<< Objectives >>The main objective of this project is to develop critical thinking skills among university teachers and students of different educational degrees, emphasising that they must be critical with the information they receive, as they are the main shapers of the society of the future. In order to develop critical thinking skills, the project proposes to work on the subject of fake news. To this end, the project develops an online training and an interactive environment that address these issues.<< Implementation >>The project is divided into four work packages: Project Management (WP1), NEWSpiracy In-Service Training (WP2), Fake News Detector Interactive Environment (WP3) and Dissemination and Outreach Activities (WP4). Each work package has a number of activities selected and divided among all partners according to their expertise, including content creation activities; assessment activities, both internal (partners) and external (piloting phases); dissemination and impact activities, among others.<< Results >>A Tutor Handbook in Flipbook format to train university teachers and an In-Service Training on a LMS platform with interactive and gamified content to train students of different educational degrees on fake news. An Interactive Environment for writing and commenting news. Newsletters with the project progress every 6 months. Facebook and Instagram profiles to disseminate the project. A project website. A branding image and logo for the project. Multiplier events in each partner country.

Teaching basic skills to low skilled adults is probably one of the most difficult educational assignments in the field of adult education. Addressing the needs of the long-term unemployed; migrants; refugees; asylum seekers; and indigenous ethnic minorities like Roma demands considerable skill and dedication. And yet, anecdotally at least, educators working with these most marginalised groups tend to have fewer opportunity for CPD training and least well resourced. At the heart of the OutsideIN project is the belief that in-service training to support the continuous professional development of adult educators is essential if they are to develop new and innovative approaches to attract marginalised adults back to lifelong learning and education. The OutsideIN project consortium, lead by Meath Partnership and comprising Acrosslimits, RightChallenge, Siglo22 and Eurotraining, has developed, piloted and implemented a new in-service training programme complete with a training handbook to support the continuous professional development of adult educators working with the most marginalised adult learners. An educator's toolbox complete with a full suite of 16 digital mini-format resources in English, Portuguese, Spanish and Greek, addressing key competence areas is also available to these front-line adult education staff to support their work. All resources, including the training manual and resource toolbox, are available in all partner languages on an online learning environment at https://outsidein-project.eu. These resources will continue to be available until 2024 to all interested parties without restriction in keeping with the open access requirements of the ERASMUS+ programme. In 2019, the project partners hosted a series of major community learning festivals in their local areas with the specific task of engaging marginalised adults to interact and experiment with the digital tools created and provide access opportunities to re-engage with lifelong learning. The final conference which was held in Ireland on 18th September 2019 presented the resources developed by the consortium and engaged 104 marginalised learners and adult educators. 17 front-line adult educators from across the partner countries attended the Transnational Training Activity in Malta in April 2019. This event supported the realisation of a cascading model of training with a further 58 front-line adult educators completing the first iteration of the in-service training in Ireland, Spain, Malta, Greece and Portugal during 2019 with the support of those, that participated in the transnational training event. The local regions where partners work have benefited from the increased social inclusion achieved and the new opportunities to engage with the projects' target groups. The potential savings to service providers may well be significant for every marginalised person who has engaged with the OutsideIn project and may ultimately be reintegrated into lifelong learning. OutsideIN has developed, piloted and presented a best practice example and has demonstrated that even the most hard to reach target groups can be encouraged to get involved and participate in learning if the opportunities to engaged are well conceived and appropriately communicated. Increased participation rates of marginalised adults in education and training will have considerable effects on the social inclusion objectives of Member States and the realisation of a fairer and more equitable society for all in Europe.

<< Background >>Prior to the Covid pandemic, European countries had made significant progress in lowering the rates of early leaving from education and training. However, this tendency is not certain in the future due to the rapid changes in educational systems. Specialists argue that the number of students disengaged in the learning process might grow and cause the new wave of early school leavers, who are unhappy with the recent changes and prefer to enter the labour market earlier. This will be, however, not the thriving and receptive labour market, but the one struggling with growing unemployment rates. That’s why it is so vital to boost young people’s engagement in their education and, at the same time, equip them with the skills that will increase their employability potential in the future.There is a shortage of reliable data about the early school leaving in 2020, therefore the project consortium decided to perform their own research to observe any potential tendencies on the lower scale. The survey was performed among 263 young people in all partner countries, and some of them were also interviewed. 48% of people aged 20-25 and 32% aged 16-20, who are engaged in formal education, are currently considering terminating or pausing their education. 67% of these students pointed out the pandemic and educational transformations related to it as the main reason for such plans. At the same time, only 28 of participants felt properly prepared for the world of work, which presents very unoptimistic perspectives for young people. It’s crucial to state that the research wasn’t targeted only at youth from the groups in danger of social exclusion, but it seems reasonable to believe that youth from marginalized communities might be affected by these changes even more.Another interesting conclusion that can be drawn from the first phase of the Covid crisis, is that any professional activities and businesses that managed to shift their branding and marketing activities online in time, suffered slightly less. New media formats and social media seem to be significantly less affected by the crisis. It is visible by the statistics of giants like YouTube, Instagram, Twitch, Tik-Tok or Netflix, who observed an increase in users’ activities in I quarter of 2020 by 13-38%. This supports the statement that video has become the main and most powerful media format of recent years and this tendency was only intensified by the pandemic.These two conclusions – about risks of early school leaving and marginalization, and the potential of video creation and usage do not seem related at the first sight. However, the connection is significant – video creation skills have become a great advantage of any person entering the labour market or planning their own business. These skills can be used to support endangered youth communities in self-expression, but also professional networking, job searching, branding, life-long learning, sales etc. Online video creators seem to be more likely to recover from crisis than solely-traditional job professionals<< Objectives >>In general, the main objectives of the project are:1) To create a suite of video creation resources for young people2) To support youth educators in delivering the video creation training with the help of the bespoke in-service training and handbook3) To provide a series of virtual learning and collaborative environments for sharing project results, enabling education resources usage and gaining recognition for videos created by project participants4) To provide a series of events for both young people and youth educators: Film Festivals in each country for the total of 120 youth participants, Transnational Film-making Masterclass for 18 marginalized youth creators and the Joint-Staff Training event for 12 youth educators, to provide sustainable and practical skill acquisition and fully test the project results.The project, besides increasing the digital literacy levels among young people and youth educators, is designed to have more intangible values. It will increase the cultural awareness of young people, help their understanding and social inclusion, giving them voice, tools, and skills to express themselves, and understand each other. Project results are measured not only by created resources but primarily by a number of trained professionals and the impact of newly possessed skills on their professional lives, their students, and their environments. Therefore, the following training activities will be achieved by the consortium during the project lifecycle: 1) 12 youth educators will be trained in delivering the In-service training programme during the Short-term Joint Staff Training Event 2) 60 front-line youth and community educators will have completed the in-service training programme and upgraded their professional competences in the piloting phase of PR2 3) 120 young people, including marginalized youth, will grow their digital and media literacy levels by using the video creation resources and approaches while piloting the PR1 4) 18 young people, with special emphasis on marginalized youth will complete the Transnational Film-making Masterclass 4) 120 educators, students, parents, and policy makers will gain awareness of the project results and see the videos created by the students in PR1 piloting during the Film Festivals in all partners’ countries. 5) 40 educators, students, and policy makers will attend the final conference in Germany where all project results will be presented and discussed.<< Implementation >>Each partner will conduct multiplier event. Moreover, Final Conference will be organized in Germany in order to maximize the impact of the project. Partners will organize six transnational meetings, including two face-to-face meetings. Partners will also organize two transnational Training Events. The first is Transnational In-service Induction Training for youth educators and the second is Transnational Film-making Masterclass for young creators. The partners have planned activities related to the dissemination of the project. These include: the creation and updating of a project website, the creation and maintenance of a project fanpage on Facebook, four newsletters, and the posting of project promotional material on YouTube and LinkedIn. To ensure wide availability, the website and each of the 4 newsletters will be translated into all partner languages. The project partners will organise regular meetings with the Local Working Group to enable multiplication of project activities. Furthermore, partners will carry out regular activities related to evaluation and monitoring.<< Results >>There are three main project results for the new skill acquisition for both target groups: 1) PR1 – Video-making resources for employability and development of young people 2) PR2 – In-service training programme and handbook for youth educators 3) PR3 – Bespoke e-learning portal The first result aims at providing young people with a comprehensive suite of resources to use in formal and non-formal settings (also, adapted to online or face-to-face learning). The usage of these resources will result in: - Young people increasing their digital literacy levels, with a focus on video and audio production - They will have other skills increased, like research, planning, critical thinking, cooperation, and creativity - They will be able to use these skills professionally or to develop/support and advertise their businesses - The branding and self-presentation skills will help them in the job searching process The resources for young people will be divided into four main areas, covering video creation, production, and usage in four contexts: 1) Advertisement 2) Storytelling 3) Business development 4) Personal brandingIn this approach, the students will be able to use the newly acquired skills according to their current needs – to express themselves, monetize their skills, sell products, or seek employment. This aspect will especially important for young people from the communities in danger of exclusion. The second result is aimed at front-line youth educators. They need the proper resources to provide media production and usage training to young people. The bespoke in-service training programme for youth and community educators will increase their digital literacy levels and will help them understand the social media reality that is usually more intuitive for younger consumers and creators. The educators will gain skills and competences to: - Reach the marginalized youth effectively and have the empathy to support them to the best extent with their struggles - Provide young people with high-quality training in video production and usage, using the most relevant open-source software and commonly available hardware- Feel comfortable with delivering such advanced training using blended and online environments, with full awareness of their strengths and threats connected to it. Both educators and young people will have an opportunity to support their learning process using the bespoke online environment created in the project (PR3). It will be used to: - Providing the tailor-made platform to use the learning resources developed in the project - Providing recognition for the creativity and effort of young people participating in the project piloting, by uploading and sharing the videos they will create during the Film Festivals and the Transnational Film-making Masterclass - Support project and partnership dissemination activities.The results of the project will be uploaded on project website and will be available for everyone interested. The website with results published will be maintained after end of project development.

<< Background >>The proposed project in response to the challenges and needs identified in European Societies and specifically in the context of School education. The implementing partners, have grasped the urgency to put forward concrete actions and responses to support and empower teachers and educators to utilize digital tools and resources to elevate their capacity to engage their students and most importantly to address social issues and factors contributing to social inclusion in an interactive manner. The levels of poverty, inequality, and structural segregation in the EU are alarming, pervading social inclusion our societies and feeding extremism and radicalization. In 2018, the at-risk of poverty or social exclusion rate for secondary school students aged 15-19 years was 27.7% in the EU-28, which amounts to about 7.5 million young people (Eurostat, 2020). Secondary school students tend to face threats of exclusion for a variety of reasons – disabilities, social and economic disadvantage, refugee status, ethnic or religious minorities (Inclusion Europe, 2014). Additionally, according to the JRC Technical Report, COVID-19 has made educational institutions switch to online learning and teachers’ preparedness regarding digital technologies is a decisive factor of whether inequality in learning outcomes will further increase as education moves online (EC, 2020).In response to this threats and challenges, EU Ministers of Education emphasise the need for action to support and empower educators, as front-line professionals working directly with children so to help promote social cohesion and inclusion. Educators should be given developmental opportunities and supported to develop their digital skills encourage and facilitate their contribution to tackling diversity and exclusion issues. According to an EC report on teacher satisfaction, educators lack the tools to communicate and transmit social, civic, and intercultural values. Although there have been initiatives to promote social inclusion in the past, they are not sufficient to meet the challenges that educators face in terms of addressing diversity. While it is recognised that young people should be at the forefront of social inclusion efforts from an early age, they are still increasingly disenfranchised from societal change-making processes. For social inclusion to succeed in the long-term, there is a need for a “deeper change at the personal level and this is where dialogue has a particular role to play” (International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, 2007). Through dialogue, people’s personal ‘mental models’, the way they experience and interpret the world, change, establishing reconciliation and civic competences (Diamond, 2007). To that end, eDialogue aims to educate and empower educators, offering them opportunities to enhance their professional skills, image, and role by learning new and innovative methodologies that will elevate their capacity in open dialogue moderation. In doing so, they will be enabled to become active and skilled leaders in the use of digital tools and open dialogue for social inclusion among students.Specifically, the tools and methodologies that will be developed will support educators in using open dialogue to address challenges and aspects of social exclusion such as discrimination, segregation and racism, bullying and cyber bullying, radicalisation, fake news, and other forms of online misinformation.Through this innovative and integrated approach e-Dialogue addresses diversity and promotes non-discrimination and social inclusion, directly supporting the ‘Social inclusion’ priority. E-Dialogue will enhance the professional development of secondary school educators and will strengthen their leadership in education using open dialogue for social inclusion among students.<< Objectives >>eDialogue aims to educate and empower educators, offering them opportunities to enhance their professional skills, image, and role by learning new and innovative methodologies that will develop their skills in open dialogue moderation. In doing so, it will enable them to become active and skilled leaders in the use of digital tools and open dialogue for social inclusion among students.Specifically, the tools and methodologies that will be developed will support educators in using open dialogue to address current aspects of social exclusion such as discrimination, segregation and racism, bullying and cyber bullying, radicalisation, fake news, and other online misinformation.Through this innovative and integrated approach e-Dialogue addresses diversity and promotes non-discrimination and social inclusion, directly supporting the ‘Social inclusion’ priority. E-Dialogue will enhance the professional development of secondary school educators and will strengthen their leadership in education using open dialogue for social inclusion among students.The objectives are to: -Develop educators’ digital skills and dialogue facilitation capacities-Develop learners’ digital competencies and voice their thoughts, opinions, and ideas about current social phenomena that trigger social exclusion-Enable educators to apply the use of open dialogue in online and face-to-face contexts -Develop a comprehensive and integrated EU practice and policy guide to support educators’ use of open dialogue to enhance social inclusion among students<< Implementation >>To fulfil its objectives, eDialogue will carry out the following activities:- Pilot test the Dialogue Blocks (R1) with 5 educators and/or trainers in each of the implementing countries- Host a Transnational Training Activity that will be attended by representatives of the 2 representatives or educators from each country- Form a Team of National Open Dialogue Moderators Team in each country- Register 30 educators from each country on the Online Resource Platform- Undertake pilot sessions of the 'Collection of Activities for Young Learners' (R3) in 3 schools in each country- Hold focus groups with 8-10 stakeholders in each country as part of the Development process of R4- Organize 5 Multiplier events (Ireland, Cyprus, Serbia, Poland and Greece) with 20 participants each- Organize a Conference in Spain with 40 participants<< Results >>Through the workings of the proposed project the following tools and resources will be developed and made available:R1:eDialogue Training Package for EducatorsR2:E-learning Platform&Open Educational ResourcesR3:Collection of Activities for Young LearnersR4:EU Policy Recommendations Guide-“It’s time to speak up”The project is expected to have a strong positive impact on schools and education systems across Europe as it will address the well-documented need of developing educators’ digital skills and strengthening their leadership skills using digital tools and open dialogue to foster social inclusion among students.A)Material Results:-Project plan:a detailed plan including all activities and tasks defined by quantitative and qualitative indicators.The plan is a guideline for all project partners for effective implementation, serving also as an evaluation and monitoring instrument. -Partner contracts:the partner contracts settle all rights and duties of the parties involved,especially administrative and financial regulations and payments.-Project platform:the project platform will promote and present the main information of all the project objectives and activities in all partner languages;it will lead to all partner organisations,related projects and initiatives from across Europe and allow all intellectual outputs to be downloaded.-Quality Management concept: this will contain the project’s basic QM strategy and list all evaluation activities,tasks,deadlines,and responsibilities.-Dissemination and exploitation plan: the project’s dissemination strategy will list all dissemination activities,tasks, deadlines,and responsibilities.-Dissemination materials such as flyers, posters, promotional video clips etc. as deemed necessary by the consortium.-Intellectual Property Rights: to ensure that the general public has free access to all intellectual outputs and to settle any kind of further developments and transfers.-Dissemination and exploitation reports: documenting and evaluating all dissemination and exploitation activities implemented during the project’s lifetime.-4 half-yearly reports: Every six months each partner will provide a full report about all their expenditure as well as all content development and evaluation activities.-4 peer group evaluation reports: partners will evaluate all levels of the project implemented through four questionnaire-based evaluation reports.-Progress and final report: according to the requirements of the project as well as the documents provided by the NA, the partnership will submit a progress and a final report (if appropriate).B) Non-Material Results-General awareness-raising throughout Europe concerning the project’s objectives and issues. All dissemination activities have the aim of informing target groups representatives, stakeholders, and policy makers about the importance of educators’ digital skills and their ability to promote dialogue to support inclusion among students in Europe.-Working with school leadership teams, teachers,and staff to design online education will have a positive impact on the quality of education offered in Europe.-The setup of a dissemination and promotion group of at least 500 target group members, stakeholders, and experts from all over Europe including: Ministries of Education, European Bodies, Schools, Universities, Research centres and associations,IT companies,public authorities at local,regional,national and EU levels etc.-The setup of a dissemination partnership with a representative from regional or national media in each partner county to ensure continuous media coverage throughout the project’s lifetime.-Each National Ministry of Education, as an associated partner,will sustainably apply the project outcomes in schools after the project has ended.-Through intensive dissemination, promotion, and exploitation work at all levels, the project contributes to improving education and the capacity of schools to offer online learning

"<< Background >>The aim of the SHOP-@-THE-BLOCK (S@TB) project for starting entrepreneurs with a small scale on the market is to increase the sales area and to make the company easier to find. Many of these companies have literally had to close their shop doors at this time, but with the innovative idea of ​​creating an online community, where they can offer / sell their products / services, we prevent them from further collapsing. Our challenge is to develop a sustainable shift to a prevention method to meet the needs of the target group and the customers, while meeting the requirements and regulations of all stakeholders. The general goal is to help the number of (high-risk) starting entrepreneurs to set up a joint online community and thereby improve their employability. Thanks to Covid-19, among others, online shopping has really taken off and this will not decrease or change again any time soon. However, for young (starting/female) entrepreneurs there is a barrier to offer services / products online and to arrange the logistics around them. Small (starting) entrepreneurs (think, for example, of shops with regional products “around the corner”) do not have the opportunity to organize sales online in this way, compared to large companies that have their own online shopping website and can easily maintain it. The S@TB project offers the solution for this!<< Objectives >>Strengthening existing entrepreneurs and offering a new (entrepreneurial) opportunity for starting on the labor market is the goal in the implementation of the project. That is why the S@TB project wants to make (starting) entrepreneurs more digitally ready, join forces as a local community and offer them more capacity (knowledge, skills and growth) regarding entrepreneurial skills. But also making them more resilient in the current situation, in which a pandemic has accelerated the changing market for most local entrepreneurs, in which ""keep standing"" in a crisis like the last 1.5 years has been very difficult, especially if you participate little or not online in a commercial sense. The current socio-economic situation indicates the need to develop entrepreneurship in an innovative way, to promote inclusion and professionalization an efficient way is needed to digitally support the labor market, create new jobs and stimulate the economy (especially in this time during the pandemic). European employment strategies emphasize entrepreneurship as it plays an essential role in employment policy and in the fight against unemployment. The personal and social costs of unemployment include serious financial hardship, poverty, debt, homelessness and housing stress, family tensions, and collapse, boredom, alienation, shame and stigma, increased social isolation, crime, erosion of confidence and self-esteem, of work skills and poor health, (https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/nieuws/2019/26/uitgaven-voor-sociale-uitkeringen-nemen-verder-toe).<< Implementation >>The stimulation of innovative methods (learning practices) through this project (via the toolbox on the website - R1) and in particular through the S@TB templates (R2), is central here. Because how do you, as a (starting) local entrepreneur, ensure that you increase your sales area with a small scale on the market and ensure that the company becomes easier to find. In this way, this project tries to bridge the gap between the current market, in which local entrepreneurs already had a difficult time given the larger conglomerates, which seemed to have more opportunities in online shopping, and the shopping streets that were increasingly emptied by the current economy. But also because of the acceleration of this pandemic, which has ensured that we do not find everything better from far away, but also look for local initiatives in the commercial field and opportunities that the online world offers today. The activities of the S@TB project are thus;• Develop and apply a masterclass program for so-called S@TB “local community owners” (C1).• Drawing up guidelines, procedures and research into (start-up) local companies and their (regional) products and the online availability of various tools / instruments to stimulate and / or learn entrepreneurial skills (R1)• Setting up an online entrepreneurial hubs communities template/format (based on research R1), in which starting (riskier) entrepreneurs create pop-ups with local stakeholders, including implementing pilots (R2)• A feasibility study into the continuation of the S@TB approach and method after the project period (R3)<< Results >>Specific S@TB results?- Approach / help 250 (young) entrepreneurs within this project with the implementation of the S@TB online entrepreneurial hubs communities. By means of this innovative co-created service we want to increase the turnover of these entrepreneurs by 25%.- 60% of these entrepreneurs are female (young) entrepreneurs (150)- Minimum of 5 local S@TB online entrepreneurial hubs communities (1 per country)- 25 trained local S@TB “local community owners” who will jointly or separately lead such a community (5 per country)"