<< Objectives >>The partnership focuses on the smart home technology through the implementation of smart home models in VET. So, introducing the smart home model in VET is the general objective of this project. It is divided into three major specific objectives, which are as follows:•To create smart home models for teaching/training purposes;•To develop VET programmes on smart home technology; and •To produce teaching materials to be used along with the smart home models in the newly created programmes.<< Implementation >>Smart Home Models In VET is a project based on two Erasmus+ priorities Environment and fight against climate change and Contributing to innovation in vocational education and training. Through its activities and results the project keeps raising the awareness of environmental issues and draws attention to smart home technology that can mitigate such problems. It enhances the competencies of VET staff and supports STEM, blended learning and virtual collaboration.<< Results >>The most important results achieved encompass the following:•Five smart home models developed;•A toolkit for creating the models;•Guidelines on instruction methods;•Short programme with 30 ECTS on smart home technologies;•Smart Home Club programme; •Innovated existing courses with new smart home content;•A variety of VET resources on smart home technologies; and•The Smart Home VET Net connecting VET providers with relevant stakeholders.

The aim of the Safety Card project was to increase mobility and exchange of knowledge and experience between participating institutions (four organisations in three different country; Croatia, Estonia and Finland), as well as improvement of level of safety at work in the field of lifting in all three participating countries. All this will assure strengthening of safety at work on international level and through newly developed whole life learning program helps to achieve protection of life and health of people, advancement in whole society, sustainable economic development and social cohesion.Safety card project has created unique certificate in form of Safety Card, which is applicable in the field of lifting and recognizable even outside the participating countries, and decreases the number of work related injuries in that field of work. The planned activities were successfully integrated in our VET- programmes in co-operation with the ideas of the different teachers and trainers. In addition, several companies in participant countries were part of co-operation. Activities and results were harmonized project partners’ curricula, creating certificate, exchange of good practice examples and training trainers, conduction of educational program on test group of attendees and further development. We had seven meetings including workshops and finally closing seminar for our social partners and stakeholders.Safety Card includes common topics that are safety at work, general and specific risks and first aid. In specific parts, there are forklift, hydraulic platform and signalization for tower cranes. All results and materials are available in our websites and there is access to e-learning platform.

“Education is Partnership” is a strategic cooperation between eight stakeholder in Denmark, Estonia, Bulgaria, Romania and Italy to address the high rates of early leavers from education and training in the EU, as a measure to contribute at reducing the risk of social exclusions and poverty amongst EU citizens below the age of 24 and, at the same time, contribute at reducing the rates of early leavers beyond Europe 2020. The project will promote the Danish model of educational partnerships as best practice in VET inclusive education. The model has been implemented by production schools in Denmark and gave excelling results for disadvantaged VET students. The project entails four training activities that build capacity of the partner organisations in Estonia, Bulgaria, Romania and Italy to initiate and manage educational partnerships in their own countries. As a result of the training activities, at least 20 experts in educational partnerships will be formed in the abovementioned countries. They will further plan and implement Local Multiplication Activities with the aim to establish a least 20 educational partnerships in their countries. The project will furthermore produce a booklet on best practices in inclusive education and a pack of information materials upon the need of inclusive VET education and the co-responsibility of local companies in assuring qualitative and be-spoke education for disadvantaged VET students. A number of dissemination activities are planned to reach at least 2000 project stakeholders and further promote the educational partnerships and VET inclusive education. The project involves two Danish production schools who have experience with establishing and managing educational partnerships, three VET schools in Bulgaria and Estonia, a VET centre in Italy managing 94 VET schools in Italy, and a company in Romania that cooperates with at least 10 VET schools, most of them in rural areas.

"Nowadays the Network Technologies are growing very fast and are in a very high demand. The annual average salary of a Computer Network Technician is $44, 562 per year in the United States and €47,793 in The EU, while a freelance technician earns $20.07 and € 25.35 per hour, according to payscale.com. Job opportunities for computer systems and network administrators are estimated to grow up to 15 percent during the period 2016-2026, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics by the top IT giants employers, such as Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, HP, DellEMC, etc. According to the job descriptions, a Computer Network Technician which is also known as a Network Technician, manages the network system of the organisation. Computer network technicians install, maintain, resolve, and supervise the use of LANs and WANs, besides establishing and maintaining the internet, intranets, and extranets of an organisation. Technicians monitor the day-to-day operations of an organisation's computer network. Project ""VETworking@NETworking"" is being developed in order to create new, structured, innovative and mainly unified teaching/learning IT programme called ""Computer network technician"" for vocational training institutions in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia. Analysing the near neighbourhood countries, such as Latvia and Estonia it turned out that the main places where the students can have such a big skill set are Universities. However, during the main tendency of the Ministries of Education the most non-theoretical skills can be graduated from the Vocational Education and Training sphere. According to that, the potential skilled student who could pretend for the job described previously can be graduated in VET training centers or IT schools. Kaunas Information Technology School was the first VET organisation which accredited the Computer Network assembler modular programme and since 2014 executed it successfully in Lithuania. However, we also need the good practice experience from another EU countries. Latvian VET education modular programme according to our partners should be updated because some parts are not up to date and must be supplemented by new technologies and innovations. Estonia has very strong modules from different specialties, especially for Cybersecurity but they are mostly focused on security or on general knowledge of technology and there is no specific structure for networkers. As a result, all the partner institutions has experience in partnerships or transfer of innovation projects. However, there is no institution in this project, which would have been created the unified teaching programme for some vocational training institutions from different EU countries. The combined international vocational training programme should be created by partners specialists who several years organised the studies in Network Technologies subjects. As described earlier each partner has some parts in their programmes but they are teaching very basic skills and the student can pretend for the better job during requirements. Moreover, the curricula of each programme, methodical material, subjects and planned number of hours are very different. So the main goal of the project – each partner specialists should create a new, innovative, united part for the modular Network Technician teaching programme for vocational schools or training centers. In other words, the main idea of the project is to collect the knowledge of other countries and to create the universal for Baltic States programme for Network infrastructure and technologies specialists, which should be based on the searching results of the ITVET principles. It must be expected that this new programme will make sense to become more appealing and effective for students and more easily applied for the Network Technologies jobs because would be orientated to teach more in practical way as it is required by VET. Participants: 3 people from each partner institution will be chosen. The first one will be responsible for coordination and cooperation. Two other people - should be the specialists of network technologies. Project's duration - 18 months. During this period 3 partner meetings and final one will be organised.After successful realisation of this project teaching curricula in IT sector will be renewed and created, vocational training in EU will become more popular, IT specialists will be more qualified and will have more opportunities to find a job abroad. What is more, unemployment in EU among young people will be reduced, vocational training institutions will improve international cooperation while working/searching common solutions and sharing responsibilities, developing mutual cooperation and communication. What is more, the new structured Computer Network Technicians programme for VET could be implemented not even in the Baltic states in the future. Also, the program due to full integration could expand in accordance to other EU VET institutions."

"“Development of Interactive and Animated Drawing Teaching Tools”When designing with applicable design systems such as CAD, CAM, CAE, BIM, etc., it may appear like computers do all the job, however, the end-user is always a human being. One can fully realize the potential of such systems only if they understand “the language of engineers”. This project was intended to minimize the gap between potential and perception of graphic information. The learning material content was selected based on results of a needs analysis and adapted in accordance with material testing results. Main objective of the project was to prepare a computer option of interactive and animated drawing teaching tools, which would help students of vocational schools, colleges and universities learn and master drawing teaching materials in an efficient manner. Use of interactive teaching material helps students memorize information and apply it in practice. Interactive and animated drawing teaching material was prepared in line with thematic teaching plans (chapters), and allows students to learn drawing both by hand and on computer (AutoCAD, Onshape programs).The project involved 8 partners from 5 European Union countries: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia.P1. Public Institution Vilnius Builders Training Centre (Project Coordinator, Lithuania)P2. SLOVENSKA TECHNICKA UNIVERZITA V BRATISLAVE (Slovakia)P3. Ida-Virumaa Kutsehariduskeskus (Estonia)P4. VYTAUTAS MAGNUS UNIVERSITY AGRICULTURE ACADEMY (Lithuania)P5. The Lithuanian Society of engineering graphics and geometry (Lithuania)P6. RIGAS TEHNISKA UNIVERSITATE (Latvia)P7. Panevezys College (Lithuania)P8. POLITECHNIKA SLASKA (Poland)Taking into account that vocational teachers, lecturers, instructors from vocational schools, colleges and universities needed to improve technical and didactical competencies of drawing (computer graphics), “Development of Interactive and Animated Drawing Teaching Tools” project partners took the following steps:1.Investigated methodologies of teaching how to draw, application of symbols, relevance of each chapter in the teaching plans, applicable standards in each partner’s country.2.Based on needs analysis results, prepared 4 chapters of “Drawing”. “Interactive and Animated Drawing Teaching Tools” (drawing by hand and with AutoCAD, Onshape programs) material.2.1. Execution of drawing. Geometric drawing;2.2. Basics of projection drawing. Images.Sections.Slices;2.3. Joints of parts. Drawings of parts;2.4. Construction drawing.3. Created project “Development of Interactive and Animated Drawing TeachingTools” website https://liggd.lt/diad-tools/gb, available in English and every partner’s language. 4. Organized living labs for groups of teachers, lecturers, students in Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Slovakia. Participants tested and adjusted interactive teaching material, improved technical competencies.5. Based on the testing results, improved and finalized methodical material.6. Presented the result to target groups.Target groups of the project: - Students of vocational schools; - Students of higher schools and colleges; - Vocational teachers; - Lecturers of higher schools and colleges, scientists of the field.Complete DIAD-tools project work:First DIAD-tools project work – “Needs Analysis Studio”https://liggd.lt/diad-tools/gbTraining materials: https://liggd.lt/diad-tools/gb/training-materials Training materials have been prepared in English, Latvian, Polish, Estonian, Slovak, Lithuanian languages.1. Execution of drawings. Geometric drawing..1.1. Scales1.1.a. Scales - Onshape1.2. Lines on engineering drawings1.2.a. Lines on engineering drawings - Onshape1.2.b. Linetypes and lineweights in AutoCAD1.3. Dimensioning1.3.a. Dimensioning - Onshape1.4. Geometric constructions1.4.a. Geometric constructions - Onshape1.4.b Geometric constructions - AutoCAD1.5. Polygons1.5.a. Polygons - Onshape1.5.b. Polygons – AutoCAD2. Basics of projection drawing. Views. Sectional Views. Sections.2.1 Projections2.2 Variations of Prism2.3 Reconstruction2.4 Sectioning2.5 Solids and netsInteractive materials1. Monge Method 2. Multiview Projections EU norm 3. Multiview Projections - USA norm 4. Intersections of solid 5. Object Reconstruction 6. Reconstruction in Monge method 7. Cube planar cutsNote: To access ""Interactive materials"" teaching material from your computer, download ""GeoGebra"" software from https://www.geogebra.org/download3. Joints of parts. Working drawings of parts.3.1 Threads and threads representation in drawings3.2 Threaded fastenings3.3 Separable and permanent joints3.4 Assembly drawing3.5 Detailing assembly drawing4. Construction drawings.4.1 Architectural and construction drawings general principles4.2 Graphic designations of the building materials4.3 Dimensioning at architectural-construction drawings4.4 Scales at architectural-construction drawings4.5 Construction elements4.6 Test of architectural-construction drawingsEach part of the material has an optional musical background, which can be turned on and off.Project DIAD-tools materials are freely accessible and can be used any time. Video materials can be watched both sequentially or in a preferred order, views are unlimited. It works like any other usual video platform.Access to learning resources at a convenient time in a convenient place on smartphone or tablet allows students to maintain mobility and independence.Project DIAD-tools resources can be used as supplementary materials in theoretical or practical classes. DIAD-tools teaching material will be an useful alternative for students, who want and/or need to study drawing theory in addition to lectures and textbooks .When using DIAD-tools teaching material, information is conveyed through student’s visual perception, which often allows for quick and concise access to informationThe teaching material of DIAD-tools project is useful for vocational schools students, as it provides not only theoretical material on relevant topics, but also covers various technological processes such as threading, welding, parts assembly and more."