"In 2012 the European Union was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for its contribution to the advancement of peace, democracy and human rights in Europe. A continent once marked by war, and the centennial remembrance of the Great War, has been transformed to a continent of peace. In this time of peace it is however essential, that we focus on educating future generations of Europeans to strengthen their understanding and tolerance of each other.""A Peace of Europe"" is a cross curricular, developing project , where six countries; Denmark, Wales, France, Cyprus, Spain and Ireland via professional learning communities want to set up a radical, creative learning initiative for students to raise awareness of Peace in our time, to reflect and remember the conflict in Europe and celebrate the success of the Union in making the community a more peaceful and integrated society. The peace project will develop learners literacy, communication and ICT skills through an authentic and motivating education and at the same time raise the awareness of the lives, cultures and history of our neighbours in Europe and the importance of friendships and peaceful solutions in a globalized world. It is important not to forget about one's own cultural heritage as well as to gain knowledge about other's history and cultural values. By focusing on an ever important topic which has influenced our history, identities and defined our culture both in the past, present and also in the future, we wish to bring our students together in a collaborative unit, where they will learn about themselves, their European friends and at the same time strengthen their academic skills in a coherens of authentic and motivating education. Within the theme of the project, all participating schools wish to raise the literacy, communication and ICT skill levels of all pupils.During the project period of three years, the theme Peace will be emphazised in four levels:=>=Peace of mind : individual perspective. Perception of peace within our communities : how to deal with stress and conflict on a daily basis. Collaborative collages and posters will be made.=>Story of peace : historical perspective : a wider scope of peace through our own country's history and the UE history. Timelines, stop motion films, Nobel prize winners' biographies, treasure hunts.=>Peace in our time : global perspectives. To help learners realise that the European Union is part of a global issue and that countries within the community are active within the United Nations as well as involved in areas of conflict.=>Peace forever. Within the European community we will listen to the Young ambassadors of tomorrow on how peace can develop within their own country, Europe and therefore globally, by using the model of the United Nations model.We will work with various activites during the project period like; diaries, jigsaw cubes-literacy, logo designs, Prezi workshops, peace quotations, Google Hangout sessions, angry boxes, wordle posters, time lines, ICT communication, stop motion films, historical research, children' s rights, design a peace charter and dream boxes-peace in the future. All activities are easy to integrate into the school's curriculums and they all lead on to further detailed learning sessions on all schools in order to gain knowledge and understanding of each other. All activities cover multiple intelligences and lead the students towards the development of skills which are essential for learning autonomy. This project will become a living, developing theme within all schools visualized by a great amount of dissemination strategies on behalf of the creative processes within the project such as; installation arts, a project logo, posters, timelines and musical activities.There will be ongoing evaluation of the impact of the Partnership at school level by each of the partners. Evidence in the form of children’s class work, plans, school website, schools database on skills, and school notice boards and display boards will be shared at the online partnership meetings each term and the partner meetings. The success and evaluation of the project will be assessed by pupils progress and the teachers will develop their professional skills collaborating with different teaching strategies.Last but not least , as citizens of the European Union, pupils, teachers, parents and other associated at the schools will find out, through project work, what being a part of a large European family means, and their multicultural understanding will be intensified. Schools will gain prestige and will be an educational institution which introduces its pupils to the European forum. The final results will enable to promote the school on a local stage and an European/world one and the communities of the partner schools will gain a great insight in each other's cultures and develop long lasting connections for a future with friendships in peaceful environments."

"Due to the already existing contacts of the schools in Portugal, Sweden, Germany and the Netherlands there was already a trusting cooperation in various European projects. The exchange led to the idea that, despite their differences, the schools described a common problem: pupils are at risk of dropping out of school due to school failure, school absenteeism or a lack of a social network. Every school was already pursuing approaches (concepts, supporting structures, student projects) to counter this. However, all schools sought to increase the effectiveness and expansion of the existing programs. The diversity of the schools was the key resource used for the innovative design and development of the schools. The new partner schools from Denmark (newcomer) and Austria were specifically searched for via the eTwinning portal and also mentioned the problematic field of dropping out of school and offered possible solutions.The six participating schools are secondary schools / comprehensive schools with the same age structure (11 to 18 years). All have a coordinating European team, a counselling service with social workers and are located in a small town or rural environment. The project participants from all social classes took special courses (elective courses, working groups, European courses). A maximum of 30 students attended these courses, which were open to all students in the school community. Two teachers and five pupils who were actively involved in design took part in each of the AULs. Via eTwinning the participants were networked beyond the boundaries of their own school.The aim of the project was to step together - hand in hand - against dropping out of school in Europe, to achieve the basis for a successful, independent adult life for our students in Europe through social integration and loyalty to school. Self-efficacy and resources were shown and used at student and teacher level in order to increase identification with their own school and to use it as the basis for school success. Through the project, the pupils and teachers have experienced innovations for designing their living space “school”, which can be implemented in the respective schools. The social integration in the individual school and in Europe was consciously experienced (especially by young people to whom this field of experience is usually inaccessible). Increasing the participation in school life and lessons inspires individual success in class and offers concrete incentives for a successful life concept in the protected area of Europe.The activities of the project were on three levels: teacher training (exchange of concepts / workshops), short-term exchange for school groups (workshop design, school presentation, consolidation of results / implementation) and Europe (exploration of the partner cities as an active European, joint campaign ""Every school day counts!"" ).When selecting the methodology, all levels and social classes were taken into account, in that concrete experience was set as the starting point for the work. The project’s structure and implementation followed the think-pair-share principle: 1) inventing solutions at home and in the project 2) discussing, sharing, preparing for dissemination during the AULs 3) disseminating and introducing innovative ideas at home. This three-step process was used in the AULs: observing at school, taking part in workshops and experiencing Europe. - The project was bilingual (English-German / English-German mother tongue) in order to take as many students as possible into the project. The workshops were also offered parallel in two languages. The concepts were exchanged in English and translated into the mother tongue.The result is the template for innovation and implementation of the solution approaches for use / multiplication in the own school system as a concept template, mind map, PowerPoint, experience documentation (quikfilm, posters, PowerPoint presentations). All results and reports were posted directly in the online portfolio on eTwinning and linked at the respective school homepage. For the ongoing campaign ""Every school day counts!"" surveys, statistics, flyers, posters and presentations were created for dissemination.Because of the corona pandemic, the content of the encounters, which had to be omitted due to Covid-19, was presented in the virtual room of the Twinspace.This was we went ""hand in hand - together against dropping out of school in Europe"" for three years by exchanging good examples of our work in schools, facing up to the challenge of school absenteeism together, actively shaping our schools for the future and actively helping our students experience and bring in a successful, independent life as active Europeans based on school success, especially looking beyond the period of the pandemic restrictions."

The Ocean Connections project took place against a background of increasing urgency with respect to issues of climate change and completes as the COP 26 Climate Change Conference is due to take place. Young people are increasingly aware of, and concerned about climate change and other issues of environmental sustainability, yet developing their understanding of the fragile balance of the Earth’s systems remains an ongoing challenge. The project drew on expertise from a range of partners in the UK, Denmark and Spain. HEI institutions led the project activity in each country, with overall coordination by the University of Exeter, UK, who also brought expertise in creativity and environmental educational research. VIA College, Denmark brought expertise in educational research into AR and VR. CESGA’s expertise was in the design and development of digital learning tools for education. In each country, the expertise of teachers and aquarium educators in partner schools and aquaria ensured that materials developed in partnership and tested in schools were appropriate and useable by teachers and informal educators. The objectives of the project were to:•Understand the position of Ocean Literacy, creativity pedagogies and digital technology in the formal and informal curriculum in the partner countries;•Summarise the international research literacy with respect to teaching for Ocean Literacy, creative pedagogies and education using AR/VR digital technologies;•Synthesise this state of the art knowledge to develop a set of educative principles to guide teaching for Ocean Literacy using creative, digital pedagogies•Design projects for pupils to learn about Ocean Literacy, drawing on these educative principles•Evaluate these projects to understand their impact on pupils’ knowledge and attitudes and the way in which the educative principles were enacted•Draw on the educative principles and the project outcomes to develop a toolkit for teachers to use creative and digital pedagogies together to enable young people’s Ocean learning .Materials developed were piloted in schools: three pilot projects with pupils aged 9-11, and three with pupils aged 11-14. Overall, 4 aquarium educators (1 UK, 1 Denmark, 2 Spain), 10 teachers (4UK, 3 Denmark, and 3 Spain), and 235 pupils participated directly in the pilot projects (135 pupils aged 9-11; of whom 120 were from the UK and 15 from Denmark, and 117 age 11-14, of whom 101 were from Spain and 16 from Denmark).A State of the Art Review was produced, including an analysis of curricula for pupils aged 7-11 and 11-14 in each partner country related to Ocean Literacy to search for points of commonality and difference in national approaches, an exploration of where and how creative pedagogies and AR/VR digital technologies were used in practice in the partner countries, and an international literature review of research into the three project ‘strands. A unique VR tool was created for use by teachers and pupils. Using 360 images and video from aquaria and the Ocean, using this tool pupils are able to interact with, communicate, and create learning materials for themselves with respect to the Ocean. The Ocean Connections Educative Principles and the new VR tool were used by project partners in each country to design and implement six ‘pilot projects’, three for pupils aged 7-11 (Ocean Adaptations, Plastic Pollution, and Nursing Grounds for Fish) and three for pupils aged 11-14 (Biodiversity, Shoal of Fish and Accessing the Ocean). Each project was evaluated using a mixed methods, case study approach, to produce a case study report on each pilot and an overall synthesis of the findings with respect to key research questions regarding the impact on pupils’ knowledge of and attitudes towards the ocean, pupils’ and educators’ perspectives about the innovative creative and digital approaches, and the way in which the educative principles manifested in the pilot projects. Alongside these, an innovative ‘diffractive analysis’ of the data was undertaken, drawing on arts-based methods and new materialist theory to develop new insights and questions into the nature of learning in these projects. Findings show that many pupils found the use of VR with creative pedagogies engaging and impactful, but that there were some barriers in using the tool due to lack of sufficient bandwidth and, in some schools, lack of experience. Care, responsibility and activism emerged as important themes, with some key areas of connection between creative and digital pedagogies that could be usefully built upon in the design of learning experiences. The educative principles, VR tool, and pilot projects were used to create a toolkit for teachers which can be found on the Ocean Connections website. The project was disseminated via seven stakeholder and dissemination events, newspaper articles, social media, and conference presentations.

CONTEXTThe Digital Learning Across Boundaries 2 (DLAB2) project addresses the need to align European educational practice with ways in which digital technology is changing how and what we learn, and how we apply this in education. It builds on DLAB1, an Erasmus + project that ran from 2016-2019, by focusing on ways in which the outside world can break down personal learning boundaries and build self-efficacy. DLAB2 is inspired by the changemaker movement, which seeks to build the skills and attributes for individuals to find innovative solutions to society’s challenges. Two key themes are developing changemakers and social innovation education. A third theme is the use of innovative digital learning environments including virtual and artificial reality technologies to blend physical and digital learning environments and provide powerful opportunities for international collaboration. In this way, the project brings together two aspects of the maker movement: digital making and change making. OBJECTIVES:The objectives are to:1. Create playful learning environments that encourage creativity, collaboration, innovation and entrepreneurship facilitated by technologies.2. Enable all of our participants to develop the personal confidence, values, beliefs and skills needed to become digitally literate changemakers.3. Develop a toolkit for sustaining social innovation education and building changemaker attributes based on evidence from the project activities.PARTICIPANTSThe participants of DLAB2 are around 50 university lecturers, student teachers, and school teachers, together with their school pupils across five European countries. ACTIVITIESOver three years we adopt three types of 'learning across boundaries’ challenges, approaching these in an aspirational way by involving local cultural consultants. There is a process of discovering a problem, empathising with the end user, and then designing, developing and delivering a prototype solution.1. Crossing physical boundaries (what my body can do): learning through physical experiences (skills).2. Crossing personal boundaries (my aspirations and confidence): learning through performance, public speaking, or gaining new skills (attitudes).3. Crossing environmental boundaries (changes to where I am in space): learning taking place in unusual or different places (knowledge).METHODOLOGYEach year begins with a 5-day learning/teaching/training event initiating the development of the main yearly theme through CPD run by the lecturers in digital techniques. This is followed by planning changemaker pedagogic strategies and interdependent challenge ideas in cross-national teams, ready for implementation in classrooms. The teams will then develop and test their ideas through three international days in schools between November and January, each accompanied by pre and post phases led by the university students. Each April, the university students and lecturers engage in evaluation and dissemination activities related to the intellectual outputs.In summer 2022 a multiplier event takes the form of a changemaker conference where we will launch a framework for supporting international collaboration days with digital technologies and a toolkit for developing changemakers in initial teacher training. In this way, we are dissolving intercultural boundaries through social innovation activities that support the development of students and pupils as agents of positive real-world change as well as building their digital skills.RESULTS AND IMPACTThere are seven distinct intellectual outputs:1. An open OER website.2. Three eTwinning project kits.3. Three open online courses based on innovative digital technologies such as artificial realities.4. A series of TED-style talks pitching collaborative projects and prototype solutions.5. A set of articles for publication in national and international journals on themes such as participatory action research, entrepreneurship and playful learning, social innovation education, and developing changemakers in education6. A framework for supporting international collaboration days with digital technologies.7. A toolkit for developing changemakers in initial teacher training.As a result of the project, our partners will develop new ways of collaborating supported by a range of digital technologies. The project will have an impact in an international context through the rich learning resources provided by the intellectual outputs and via the co-creation of new knowledge in the field of technology-supported social innovation education afforded by the international online community of practice. LONGER TERM BENEFITSTo provide sustainability, the project activities are designed to enrich the capability and curricula of the partner HEIs and schools to promote international collaborative work by developing ongoing cross-sector communities of practice.