Coding is like a language. It is a way to instruct a computer or a tablet what you want it to do. It may be seen as the modern literacy and it is important that the teachers within our educational systems are well versed in it in this field so that they will also be able to pass on this knowledge to our pupils who will constitute the generations of the future. In fact, young children can learn the foundations of coding before they can even write and spell. Learning to code will prepare our pupils for future jobs, jobs which don’t even yet exist, hence the importance of it all. This project will focus on the teaching of numeracy and literacy skills through coding and robotics. The objectives of this project may be listed as follows: 1) Provide training to at least 40 teachers about numeracy and literacy skills through coding and robotics 2) Enable at least 40 teachers to expand their expertise on the teaching of numeracy and literacy through coding and robotics through exchange of good practices 3) Establish a good relationship between the 4 participating schools The planned activities to be undertaken over two years are 1 Kick-Off Management Meeting in Malta, 4 school visits in Malta, Slovenia, Italy and Portugal, and 1 structured training course for staff - Italy (Milan) and 3 dissemination activities by each participating school in their own country. The concrete results of this project will be the following: - At least 40 teachers will receive training on the teaching of numeracy and literacy skills through coding and robotics; - At least 40 teachers will be more knowledgeable about the best way to teach numeracy and literacy skills through coding and robotics via the exchange of good practices with other European teachers; and - 4 European schools will undertake mutual capacity-building Participant teachers will be equipped with the necessary training which is then transferred to other teachers within the school. Educators in our school will be using online resources and other Coding equipment with their learners once we disseminate the knowledge gathered from this project. These online resources will be available on the eTwinning Platform - available for all. Here we’ll have all our activities together with an eWorkbook. This can be viewed by all the school partners and also by schools in other countries. This will be a good way to show our good practices and the success of our project.

The idea to transform young people’s attitudes towards science through the use of the most widespread digital tool, the smartphone, is the main motivation behind the project. The structural lack of scientific tools and instruments in most schools (even in our schools, as evidenced by the “SELFIE” report 2019) has led us to consider BYOD as the only alternative to the endowment of expensive scientific laboratories: an internet connection and a mobile phone, in fact, are not just for taking pictures and shooting video stories for instagram, or to watch the YouTube channel of your own favourite celebrity. Nowadays mobile phones are equipped with operating systems that enable them with an impressive computing capacity. This motivation is in line with the “European Framework for Digitally-Competent Educational Organizations” is to improve schools' innovation capacity and exploit the full potential of digital technologies and content. Starting from this intent, we developed the idea we will implement in the next 2 years, originated from the reading of the “Science education for Responsible Citizenship report”. The introduction of this document states: “Science education, innovation and practices must become more responsive to the needs and ambitions of society and reflect its values. They should ...support people of all ages and talents in developing positive attitudes to science. We must find better ways to nurture the curiosity and cognitive resources of children. We need to enhance the educational process to better equip future researchers and other actors with the necessary knowledge, motivation and sense of societal responsibility to participate actively in the innovation process”.The project primarily aims to:-stimulate an active involvement of the students towards STEM subjects, in particular enhancing awareness of the importance of STEM education for girls-promote meaningful learning, fostering cooperation and collaboration-promote the conscious and critical use of digital devices, exploring their potential-motivate the learning of basic scientific knowledge-stimulate logical skills, creative resolution of problems and critical thinking-foster tolerance, respect and understanding of other cultures-motivate teachers to enrich their methodological and practical competence about teaching STEM-know curricular aspects of the partners countries-promote intercultural dialogue The partner will engage in a shared collaborative approach when delivering the planned project activities, objectives and results. The project will see approximately 180 staff and pupils engaged in 5 mobilities in Portugal, Spain, Hungary, Italy and Turkey, over a period of 2 years.The full list of project outputs comprises the following:- Activities organized during the meetings in autumn: training sessions, workshops, focus groups, class-laboratories, on the main and specific subjects of the project involving students, teachers parents and educators/operators- 5 mobilities (4 for both teachers and students and a final one for teachers)- 2 Science fair competitions in May- Pupils training peers upon their return to their school- 2 eTwinning projects- A website where we’ll upload videos of the experiments, documents, photos, articles, lesson plans- Newsletter and flyers- Logo contest - Youtube channel and social media pages of the project (facebook and instagram)- Innovative lessons plans (4/year each school; curriculum linked) related to STEMWe envisage that the project will impact at various levels from staff to pupils and it will improve theskills of those engaged in teaching and learning in education, which in turn will provide scope for changes directly into the wider community. We would hope that the project will:-achieve a path of construction of an innovative horizontal curriculum (between institutions in different countries ) in STEM disciplines-plan new and innovative ways to teach Scientific subjects, building a teaching methodology that helps teachers acquire new skills-document the steps for dissemination of results-promote the involvement of families, local associations , municipalities, institutions and professionals-Improve the participation, achievement and continuation of girls and women in STEM education and careers to reduce the gender gap in STEM professions-promote and increase the initiatives related to the contrast of gender stereotypes in the scholastic pathways, in the specific case those that see female students less interested in STEM subjects compared to male studentsThe benefits the project brings are long lasting. Therefore they will support modernisation of curriculum and provide the learners and staff with the skills and competencies needed to be active European citizens.

"Educational institutions don’t only give students the necessary academic attainment but also teach them to control themselves, to be socially sensitive and responsible, to respect individuals around them. Every child and teenager is entitled to receive education in a safe school environment (Leach 2005, 385). Peer bullying and tendency to violence in our institutions contradict with these principles.Bullying in our institutions poses a major problem since it affects all students all over, mainly those enforcing it, and those being exposed to it.According to OECD, PISA 2015 analysis, the average ratio of students exposed to peer bullying is 19%. This rate is 23% according to PISA, 2019 report. Given these data, it can be said that peer bullying is ever increasing. Imposing positive behaviors and habits to children at an early age before any bullying behavior sets in is one of the key components of an anti-bullying approach at school (Arslan and Savaşer 2008; 65 Hurrer 2007).Therefore, actions against bullying in primary schools are very important to prevent bullying. According to peer bullying survey results applied in our every institution, average rate of students exposed to various bullying is 25%.The question is, ""how can we prevent peer bullying being a recurring problem in our students?"". We aim to solve our problem with an interdisciplinary approach by using songs and lyrics being a fun activity for students.We plan to find a solution by emphasizing respect, love, democracy, equality, human rights, sensitivity to environment, tolerance, anti-bullying messages in the songs. Music and music education is very important in the individuals’ cognitive, affective and psychomotor development. Accordingly, music has been one of the most important aspects of education activities since ancient times and has been used as an important tool to shape human behavior (Tarman, 2006). Goals to be achieved via music education are to raise individuals who are conscious, sensitive, cultured, aware of a universal culture other than his, conscious of love and respect, who strives to seek the good, just and real. (KARKIN, 1984, p. 196). Given this information, we have decided to work our project studies with the title of ""education of music, cultural themes and values"" to prevent peer bullying, to effectively and efficiently imposing the education of values to students, being among the goals of our strategic plans for our schools.The goal of our project is to enable our teachers to recognize and promote their and their partners' cultural melodies and to ensure intercultural dialogue and multiculturalism being among the four main goals of the EU 2020, to broaden their visions by witnessing education system of each partner country in-situ. As mail and Skype conversations will be used often during the partnership process, our teachers are expected to gain communication and language proficiency skills on par with the European level. They are expected to implement innovative educational approaches by providing interdisciplinary education and go beyond traditional teaching methods, designing posters and logos, creating blogs, using web 2.0 tools, preparing surveys, e-catalogs, and gaining 21st century skills, and finally to transfer this knowledge and experience to other students and institutions to increase their institutional capacity.Our main goal for our students is to seek, find and share songs including value such as love, respect, democracy, tolerance, etc. for a cooperative inter-cultural dialog. They are expected to turn such concepts into behavioral patterns and to ensure social balance through music. They are also expected to maintain better quality relationships with their peers and achieve European level linguistic skills, to actively use the technology to create logos, brochures, surveys and web2.0 toolkits to create clips, thus, gaining a 21st century skill set to become individuals with an augmented learning and investigating motivation.How can we prevent peer bullying?We aim to find the answer to this question via LTT studies we will carry out with our project partners, England, Italy, Portugal, Latvia and Greece, and to demonstrate our success with the concert to be performed at the end of our meeting.With these studies, we plan to reduce our problem in the long run by 3% in the first 6 month, 5% in the second 6 month, 7% in the third 6 month, and 9% in the fourth 6 month period. The goals in our schools' strategic plans coincide with those in 2023 Educational Vision and the EU 2020. Based on data stating that the rate of absence by the students being victims of bullying increases by 3 to 4 times (OECD, PISA 2015), we aim that our project will contribute to the goal of reducing early school drop-outs to 10% for EU 2020 in the long run. Our project also coincides with the goals of recognizing foreign cultures and promoting own culture to promote internationalization being among the goals of ERASMUS + program."

The idea for this project emerged during an eTwinning project “Into the Space” carried out by 2 schools of the current partnership (Italy and Poland) and was inspired by the international cooperation on the International Space Station, after which the project took its title and structure: it consists of 3 modules in order to provide students with coherent activities in 3 areas of study: The Solar System, The Phenomenon of Flying, The Solar System Exploration.The main objective of the project, based on the recognized needs, is to increase students’ motivation for learning science subjects. In order to achieve it, a set of specific aims was determined: to develop students’ skills in classifying, quantifying, predicting, controlling variables, interpreting and forming conclusions; to improve their performance in group working and cooperation; to have students acquire the ability to use their knowledge of different science subjects in an interdisciplinary way; to accustom them to working systematically according to the approved plan.The partnership consists of 4 schools, which are public body, non-profit institutions. The total number of students participating directly in project activities is 345 (Italy: 90, Poland: 85, Portugal: 100, Romania: 70). The students are 12/13-14/15 years old and they are of various ability and motivation towards learning. The total number of teachers involved directly into the project is 42 (Italy: 10, Poland: 12, Portugal: 10, Romania: 10). They are mostly the teachers of science subjects and English.The project is divided into 3 theme modules (arranged one after another): each consists of activities connecting scientific theory with its practical application. The activities are of 2 schemes: some of them require students to gain knowledge to apply it in practice, others provide students with new knowledge while completing practical tasks. They are arranged in subsequent increase of difficulty to prepare students for making final results. Namely, studying the solar system leads to designing the solar system models, studying the phenomenon of flying results in building rockets and learning about the solar system exploration finishes up with constructing rover-like robots.The chosen methodology is kaizen small-step work improvement method: after each activity/task, students will be provided with the feedback of their achievement, which must develop their self-confidence and motivation for future work as well as conviction that they are able to deal with more complex tasks on the basis of completing the earlier/easier ones. Students will work in mixed ability groups to make use of peers teaching. Non-formal learning at science institutions, individual skills practice and various activating methods typical for group working interaction will be applied during completing activities at schools.The results will be of 2 kinds: the physical ones (models of the solar system, a cosmic calendar, leaflets on the solar system and measurement methods, rockets and rover-like robots, a project common website) and non-physical ones, which are considered to be the project impact on participants (broadening students’ knowledge/skills/experience and increasing and their motivation for systematic studying of science subject as well as developing teachers’ competences in the areas of job planning, using innovative methods, assessing work effectiveness).The long-term benefits include: shaping students’ positive attitude towards learning in a lifelong perspective, preventing teachers’ job burnout and broadening educational offer of the partner schools by using project physical results and experience acquired in this project.

Context/background of project:- Our project idea started with our etwinning project MORE. After working together for one year and knowing each other skills and expertise we decided to share and spread our knowledges to each other and among our students.Objectives of your project:- To promote collaboration between teachers and students in Europe- Prevent early school leaving because we believe students will be more motivated to be in school if they take part in these kinds of projects- To learn new tools to improve classes and better prepare students for market labor, by giving them new approaches and skills- Promoting structured inter-regional and cross-border cooperationNumber and profile of participants:Each country will have several teachers and students involved. In the project we will have 3 kinds of profiles users:- Learner teachers and tutor teachers- Learner students and tutor students- Primary teachers (that will select topics related with math and natural science for older students to work)- Primary students (testers of the: softwares, robotics game, and electronics devices)There will be at least 4 tutor teachers and 3 tutor students that will teach these new technologies to the other groups.Description of activitiesMethodology to be used in carrying out the project:- During workshops new skills and technologies will be taught to visitors- Visitors will test what they learnt back home- Teachers and students that were in the mobilities will teacher other students and teachers- Between the mobilities each country need to do the activities proposed and every month will fill the checklist to give feedback to other partners about the activities- During mobilities we will present the results, promote the workshops, monitor the results and evaluate (check if any change is needed)A short description of the results and impact envisagedOur results will be these:- Educational resources for maths and science for primary schools (online and apps)- Educational games (Apps)for kindergartens and primary schools- Programming devices with robotics and microcontrollers (arduino or other kind) related with maths and science - “sensitive” moving robots . Some devices will have sensors to collect data like: temperature and humidity, movements, sounds detector, light intensity, or others, measure some characteristics of the environment.Here some of the Impacts:- Helping to decrease the number of early school leavers- Improving language skills for both teachers and students- Getting learners involved through cooperation between European countries- Collaborating between different levels of education (peer learning)- Using appealing didactic materials- Testing new and innovative educational resources- Innovating teacher practice through the production of new and appealing materials- Teachers and students will improve and share their ICT skills among the project partners - We will promote educational success from primary to higher education, putting schools at the service of student learning by supporting all the steps for the project developmentVisit the website impacts : https://twinspace.etwinning.net/639/pages/page/55858 Finally the potential longer term benefits:- The knowledge acquired will give the teachers new approaches to teach electronics/informatics which are closer to the labour market.- Students will more involved in learning and they will share their knowledge- Prevent school dropout (for the first time in Portugal we had rate of sucesss 90%)- If we manage to create the material (robots and electronic devices) other students will benefit from this project.The Portuguese Nacional Agency invite a teacher and 2 students to take part in a monitorization meeting with other 100 teachers to present the impact the project had in our school. The presentation is also available here http://www.slideshare.net/ariedam/agencia-nacional-erasmus-reunio-geral-de-monitorizao-2016.We also start a new eTwinning Project called TwinDrone and in Portugal the school has now a Robotic clube.The project itself is an opportunity to provide a successful collaboration among European teachers and students and promote formal and informal learning.