The skills required to achieve technological innovation are crucial in developing Europe’s competitiveness and innovative capacity. The modern economy depends on individuals with the ability to design new business models and to seize opportunities making best use of new technologies. High-tech talent is scarce and the number of vacancies for high-tech leaders or e-leaders is increasing drastically. Open Educational Resources (OER) and online learning have the potential to reduce the “time to market” for e-leadership education and training, allowing also for greater accessibility by different user segments, such as adults at work.The COVID-19 crisis has accelerated the digital transformation of education that raised the major need to enhance the digital readiness of institutions and imposed some immediate responses to be given. On one hand, the crisis emphasised the potential of online teaching and learning, but it also revealed huge gaps in the delivery capacities of educational institutions as well as gaps in the capacity of individuals to actively participate and take up what is being offered. The e-Leadership Trainer Accelerator project (acronym eLead Speed) upskilled educators to improve their ability to exploit innovative teaching methods and design e-leadership curricula based on digital learning materials and tools, including OER, collaborative online learning and the e-CF. eLead Speed applied the e-leadership concept itself to speed up the spread of innovative educational practices on e-leadership in the era of the e-leaders – the digital era. The project built on the results of several EU initiatives and projects such as Le@d3.0 Academy knowledge alliance and the family of EU initiatives on e-leadership skills. The consortium was composed of three Bulgarian institutions, being respectively a HEI (NBU), an Excellence Centre for ICT industry competitiveness (ESI CEE) and the National Coalition for Digital Jobs in Bulgaria (DNA), plus two HEIs from Croatia (Algebra) and Germany (MUAS), a business school (ISTUD) and an SME specialised in digital learning (Gruppo Pragma) from Italy. As such, the partners represent both the Higher Education (NBU, MUAS and Algebra) and the tertiary Vocational Education and Training (ESI CEE, ISTUD and Gruppo Pragma) sectors. This ensured synergies between the different fields of education and training (HE and VET) and complemented expertise with the ultimate goal of upskilling educators, so they can better help learners to acquire e-leadership skills. The primary target group was educators from both HE and tertiary VET institutions teaching those technology and business related disciplines particularly included in e-leadership programmes (i.e. Strategic Management, Project Management, Digital Transformation, Technology & Innovation, etc.). The secondary target groups, which benefited indirectly were: HEIs and tertiary VET providers of e-leadership programmes, learners (both students and professional trainees) willing to acquire e-leadership skills, associations of educational institutions, businesses, their HR managers and in-company trainers and professional associations. The eLead Speed project provided a set of highly usable and directly applicable outputs. A set of 15 short e-leadership courses, modules or course outlines and other practical and reusable resources (IO5) were developed by the educators based on the e-Leadership Observatory data (IO1) and the e-Leadership Competences Framework (IO2) and facilitated by the Community of Practice (IO3) and the Trainers’ Toolkit: How to Design, Deliver and Evaluate e-Leadership Curricula (IO4). The trainers worked collaboratively online to design the teaching materials making use of OER and e-tivities. The courses are stored and rendered available inside the OER repository (IO3) for free use by all trainers who are registered to the Community. The implemented methodology covered the entire cycle from industry requirements through occupational profiles to innovative educational content that provides relevant skills and competences and this way creates new opportunities for the industry but also creates new industry requirements for new training and courses. It followed the principles of incremental development and continuous improvement. The selected transdisciplinary, holistic approach guaranteed transferability and scalability of the results and secured high levels of sustainability. The areas of impact of eLead Speed can be summed up as: • Increased knowledge on e-leadership skill needs and occupational profiles • Increased availability of OER and content for e-leadership teaching • Increased capacity of educators to develop training programmes in consistency with market needs and occupational standards • Increased skills of educators to use and develop open learning materials and digital tools • Increased access to e-leadership education and training • Improved quality and relevance of education.

"The European Commission has identified technology and open educational resources (OER) as opportunities to reshape EU education. EU education is failing to keep pace with the digital society and economy and risks lagging behind other regions of the world. The Bulgarian educational system falls within the continental European tradition. Bulgaria’s results in the 2018 OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) are close to the EU average. In line with Europe 2020 goals for smart growth in the EU, the National Development Programme: Bulgaria 2020 targets modernization of the educational system with a view of providing accessible and high-quality education. The National Reform Programme targets for reducing early school leaving by improving the access to education and by enhancing its quality. The Ministry of Education and Science leads the reforms and secures regular rigorous evaluation of the activities funded by the Government and the European Structural and Investment Funds. The short-term activities for modernization of the educational system focus on improving the technical infrastructure and equipment at schools, as well as on training the teachers to utilize it. Moreover, on September 30, 2015, the Bulgarian Parliament adopted conclusively an entirely new Pre-School and School Education Act. The law regulates the adoption of innovations in pre-school and school education, promulgates the continuous professional development of the pedagogical personnel, and involves a wide range of stakeholders in the decision making concerning the educational process. The new legal framework creates beneficiary conditions for enhancing access to, and use and quality of, information and communication technologies in education and for training and lifelong learning of teachers. The training in foreign languages at VET as a final stage of education, especially in the small municipalities, has been overlooked. Consequently, the significant part of East-European young adults are facing unsurmountable language barriers in Europe. Lack of communication between young people in the EU risks to result in an Euro-skeptic attitude in VET students and misunderstanding of the concept of European citizenship. The EU Youth Power project is targeted on spreading the understanding of VET students of European citizenship by providing innovative digital tools for social inclusion through edutainment for acquiring new language competences. The project targets VET students and young adults from all over Europe - innovative digital technologies break geographical boundaries. The educational game (edutainment tool) developed under the EU Youth Power project includes VET students in an effort to tear down the language walls in front of the youth of Europe. EU Youth Power comes from shared values and shared experiences. The project builds on innovative methodologies combining innovative digital solutions, design thinking, neuro-science, semi-automated language processing, didactic approach to gamified learning, and game theory, in order to engage VET students in an exciting adventure around virtual Europe, in which they can explore new places, cooperate and communicate with young people from different countries, in different languages. The EU Youth Power game complements the Erasmus+ Mobility concept. It encourages ""youth travel"" in virtual Europe, the use of different languages to solve puzzles and answer quiz questions related to the current location of the player in the game, as well as social inclusion by providing strong incentives for cooperation and communication between young people of Europe. The project included a series of Multiplier Events aimed at engaging VET teachers, trainers, and students in the process of building support for the learning of foreign languages in VET institutions and in promotion of the EU Youth Power game as a tool to facilitate this process. In the development of the game, the goal of the project team was to create a state-of-the-art edutainment tool to be used by all project partners and external stakeholders as part of their mission to contribute to social inclusion, promote European citizenship, and utilize innovative digital tools in the process. In the long-term, the project has the capacity to impact VET and secondary school students at a European scale."

"<< Background >>Digital era is advancing through every facet of social, economic, and even biological life, driving major personal and professional changes and the way people interact, work, learn, and create knowledge. The concept of digital competence has emerged concurrently with the technological development and as society has recognised the need for new competences. The digital competence is now acknowledged as one of the eight key Lifelong Learning competences sought in Europe and one of the essential resources for the recovery of economy and society after the pandemic.Alongside, digital transformation is steadily moving about and reshaping one industry and sector after another. Education is not an exception. Digital technologies are expected to have fundamental impact on all segments of business and society. For educational institutions, it is an opportunity to process curricular, methodological, technological, and organisational changes by absorbing new digital culture and approach to the strategic redesign of all aspects and structures of the sector. There is a recognised need for HEIs to integrate and effectively use digital technologies in order to achieve their core mission: to educate students to be successful in a complex and interconnected world that faces rapid technological, cultural, economic, informational, and demographic change.In Europe, recent work on capacity building for the digital transformation of education has focussed on the development of digital competence frameworks for educational organisations (DigCompOrg) and for educators (DigCompEdu). DigCompOrg pinpoints the main factors enhancing digital readiness that are structured in seven thematic elements and are common to all education sectors. DigCompEdu is a scientifically sound background framework which can be directly adapted to implementing tools and training programmes.The COVID-19 crisis has accelerated the digital transformation of education that raised the major need to enhance the digital readiness of institutions and imposed some immediate responses to be given. On one hand, the crisis emphasised the potential of online teaching and learning, but it also revealed huge gaps in the delivery capacities of educational institutions as well as gaps in the capacity of individuals to actively participate and take up what is being offered.Notwithstanding exceptions, many institutions were not prepared for this radical switch. They found out that infrastructure was lacking, the digital skills of lecturers were not up to the challenge, and that even the familiarity of students with digital tools and platforms was lower than expected. There was no time for instructional design and conceiving a new format of lectures and assignments. As a result, the quality of the educational delivery and the learning experience of students suffered. A tremendous effort was and will be still required to ensure that education needs are met in a satisfactory manner using virtual means as a main mode of delivery.In fact, the digital gap, and the lack of preparation for online teaching have actually increased educational disparities and created social distress, especially among vulnerable students. Goal 4 of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals states, “Ensure inclusive and quality education for all and promote lifelong learning”. In order to achieve this goal, there is the need to embrace modern digital learning methods that provide effective ways to increase access to quality educational opportunities.The COVID-19 crisis revealed major needs and indicated what can aid the transition to online education. The needs analysis conducted during the proposal writing revealed the main difficulties for this transition in terms of digital strategy, digital pedagogy, and digital competence. The DigiTransformEdu project will rely on DigCompOrg and DigCompEdu in order to foster the digital transformation of educational institutions and promote effective digital-age learning.<< Objectives >>The DigiTransformEdu project aims to foster the digital transformation of HE and tertiary VET institutions. This objective will be reached through a six-step approach (operational objectives):1. Mapping the digital readiness and resilience of educational and training institutions in response to the COVID-19 crisis (project results 1 & 2)2. Promoting the development of a digital culture by supporting institutional leadership to pursue digital strategy at institutional level (project result 3)3. Encouraging the digitalisation of educational processes and promoting effective digital-age learning by integrating the DigCompOrg framework (project results 3 & 4)4. Based on the DigCompEdu framework and the concept for the different roles of educators in an online environment, defining the knowledge and skills needed by the digital educator (project result 5) 5. Raising the digital competence of educators by organising training activities and preparing training materials (project results 5 & 6) 6. Enhancing international networking and cooperation and contributing to the EU Digital Education Action Plan (project result 6 & four multiplier events).The primary groups that the DigiTransformEdu project will target involve:• Institutional leaders responsible for the digital agenda• Programme managers responsible for the digitalisation of pedagogy• Digital educators who belong to A2 and B1 levels of DigCompEduThe secondary target groups are:• HEIs• Tertiary VET providers• Associations of educational and training institutions• Businesses and their learning departments• Professional associationsStudents, participants, and learners in general are the main beneficiary of the project. They will profit from the enhanced digitalisation at institutional level and at individual level from the improved digital competence of their educators.By achieving its objectives DigiTransformEdu will impact the target groups and the relevant stakeholders. Thanks to the project, institutional leaders of both HE and tertiary VET institutions will have better capability and vision on how to lead their organisations through digital transformation, programme managers will be equipped with guidelines and operational tools to be able to make the transition from a traditional class-based pedagogy to a blended or pure digital one while educators will see their digital competence improved.The expected achievements of the DigiTransformEdu project can be summed up as follows:1. Increased knowledge about the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the transition to digital education2. Better comprehension on how to deal with the digital transformation at strategical level3. Increased familiarity with approaches and operational tools on how to design, deliver, and assess digital education4. Better understanding of the new roles of the digital educator and the knowledge and skills needed for their implementation5. Increased capacity to design training starting from profile descriptions6. Increased digital competence of educators.In the long run, the desired achievements can be summarised as: 1. The overall quality of education is increased because by becoming more digital it becomes more relevant and able to better develop students’ capabilities and practical skills, as required in a digital world.2. The development of virtual culture is enhanced by supporting institutional leadership to pursue digital strategy at institutional level.3. The digitalisation of educational processes is accelerated by assisting educators and administrators in the design, delivery, and assessment of digital education.4. The framework for the digital competence of educators is enriched by complementing it with analysing the different roles of the digital educator and looking for similarities with the T-shape model for e-leadership.<< Implementation >>The activities leading to R1 and R2 correspond to the achievement of the first objective that is to map the digital readiness and resilience of educational and training institutions in response to the COVID-19 crisis. In R1 first HE and tertiary VET institutions will be shortlisted. Then potential respondents will be identified and invited to participate. The survey participants will be from institutional management and enabling services in R1 and educators, students, and ICT staff in R2. The survey methodology will be defined, and the surveys will be administrated. The data will be first analysed and collected in national reports, then compiled and further analysed to produce a synthetic report.The second objective to promote the development of a virtual culture by supporting institutional leadership to pursue digital strategy will be achieved through R3. Starting with currently available concepts on digital transformation in education, the analysis will be taken further to study the institutional reactions to the pandemic from the strategic perspective. The study results will be presented in reports and examples of best practice will be selected. Using the exploratory and analytical work, a blueprint to guide HE/VET institutions in the development of a long-term digital strategy will be developed.The third objective to encourage digitalisation of educational processes and to promote effective digital-age learning by integrating DigCompOrg will be pursued through the accomplishment of both R3 and R4. Once digitalisation is taken at strategical level (R3), the activities in R4 will look at the digitalisation of pedagogy. Building upon the exploration done so far, successful practices, approaches and tools, used for the design, delivery, and assessment of digital education will be analysed. The insights will be used to define a set of guidelines and operational tools to support educators in making the transition from a traditional class-based pedagogy to a blended or pure digital one.The fourth objective defines the knowledge and skills needed by the digital educator and will be achieved through R5. Starting from a range of sources, including DigCompEdu, and relying on identified learning needs, R5 will further explore to reach a better understanding. For each role of the digital educator, the components of skills related to methodology, technology and tools will be studied and defined. This analysis will lead to a model that can be used to design training. In this respect, a role will be selected to design a training programme to be put into practice in R6. A learning and collaboration platform will be also designed and maintained to serve training and collaboration.The fifth objective is intended to raise the digital competence of educators by organising training activities and preparing training materials. R6 is meant to achieve it by first organising a three-day joint staff training event. 16 master trainers will participate and get familiar with the training programme, its facilitation and the use of the online learning and collaboration platform. Then 60 educators will work together in collaboration sessions to improve their digital competence and develop self-training materials for the digital educator.The sixth objective is intended to enhance international networking and cooperation and contribute to the realisation of the EU Digital Education Action Plan. The sessions organised in R6 will expose the participants to new international contacts. Networking and cooperation opportunities will be encouraged through the organisation of four multiplier events and by promoting involvement and active participation in the existing eLeadCommunity, a collaborative knowledge building community of practice devoted to digital education and e-leadership.The achievement of the six operational objectives will foster the digital transformation of HE and tertiary VET institutions that is the main objective of DigiTransformEdu.<< Results >>DigiTransformEdu will result in a comprehensive and complementary set of outcomes that cover the seven thematic elements of DigCompOrg (i.e., Leadership & Governance Practices: R1 & R3; Teaching & Learning Practices: R2, R4, R5 & R6; Professional Development: R5 & R6; Assessment Practices: R4; Content & Curricula: R4; Collaboration & Networking: R3, R6 & 4 ME; Infrastructure: R2, R3 & R4)The project follows a logical sequence and starts by mapping the digital readiness and resilience of about 30 HE and tertiary VET institutions in response to the COVID-19 crisis that will help identifying best practices and learning from failures. These institutions will form the core, on which the exploratory work will be based. In Result 1, the survey will target people able to evaluate institutions’ response at the level of governance and enabling services. The findings will be collected in national reports that will be further analysed to produce a synthetic report compiled with the findings from Result 2.Result 2 will study the perceptions of educators and students. At teaching level, the use of digital pedagogy and assessment as well as digital competence will be explored. Students will be targeted to dip into their perception in terms of effectiveness, adaptation to online provision, digital inclusion, engagement, quality of communication and collaboration. The picture will be complemented with mapping digital infrastructure. This mapping will trigger tangible changes in digital strategy (Result 3), digital pedagogy (Result 4) and digital competence (Results 5 & 6) thanks to the provision of guidance, tools, and resources.Result 3 will focus on the strategical aspect of digitalisation. Starting with qualitative research, the team will also analyse the survey results. Based on that, examples of best practice will be selected and included in a collection of case studies. Using the exploratory and analytical work, a blueprint to guide HE and VET institutions in the development of a digital strategy will be developed.Result 4 will address educators and managers and guide them in the successful operationalisation of effective digital instruction. The project team will map successful practices, approaches and tools used for the design, delivery and assessment of digital education. The data and insights will be used to define a set of guidelines and operational tools in the form of a blueprint to assist in making the transition from a traditional class-based pedagogy to a blended or pure digital one.Starting from a range of sources that reflect on the different roles of the digital educator and relying on the conducted analyses and identified learning needs, Result 5 will explore further to collect inputs about the knowledge and skills needed for each role and ways to assess them. The analysis of the different roles leads to a model that can be used to design training. Within this result a role will be selected as a basis to design a training programme. A learning and collaboration platform will be devised and maintained to serve the training.Finally, result 6 will implement the training programme and inspired by it will develop self-training materials to assist educators in implementing the different roles. Sixteen educators will be selected to participate in a three-day joint staff training event to get familiar with the training programme and its facilitation. They will later lead 60 educators through the training programme by using the platform designed in Result 5. In addition to improving their digital competence, they will work together to replicate the training designed for one role and turn it into a comprehensive range of solutions applicable to the individual training objectives of each role.Four multiplier events ""Foster DigiTransformEdu"" gathering about 140 participants will be organised in Bulgaria, Croatia, Germany, and Italy with the aim to promote the project results and foster their up-taking."