"This project is Strategic Partnerships supporting exchange of good practices, School Exchange Partnerships. Four schools are partners in the project. 24 months duration of the project with extention because of COVID-19 All partner schools have students from different groups and are facing problem to integrate some of them. For better results we think that we have to change the method 'integration' with 'inclusion'. To know more about EU countries and know more about European cultural heritage is one of the ways we can follow at school. We have to use also methods from non-formal education. We want to raise students motivation to learn new things. We decided to show our students that our cultures and traditions are not so different. We started from the street game, that every child is playing with his friends. In our project we made researches to find the common in our games from the childhood, to find similarities in our traditions and holidays. Our inspiration for this came from one of our eTwinning projects. Our students have had the opportunity to attend students exchanges, to learn on-site about other cultures and to collaborate with the other students. This project have been carried out transnationaly because the issues are transnational. We, all partner schools, have seen that most of our students have similar questions, like: ""What is to be European or how to be European even you are not from Europe"". One of our partners is from small island far from Europe. That's why, we come together for this project. Students seen themselves as a part of a land without borders, that allows the achieving of cross-educational purposes: democratic citizenship, peace and legality. Durin the project, the students created books, games and movies. They developed their key competences. Now they work better in team, have better ICT and English skills. The main goal of the project was to improve 'classical' education of our students to 'inclusive' education by exploring European values and culture, and enhanced ICT and digital skills. The project objectives: 1. Enhance students understanding of European values - freedom, tolerance and non-discrimination, through collaboration and students exchanges. 2. To help for integration and social inclusion of all students and especially the students from minorities, migrant families and students meeting some obstacles. 3. Share and develop ideas and tools how to use the European cultural heritage to change 'classical' education to 'inclusive' education. 4. Enhance students' and teachers' ICT and digital skills . In the beginning of the project the partners started an eTwinning project. All outputs can be found in our public TwinSpace pages. ICT have been an important tool in our project. Our students created 4 main outputs: 1. A book ""Children Playing Outside""- descriptions of 15 street games(3 per country), with illustrations, movies(in online version) and comparison with similar games from the other countries 2. A collection Digital educational resources ""On the Trail of the European Cultural Heritage"" - a page in our public TwinSpace containing online games 3. Coloring book ""On the Trail of the European Cultural Heritage"". The drawings represent traditional holidays and artefacts of the project counties 4. A movie ""We are not so different"" Our main priority is the Social inclusion. All our objectives are linked with this priority. When students know more about the European values and cultures they will understand that they have a voice in getting decisions, they have to learn to live and collaborate with the others, and if we want to build a strong society we have to integrate also students from different groups. We can say that the social inclusion will ensure equal opportunities for all. Supporting schools to tackle early school leaving (ESL) and disadvantage is our 2nd priority. Social exclusion and poverty among some groups of young people in Europe have increased last years. The good education will help students to have successful realization in the future. The enhanced ICT skills will help students to build motivation and interest to be at school. All students like to play computer games. In our project the students will learn how to create online games. Social and educational value of European cultural heritage is our 3rd priority. The students have to have a feeling of belonging to a community and that we have common roots in many aspects of our cultures and traditions.Linked to our 2nd and 3rd objectives. We organized 2 students exchanges and 2 short term training events for teachers, project participants. We had online meetings and webinars, dissemination events, face-to-face activities. Our students visited the European parliament in Strasbourg and all 4 schools presented Bulgarian New year tradition 'survakane' at the main Strasbourg square. Our etwinning project will ensure the project sustainability."

"The project title is 'Opening up education through the school projects and ICT'. This is a Strategic Partnerships between six schools, that will start on 1 September 2015 and will last 24 months. The students directly involved in the project are between 13 and 19 years old.The project coordinator is Tsar Simeon Veliki Secondary school from Bulgaria.Partners in this Strategic partnership are: LICEO SCIENTIFICO STATALE ""E.MAJORANA"" - secondary school from Italy, 1st Lyceum Egaleo - secondary school from Greece, Nolaskolan - secondary school from Sweden, LICEUL TEORETIC INDEPENDENTA CALAFAT - secondary school from Romania, Mobil Imam Hatip Ortaokulu - pre secondary school from Turkey.Some of the schools have classes with intensive learning of English, ICT and science. One school- Mobil Imam Hatip Ortaokulu, never been previously involved in a similar project. We want to build strong partnership. The project goal is to impact on educational methods in school. To help students to connect the classroom knowledge with the real life. To foster inter-subject education and ICT based learning. And in this way to reduce early school leaving.To reach that we stated our objectives: 1. Develop the methodology how to implement school projects into the curriculum. 2. Enhance students basic skills and their ability to see the whole subjects as a set of related ideas. 3. Enhance students' and teachers' ICT and digital skills.To achieve our objectives we will develop the methodology based on an example project, but the principles can be adapted for any project topic. We will use as a tool the project about healthy nutrition. The working topic 'Eat healthy - live healthy' will give added value to our project - will help against students overweight and will build new healthy nutrition habits.Our Transnational Strategic Partnership will have next main actions: - Teachers will make researches and create methodology how the project can be implemented into the curriculum (subjects, number of lessons, themes, methods etc.) - The topic will be developed in Biology, Chemistry, Math, ICT, English, Literature and Sport lessons - The teachers will make a researches and summarize a teaching methods, tools and ideas. They will cooperate horizontally - with teachers from their schools and vertically with their transnational partners. They will invite as consultants experts from University - ICT will be a tool that teachers and students will use for communication, cooperation and dissemination. The project will provide ICT- based teaching and learning - As a stakeholders will be involved Local authorities and decision-makers in field of education, Health institutions, and parents' society. For communication, collaboration and dissemination we will use eTwinning platform, EU Dissemination platform, web 2.0 tools - Facebook, e-test and e-quizzes, surveys with SurveyMonkey, live meetings, e-mails, online workshops and discussions, Padlet, QR code, presentations, conference. We will enrich our online methods with 1 joint staff training event in the beginning of the project, 4 transnational management meetings - planning meeting at the beginning, at the end of first year, at the beginning and at the end of second project year, and 1 multiplier event.Our project goals and objectives foster to make changes in education. The project will produce one intellectual output -the methodology, other outputs like Nutrition guide, Vocabulary, brochures, photos, posters, exhibitions. All project products will be free for use and will be available online.Qualitative results are Improved teaching competences from teachers, increased attainment of students and reduce of early school leaving, increased students and teachers competences in foreign languages, gained new healthy nutrition habits from students, enhanced ICT and digital skills from students and from teachers, more positive attitude towards the European project and the EU values, increased motivation and satisfaction in their daily work. The project will have impact on teaching policy and methodology on local, regional, national and transnational level. The publicity of project with such important goals and objectives, will have positive effect for the participating organizations' reputation. Dissemination and exploitation of results are important part of our project. We will have dissemination activities at different stages of the project - before project, during the project and after the project. We will use for dissemination Internet, press and medias, workshops and conferences, meetings with decision-makers in field of education. We want our project to have sustainable impact on teaching and educational methods. Every participating teacher will have European Skills Passport. Our project will have long term benefits. The project outputs and results will be used after the project lifetime."

The main assumption behind the project “Creating an Innovative Platform of Communication and Teaching in a Digital Society” was that for a number of socio-economic, political and cultural reasons the quality of education has declined on a global scale, especially in Bulgaria. We also believe that the teacher is the key figure in the educational process whose skills and competences are decisive for improving the effectiveness of education. Most of the countries in the world face serious issues in this regard: 1) shortage of teachers because of low economic incentives, hence low prestige of the teacher's profession; 2) inadequate professional skills; 3) insufficient motivation to upgrade qualification.Against this background, the proposed project aimed: 1) To upgrade the language proficiency and intercultural competences of teachers and students by developing an innovative method of foreign language teaching and learning;2) To strengthen the profile of the teacher's profession and thus increase motivation for lifelong learning; 3) To stimulate collaboration between the participating countries through exchange of good practices;4) To encourage partnerships between schools and local educational authorities.The project team consisted of 7 institutional partners (3 schools, 2 NGOs, and 2 regional departments of education) from Bulgaria, Malta, the Netherlands, and Turkey. The coordinator was Association “Education Without Barriers” (www.ewb.bg). In this way, the project included organizations operating in diverse socio-economic, cultural and educational contexts. The direct participants in the project were 22 teachers and 166 pupils. In addition, the project reached about 140 teachers from schools not involved in the project and about 800 school principals, experts, educators, youth workers and other stake-holders. The grand total of project beneficiaries, including partners, is estimated at 1,145 persons.The project involved the following activities:1) developing an innovative platform of communication; 2) training sessions for teachers and pupils;3) mobility activities (C1 in Malta, TM1,2,3 in Sofia, Istanbul, Valkenburg);4) online event involving groups of pupils (C2);5) online meeting with partners, including TM4; 6) dissemination of project results (meetings with stakeholders, trainings, TwinSpace materials, toolkits, publicity materials, info-boards, banners and project corners in schools, posts in social networks, etc.)The project is based on an innovative method of teaching English which consists of 3 components: language study through a topic-related approach, use of ICT tools and non-formal techniques in and out of the classroom. The method’s essence can be summarized as “Learn, (Re)think, Express”: learn new words, expressions, and terms related to a topic selected from real life, actual events, and the personal experience of students; think about the questions the topic raises, and express a critical opinion using the new vocabulary. The final effect will be three-fold: general culture will be enriched, intellectual horizons will be broadened, and critical thinking will be energized. In addition, the creative use of ICT aids and resources from non-formal education will make the study process more interesting for teachers and learners alike. The following results have been achieved: 1) a new platform of communication (TwinSpace, eTwinning, Padlet);2) innovative methodology of teaching and learning English;3) English and German lessons based on the new method; 4) Toolkit I, “Teach Better, Learn More”, and Toolkit II, “Learn, Re(think), Express” available on TwinSpace; 5) productive partnerships with schools, regional educational authorities and NGOs; 6) exchange of good practices among partners.The project activities will have both short-term and long-term impact. Short-term, they will result in enhanced teaching and learning skills of trainees; higher motivation to work and upgrade professional qualification; heightened intercultural sensitivity; stronger partnerships. Long-term: involvement of schools outside the project; more active engagement of regional authorities in projects related to intercultural education. After the end of the project, all partners will continue to communicate. The following activities will be sustained: maintaining the innovative platform; conducting training sessions and open lessons; ongoing contacts with local, regional and national educational authorities; organizing a face-to-face summer school for pupils and teachers, the pandemic situation permitting. The Toolkits may be used as a basis to create an intellectual product which could be periodically updated and enriched.

"We believe that education is key for tackling the major socio-economic changes and problems Europe is facing. And in the same time, during last years the schools are searching for new methods to raise students' motivation for learning and to tackle school drop out. The Non-formal education and its methods can help schools to develop new aproaches and tools. Cultural heritage is a broad topic that can combine join afford and inspire teachers and youth workers to organize comon activities with students. Our shared cultural heritage is at the heart of the European way of life. It surrounds us in our towns and cities, natural landscapes and archaeological sites. Our project combines the methods from non-formal education, ICT, school subjects and cultural heritage in a new way. Our suggestion is, sometimes to change the place of the classroom and teaching all subject (including STEM) through cultural heritage, archaeological landmarks and real artefacts. To put emphasis on the team work, collaboration and non-formal methods. We think that Formal education needs new aproaches.The project topic is: ""Non Formal in Formal Education-Teaching Subjects Through Culture and ICT""Our objectives are:1) To develop innovative, ICT based, methodology for enhancing the intercultural competences and skills of both teachers and students;2) To emphasize the connection between cultural heritage, all school subjects and non formal education ;3) To stimulate collaboration between the participating countries through exchange of good practices;4) To strengthen the profile of the teacher's profession and thus increase motivation for lifelong learning;5) To encourage schools - youth organizations partnership.The project team consists of SIYB, Netherlands -coordinator (NGO in field of youths) and three schools in 3 EU countries: Bulgaria, Portugal and Turkey. But as larger target group the project includes organizations that operate in diverse socio-economic, cultural and educational contexts - experts from the Regional Museum of History in Vidin, the Istanbul Archaeological Museum, the 3D Art museum in Madeira , Portugal and Natural History Museum (Natuurhistorisch Museum) in Maastricht. SIYB will cooperate with United Word College International school in Maastricht and involves teachers and students from there also.The target group is made up of about 30 teachers and 50 youths/students. In addition, the project will reach about 100 teachers and youths from schools not involved in the project, stake-holders and the broader public. Other NGO in youth field also could have interest to schools-youth organisations partnership and to learn from our project.The structure of the project is based on five groups of interrelated activities. Special emphasis will be placed on non formal methods, interactive participation and use of ICT :1) Establishmen and developing of the partnership- online activities and two onsite Transnational Meetings; 2) Developmental activities: teachers and youth workers develop a methodology how to teach school subject through culture and ICT. Methods from non-formal education will be implemented in the lesson plans. Two Learning Teaching Training Activities, in Turkey and Bulgaria, are included;3) Implementation activities: testing of the ready lesson plans and non-formal methods at schools, . 4) Evaluation-questionairs, polls etc.;5) Activities for dissemination and sustainability The following outputs will be created during the project:- toolkit ""Museums and Archeological Landmarks as Classroom"" - printed and interactive online version. The tool kit will contain non-formal method descriptions, proforma lesson plans for teachers all subjects(including STEM), ICT, digital and online resources like (presentations, games, video tutorials, and apps);- interactive online map(ScribbleMap) to present more visual and interactive project partners and activities;- eTwinning project/TwinSpace containing project materials;- Facebook Page ""Non Formal in Formal Education-Teaching Subjects Trough Culture and ICT""- web page with all project products - YouTube channel with video tutorials.We consider the dissemination and the application of the project's results an important part of work. The scope of our project objectives is local, regional, national and European. Our project is aiming to enrich the teaching at school (Formal education) with methods from Non-formal education and to give ideas to the teachers how they could use museums as classrooms to teach STEAM subjects. We would like to spread the innovative teaching and learning practices proposed in our project beyond the partner schools through eTwinning platform- the largest school community in Europe.In the begining of the project the coordinator and the project team will draw up a Sustainability Plan with clearly defined actions and responsibilities. After the end of the EU funding, all partners will continue to be in contact."