"In the world of rapid changes, education seems to have become a big problem in many countries. It is needed to re-adjust the teaching process by empowering our students with competencies that can help them integrate and rapidly adapt to changes. In this frame, the project main coordinator identifieded the social inclusion as a starting point to develop these soft skills. All partner schools with quite same social-economical background in students' families worked in this direction. The Active and responsible citizenship project reunites 5 schools from Greece, Italy, Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey. Our children are raised facing one of the greatest challenges societies face at a European level, diversity. As the young students, to which the project is addressed to, are still at the age when they are looking for role models, we believe that having in front of them teachers who practically promote the active citizenship encouraging social inclusion, offering their own behavioral examples in getting voluntarily involved in improving the life of the community will determine our pupils to be responsible active citizens of Europe. Through our project we aimed to make our students understand that active citizenship is the glue that maintains society together. The objectives we produced in our project were: -to raise awareness about active citizenship among 250 students from 5 EU schools during a 2 years project -to develop 250 students' knowledge, attitudes and skills needed to act as active citizens in their communities -to strengthen active citizenship as a lifestyle among students from 5 EU schools from 5 EU countries -to create an e-toolkit for schools, containing good practice examples for promoting active citizenship The project is addressed to 250 primary school students (8-12 years old) indirectly involved and more than 50 teachers directly involved in the project. We have carefully planned a series of activities that will lead to achievement of the project’s objectives using Social and emotional learning (SEL) strategy to help immerse students in the project development. SEL help participants to acquire knowledge, attitudes and skills needed to understand and manage their emotions, personal feelings, set personal goals, develop empathy awareness and establish positive relationships. Various instructional strategies (group discussion, role play, simulations, debates, multimedia presentations, outside speakers) have been used to raise awareness about active citizenship. The results of these activities were: 5 multimedia presentations ""What is active citizenship?"", 5 videos: “Cultural values in my country”, 5 seminars with a special guest, an outside speakers representing an NGO to talk about civic values and to promote the importance of volunteers have been organized in each partner country. By developing activities using SEL (comics, stories, group activities, team building games), we aimed to develop our students' knowledge, attitudes and skills as active citizens of their communities. To enhance students' social awareness, self-awareness, self-management, responsible decision making and relationship skills, tangible results comics exhibition, magazine containing stories, 5 multimedia presentations ""Active citizens and environment"", 5 presentations ""My school, my city, my country"" were created. Thus, a common Erasmus+ garden. We wish that we build up active citizenship as a lifestyle, Active Citizens Clubs for students were created in all the 5 schools involved in the project. These clubs aimed to develop motivation and engagement for promoting civic participation in life on a long term. The students of the club got common T-shirts created within the project. One of the activities of the club had the obligation to create souvenirs and handicrafts for the project partners. Teachers developed 20 lesson plans using an interdisciplinary approach which was part of the Active Citizenship and produced the e-toolkit promoting active citizenship. Through this partnership we considered to promote active citizenship and responsibility, increase school cooperation with institutions from the local community, encourage schools to embrace Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) programs to improve students’ lives and their academic achievements, foster networking among students to continue organizing activities related to the project's topic, develop the school curricula and encourage interdisciplinarity in teaching. The participation in this project contribute to the development of the involved schools in the long-term by expanding the school curricula, especially internationalizing it, contributing to the development of qualitative teaching and to the institutional development plans, and promoting the schools’ image in the local communities. We consider that the Active Citizens Clubs in each school had the knowledge and sensitivities concerning topics as diversity, volunteering, environtment and cultural heritage continuing their activities after the end of our project."

Stories (legends, myths and fairytales) often have cultural, historic or geographic significance and they provide a meaningful insight into the cultural identity of any country. Our project wishes to utilize these stories in order to engage the pupils of the partnership in shared cross-curricular activities.The main aim of this project is the realization of the European motto “united in diversity” through stories while the main objectives are: -To engage learners in meaningful activities that will help them discover their unique potentials and talents.-To boost the self-esteem of all students, especially of those who are in danger of experiencing failure in education.-To give students teachers and parents the chance to discover their cultural identity and find out the mutual inheritance that we share with the other European fellows. - To equip teachers with expertise in languages and use of ICT in order to be able to teach valuable lifelong skills to the students.-To expand the European dimension of the partner institutions in order to play an active role at local, regional and national level.The participant schools are from Greece, Lithuania, Italy, Turkey, Portugal, Spain and Bulgaria .The activities will be structured to accommodate pupils of all ages, abilities, multiple intelligences and ethnic backgrounds. Legends, myths and fairy tales will enable pupils to work across many areas of the curriculum. This will happen through various story-telling techniques:- Reading and listening to chosen stories;- Looking, creating and exchanging pictures, drawings and works of art inspired by these stories;- Producing new versions of these stories;- Dramatizing;- Exchanging predictions and telling possible ways of how the plot might continue;- Talking about the motives of action the heroes might have;- Creating poems inspired by these stories.Schools will use e-Twinning in order to work together on the project and the products will be published in an online magazine in twin space in the languages of the partnership and in English. Issues of this magazine will be printed and distributed to the local communities in the two years of the project. Apart from the transnational meetings, there will be common short-term teaching events at the end of the two school years with representative children cooperating and preparing common celebrations. Overall, it is expected that, through this project, an awareness of the importance of cultural and linguistic diversity within Europe will be promoted. As a result, this awareness will broaden horizons and strengthen the values towards combating racism, prejudice and xenophobia. Also, the engagement of all students in meaningful activities according to their unique potentials, will boost their self-esteem towards the prevention of early leaving from school.

"Context of our project ""BE GREAT-don´t discriminate!""In times of a fundamental transition of the world order, we intend to reflect on Europe as a peace project and a community of values. We therefore put our project at the service of European human rights with a special focus on values.We specifically concentrate on inclusion as a human right in order to demonstrate that participation in education functions for persons with different impairments. Because: ""Inequality is at its highest level in 30 years..."" (2015 Joint Report of the Council and the Commission). This appals us – the more so since inclusion as laid down by European law is a task for all schools. This is why we intend to set an example in our project.Objective 1: The human right of inclusionAs a human right, inclusion is directly contingent on freedom, equality and solidarity and means that no person may be excluded or marginalised. We therefore particularly pursue one goal in our project: the strengthening of human rights by the social integration of school pupils with inclusive special needs through participation in education.Our project is intended to provide every pupil with the opportunity to actively and effectively take part in teaching classes – irrespective of illness, disability or regional isolation – by means of interactive livestream teaching. Pupils prevented from attending school on a long-term basis by oncological or psychological disorders, or chronic inflammatory bowel diseases, also have the possibility of substantively participating through livestreaming. This provides them with better chances of achieving qualifications for higher education. This way, they remain in the European labour market as specialists, forward thinkers or decision-makers.As the result of the project on inclusion, we are implementing interactive livestream teaching in all partner schools. Furthermore, we are drawing up a guidance manual in relation to the technical and pedagogical requirements of interactive livestream teaching free of charge for all schools in Europe. As a long-term benefit, we anticipate an increase in interactive livestream teaching overall and thereby improved individual access to education – irrespective of health or regional restrictions.Objective 2: Value systems in cyberspaceA second focus of our project is on values-based education, as called for by the EU action plan. In this regard, we will tackle a highly charged phenomenon, which presents the European community of values and all schools with immense challenges: ""Bullying is recognised by the UN as a major factor in damaging the well-being of students... . New forms through social media are adding to the problem."" We want to devote our attention to the digital well-being of European pupils for the purpose of strengthening and protecting young Europeans. We will thus first conduct a representative survey on the subject ""European pupils in cyberspace"" on the basis of a suitable survey tool. The results will help us in developing common European prevention strategies for our schools.Measurable results will include the eBook ""Digital well-being in European schools"" together with a prevention plan and code of values. In addition, we will train pupils in all project schools as cyber experts to successively pass on their expertise to younger pupils. By the systematic application of the ""living library"" method, we will intensify European values, such as empathy and tolerance, in all participants. This method will be firmly established in all project schools for long-term use. Furthermore, a sustainable transnational cooperation will take place by means of an annual eTwinning conference on Safer Internet Day (SID), at which progress and new tasks in the area of cyber reality will be discussed.Six partner schools are contributing their specific strengths:Lithuania (code of values)Bulgaria (prevention competence through creative theatre)Italy (ECDL exam centre)Portugal (e-Twinning school)Cyprus (living library)Germany (inclusion)We will mutually visit each other for intensive work sessions in relation to our project objectives. A minimum of 7 pupils aged between 15 and 18 with very different requirements from each of the countries taking part will participate in training, teaching and learning activities accompanied by two teachers. Diverse workshops are planned in the 23 months. With regard to our horizontal ""Social Integration"" project priority, each school will contribute its strengths and individual experiences so that we can all learn from and with each other.Our project is characterised by methodological diversity, such as eTwinning, learning to learn, CLIL, learning by teaching, peer-group learning, living library, interactive learning games.It will enable all the pupils, parents and teachers to become visible value ambassadors for the European community of values, aware of the importance of Europe as the greatest peace project of the Modern Age."

In the 21st century, the use of technology and being online are a way of life. That is why, being good digital citizens and coaching students to model good digital citizenship and safe online behavior takes on greater importance. The Internet is becoming a primary hub for everything from communication and education to commerce and social networking. For each of these venues, we must strive to agree upon consistent values and limitations which will prevent people from being exposed to content such as extreme violence, pornography, gambling, or illegal downloads. As we move forward into an era driven by the capacities of online media, the issue of access must be addressed. This is the world we live in. We need to be ready for it - that’s why digital readiness isn’t just about deciding when or when your child shouldn’t have access to smart devices. It’s about how and when you to teach them to protect themselves long after you lay down the parental controls. Too often we are seeing students as well as adults misusing and abusing technology but not sure what to do. The issue is more than what the users do not know but what is considered appropriate technology usage. The purpose of this project is to equip the technology users with vital skills to survive in the digital world.In order to develop digital literacy, the following topics will be studied during the project; - Information Literacy - Communication Literacy - Visual Literacy - Social Literacy - Technology Literacy - Media Literacy The project's objectives are; -develop digital literacy skills of the participants -develop a strategy for using skills in information literacy over an extended period of time; -teach students about both the benefits and risks of the online world and help students stay safer there -monitor progress and adapt strategy as necessary, to achieve the quality of outcomes required. -evaluate overall strategy and present outcomes from your work, including citations and a bibliography. -become a confident “Digital Citizenship Champion” in their community. -recognise where there is a knowledge or information ‘gap’, and identify what type of information you need to fill it. There are partners from Turkey,Bulgaria,Greece,Poland,Portugal and England. There will be 6 transnational project meetings in our 2-year project.The project staff will attend those meetings.The first transnational meeting is designed as the kick-off meeting in Turkey.(October,2017)In this meeting we will follow the definition of the base elements of ourproject and other project planning activities. This meeting will introduce the members of the project team and provide the opportunity to discuss the role of team members again.The second transnational project meeting will be in Bulgaria which will be mainly on ''Exploitation''.(April,2018)The third transnational project meeting will be in Portugal to discuss how to raise the visibility of the project.(June,2018).The fourth transnational project meeting will be in Poland to prepare a dissemination plan altogether.(October,2018) The fifth transnational project meeting will be in April,2019 in England to find some ways to ensure that project deliverables remain available in the foreseeable future(sustainability of the project).The final transnational project meeting will be in Greece in June,2019 to evaluate all the project activities(Evaluation).We hope that this project will be able to contribute to the awareness towards the importance of digital literacy. The outputs of the project will be accesible for everyone through the website and also in a ready to use form distributed by coordinator We will also send mails and other communication towards schools and regional authorities. Since the outputs will be in English the language barrier might be a problem, but on the website we will provide translations in all the project partners languages. Afterwards users form other countires will be able to add their own mothertongue.

"The project ""Crossing Borders"" was conceived as a result of a proposal posted in Etwinning and many correspondences via email. The partnership consists of 8 partner schools based on geographically balanced countries in the EU: Portugal, Wales, Denmark, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Italy and Turkey. All are schools which vary in background and nature which has supported the project by exposing our pupils to a greater variety that exists in our European community. The variety in size is from 60 pupils upto a 1000 and the age range of pupils involved in the project vary from 8 to 16. All these aspects aid to further support the aims of the project which was to Cross borders, break stereotypes and develop a greater understanding in pupils of the diversity that belongs to our European community. We quickly agreed that the topic Crossing Borders could be a great working title. It could be read in many ways as intended and has been utilised as such. Our intention was to open the minds and eyes of our pupils so they were able to understand the different cultures and backgrounds people are bringing into Europe these years. 17 Global Goals was something the students got to know a lot more about and the Goals were visible in most of the activities in some way.Our main activities have base in understanding others, so charity work during the years has been important, but especially around holidays, where so many are left with very little, it has been important to help others. The mobilities have been very important! During these meetings, the pupils have actually gotten to understand other cultures and backgrounds. Not nessesarily by meeting refugees, but in the meeting with our partners. We all live in Europe and have a lot in common, but also many things where we are different, and that has been an eye-opener for all. During visits the students have attended lessons in school, have visited host families and have joined their friends for after school activities - been a part of teen life in a partner country. And that has overcome ones prejudices. And it was a particular objective - to reduce stereotyping. The students have become more confident in using English for communication. Meeting new people is easier well knowing that we have a lot in common, but also some interesting areas that we would like to know more about, e.g. school life, fashion, politics, music and so on.We believe that our pupls are more open towards new things. And they are more grateful for what they have and have their eyes open for how they might want to change things, e.g. in school: more activities during breaks, brain break during lessons in order to be able to comcentrate, better school food, less food waste, sorting the trash in school, a stronger student council and so on. There are no visible longer-term benefits, but within the participating students, there are things which they have brought on to their next educational institution, e.g. volunteering, starting a trash collection day in school for all students and teachers, focus on the well-being of others, sharing during Holidays. Some of the partner schools have taken in dancing as a thing the whole school do together once a year to give the feeling of belonging to this particular school."