to educational resources among Bulgarians abroad, as well as will increase the involvement of the general public in the problems of Bulgarian schools abroad. The dispersion of the results will be achieved through the production and dissemination of information materials, as well as through the active campaign for promoting the results in the social channels of Velikoturnovo University, Association of Bulgarian in Cyprus and the Greek-Bulgarian Association for Culture, in the local and regional media. In addition, the sustainability of the results will be guaranteed by the broad partnership achieved not only between the partner organizations but also between them and other Bulgarian schools abroad.Given that there are no restrictions and security codes in the creation of the educational product, we can emphasize the long-term effect that will have on maintaining an innovative and effective learning environment, as a model of good practice, applicable in a wider context. at the EU level.In a European context, the project aims to contribute to the successful implementation of one of the three priorities set out in the Europe 2020 Strategy, namely ""Smart Growth: Building a Knowledge and Innovation Economy"" by creating and promoting an innovative educational resource allowing equal access to education and training in emergency situations, as well as meeting the criteria for ""Improving the quality and efficiency of education and training"" set out in the same strategy by promoting digital literacy, digital skills, and digital inclusion."

"Evidence suggests that many adults are unaware of how their individual consumer attitude can possibly have impact in the economy, the environment and society and are also inadequately prepared to participate effectively in the market place. Having said that, consumer literacy is an important skill that all European citizens should develop in an early age, therefore consumers’ literacy in European schools is necessary in order to enable youngsters to make informed economic decisions in the future. Including economic and consumer education in the official school curriculum is considered one of the most efficient and fair ways to reach a whole generation, as it introduces concepts of money and ways to manage it well, while promoting wise spending and rational consumer behavior. Economic and consumer education can take place as a standalone subject or it can be included in specific subjects (i.e. mathematics, economics or social sciences, citizenship). Its inclusion through a crosscurricular approach can allow for the development of more diverse and potentially innovative and engaging ways to link economic and consumer literacy to more familiar topics for both students and teachers.One of today’s challenges is also the fact that young people tend to allow their “mood” to ultimately control their spending patterns, resulting in impulse buying, regardless of formal budgeting or plans. There is the identified need to urge young people, and more specifically students, as the ECOLES project will be implemented in the school setting, to consider the impact of choices on the well-being of others, as they lack critical awareness and understanding of concepts of social, or/and even ecological responsibility. Furthermore, in schools where consumer education is being taught as a secondary component of various disciplines, teachers often are either not concerned or do not have the capacity to teach consumer concepts closely related to their root discipline or presenting real life scenarios effectively to foster better understanding of the concepts in their students.The ECOLES project aims to contribute to the following European development strategies: Europe 2020 Strategy: Target 4 – Education and Target 5 – Fighting poverty and social exclusion, while raising awareness within the school setting on the risks of poor personal financial management and irrational consumer behavior. In addition it aims to contribute in achieving the ET 2020´s strategic objective 2 – Improving the quality and efficiency of education and training.The innovation of the project lies in the fact that that it provides useful and easy to use tools for students and trainers/teachers so as to be able to improve knowledge on economic and consumer related issues combine the ""game"" experience with a set of proposed exercises and approaches for enhanced results. The educational material will also target a new age group 7-18 year old pupils for which such material is not yet widely available. Also, the ECOLES virtual consumer manager will provide a challenging and entertaining learning environment that enables a self-guided learning process.The project activities foreseen in the project follow a simple logic and a coherent project management structure. In particular, the project begins with a comprehensive conceptualization and definition of the project framework. A ""State of Art on economic and consumer literacy level of knowledge of students” will be conducted in each partner country, involving the main target groups i.e. pupils 7-18 year old, school teachers, school leaders, trainers in consumer issues. This activity leads to the production of IO1. The partners will then focus on the development of educational material for students and guidelines for trainers constituting the content of the game for improving the economic and consumer literacy knowledge in European schools (IO2). Furthermore, the partnership will also develop a virtual consumer manager game (IO3) with various scenarios and different levels which will test the theoretical knowledge acquired. IO3 will be designed to be used as a form of a ""game"" even without prior training. The development of IO2 and IO3 will be grouped into three activities a) Design and Development, b) Piloting and testing and c) finalization. These outputs will also be available through the ECOLES website. In parallel with the aforementioned activities which are directly related to the intellectual outputs foreseen, the partners will implement horizontal activities, which will ensure the smooth project implementation, quality assurance and target group outreach. These are: 1. Project Management; 2. Quality Assurance and evaluation; 3. Dissemination and Exploitation."

"The digital era is entering every area of our lives, including education at each level. Young people are more eager to search for knowledge on the Internet rather than listen to lectures, read paper textbooks or even standard e-learning materials. That is why remote education methods, such as e-learning or blended-learning are gaining popularity The educational content is presented in standard e-learning materials ranging from ordinary presentations to video recordings of educators giving lectures, lessons and training. The more interactive they are, the more engaging it is for learners. Generation Z, which is now in the process of education in secondary schools and colleges, eagerly ""talks"" via messengers, chats, using this form of communication also to acquire knowledge and develop skills. They prefer short texts, pics, games, stories and step-by-step instructions presented in an entertaining way. At MELES-BOT, we will use this very strong trend taking into consideration that the Internet contains many unverified sources. The purpose of the project is to develop and test, using specific learning content (entrepreneurship course), an innovative educational BOT-learning method based on the use of tools such as chatbot (virtual educator) and chat (text conversation with a real educator). It means that we adapt channels widely used by GEN-Z and fill them with verified and useful content.The main output of the project is the chatbot and chat tool for entrepreneurship education. The chatbot definitely belongs to digital technologies and is not a common tool used nowadays in academic education, which makes it an innovative solution. The implementation of MELES-BOT outputs fit directly into the main features of the transformations of education systems to the so-called Education 4.0, which essentially uses technology-based tools and resources to drive education in non-traditional ways. Education 4.0 should serve the Industry 4.0 revolution, which is changing the world around us and requires staff with proper competencies. MELES-BOT objective is to deliver basic skills and key competencies to the students, who will form Industry 4.0 staff. Designing, developing and using MELES-BOT in education process will give speed and scale-up the digital transformation. The digital competencies obtained by teachers would help them equip young people with digital skills. MELES-BOT is also addressing differences concerning education access by underrepresented groups. Thanks to distant access, all, who from different reasons, cannot attend direct classes, will have an equal education opportunity. Distant access plays also an important role in crisis situations (e.g. pandemic) when direct classes are suspended.Entrepreneurship course is only the example of the BOT-learning methodology but it is a very eloquent example because such courses are attended by more and more students these days. Our goal is not only to present this particular course but to convince the academic community to use BOT-learning methodology to conduct other courses in the future e.g. Programming or other IT courses.Our target groups are students and academic teachers. The project is likely to produce outcomes that may be relevant also to other fields of education, training and youth. It is planned that over 600 students and around 100 teachers will be involved in the project during the execution phase. Over 50 people from target groups will take part in mobilities directly connected with the project.There are the following phases connected strictly with project activities:1.Collecting users' preferences,2.Developing Minimum Viable Product,3.Preparing the prototype,4.Testing the prototype during summer school,5.Pilot testing at universities,6.Dissemination and sustainability activities.To reach the objectives and deliver the results, the consortium will use PCM (Project Cycle Management) methodology. PCM is recommended by the European Commission in the planning and implementation of EU-funded projects. This methodology includes the application preparation process and has been used in this case.E-learning platform with an implemented chatbot will be tested at least at 5 Partners' universities throughout Europe i.e. the Tampere University of Applied Sciences (Northern Europe), Maritime University of Szczecin (Eastern Europe), Veliko Tarnovo University (Southern Europe), University of Leipzig (Central Europe) and University of Aveiro (Western Europe). Each phase of the project ends with collecting feedback, discussion and implementation of the results in updated versions. After successful piloting, a chatbot can be implemented as an educational methodology at universities. It enables the development of digital skills and key competencies in the target groups, which is in line with horizontal priorities of the European Union.All Partners are convinced, that such tools are the future of the educational process."

<< Objectives >>The goal is to discover, sustainably develop and implement mechanisms for interaction and networking between entrepreneurs, students and teachers via case-to-storytelling movies. It focusses on synergy in educational and practical fields by involving parties to create, exchange, find new perspectives in real and digital world. 35 teachers and specialists from 6 countries will unite with entrepreneurs for educating and inspiring. At least 120 users will join us during the dissemination process.<< Implementation >>The project is divided into 5 WPs, which include: collecting stories from businesses; 2 trainings of teachers; production of 15 movies with educational content; conducting a summer school; implementing video storytelling in 21 curricula at 6 universities for BSc, MSc and PhD studies courses, internal and international dissemination; developing a methodological guide to be used by teachers and creating a Digital Library. There will be 7 direct meetings and at least 20 virtual.<< Results >>Main project results are:- Digital Library with video storytelling and examples that inspire young entrepreneurs. - Wide implementation of video format in the curricula (at least 30 students participating in the summer school, at least 180 students involved in piloting at Partner’s universities, at least 500 involved at other universities within 3 years after the project). - Methodological guide for transforming case studies into video storytelling. - Active university-business partnerships.

Practitioners in Social Work (PSW), and mainly those from disadvantaged areas as rural areas or small villages, face a strong need to develop approaches that respond to the new social challenges of the disadvantaged communities, but mostly to the burn-out phenomenon they often face. This reality lead the project consortium to develop a joint non-formal framework for empowering PSW from rural areas of 7 European countries in increasing their participation to the rural community life and in developing complementary skills that help them facing current social problems of the vulnerable groups from their community.The direct target group consisted in 84 social workers and people that work in social work field, but without a diploma in social work, who work in disadvantaged areas, called during project Practitioners in social work (PSW). The indirect target group consists in other PSW from other regions of project partners, regional community stakeholders, other scholars and practitioners in social work across Europe. In order to achieve the project goal, the following objectives and approaches (activities and methodology) were followed: 1. To improve the knowledge and abilities of 84 PSW from the project partners regions and to enable and encourage them to use the community resources and ICT technologies for a better assistance of the vulnerable groups from the rural communities where they work and most of them live. This was achieved by participating to 7 national short-term training sessions about how to develop community and professional networks, evaluation of impact and how to use the ICT tools created in the project and by developing and administrating a virtual community of practice that will rely on peer-to-peer communication, informal learning and developing competencies by exchanging experience. 2. To provide to those 84 PSW the opportunity to create a culture of self-care and reflective practice and to develop and implement innovative practices related to management of stress, frustration from failures and moral distress that occasionally occur in their professional activity and could lead to burnout and compassion fatigue. This was achieved by participating together to 7 intercultural and transnational practice-research-workshops (face to face and on-line), by creating together a handbook with tools and techniques that could be used by any practitioner in social work field when needed and by disseminating the information acquired into the wider community of practice, through the online platform created in the project. 3. To foster collaboration and networking within the European social work community and to strength the institutional capacity of 7 European institutions, active in the field of social work education/intervention, to develop a non-formal educational network in rural social work research and practice and to create and sustain an effective support mechanism for PSW from rural areas in addressing their professional needs, by conducting a study research for a comparative analysis on the perceptions and the needs of the PSW from the rural regions of the project partners about burn-out phenomenon. This objective was achieved by organizing 2 international conferences about rural social work, 2 short-term joint staff training events in partners countries, informing seminars and focus-groups with the stakeholders from the rural communities of PSW about the need to work in network for supporting social work activity, by developing regional rural networks in social work field and by disseminating the project results into the wider community of practice and into the regional/national and European virtual communities. The new methodologies and tools used in the project encouraged and improved the PSW participation to their personal and professional development and taught them how to work in network, using the on-line platform of discussions and the handbook with tools. The targeted PSW facilitated the contacts between the partners staff and the stakeholders from their communities, in order to involve the members of those communities in playing a more active role in supporting PSW in their work. The project learning activities created an open communication climate that gave to PSW the opportunity to experience intercultural communication in a real-life situation and developed the framework for transfer of good practices among project partners, in order to reduce the gaps in development and intervention at rural community level.