Context and Background: The main goal of the European Commission as it was declared in January 2018 is to provide young people with any kind of help, such as knowledge and skills, through the educational system in order to improve the connection between the job market and them. The path, through which this will happen, is the triangle: education – research – innovation, in order to rediscover young people’s talents and skills. Its a tough bet but also absolutely necessary in today’s circumstances. Being inspired by this, we want to work in a project based on learning in an environment outside of the schools. Our students will face with real-life issues, primarily on a local base, but also through a global aspect. They will to visit organisations, people and places linked to these local problems and try to suggest the best possible solutions. The core of this methodology is to abandon the sterilized environment of the classroom and we put education in the centre of real life. The topics have been chosen as they are linked to the EU commission’s priorities, allow a multi-disciplinary approach and are linked to the schools’ curriculums. Each theme is strongly connected with one of the participating schools and its local area. The LTT metting in each country will be concentrated around it: -Social and economic inequality: The quality of life in a disadvantaged neighbourhood -Food ethics: Food waste -Immigration: the integration of immigrants -Environment: the pollution of the sea Objectives of our project in relation to the program priorities and the European Comission are: 1.To learn and research in an innovative way, mostly outside the classroom and on locations that are relevant for the different local topics during the LTT activities. 2.To learn in a practical and critical way, to ensure that our students have the capacity to think out of the box. Since the given problems concern real life, the way our students should deal with them must be absolutely practical and the method must ensure the increase of critical thinking. The problems concern real life and the solutions should be linked to that. 3.Foster social integration, enhance intercultural understanding and a sense of belonging to a community. In a multicultural environment it is necessary to achieve a minimum of consensus between the different communities in order to succeed in dealing with the complicated and more demanding problems of our era. And through this the common goal of coexistence can be ensured. 4.To produce a teacher’s guide for our own teaching methodology that focuses on teaching essential skills and competences in a practical way and which can easily be accessed and implemented in the school practice all over Europe. Number and profile of participants: 200 students are directly and indirectly involved. In detail, about 30 students of each school will travel abroad to the partner schools and about 180 students will indirectly provide their help and efforts to conclude the goals of the project. Also about 30 teachers will interfere and provide their guidance for the purposes of the program and share experiences. Activities: The students will prepare an introduction to the local theme of research. The form of this introduction will be a short film which will show in a clear manner the nature of the given problem. After this the participants will work on similar local problems in their places. During the LTT meeting, the participants will be in contact with local institutions and factors who have tare linked to the problems. Each group will come up with an out of the box solution, after they have completed their research. After the discussion that will follow, the students will decide the type of the event through which they are going to act towards suggesting their own solutions. They will prepare a vlog about the process and the solutions. The concrete results will be: a.A teacher’s guide that contains a methodology, activities and lesson plans that will be shared. b.A website on which to describe the themes in the participating countries, the results of the research and the solutions c.A YouTube channel that contains the vlogs the students made during the LTT activities , the research process and the presentation of the solutions Impact: We focus on the direct connection between real life and education, the preparation of our students to act and behave as proactive citizens, the increase of their critical and practical ability, the integration of disabled, learning and economically, groups of students, the multicultural cooperation in a demanding and changing modern environment. The public character of the program and the widespread of its results in a vaster educational community through its concrete results will provide the methodological tools to colleagues in the whole EU, helping them to deal with the major problem of modern education, to adjust to the modern demands and connect to real life.

Two of the priorities of the New European Commission are: to deepen the internal market and to ensure that employment rates are increasing: ‘Creating a European market where entrepreneurs can innovate and expand; new business models and services can flourish; and retailers find it easy to establish’ (source: http://ec.europa.eu/)At the same time our schools, due to the contacts with the working field we have, realised that the gap between what students learn in the educational field, and the skills they need in order to be successful on the European job market is still wide. We investigated this thesis further by discussing this with people from the work field and by interviewing ex-students who have recently made their first steps in companies. This inspired us to work together in an international project, with the main and fundamental OBJECTIVE to narrow this gap and thus contribute to strengthening the cooperation between the world of education and the world of work.Our specific objectives are:1. To let students and teachers find out which skills young employees are missing in order to be successful in an internationally oriented workfield, via an on site research in companies.2. To learn in an innovative way, mostly outside the classroom and in companies which are relevant for the different topics during learning/teaching/training activities. We call this 'Interactive 21 century learning'. 3. To prepare effective lesson and workshop plans focusing on those essential skills and competences and which can easily be accessed and implemented in the school practice all over Europe.In order to achieve these objectives, 4 schools from quite different contexts in Europe cooperate, each contributing with specific strengths and experiences. The project will focus on 4 subtopics (areas of skills) which will be worked sequentially: 1. Foreign languages and communication skills; 2. European Entrepreneurship skills; 3. Leadership skills; 4. Skills for working abroad and/or in international companies.Each of these will stand in the centre of a learning/teaching/training activity with students and will be organised by the school who has gained expertise within this subtopic. The subtopics have been chosen as they are linked to the EU commission’s priorities, allow a multi-disciplinary approach and are strongly connected to our schools’ curricula. The METHODOLOGY of this project is what we call “Interactive 21st century learning”, which aims to make the students the owners of their learning process by giving them the opportunity to learn together, in international groups, 'on site': outside the schools and in this case inside the companies, and find the answers to the research questions which they prepared together, within the frame of the subtopics of the project.The European commission says on its website about the top priorities: ‘This investment should be targeted towards education, research and innovation ‘. This will be the centre of our approach. It will be developed in 3 steps and includes the following ACTIVITIES:Step 1- Education: Before each l/t/t activity, students in their own country prepare themselves to become more conscious about the modern day jobs by formulating questions and doing preliminary interviews in local companies. Documented in a multimedia presentation, they will be shared with students and teachers from the other schools during the first day of the l/t/t activity.Step 2- Research: After this, the students combine their findings and, in mixed groups of six, decide on common research questions which they will research in the companies in the host country.Step 3- Innovation: Students will record their experiences in a vlog and report their findings in a presentation, which will be documented on Wordpress. On the basis of the students’ research, the teachers will prepare lesson/workshop plans which suggest creative and useful ways to include the acquisition of these skills into the schools’ teaching. They will use the transnational teachers’ meetings in order complete this task. All results will be published and made accessible via Wordpress.Over two years, 100 students and their teachers from different countries will be actively involved in this project and cooperate with their partners; virtually and during the l/t/t activities, conducting comparative research and practice related to the 4 subtopics. This methodology will produce results and impact not only among the directly involved students and teachers, but also on the participating schools and companies. Furthermore, they will be spread widely, following a multifaceted dissemination plan which, besides the more traditional tools, includes innovative ones like, for example, a chain letter. The progress and the quality of the results will be evaluated progressively, making use of qualitative and quantitative indicators, so the necessary adaptations can be made In order to guarantee the success of the project.

Raising up bilinguallRaising up bilingually in nowadays European society has long stopped being an exception. Most European capitals and big cities are cosmopolitan ones, where a walk on the streets automatically relates to contact with diversity, either in the form of culinary experiences or the sounds of more or less exotic languages. In such societies the emergence of bilingual schools is imminent. There are indeed numerous bilingual schools in Europe and there is even an online exchange platform made by and for parents of students attending those schools. Still there was no exchange platform for the teachers and students of the European bilingual schools. With WEBS we accomplished our aim of setting up a network of various European bilingual schools, so that we can learn from and with one another. Thus, the understanding and improvement of the European bilingual school systems with focus on strengthening the European identity, best practice in different types of bilingual schools, school life in different bilingual schools and the future of the bilingual students in Europe was accomplished by working together, visiting each other’s schools and comparing our bilingual systems. We also aimed to improve our methodology and the use of resources and assessment criteria when teaching bilingually, which we did by creating a common data base for all interested teachers of bilingual students. These materials are also gathered in an e-book shared with all our partner schools inside and outside of the WEBS partnership. Finally, there has been a massive improvement of the students` communicative skills in different languages as well as the improvement of the students` skills in ICTs. The material result we achieved is our online exchange platform for bilingual European schools www.bilignualschools.online . That being said, the educational value of European cultural heritage has been achieved by expanding the cultural knowledge we had on one of the European countries whose language we teach bilingually to a broader knowledge on all other cultures involved in this project. In doing so and completing our project activities, we contributed to the development of relevant and high-quality competences is linked to the improvement of our students` communicative and ICTs skills ad language skills, since most of them speak at least three languages and they made use of all of them. All the activities completed required the use of the teachers`and students` (age 12-15) communicative and ICT skills. Right in the beginning, making the videos on the hometown, own school, individual presentations the students have operated with new media and have used their foreign language skills. The same applies to the video reports and writing the news reports every 4 months. Furthermore, the students compared a common favorite subject and visit a foreign school. They attended classes, extra-curricular activities and gave presentations on their bilingual school while comparing it to the one visited. Another activity involved the teachers writing short articles on the methodology and resources used when teaching in bilingual schools and similar topics, which were shared on the internet site and in the e-book we created with all teaching materials and which is shared with all our school partners inside and outside the WEBS project. To continue, the understanding of the European bilingual system was achieved through the getting-to-know-one-another presentations, the videos on our hometowns, our schools and students themselves. Through these videos and the visits during which we attended classes, extracurricular and after school activities we compared the way other bilingual schools function, how they disseminate the European dimension and which specific resources and methodology they use to teach a common bilingual subject. Besides we understood that a new hybrid bilingual identity has emerged, as bilingual students feel they do not belong anywhere but at the same time everywhere. Actually, based on this realization we have started a follow-up project of WEBS with new bilingual partner schools, which focus exactly on this cultural dimension our bilingual roots have on our identity.Finally, WEBS Erasmus has enjoyed a huge impact and echo among all participants, who have shared their experiences with their families, friends, students` meetings and teachers` conferences. Proposals such as the implementation of foreign language assistants in classes have been brought up and the participants were able to compare systems, learn from the new schools and at the same time appreciate what their own school has to offer. That being said, the friendships started have proven so strong, that students have been visiting each other with their families outside the project, too and some are even planning a student exchange for a longer period of time. WEBS is indeed the headstone of the innovative cooperation of the European bilingual schools.

"""Europe as a workspace"" was a student and teacher based two-year project addressing the specific objectives of the Europe 2020 Strategy as outlined by European Commissioner Jean-Claude Juncker in his 2014 agenda for Jobs, Growth, Fairness and Democratic Change. The main objective of this partnership was to develop students' skills (both hard and soft) and employability and to develop teachers' ability to teach students these skills. The national coordinators of each school discussed the project with their students and teachers during the planning phase and we realized all the schools more or less face similar challenges and needs to be addressed. The students commented that they felt unready for the world of work and that they were having hard time in focusing their attention in lessons. They also complained they were expected to focus on just academic success or vocational qualification but they felt unsure of what skills are required at the next level of education or for various professions in the world of work. Besides they had problems making decisions about their future careers .The teachers commented that they didn't know how skills can be taught in the best way in classes and assessing the acquisition of skills was a great challenge for them. The partnership had two primary objectives, one aimed at students and one aimed at teachers:1- Concerning the students; to equip them with both hard and soft skills that can encourage each student to participate effectively and constructively in the workplace and socially both inside and outside their own countries. 2- Concerning the teachers, to strengthen teacher's skills based teaching practice through transnational cooperation and by adopting innovative, effective and new methods and tools in order to bridge the gap between education and employability skills.The target groups and stakeholders of this project were the students and the teachers that participated directly in the project; the other students and teachers of the 8 participating schools; the local business communities such as experts from employment bureaus, chambers of commerce, companies; other schools as local stakeholders; universities; educational authorities; families; and the students and teachers from other schools in Europe.The project results are both of tangible and non-tangible character. The tangible results are: an e-book (the final product); a toolbox of skills; the project related videos created by the students; a toolbox for teaching and assessment of skills; a collection of lesson plans prepared according to the innovative lesson plan model; a board game; a promotional poster, brochure, video and the project logo; the project website; the teachers' wikispace platform; the e-twinning group; the twinspace project on e-twinning; an innovative product or service based on students' coding experience; the students' professional portfolios; the learning diaries; the online newspapers, two surveys to evaluate the success of the project, the students’ blogs and the promotional video. Referring to the non-tangible results; the students became more creative and enterprising and held a practical experience in communication and collaboration, critical thinking, problem solving, decision making, meta cognition, personal learning strategies, citizenship, life (and career) skills, personal and social responsibility, cultural awareness and expression, interpersonal and intercultural skills. Thus, the students became more motivated to stay at school and continue with a higher education. We also realised an enormous increase in the teachers' skills based teaching practice through transnational cooperation and by adopting innovative, effective and new methods and tools.During the two year project duration, there took place 3 transnational meetings and 4 learning/teaching/training activities. The first and second transnational meetings at the beginning of each project year were for planning and preparation purposes while the last one was organized for the evaluation and the sustainability of the project. Also there took place teacher training alongside with each transnational meeting and learning/teaching/training activity.In the long term we aim at recognition of our e-book, the toolbox for teaching and assessment of skills and innovative lesson plan model as teaching materials. We believe the project will also contribute to a well-qualified and highly motivated workforce in Europe while employers will be able to access the workforce with the skills they need. We would like to be an example for similar educational organizations and, if possible, we want to help our colleagues, all school stakeholders and NAs in promoting the Erasmus+ projects about teaching and assessing skills"

"Ernest Hemingway wrote many years ago:"" The Earth is a fine place and worth fighting for"". The UN has set up 17 goals to detain a healthy world in 2030, both for humanity and Mother Earth. The sustainable goals are set for all the citizens of this world, either they are poor, rich or average income, and climate change is not an issue only for the poor or the rich but for all the people all around the world. Climate change does not have any borders. Our aim by creating this project is to reach out to more people around Europe and Turkey. It is our duty to spread our knowledge and experiences about the goals that need to be reached in 2030. The motivation for applying for this project is because we want to develop one of the most important issues in Europe and for that matter, all around the world. The European Union has, together with the European countries already made some changes that benefit the environment, however more need to be done for a global climate change. Moreover, do we need to shed light on how different countries work with environmental issues and focus on new ideas on how to make ecological changes in our daily life routines. All participating countries are facing the same climate changes and the difficulties to make an impact in changing the way of our lifestyles. Many people around the globe are making changes but we need to do more and who are the ones we can reach out to? Our students, who are the future and they will also have children who will live on this earth. We are living on the same earth but in different countries with different cultures and traditions. This should not make any difference but it does and we want to learn from each other by sharing ideas and reflections between our partners. To participate in a project is an opportunity for the students because they will be able to tackle the challenges they will meet in the future together with students in Europe and Turkey. Our aim is to have the students compare and share ideas and experiences in the way to handle environmental issues. Also, we want our students to share ideas with other countries all around Europe and the world and hopefully, can the politicians find solutions for the issues. We believe we can not solve environmental issues alone but together as a united European nation together with other countries. We have planned, both in school and international perspectives through learning, teaching and training activities. Our aim is to develop our students' science skills and try different learning methods to inspire their interest in nature in more effective teaching methods, strengthing interdisciplinary methods, supporting problem-solving discoverer. The students will gain long-lasting ecological habits. They will learn more about how to appreciate nature, behave as a European or even a global eco-citizen and try to make a smaller ecological footprint on Mother Earth. Moreover, will students and teachers develop themselves; interact in discussions, share information with previous information and use the knowledge they gained thanks to our project. Teachers will develop problem-solving, develop creative thinking, communication skills in a foreign language, develop ICT skills and prefer practice to theory. Families will begin to use eco-friendly products and protect the ecological balance, prefer less consumption and gain awareness to protect our planet. The activities that we have planned will lead are a mix of different activities that will end up in a final product, an e-magazine. We are aiming for development between participating countries and their different ways of working for a better environment. We see that students are aware of climate change and what is done about it, but when they travel to different countries do they see different ways of dealing with environmental issues.The following subjects will be focused during each LTT: 1-Sustainability in society2. Investigations and comparisons of carbon footprints and water usage in different countries3. Surveys and investigations on transportation and environmental impact4. Comparison of energy use.5. Reuse, Reduce and Recycle.6. How to eat well- and save the planet!We will have these activities during each LTT:*Presentation on each topic/ students will prepare material for a video and make an ad or news broadcast*Discussions in groups on the topic*Questionnaire on the topic*Guest speaker *Workshop Creativity -writing an article/vlog/video *Workshops on the topic*Trip to a local museum / Company / Institution *Trip to a cultural site (e.g UNESCO )* Cultural evening -with students, teachers, and parents. Local food made by parents.*Presentation on similarities between participating countries and the host. Each country will prepare information on the customs, traditions, and culture of another partner. The aim is to have the students to gain more knowledge about the participating countries. * Team building activities."