"Vocational training is inconceivable today without the use of digital teaching and learning aids. Acquiring comprehensive digital media skills is one of the basic skills. Media skills relate not only to how we learn, but increasingly also to how we work.The increasing use of digital media in companies is accelerating the integration of technologies such as augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), 360 ° video, IoT (Internet of things / sensors) and 3D printing. Appropriate didactic-methodical experiences with these technologies in vocational training are rare. These results particularly from the lack of teaching and learning documents in practical training and the lack of knowledge to work digitally. This means that company trainers and teachers at vocational schools cannot train learners, according to the current and expected requirements of the business world. This is particularly painful to see during the global corona pandemic. The lack of relevant knowledge of professional teaching staff, the use and the opportunities to convey knowledge with it, leads to a reduction in the occupational competence of learners, and it reduces the propensity to train companies as well as the demand for appropriate qualification offers, public and private educational institutions.In order to reverse this development, the vocational training staff needs structured qualifications for handling these technologies as well as the freedom to adapt these technologies to the respective operational processes. This particularly enhances the work of company trainers in SMEs, who usually lack the professional competence and the time resources for such activities. This also enables innovations from the amended training regulations in the areas of chemistry (chemical operator: 2018, chemical lab technician: from 08/2020), IT (2020) and electrical engineering / mechatronics (2018), in dealing with AR, VR / 360 ° video, 3D printing and IoT, to be promptly integrated into the training.The transnational project ""DIOS - didactic innovations labs - digitalization experts in VET"" will choose selected contents and concepts for the use in relevant teaching and learning processes for the occupational profiles: chemical operator, chemical lab technician, mechatronics technicians, electronics technician and IT specialist, or their equivalents, to develop, test, evaluate and transfer them in the 5 partner countries. This is done with the aim of setting up and operating industry-specific didactic innovation labs as well as to implement a digitalisation specific qualification concept for vocational training personnel.The integration and effective use of digital media requires the successful integration of pedagogy, technology and organization in order to enable and sustain innovative teaching and learning scenarios. The industry-specific, physical teaching and learning laboratories for chemistry, IT, electrical engineering and mechatronics serve to anchor these new technologies in the organization of the DIOS partners and thus in vocational training. The laboratories each contain a so-called ""Learning Lab"", for the qualification of teaching staff, and a ""Media Lab"", for tailor-made media creation. The corresponding, organization-specific need is recorded with the SELFIE tool, contents and formats will derived from it. This includes i.a. the creation of hands-on workshops and tailor-made teaching and learning content. The visualization of complex facts can lead to an increased motivation among learners, which leads to a more effective execution of working tasks as well as corresponds to a better learning success. At the same time, the attractiveness of teaching and training personnel activities in vocational training is increasing. The experiences are then published. The DIOS project activities are a contribution to a Vocational Training 4.0 and a reaction to demographic change.DIOS takes into account the different vocational training systems of the partner countries and the requirements in the classroom or practical learning environments. These include countries with predominantly school-based vocational training (SI) and countries with a share of WBL up to 50% (CY, NL and CZ). The cross-border cooperation enables an EU-wide application in various industries, since the needs of teachers / company trainers and students / apprentices are explicitly addressed, regardless of the type of vocational system of the partner countries in DIOS. The professional development of teachers / trainers is compared between the different industries. This would not be possible without the participation of institutions from DE, NL, CZ, CY & SI."

The role of Today´s School is not easy and very different from what it was just few decades ago. The school finds itself facing the challenge of responding to the demands of the complex society we live in: a globalized highly competitive, constantly changing and increasingly complex world that demands professionals capable of innovating and managing innovation and flexible to adapt to the changing environment. Individual´s future opportunities increasingly depend on skills, human capital and the capacity to obtain, maintain and interpret information and to employ and acquire knowledge. But what happens if every sixth young person in EU27 leaves school with no more than lower education and does not participate in learning after that point? In some countries the situation in alarming (Spain 23,5%, Italy 17% and Turkey, EU candidate member, 41,9%). There are many reasons that lead to school failure; social, cultural and religious origins, parent´s and students attitude, cultural levels and competences, family situation but also school´s indifference to difference and inflexible and boring teaching and learning. The overall aim of this proposal is to reduce early school leaving by identifying the most effective prevention strategies, with special focus on alternative and motivating paths for “in-risk” students to engage with school, continue their education and empower them for life and participate in the progress of their community. To do so, the partnership will exchange and collect best practices with other European institutions that have experience on ESL and deign and test experimental activities that will be tested with at least 10 students from each participating school. The aim of this activity is to motivate and empower students and increase the attractiveness of education. Thus, SMILE aims: • To compile a Handbook containing the most effective strategies to reduce early school leaving and containing prevention & early intervention measures that can be used in schools• To design, test and implement an “alternative educational path” – e.g. set of activities that will develop students competences and motivate “in risks” to engage with school and actively involve the school, families and community in their learning process• Increase the attractiveness of education and training by using newest ICT in learning, motivating learners, empowering them with competences and thus, ease their transition from school to work• To promote European networking between schools with holistic collaborative approaches to teaching, develop methods and create conditions for personalized teaching and learning for pupils, thus increase their individual opportunities for the future7 partners from 5 European countries, forming a transnational cooperation unit with a balanced geographic representation of the Erasmus + area, which will be able to deal with the organizational, pedagogical, technological and project challenges and the desired impact due to their experiences, knowledge and skills:• Schools: IES Albayzín (ES) -PROMOTER, Liceo Científico A. Romita (IT), Graafschap College (NL).• Innovation Centers: STEPS srl (IT), Zahareña Conocimiento (ES), Technology Education Research Group (TEdU) of University of Helsinki (FI)• Public Entities: KMEM (TK).Main activities1. Integration of the partnership as a collaborative structure (Visits to educational institutions and Debates around the problem of school dropout)2. Experimental motivational Actions (IES Albayzín and Liceo Romita) for students at risk of school dropout, attractive and with intensive use of ICTs.Results1) Situational diagnosis about school dropout.2) Compilation of good practices and prevention strategies3) Design and development of experimental activities during the course 17/18 in IES Albayzín and Liceo Romita.Impact• In schools, direct participation of more than 30 students (many at risk of dropping out), 20 teachers and, indirectly, the entire school community.• In the schools comunities, actions with public entities and associations of Granada and Campobasso.• Transnational.Benefits in a long term-Sensitization of the entire educational community around the problem of school dropout.-Improvement of family-school and administration-school relationships.-Use of Google tools in the daily performance of teaching.-Inclusion in the Center Project of new educational methodologies.-Creation of mediation groups for the resolution of conflicts in the center.-Promotion of Erasmus + projects as a way to strengthen and develop the competences of students and teachers in the EU environment.-Creation of affective and emotional ties between the students participating in the project, between the Italian group and the Spanish group.-Interest to know other cultures, to have educational experiences in other countries.-Creation of professional and affective ties between the members of the strategic association.

Despite the digital leap caused by COVID-19 and the rapid shift to distant and online learning spring 2020 the digital skills of vocational teachers and students are still at very different levels. This impairs learning outcomes and creates inequality between students. The initial results of the study conducted in Finland during May and June 2020 and targeted to basic education confirmed the Helsinki and Tampere universities´ researchers' doubts that equality in education was not realised as well during the distant learning period as in normal circumstances. The training package/course now being developed through the project would increase VET-teachers' possibilities to familiarise themselves with digital pedagogy and adopt new ways of using technology in a pedagogically meaningful way, thus evening out the differences in teachers' skills. Long-term impact of the project would be to increase the equality of VET-education with reference to the use of digital learning environments and digital tools. The objective of the project is to increase VET-teachers' pedagogical online teaching skills and thereby increase the digital competences of both teachers and students. It would be important that VET-teachers have the skills needed to deliver quality and inclusive education through online, virtual means. Improving VET-teachers´pedagogical online teaching skills have the impact that VET-teachers would understand how to best incorporate digital online technology into subject-specific teaching, training and learning including work based learning. They could themselves produce ideas how to best follow-up VET-students´competence development, how to do exams or assessment online, how to deliver inclusive online training and how to do other pedagogically meaningful operations and actions online maintaining the same quality level as in classroom situations. The tool to reach the above mentioned objective and impact is to develop a digital pedagogically oriented participatory online learning model that can be applied to each country's and educational institution's own online learning programs and applications. As a result of the project, teachers' digital teaching skills will develop and they will be encouraged to use digital tools creatively and the quality of online teaching will improve. Indirectly, students' digital skills also develop as their experiences on inclusive online learning increase and they have a more active role in online learning processes. The online interaction skills of students and teachers will also be improved as part of the learning processes.The planned activities and target groups:Mapping of the pedagogical online learning models already in use in the partner countries (Finland, Slovenia, Netherlands). Developing a common inclusive digipedagogical model that can be exploited regardless of the digital learning environment, digital programs and digital tools that are in use. This model includes, for example, online learning quality criteria, good practices and examples of inclusive online learning. Creating training material for vocational teachers to improve VET-teachers´skills in planning and implementing an inclusive online course. The training material will be availabe e.g. in eTwinning platform (eTwinning group or/and learning event) but also to other open access platforms. The direct target group of the project is VET-teachers but indirectly also VET-learners will benefit from the project activities, outputs and long-term impact.

"Despite overall European efforts to get more students in VET, to decrease the drop out rate in VET, to raise image of VET, we haven´t found the turning point that is really successful. This goes for almost all the countries, educations and colleges within VET in Europe. Despite clear agendas from national governments we still face a lack of students and graduated workers in many fields. We all want to, and have an interest in, changing this fact. We want to raise image of VET, get more students in VET, get better teaching and happier students. This project will share good practices and attack this issue from a quality perspective. The partners have chosen five actions that we will combine, complement and learn from throughout and after the project period. The overall goal is to learn from each other, share knowledge and actions and complement own findings with the findings of partners and increase our competences and be able to transform the data from quality reviews, research and action findings into the classroom. Be a better teacher, to ""make"" better students and better organisations. This benefits society as well. The five actions are: -Student's selfevaluation and combined student-teacher's evaluation -Meeting between student and teacher. Research of motivation in the classroom -Student's evaluation of education -EQUAVET as a tool for improving quality in education through student's voice -Teacher's preparation for class focused, in team and in mind map/fixed scheme & evaluation of teaching. We expect that this new approach and combination of looking into quality from different angles and perspectives, will provide us with new tools and complement the objectives of the project. Objectives of project: -Qualifying teachers to enhance better teaching -Share and test tools -Translate quality data to better teaching -Involving students in teaching and learning -Having happy, motivated students To do this we'll work with our chosen actions at our respective colleges. We will have two learning/teaching/training activities together. Participants are two steering group members from each college and two teachers. Between our meetings and at the activity meetings we work first with own issue/action at the first training activity meeting. Following this meeting we work in home college, and secondly we work with new actions from partner college. In this way we share our experiences, learn new ways of dealing with subjects, learn on own body new actions that will strenghten our quality work. Activities are teaching in class, interviewing students, perform evaluations with and between students, make observations in classroom and more. Participants are, a part from the steering group, two teachers from each participating college. The teachers will work in student classes with the given actions. They will work with the actions they know from own college, and they will work with an action from partner college. These activities take place at activity-meetings and between meetings. Our key target is students, but teachers are the target group in the methodology. The project will use socalled Action Theory to get an overview of our actions and objectives. We will work with: 1. A context analysis; characteristics of the students in the different countries; 2. Presentation of quality management system. Choose a methodology to investigate the quality of the best practices. Describe indicators of quality. 3. Identifying best practices within own college 4. Exchanging best practices with teachers from all countries adopting each other's best practice 5. Evaluate the applied best practices with students and teachers 6. Recommendations published, making presentation for participants to use. Create an online platform with all best practices and tools and a webinar. 7. Hosting a work shop and webinar We expect the following impact Students: More active in class, more motivated for education, increased fulfillment rate, happier students, better student-teacher relation. Teachers/participants:Transformation of quality data into better classroom teaching, better teaching competences, increased intercultural competences, better perception's competences, extended personal competences in a professionel frame Organisations: Enhanced quality level, better image, look at, and talk about quality in a new way Longer term benefits: Increased quality in education Increased number of happy, motivated student Increased number of students, that full fill their education Other findings will be: Better knowledge , skills and competence regarding inter/transcultural performances, both professionally and individual and for the benefit of the organisation and VET education overall. The project will, at it's best, give us tools to change the way we teach, the way student's learn and the way we organize our colleges."

VETMO4TL was set up in the context of a growing demand for jobs in the Transport & Logistics (T&L) sector all over Europe, the need to attract new profiles to EQF level 4 qualifications that specifically meet the companies’ needs, and the will to enhance European mobility opportunities. The project lasted 30 months, starting in November 2017 and ending in April 2020, and brought together 11 complementary partner organisations, such as associations, T&L research centres, competent authorities and VET centres from ten EU countries: Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Spain (Catalonia) and the Netherlands.The project objective was to develop harmonised standards, tools and methodologies to ensure transparency and recognition of the national qualifications with the purpose to promote structured and recognised mobility in Europe, for learners in vocational education and trainings (VET) at level 4 of the European Qualifications Framework (EQF) in the T&L sector. The project furthermore aimed to enhance cooperation between VET centres and to create new partnerships.Three main activities were implemented, enabling us to reach the following results and impacts:1/Development of shared referencesWe developed shared references, which allow mutual understanding and comparison of the existing qualifications and trainings in the ten partner countries. They are composed of 3 resources: job profiles (O2), occupational standards (O3) & qualification standards (O4). The first two resources illustrate the three relevant jobs that we identified at EQF level 4 in T&L: The transport technician who works in an office and participates in organising, coordinating and monitoring transport missions. The warehouse technician who works in a storehouse and receives, stocks and prepares goods for delivery. The Road Freight Advanced Driver who drives the truck and executes the transport of goods. The third document describes these qualifications in terms of units of learning outcomes (based on the ECVET methodology).2/Design of bilateral mobility patternsThe shared references build a common framework but they do not provide individual propositions for mobility. We therefore provided 17 bilateral mobility patterns (O5) as an additional tool, which assists teachers and trainers in preparing appropriate mobility projects by determining possibilities of structured and recognised mobility between two partner countries: duration, level, type of mobility, learning outcomes to be achieved abroad, evaluation and recognition procedures. It is “ready to use” and facilitates the filling of the Learning Agreement inherent to every quality mobility project.In addition, we drafted clear guidelines explaining the methodology we used to ensure that it can be applied by other stakeholders to create their own mobility patterns. In this way, this tool is useful for any VET actor, even for countries or economic sectors that have not participated in our project.3/Elaboration of guidelines and organisation of a training workshopWe organised a workshop to train teachers and trainers in the use of the project resources and tools. This event gave the opportunity to reach stakeholders outside our consortium and supported the creation of new partnerships. To smooth the exploitation of our results and support the implementation of mobility, we furthermore provided guidelines (O6) detailing all our resources and tools and explaining how to use them, in a simple and practical way.All results are available on the project website: www.vetmo4tl-project.eu/en/page/deliverables.The VETMO4TL project was conducted in a way to ensure longer-term benefits:This strategic partnership contributed to strengthening recognition, transparency and comparability of qualifications at EQF level 4 in T&L in Europe. In parallel, the project activities lead to increased transnational cooperation of VET providers and the creation of new partnerships. These conditions are required to promote quality European mobility options for teachers, trainers, employers and learners with a view to contributing towards developing better understanding, knowledge and solidarity within Europe.To ensure the use of the project results and to continue promoting the implementation of mobility at EQF level 4 in T&L, they were integrated into the existing NETINVET network (www.netinvet.eu). NETINVET is a mobility network of over 100 VET centres and professional organisations from 13 European countries. Based on mutual trust and quality, NETINVET promotes European mobility in the sectors of international trade, transport and logistics and commercial vehicle maintenance.