"Our project designed and offered HE and VET teachers pieces of training to acquire skills and competencies to design online, open and collaborative learning activities for diverse target groups, embedding digital, social, and intercultural competences. We offer training materials piloted by 24 teachers delegated by the partner institutions as well as testimonies by teachers and developers who participated in our training and able to offer firsthand experience on using their newly acquired skills for the first time. The aim of the project was to offer a solution to the need of teachers to know how to network and collaborate to meet the challenges of the diversification of the learners, how to open up their teaching practice and be digitally competent in doing so. The VOCAL - Vocational Online CollAboration for Learning project successfully realised its aim to offer learning materials and full Moodle courses as well as an easy to digest form of peer learning through testimonies by the teachers and trainers in VET and HE. The aim was reached through the following main results:1. Three training materials are developed and are available as an open educational resource under Attribution-ShareAlike license for all the teachers and learners. Upon wish and need the course materials are easily transferred to any website or learning environment. a) First training material is about the digitalisation of analog content, by planning, developing and producing it. The material consists of three units, where the first unit includes the history of digitalisation (also different templates available), and the second unit about the ""conversion"" process. b) Second training material consists of three units and provides information about social and cultural differences considering that cultural differences have a significant impact on the learning process nowadays. c) Third training material is about tutoring international intercultural and diverse learner groups. It consists of 5 units, providing examples and templates, the basic structure for an online course. All three courses are freely available through the VOCAL Moodle and the theoretical parts are downloadable in pdf directly from the project website.2. Teachers participating in our training tested their newly acquired skills by participating in international open development work where they re-developed one of their existing learning materials (6 re-developed courses are the results). These short courses were then peer-reviewed and piloted in the delegating institutions to gain experience in open educational practices. By the end of August 2018, almost all pilots have been finished successfully with more than 50 open badges awarded to participants upon completion. Teachers and trainers gave very positive feedback on the activity stating how useful it was, and all claimed that they would recommend this kind of activity to their colleagues. It turned out, that collaboration and open educational practices are very challenging in an online international environment, but also very rewarding as well. One of the key messages that trainers expressed: ""Students need constant feedback and motivation in order to keep going and the more collaborative activities are, the better (though it might be challenging to manage them)"". The participating institutions were asked and decided on the openness of their re-developed courses and decided on the Attribution-ShareAlike license. The courses can be freely accessible through the project website, with a guest account (no registration is needed). Some activities require registration to view (limitations in Moodle), registration is free.3. The VOCAL partnership put a great emphasis on documenting the developments taking place during the project. The development of new learning materials, training and testing the new skills by re-developing courses in an international collaborative way, provided opportunities to collect feedback from participants, collaborating teachers, developers of the materials and even learners and students who took part in the piloting. Our main aim was to shed light on the process of how Open Educational Resources (OER) become Open Educational Practices (OEP). Within the development of intellectual output: Testimonies of OEPs, we recorded video interviews and provided feedback questionnaires to collect the feedback of our target group. There are three main collections of these testimonies: a) Regarding every redeveloped course, there is an introductory video where the developers talk about the aims of the courses and their work. It is followed up with a review interview with screen captures in the course to give insights on the achievements, plus there is a description of the OEP entertained in the course, with the explanation of what it was and how it was realised. b) Discussion after piloting with developers and tutors about lessons learned shared as a video. And finally, c) Categorisation of OERs."

EU recognition instruments such as the diploma supplement and the EQF support the award of qualifications in the areas of formal learning, and are supported by recognition procedures for non-formal and informal learning. The recognition and transfer of individual credits through ECTS was created for an era of physical mobility, and is optimised accordingly. While these tools can be used to support open education and virtual mobility, a number of caveats exist to their use, including that: - little to no guidance exists on how to document virtual mobility / open education experiences for the purposes of credit transfer. - procedures for recognition of prior learning or of non-formal/informal learning do not scale to the massive numbers of students enrolling in open education programmes such as MOOCs - there is no European approach to recognising, transferring or scaling open education modules. These problems are so pronounced, that many open educational providers are creating parallel systems of credentials that are not even described in terms of ECTS - leading to a situation where millions of students per year are enrolling in open courses offered by universities which do not necessarily award valid or recognised forms of credit. This project intends to address these issues by creating a standard format for describing open education and virtual mobility experiences in terms of ECTS which: • Addresses common criticisms (lack of trust) of open education, in particular with respect to student assessment and identity • Is scalable to hundreds or thousands of students through automatic issuing and verification of certificates • Can capture a wide range of non-formal and formal open education experiences Specifically, the project is divided into five stages involving: Stage 1: Definition of Quality Credentials We will propose a quality system that evaluates the quality credential based on their transparency, ease-of-recognition and ease-of-portability – this quality system will then be used to evaluate current credential-types on offer, and to inform credential-improvement activities in the next stages. Stage 2: Enhance Transparency of Quality Credentials by creating a Learning Passport The consortium will propose a transparency instrument, building on proposals in the field, which documents the (a) course design, (b) learning activities undertaken by the learner, and (c) assessment activities, which make up a credential. This ‘learning passport’ is intended to serve as a supplement to the credential, to facilitate its recognition by under institutions. To this end, we will pilot its usage by using it to transfer information on credentials in 6 Higher Education Institutions, thus ensuring that it fulfils its purpose. Stage 3: Propose Technological Methods to Strengthen Automatic Exchange of Recognition Information Should the process of recognition of credentials be conducted entirely manually, it would be extremely time consuming and inefficient, especially were such processes to be conducted at scale. To this end, we will use roadmapping to propose a meta-data standard, ontology and a set of interlocking technologies which would allow for automatic exchange of credentials between Higher Education Institutions Stage 4: Clarify Concepts around Open Educational Recognition The proper use of recognition tools described in Stage 2 and Stage 3 depend on the successful application and understanding of concepts such as estimation of workload, verification of student identity, fair and accurate assessment, and quality assurance of learning. Since there are differences of varying degree in applying these concepts in open education and in traditional formal education, we will propose guidelines for the correct interpretation of each of these concepts. The methodology applied here will involve collaborative authoring by the partners, backed up by the same process of peer-review used under Stage 1. Stage 5: Study and Predict the Impacts of Open Education Recognition We will build exploratory scenarios, which describe events and trends as they could evolve based on alternative assumptions on how open education recognition might influence the future. Thus, the technique will be used to develop a future history—that is, the evolution from present conditions to one of several futures. The scenarios will outline a causal chain of decisions and circumstances that lead from the present, displaying the conditions of important variables over time. We believe that by increasing the quantity and quality of recognition processes in OE we will: • Create new flexible learning pathways for students inside Higher Education • Allow institutions to increase the scope of their offer, by integrating teaching/learning done at other institutions into their curricula • Improve resource-efficiency within HEIs • Lead to an increase in the use and impact of Open Educational Practices

Technology is improving every day and becoming a vital part of our lives; It is everywhere, from grocery to an Institute of Technology. While most of us are afraid and unwilling to grasp new technological advancements there is no debating that as the ‘’digital natives’’ of a ‘’digital society’’ we have to promote our digital skills.As a matter of fact; according to the employment data released by EU, today’s jobs are mainly in the field of Technology and in a broader scale Science Engineering and Maths. Lack of those skills will most probably mean unemployment for youngsters in the future. Specifically, youngsters’ stem skills must be promoted to match with the competitive labor market’s needs and demands.Thus, it is the schools’ responsibility to help their pupils acquire those skills to be happy and motivated individuals whose future employabilities are more likely to happen. Accordingly our main objective is to enable high school pupils to acquire STEAM skills by enhancing and modernizing the existing STEM curricula with an e- resource pack including mini MOOCs, report and a handbook (digitally available) mainly to foster students’ creativity and motivation and the development of skills to respond to the Europe 2020 Flagship initiatives: the Digital Agenda, Youth on the Move, and An Agenda for New Skills and Jobs.The main target audience of the Project is pupils, more specifically 15-year-olds, pupils with learnings difficulties, who are the lowest Stem achievers according to the survey at made at partner schools. The senior pupils (as they will experience the transition to university /business World soon) and female pupils (lack of females in Stem fields) are the other focus groups. Although our project aims to study one of the very same topics of the school education projects , it will take different approaches to clarify the matter ;Era’s Muse will get its supplementary e-resource pack for Stem Curriculum Enhancement through scenarios and their material sets co-created by school teachers, researchers, It and material developers, methodology authors, youth workers, museum employees, and associated academicians. We need technology to survive in a modern social world, yet overreliance on technology is becoming socially devastating. It leads to the feelings of isolation and depression. While promoting the stem particularly the digital skills of all participants ( employees, teachers, pupils…etc) on one hand , we aim to develop especially pupils’ sense of belonging and their intergenerational and intercultural skills. One of the most fundamental component to provide pupils with sense of belonging will probably be cultural heritage ; That’s why museums, the caretakers of the cultural heritage, will give us the context. Museums will be the real-life teaching and learning STEAM environments. In our project, we will create scenarios and develop and adapt their material sets ( human voice, telephonic conversation, radio broadcast, magazine, newspaper, images, Maps,Diagrams, Photographs, Cartoons, Comic strips, (3D representation of) the real object , Mock-up, Diorama, Globe, Relief Map, Specimen, Puppet, Slide, Filmstrips, Motion Picture Film, Television, Video discuss, Multimedia…etc) which will use online/ museums as teaching environments . The created scenarios and their material sets will be delivered as in mini MOOCs on project e-learning platform to make it possible to reach the widest community.The scenarios will be created to implement at online/ museums designed around several themes of STEAM according to learners’ needs. Museums will also give us the resource we need to adapt and develop material sets of the scenarios. Era's muse will pilot and evaluate all the scenarios with the participation of pupils.In this co-design project, we collaborate with a Museum in Barcelona, four high schools from Sicily, Turkey , France and Sweden (the coordinator) , one NGO from Sweden and one from Italy and a distance and e-learning organisation from Lithuania to produce a supplementary resource pack for Stem Curriculum Enhancement including a report ( based on needs and demands surveys, focus group discussions and interviews, desk researches, data analysis, swot analysis regarding the existing stem curriculum) ; several Mini MOOCs, training programmes on stem methodology and the guidelines of the best practices ; on promoting basic digital skills ; and on how to enhance museums as teaching environments. It will also include assessment tools, assignments and final projects. We will strive to innovatively create ICT-based materials and didactic methods for STEAM teaching to be applied into formal (school) and non-formal (museum) lifelong learning settings under the guidance of Palermoscienza and LIEDm.As a long term benefit we expect to provide strong evidence and inspiration for informal learning environments to support formal learning more systemetically

ODL was initiated to equip European school teachers with innovative approach - micro-MOOC, to deploy STEM laboratories and their application in the everyday teaching practices and, thus, strengthen the profile of the teaching professions. The project will foster partnerships between universities, research centers, training and professional associations, and school sector to modernize the school education by enhancing digital integration in learning and teaching processes with direct access to top-notch facilities of remote and virtual experiments. The program will be based on the requirements of STEM/ICT competence of school curricula in consortium countries and will employ the MOOC methodology, EU best practices in field, libraries of STEM laboratories, and OERs.ODL aims to: • Offer teachers collaboration in creating innovative STEM school curricula; • Elaborate MOOC methodology and propose an implementation of it in secondary school sector; • Merge remote and virtual STEM labs in day-to-day teaching practicing.This project agenda will be assured by the following objectives: - developing MOOC methodology for school based on the curriculum and demands; - establishing the MOOC platform using cloud technology; - creating the collection of micro-MOOCs, scenarios, OERs, videos, and STEM laboratories; - embedding case study of STEM micro-MOOCs in school curricula; - opening the possibilities to discover new open curricula of micro-MOOCs with STEM labs to a wide range of EU audiences including sector of school education, stakeholders, and the scientific research community.Fifty national (10 in each national language) and 5 transnational micro-MOOCs using remote and virtual laboratories will be created. At least 300 teachers will be trained during eight local and national multiplier workshops. Thirty five teachers of best micro-MOOCs scenarios will participate in Teacher School (Palermo) contributing to design of MOOC concept implementation in school classroom. The ODL outputs will be tested with school teachers and students from five countries (Estonia, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, and Spain), and evaluated in terms of their impact, with a particular attention to institutional as well as pedagogical innovation and revision. Roundtables, info days, open doors, and conferences will be joined by consortium for wider dissemination of the ODL results in these countries and Europe.Developed reports, recommendations, set of informational and instructional materials will be available via the ODL web instruments for free. Application of the ODL products will commence during the project to evaluate the advantages and sustainability of the methodology and to address potential problems.ODL will expand the methodology and resources for enhancing teacher proficiency and student competence required by modern society. The results will effect educational and economic transformation of partner countries, in particular, and of Europe, in general.

The project addressed the issues raised in Bruges Communique, namely, increased competition of institutions and professionals, as well as rapid technological change. These issues were addressed via prepared training materials and facilitation of (C)VET, VET teachers and trainers, as well as adult educators who, being professionals, should learn how latest innovations in education (such as Open Educational Resources (OER), innovative ICT tools, new curriculum design models) affect sustainability of their organization and learning services.As institutions are challenged with the shift in the target learner profile, when nowadays learners are migrating throughout the world and Europe and require learning services to be open, to be provided in international settings and available any time, anywhere and in their working places, teachers, trainers, and adult educators need training and consultancy on how to create learning for new target groups.The vision for 2020, (C)VET and adult education includes high quality, new modes of curriculum and learning services, courses which develop expertise for higher level qualification characterized by innovation and excellence. Online learning and open educational resources meet these needs and suggest solutions for innovative, quality work-based learning curriculum designing.The main project aim was to foster open and international professional collaboration for innovation by creating possibilities for teachers and trainers to openly collaborate in the development and adaptation of open educational resources, online curriculum designing using created and adapted OER, curriculum licensing and adaptation for online work-based learning.In order to reach the aim, the following project results were created and activities undertaken:1. Training materials on- OER and sustainability models,- ICT tools to develop and adapt OER, and- innovative curriculum designing for work - based learning for CVET, VET and adult educationwere developed and used by teachers, trainers and adult educators for OER and curriculum development.2. 48 OER were created or adapted in English and national languages by CVET, VET teachers and trainers and adult educators.3. Curriculum for diverse target groups, including work-based learning for CVET, VET and adult education using OER, innovative tools and sustainability models was developed in English and translating adapted to national languages. One version of the developed curriculum (either national or English) was piloted with the learners from CVET, VET or adult education sectors.The 6 consortium institutions represent 2 professional associations (one national, one European), 2 training organizations for companies and adult learners, a VET organization and a university. The experts from the mentioned institutions collaborated and created the training materials, and based on the training guidelines trained the teachers, trainers or adult educators from their institutions for the development of OER and innovative curriculum. CVET, VET teachers, trainers and adult educators collaboratively developed or adapted OER and online curriculum for online work-based learning.The most important result of the project was the started open collaboration for innovation among CVET, VET and adult educators. A strategic partnership of professionals working at different institutions started professional collaboration in an open way and will continue so involving more and more institutions from the professional networks.To ensure the started collaboration and sustainability of the created results, the developed and tested curriculum was not only shared between partnership but also made open for other learners or institutions either to openly browse the learning content, to learn independently in a selected module or download the full version of the selected module to be delivered at their institution. In order for teachers, trainers and adult educators (from and outside the partnership) to share, adapt and use the OER, created or adapted in the project, the editable versions of each OER were shared in the project website. This public access of editable versions of each OER ensures the open use of project results in the long term. This was appreciated and met with enthusiasm by most of the participants, whom this innovation was introduced. Also the created training materials are already planned and used in the events that focus on OER, even after the project was ended.