Our project ‘Teaching and Learning Through Photography Art’ exploited photography in indoor and outdoor activities, as educational methods supported by all Ministries of Education. Learning through pictures and outdoor learning are both well-known approaches, especially for students who face learning challenges. Their necessity and inevitable efficiency on learning has been acknowledged by literature. This strategic partnership project was about learning inside and outside the classroom by strengthening educational ties with European schools from GREECE, as the coordinator school, BULGARIA, LATVIA, ITALY, FRANCE, SPAIN. We included learners aged from 6 to 12 years old throughout the project, as Primary Schools were involved in it. After long and fruitful discussions among the representatives of the partner schools involved, there was agreement on the main objectives of our project, which were the following: * to expand the learners' horizons and awareness as Europeans citizens * to raise awareness of the participants' national and European customs and traditions and develop their tolerance for diversity * to improve the learners' life and social skills through visuals * to improve teaching approaches/methods and develop professionally as teachers * to integrate immigrants and learners with disabilities and special learning needs with respect to their profiles as learners * to develop critical thinking skills * to improve the participants' ICT and English language skills In the two years our project lasted, there were five transnational meetings in different partner schools and a sixth final virtual one due to the impediments of COVID-19 pandemic where teachers were trained and attended various workshops, whereas learners were involved in experiential indoor and outdoor activities related to photography. Each transnational meeting lasted 5 days in total and only the meeting in Bulgaria included students' mobility while the final transnational meeting took place virtually with the participation of a great number of students: * Greece (November 2018): Familiarisation with ICT WEB 2.0 Tools for teachers. School presentation through photographs for learners. * Italy (February 2019): Exploitation of eTwinning as a Valuable Collaborative Tool for teachers. Learners present themselves through a triptych of photographs. * Bulgaria (May 2019): Planning and Organising an Outdoor Learning Activity for teachers. Land art production for learners. * Latvia (November 2019): Differentiated Teaching for Immigrants, Students with Special Needs and Learning Difficulties for teachers. Exploration of the reality presented in photographs for learners * Spain (February 2020): Practical Ideas to Motivate and Engage Young Learners in Classroom and Outdoor Teaching for teachers. School photography patchwork for learners and presentation of our schools' history * Virtual transnational meeting (February 2021): Evaluation and Follow-Up of Educational Programmes for teachers. Creating a big wall of black and white group images for learners depicting different feelings to show that all humans share the same emotional universe, despite origins and race The six (6) partner schools were assigned specific roles throughout the project based on their experience, interests and expertise: * The Greek school was the coordinator of the project as a whole, ensuring that all planned activities have been conducted and deadlines respected. * Our project dissemination plan was the responsibility of the Latvian school. * Spain was responsible for monitoring and evaluating the project. * The Italian school was responsible for the eTwinning platform. * Handling project risks was the responsibility of the partner school from Bulgaria. * Activities implementation and communication were the responsibility of the partner school from France. All participant teachers acknowledged the value of the dissemination of good practices. Therefore, we all agreed on the following approaches as parts of our communication plan: a Project logo, a Project brand, Posters, Project walls in schools, Press Releases, School websites/blogs, Project Website, use of social media, eTwinning platform, Erasmus+ platform. All activities, seminars and workshops were evaluated during transnational meetings. At the end of the project our project evaluation plan assessed the impact on the learners, the teachers and the schools involved. The tools used to this end were: surveys and questionnaires, individual and group interviews with participants of the mobility or other stakeholders, observation, statistics, document analysis, English Language portfolio and group discussions about the mobility experience. At the end of this project, we all think that we have achieved our predetermined objectives that would have a beneficial impact on the learners, teachers and schools involved. Indeed the activities conducted offered a variety of interesting settings and stimuli and thereby meaningful learning experiences. Participant teachers reconsidered and enriched their teaching practices through the potentials photography offers for experiential, attractive, fun, inclusive learning. Participant pupils were enabled to effectively explore the world of photography as an alternative source of knowledge and education that unfortunately typical formal education rarely provides. Moreover, all participants became competent users of different digital tools utilised in communication and presentation of their work while they all enhanced their communicative ability in English, creating strong educational and personal ties within the European community. We believe that this particular project worked as a source of inspiration for other schools in our areas, individual citizens of our towns and our countries, owing to our wide dissemination and promotion plan. In addition, we expect to have built an endless friendship among partner schools with an eye to collaborating again in other projects. Finally, this experience is considered to have improved everyone as a life-long learner who seeks personal and professional development.

The idea of this project started when a group of teachers realized that school could be much more fun and much more effective if there were games involved in the teaching process. Playing is only natural for children and what the modern pedagogical theory tells us, is that games at school may serve a twofold purpose: on one hand they help children cultivate social and emotional skills like cooperation, team spirit and contesting without strongly antagonizing one another and on the other hand they can be suitably customized to support pure educational goals and parts of the curriculum. This idea was so strong between the teachers of our schools that we decided to propose for an Erasmus+ project about game playing.The two basic target groups of the project were the teachers and students of our schools. As far as the teachers were concerned, the project aimed to empower them to use games in classroom in order to find more enjoyable ways of teaching even traditional topics, make their teaching more inclusive and face disadvantaged students effectively. Regarding the students, the project aimed to help them acquire modern skills, use technology in meaningful ways, cooperate with each other and make learning more engaging for them, preventing early school leaving.The project was implemented by eight partner schools from 8 different countries, namely Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Italy, Romania, Spain and Poland. Some of the schools had already cooperated in previous Erasmus and Comenious projects but there were also two new partners. The schools differed in many ways: number of students (from 50 to 2000), area of living (urban vs countryside), years of experience in European projects, etc. However, they all had teachers that they were passionate to explore new possibilities in their teaching methods.The main activities undertaken, were to define a set of games to be played in classroom and to integrate these games in their teaching methods by designing suitable learning scenarios. The teachers’ communities that were formed in each school collaborated and shared these scenarios as a set of good practices. Students also cooperated both at local and transnational level and exchanged their experience of playing games in classroom (and not only). There were also dissemination events that took place in each school, like the game days where all the teacher and student community together with invited parents had to play games inside or outside their classrooms. All the scenarios created by the teachers were gathered at the end of the project in a deliverable and uploaded on the web site of the project. Because the games played at our schools exceeded the scenarios created by the teachers, there was a second deliverable documenting most of them in the form of good practices (also uploaded on the web site). It is estimated that about 150 game activities were played in our schools throughout the project. At the end of the project we performed a project evaluation for teachers and students. Before that, many of our partners had already performed local evaluations in their schools.The main events of our project were disseminated through the web page, the blog of the project and the eTwinning workspace. We also created a Facebook group, were teachers from other schools were also invited to participate and get informed about the activities of our project. In every school not only the Erasmus+ team members, but basically the larger part of the school communities, including parents were aware and supported this project. Also, at a regional level, educational and administrative authorities provided us with great help by sponsoring our events, sending representatives to our meetings and dissemination events, providing promotional material and informing the local press about our activities.Most of our teachers and students found the project satisfactory in terms of results and they declared that they would like very much to continue implementing or participating in game learning activities. Teachers from other schools have consulted us on how they could implement similar methods in their schools and take advantage of the experience that we gained throughout the project.

<< Background >>The emergency transition to online learning in the wake of Covid-19 was a phenomenon that forced schools to switch to remote teaching overnight. This emergency transition to online learning has not only been a short time solution to the disruption in the global education, but remained over a year, proving itself to be a significant tool for continuous and accessible education. For one side, the Covid-19 educational emergency brought many opportunities for online learning but at the same time highlighted many of the problems that already existed. Transitioning to online learning, especially when university curricula are planned for face-to-face (F2F) teaching and learning, requires careful planning and design processes. In the last spring semester, we experienced a first phase called Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) a term coined to describe the lack of planning, design, and student-centred approaches. However, it is worth noting that this situation has created opportunities for the adoption of digital pedagogy and the development of digital literacy: an absolute majority of academic faculty has already experimented with ERT. Nevertheless, in order to implement online learning, the teachers need constant support and professional development opportunities to facilitate the transition from ERT to online learning. We apply this project, CLOSER, to address and provide this imperatively needed support to the teachers and educators in different countries of Europe through creating evidence-based, open, and innovative practices of teaching and learning.<< Objectives >>The main objective of the project is to support the transition from Emergency Remote Teaching to Digital Education through evidence-based, open, and innovative practices of teaching and learning. Its ultimate goal is to improve the quality of education, regardless of the existing differences in the educational systems of European countries, thus providing equal opportunities for personal development for all European citizens. Approaches inspired by the neurosciences and cognitive sciences bring a much-needed evidence base to educational practise, but there is growing evidence that educators do not have sufficient knowledge of cognitive processes to apply this knowledge to learning designs. On the other hand, evidence-based approaches can provide tools and good practice to help instructors face the new reality that has emerged with ERT: while in the past, teaching was largely synchronous, the transition to distance learning brings new challenges for both students and instructors. ERT brings with it an increased cognitive load - zoom fatigue is real and digital pedagogy must take account of this cognitive load, attention span, and metacognitive skills.This project proposes a holistic approach, using existing tools, practices and resources, and building new ones based on a needs-based approach, to help schools make the transition from ERT to carefully planned and implemented online learning, thus contributing to their digital readiness. In addition, open practises, supported by connectivist approaches and open educational resources (OERs), will ensure that the project achieves its immediate and long-term objectives and beneficiaries.<< Implementation >>The project will achieve its objectives through the research and development of a Framework for teacher professional development. To reach the main objective, the project's. activities include (a) providing educators with solid scientific knowledge on the functioning of learning and memory, including the required theoretical framework to understand why this knowledge is instrumental to provide quality learning; knowledge on the innovative, digital pedagogies contextualised in specific authentic use cases; digital competencies through tutorials (b) providing with a community of practice approach helping teachers and educators to apply such scientific knowledge to enhance their current teaching strategies (c) providing specific tools and platforms to support open educational practices.This is implemented through the main activities of each PR, consisting of research (PR1), innovative faculty development activities implemented through MOOCs and a specific training framework (PR2). The project provides a toolbox with integrated tutorials to increase the from one hand, digital competences and on the other, expertise in digital pedagogies in teachers, supporting and advocating for OERs (PR3), collaborative curriculum and learning design (PR4). The Framework is implemented through a MOOC and specific tools that will be available in different European languages under CC license (PR5). All these activities lead to very tangible results and artifacts that will be scaled up to have an impact at the European level to enable evidence-based educational practices.<< Results >>As briefly indicated above, we expect to have five main project results. These project results include i) State-of-the-art and current needs to transition from ERT to digital pedagogie; ii) A standardised teacher professional development framework and guidelines; iii) Interactive community-based open educational resources, MOOCs, and tutorials/training including practical and pedagogical tips and support on the Digital Hub; iv) A collaborative platform for learning design and content (re-)design, storing and publishing on the Digital Hub; and v) Design and Implementation of Training Courses.

This project includes five schools of GR, IT, PL, RO, TR with pupils aged 9-13.The project focuses on the problem of social exclusion (in terms of lack of basic skills). In order to achieve this goal of inclusion, we will apply new strategies and teaching methods both durng school and leisure time.This is due to the specific needs of pupils from each of the partner schools, based on four common problems that have a major impact on students’ success (1 - Lack of social inclusion, 2 - lack of basic skills, 3 - Lack of parental support 4 - Lack of socio-economic needs). Needs analysis is done in five different schools, monitored by teachers, and a major study is conducted to assess these four obstacles.Before we created this project, we had a preliminary period for analyzing new strategies and finally we identified 5 new ones to be used in our project. Each partner will apply one of these methods in their school environment, monitor and evaluate the results. During these meetings these results will be discussed by all partners and will be passed on to each other. At the end of the 2-year project period, 5 strategies will be implemented and evaluated. According to the observation and the results of the success, the partners will continue to use these strategies and methods in their schools.We intend to develop new strategies for these schools to improve their ability to prevent school drop-out through a joint international partnership based on good practice in each school. The project tries to find methods to encourage the inclusion of disadvantaged students in community and labor market activities.We will practice new types of links between formal and non-formal education to offer our students solutions to these four problems and real opportunities for their behavior.OBJECTIVES- encouraging the inclusion of excluded students, those with a lack of basic skills, pupils with special needs, stimulating their integration into primary education and society- implementing new strategies to tackle social exclusion, lack of basic skills and dropping out of school- introduction of new methods in the field of emotional and social development of children in the practical training materials for pupils with special educational needs.- to give teachers and different learning methods and to share their good practicesNUMBER AND PROFILE OF THE PARTICIPANTSStudents / teenagers: 180 of them will be actively involved in the project activities. We hope that about 1200 students / teenagers will be indirectly affected.Teachers / adults: Each partner organization will have teams of 5 teachers, so 30 of them will take an active part in the project. There will be an English teacher, a math teacher, an ICT teacher, a pedagogical counselor, and a science teacher. About 150 teachers / adults will be indirectly affected.Administrative staff: The head / chairman and deputy head will take part in the project, approximately 36 administrative staff will be indirectly affected.Families: The number of family members will total 300. They will participate in the preparation of traditional food for the international cultural evening and will contribute to familiarizing with the culture and traditions of the host country.Local community: The local community, including the local press, the municipality, the national education directorate, and the PTA, will be important in disseminating the project to a wider community.RESULTS AND IMPACTSThrough our project, the five partners intend to create both short-term and long-term material and nonmaterial results and achieve the greatest possible impact on future projects and processes: students will overcome low self-esteem and have a leading role, the project website will provide uninterrupted access to general information on project activities, progress and results, publication of newspaper articles and creation of panels or leaflets to inform other people about the main project outcomes, communication and cognitive skills for students at risk, the cultivation of effective partnerships between trainers, lecturers and public organizations.