"AppMentor project continues the work that began during the Leonardo da Vinci Project WorkMentor (2011-1-IS1-LEO05-01263) chosen to be a ""success story"" by a panel of experts from the Directorate-General for Education and Culture of the European Commission and WorkQual (2014-1-IS01-KA202-O00180). The need for AppMentor in VET has arisen as an increasing part of the learning is conducted during work based learning (WBL) away from the VET provider. Sometimes it is impossible to travel to the companies and have mentoring sessions on the spot. Many work mentors & mentoring teachers already see the benefits of using mobile technology (=SOME) in mentoring. Also reporting and registering is already done online in many sectors of industry and service. In order to do this work mentors and mentoring teachers need tools and encouragement to guide and support them to start using SOME when mentoring. They don’t want to be made feel inferior to the students who use different forms of mobile technology and social media. By implementing the outcomes of Appmentor we will give work mentors and teachers the tools needed in order to start using SOME when mentoring. This will make mentoring more flexible and it will create a learning experience which is user friendly, meaningful and up to date with the working environment. Students used to using mobile technology (blogs, facebook, Instagram, chats etc) use it because it is useful, flexible, instant and a way to keep track on what is going on. Students might however need support and encouragement to use these forms of mobile technology in a “new” way, a way that encourages and supports learning. AppMentor provided teachers and work mentors with tools and ideas on how to guide students to use SOME for learning. AppMentor transferred & implemented mobile learning to work placements. 2) encouraged work mentors to use mobile technology (e.g. apps, social media, virtual learning platforms) when mentoring students/apprentices during WBL, 3) deepened the cooperation as well as information and data sharing between work mentor and mentoring teacher during placement by introducing tools for mobile technology, 4) ensured that all students regardless of where they have their work placement receive continuous mentoring & feedback through mobile technology and thus raising the quality of learning received during work placements, 5) introduced tools, methods & materials that support the work mentor and student during work placements.AppMentor had the following intangible results/impact 1) Better cooperation between the work mentor and teacher, 2) Improved communication between student, work mentor and mentoring teacher, 3) Raised quality of WBL both nationally and abroad, 4) Flexible and qualitative mentoring fit for the 21st century and 5) An attitude change relating to how learning and mentoring should be done.The project lifespan was 24 months + 2 extra months to ensure that the outcome(s) were qualitative and user-friendly. Appmentor partners hosted five transnational project meetings during this period. Each meeting lasted for 3 days. In order to ensure time to work on the intellectual outputs there was 1 meeting every 5-6 months, the first meeting was held in December 2016. Throughout the project each partner cooperated closely with employers, work mentors and students and develop the Intellectual Outcomes: 1) Online Micro Learning mentoring course, 2) Manual of mobile technology and social media that can be used to facilitate and strengthen the quality of the mentoring process and 3) Guidelines for mentoring students online using mobile technology. All 3 IOs are included in the AppMentor - An online course for coaching and mentoring at work (https://appmentor.weebly.com/). The AppMentor Online Course is open for all interested parties to use and implement and is available in English, Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian, Dutch, Icelandic, French and Spanish.Dissemination was and continues to be an important part of the project and all partners were active in disseminating the project though SOME media such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram and by participating in conferences and seminars as well as other events. AppMentor has a project web page http://thalttun.wixsite.com/appmentor and an open Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/AppMentor.project/ that function as dissemination channels.By the end of the project all partners had implemented the outcomes of the project in their daily activities and are committed to ensure that the outcomes will be sustainable and used in the future. Appmentor project partners are: P1 = Axxell, Finland (coordinator), P2 = Broadshoulders, UK, P4 = Charlottenlund Upper Secondary School, Norway, P5 = Nantes Terre Atlantique, France, P6 = Verkmenntaskolinn a Akureyri, Iceland, P7 =Education and Mobility, Spain and P8 = Het Idee, The Netherlands"

The project brings together 8 partners and several associated partners from Netherlands, Finland, UK, Spain, Portugal and Greece representing vocational education and training, higher education and SMEs. The unique blend of experience and diversity of the project partnership group ensures a critical and supportive approach to the project. Helping students drop their negative baggage and overcoming skills mismatches, creating new and innovative ways of supporting and encouraging students to take ownership of their learning takes time and a change in existing attitudes. This is why the length of this project is 3 years during which 6 transnational meetings and a teacher training event will be held.Many VET students are going through big personal battles, they are trying to find their place and their self-worth. This creates a kind of survival mode so that there is no room for conscious participation in the education provided at the school. School can however be life-changing to these students as it gives them time and opportunity to establish social contacts and sometimes even an escape from home. Teachers, teacher’s assistants, job coaches, study coaches (= teachers) who are openminded and non-judgemental can challenge students in a positive way and help them drop their baggage. Dropping the baggage aims to improve students´ 21st century skills in a way that helps them set goals, invest in their future and help them rethink on how they look at themselves.Dropping the baggage is a project that will focus on developing tools that will help teachers encourage students to drop their negative baggage, take ownership of their learning and develop hidden strengths that will help them succeed in working life and in life in general. The project aims to change existing mindsets, ways of educating and teaching and making teachers facilitators of learning in a way that encourages students to open their minds to the way they look at their own role in the learning process. Within the project we will develop and open up one intellectual output for the wider audience. The output is called S.C.R.E.A.M! – How to help VET students drop their baggage and invest in their future through the S.C.R.E.A.M.!-method. The output will be developed as a web-page allowing all interested parties to implement and use it once it is ready. The manual will help change restrictive and judgmental attitudes of students towards more openminded and inclusive. By showing teachers what positive impacts collaboration, respect and motivation has on students will help teachers encourage students to succeed in life. Dropping the Baggage will result in a change when it comes to the approach of learning. The persons involved in educating VET students will welcome a more holistic approach in which the social context and the problems in which the students find themselves is taken into consideration when setting up personal study plans and when setting aims for school performance. A change of attitude among those involved in educating VET students will occur and this will make students who carry baggage heard and understood, making the baggage more manageable and enable them to graduate and obtain a degree.The online manual will be available in Dutch, English, Swedish, Finnish, Spanish, Portugeese and Greek on internet towards the end of the project. The target group and potential beneficiaries are students, VET providers, teachers, job coaches and youth workers and other stakeholders who play a role in educating VET students. Project Management and Implementation are important tasks within the project. A steering committee consisting of one representative/core partner, will collaborate virtually on tasks relating to management and implementation. Money allocated for project management and implementation will be divided between the following actions: a) Project administration and management, b) Dissemination activities and c) Implementation and sustainability. To increase sustainability and impact, the participants are committed to disseminate the project through various channels (e.g. national, European and international networks and a joint Multiplier Event and Multipliers Events held in each partner country). The Cronona virus showed us how fragile our education system is and gave us proof that those students who have high self-esteem and a good support system will be able to succeed in their studies when the methodologies of teaching changes suddenly. However students with low self-esteem and poor support systems were left stranded and their learning comes to a standstill. The Corona virus showed us how important it is to set up learning networks that provides students at risk of dropping out with the support and encouragement they need. As the situation is today the Corona virus has resulted in unhealthy, unequal and unfair situations when it comes to learning and keeping up with curricula.

Name of project: WorkQual - Workmentoring within a quality management system. Structure for cooperation between school and small and medium-sized Enterprices (SMEs).Coordinator: Verkmenntaskólinn á Akureyri (VMA). https://workqual.vma.is The project was based on two big ideas: First: Building a handbook and a framework with processes, necessary data collecting sheets and checklists for the work needed when preparing and following a student in a workplacement. Second: Structuring a network needed for strong workplace education opportunities in the community.The project partnership consisted of four colleges and two consultants. VMA in Akureyri, Iceland, Charlottenlund in Trondheim, Norway and Axxell in Finland, are vocational colleges offering many types of vocational study. NTA Jules Rieffel is an agricultural college in France working with small workplaces in agriculture. The consultants, IFSAT in the Netherlands, also connected with a re-integration program for young unemployed, and Broadshoulders in England, have been involved in developing many different things in vocational education, particularly the role of workplaces.The need for this project was identified when evaluating the WorkMentor http://workmentor.vma.is/wiki/index.php/Work_Mentor project. This was the 3rd in a series of projects dealing with the learner in the workplace using a portfolio of evidence to report on his learning progress (ProVoTrain project), a project for the support to and teaching of VET teachers who needed professional adaptation to blended learning (POÈTE project) and the WorkMentor project which developed training packages for work mentors guiding learners in the workplace. During this evaluation we felt that a solid support structure, a framework of agreements, arrangements and matching documents, could increase the efficiency of the learning placement and clarify the role of each of the three parties in the agreement.The main purpose of this project was to develop a system of processes, sheets, forms and inspections to use with workplacements that can be incorporated into the quality management systems vocational colleges or other providers work with. This was directly linked to the efforts of the European Commission when developing tools to use when comparing and cooperating within the scope of vocational education. ECVET, EQF and other tools established to facilitate the flow of students and qualified workers.The WorkQual project started by collecting information on which aspects different stakeholders wanted to discuss when looking at learning in the workplace. This was summarized in the Inventory of Needs Report. Some of the partners had formal meetings with local stakeholders and all collected opinions from employers, students and teachers. The common points made were written into the processes in the manual after the partnership had gone through all the steps and with suggestions from the experience the partners brought to the project.The final major output is a system integrated for the general European system proposed in the European tools. The manual is written to match the processes a Quality Management System proposes for planning and implementing a workplacement.It is the belief of the partnership that this system for working with students in workplaces will be of great importance now when many countries have been working on their vocational education systems. Often the responsibility of training in the workplace is placed on the colleges/schools/providers. This calls for a structure and a transparent system to use when placing students in workplaces and monitoring their competence.Even if many countries have good structure for this they are not taking the role of workmentors in the workplace into account. The general assumption was that there are three responsible partners involved: a college/provider, a workplace and the student. The system takes this into account so the education will be manageable for the college, not a burden for the workplace and it will be relevant and inviting for the student.Our goal was to develop a system that can be used in many sectors. We feel we managed to do this.Even if there are different competences to gain in the workplace for different vocations we feel there are general factors involved in the success of students. How can we match the student to the most suitable workplace? What does the underlying agreement look like? How can we support the students during workplacements? How can we evaluate the student without expecting workplaces and students to deliver lengthy reports? Will the workplacement be valuable for the student when entering the vocation? The same questions should be asked in every sector of Vocational Education and Training.The outcome of the project is that we think the manual can be used in different types of workplacement in different sectors.See http://hepg.org/hep-home/books/schooling-in-the-workplace

VET@Work is a collaboration between VET providers and employers representing 5 European countries and several vocational sectors, e.g. business, hospitality, social and healthcare, agriculture, horticulture and technical sector. The project partners share a passion to improve and deepen collaboration between VET and the world of work. The project came from recognizing and analyzing current trends showcasing the need of improved collaboration between VET providers and employers. ObjectivesOur vision was to make links between VET & Work stronger! We recognized that development begins when you have the courage to step outside your comfort zone and open your mind to constructive criticism! Our main aim and objective was to develop methodologies that can be used by all when implementing and/or improving cooperation and collaboration between VET and work. The methodology used was collaborative learning, sharing, analyzing, testing and writing instructions for ways that VET and work can work side by side when educating and preparing VET students for work. Our goal was to inspire each other as well as future beneficiaries to implement a new way of providing VET. This new way being built around collaboration where the VET providers and employers share responsibility of providing the world of work with skilled workers. We wanted to showcase how working together, sharing ideas, skills and knowledge results in an improved learning experience for the VET students. Partners:Axxell (Finland) – project coordinator and a Finland-Swedish VET provider Raasepori Municipality (Finland) – Raasepori was represented by Villa Anemone in the projectBroadhoulders (UK) - a company specialized in providing mentor and leadership training to apprentices and companiesHet Idee (the Netherlands) – a company that focuses on supporting and empowering youngsters to get a VET degree and finding their place in the society.Welzijen Lelystadt (the Netherlands) – an employer within social care who’s aim is to battle loneliness among different age groupsVerkmenntaskolinn a Akureyri (Iceland) – a VET provider Medulla Harsnyrstistofa (Iceland) – a hairdressing company Nantes Terre Atlantique (France) – a VET provider ActivitiesThe core partners worked with employers and VET providers throughout the project’s lifespan to collect information and knowledge and to involve them in the piloting of the 12 methodologies described in the VET@work manual. 5 transnational project meetings (1 per partner country) were held. During the meetings focus was on sharing best practices, learn from local VET providers and employers not directly involved in the project and to develop content for the different chapters of the manual. Between the project meetings, virtual work meetings were held to continue the work that commenced at the transnational meetings. Each partner disseminated the project according to a set dissemination plan and collected useful information that was incorporated/used when working on the VET@work manual. Towards the end of the project each partner country organized one or more Multiplier Events to share the outcomes of the project to those interested. Results and impactThe main result and output was the VET@work manual (https://vetatwork-project.eu/). The aim of the manual is to help VET providers and employers improve the quality of collaboration, whether it be a new form of or an existing collaboration between VET and an employer. The manual has information about 12 different collaboration methodologies, how to sell the idea of VET@work collaboration, what to avoid when starting a collaboration, how to overcome potential obstacles and what benefits can be expected from VET@work collaboration. The manual also has a simple self-evaluation tool that gives suggestions on what methodologies might be of interest based on their existing skills. ImpactThe project had a big impact on us involved in the project. It provided us with the opportunity to build a shared vision for greater collaboration. It gave us the confidence to take on new ideas and to share these ideas with others (employers, employees, work mentors, VET providers, teachers, students etc). It allowed us to STOP and REFLECT about the way we work, what we want to achieve and how we can achieve this through VET@work collaboration. It allowed us to improve our communication, cooperation and collaboration skills and showed us how important it is to share and celebrate success. It made us aware that even if VET and work collaboration does require resources it will pay back with interest!Implementing the VET@work manual will help make the gap between VET providers and employers smaller and make communication more flexible as it gives practical examples on how employers and VET providers can work side by side to meet the needs of the student. VET@work encourages and enables the implementation of a holistic approach to provide VET.