Current economic and social context in which we evolve is one of the factors we face in education. European's recent studies have demonstrated that there are still difficult situations we face. Students that come from social and economically-risk environments increasingly higher is the main external challenge to which students are exposed. The result is that students have increasingly greater disinterest regarding school in general, higher school dropout being an immediate consequence. To counter these issues, the school must define itself in terms of methods used in dealing with students. Usually, this redefinition is a lengthy process, which may include additional costs often difficult to provide. School should open to the society, in both directions: to take over what is useful in education and has been developed in non-formal environments, but also to let the society to take what is valuable in school. The results of our Project can be used as solutions reduce pressures on to many schools, students and their families, providing them medium and long-term solutions.We offer, by our tips and tricks that are part of our Intellectual products, suggestions that can be applied for the valorisation of external environment achievement, in terms of technology, both for schools, teachers and students. Project Priorities, selected in accordance with social and economic context we must face, are:A. Addressing underachievement in the basic skills of math, science and literacy through more effective, innovative teaching methodsB. Supporting schools to tackle early school leaving (ESL) and disadvantage as well as to address all students from the lowest to the highest end of the academic spectrumC. Improve achievement in relevant and high-level basic and transversal competences in a lifelong learning perspective.According with these priorities, the main objectives proposed for the project are-school dropout decrease-increase the level of digital literacy, language, basic and transversal skills-increase of vocational education graduates, employed during the first year after graduation-increase the number of graduated students that follow tertiary studies, equally boys and girls-increase teachers' digital literacy, skills to use mobile devices in formal and non-formal education, building teachers ‘leadership capacity, interest for professional development-parents' increased confidence aiming school activityThe six schools in the project have a different profile, both in terms of the economic environment evolves, and student interest or skill level and their aspirations. The schools in Rhodes and Istanbul have a predominantly theoretical profile, preparing students for tertiary education, while the other four schools have a varied profile, both theoretically and professionally, students being mostly employed after graduation. The common point is the interest that we have, to adapt the school to the demands of society and counteract threats to which we are subject, largely the same. The University of UMinho, as an academic educational provider, was the expertise adviser for the project.The project addressed directly to 180 students and their families and to 84 teachers of the seven partners. The activities were conducted online and in the framework of transnational meetings. These planned activities were:6 Blended mobility of school learners, each for 5 days, with 5 students and 1 accompanying person per school.6 Short-term joint staff training events, each for 5 days, with 2 teachers for each partner.2 Multiplier Events, first of them hosted by Maia school in partnership with UMinho, for 100 attending persons, and the second, at Focșani, for 50 persons.3 Transnational Project Meetings, to organize project activities, monitoring and evaluation are planned, attended by two representatives of each partner.The results of the project are of three types. 3 approved and done intellectual outputs, from the total we proposedTangible results, like logo, posters, documents for participants selections, Facebook pages, partners’ blogs or website, video presentations and tutorials, newsletters, organisational and mentoring of the project meetings and other activities documents, documents for learning/teaching/training activities, reports, brochure and web information, surveys and analysis, promotions and dissemination materials .Intangible results-a change of students’ perception for their own education, and improving teacher quality performance.Long-term impact of the project is the contribution, for the partners, to their capitalization, in the European context. For students and teachers, the impact is in terms of skills developed and through the perspective of a directly approach to their education in terms of learning throughout life.

Context and background:Technical Progress leads to the extinction of workmanship and mechanical skills. Because of the digitalization of our everyday life there is a growing desire for haptic work (e.g. “Burgenländischer Blaudruck” – a regional printing technique.) to compensate for too much brainwork. Old crafts and trades are becoming extinct but progress must not be denied – past and future must be combined.The project should primarily be supported to …… enable intercultural exchange of specific regional crafts and present it to an international public (manufacture and presentation of products among the project partners).… motivate young people to acquire new skills and to learn to think and act in an entrepreneurial way – cultural heritage as impulse for future employment.… combine old crafts and trades, entrepreneurship and digitalization and to create new possibilities for innovative mercantilism.Our motivation for this project is to secure a European surplus on a personal, intercultural and entrepreneurial level. Targets, results and benefits:Aim of the project is to motivate students to deal with old and fading manual skills, to acquire their techniques and subsequently develop innovative new products and market them in an entrepreneurial sense.The result should be a transfer of knowledge that secures the conservation of the cultural heritage “altes Handwerk” and delivers practical results in the form of newly thought manual products.The long-term benefit will be corporate learning and the mediation of entrepreneurial spirit as well as the inclusion of people with special needs in economic life.Due to the fact that the students of the Greek partner school and some of the Portuguese school are people with special needs (Asperger syndrome, ADHD, Down syndrome, learning disorders etc.) inclusion will be a major challenge in our project which has to be considered at all levels (organizational, with regard to contents, methodical, etc.).The development of the skills of single students shall be supported; self-designed and handmade products will help to foster confidence in their own creative abilities.The benefit will lie in the development of basic skills and key competences of the single student.Intercultural exchange results in a row of specific products of certain regions. The long-term benefit focusses on the European idea, especially on the social and pedagogic values of the regional cultural heritage.Experience shows that old crafts and trades are mainly performed by people with traditional attitudes and of higher age. The project aims to connect this generation with young people and their experiences. This confrontation on manual, sociocultural and diverse-age level results in mutual learning. Transfer of knowledge will be a central outcome of the project.The benefit will be an intercultural and generation crossing education as well as life-long learning.Sustainable learning through discrete organizing and independent acting is one of the major aims and will improve the quality of training institutions by using alternative methods of teaching (hands-on mentality), which can also be seen as a benefit.In the course of our project entrepreneurship focusses on the acquisition of cultural, social, manual and entrepreneurial competences. In addition to the previously mentioned results the process of learning (the “Entrepreneurial Journey”) will be documented by each project team with a short film, the products will be presented on a trade market (2.0) accompanied by a summary product catalogue which will be published both in print and digital form.In this way social and educational benefits will come to the fore.The project is divided into the following activities:C 1. Kick off, research, selection of project partnersC 2. Creation, design and prototype of a new productC 3. Preparation of production and marketing of the manufactured productsC 4. Implementation of marketing materialsC 5. Market – concluding project presentation in form of a touring exhibitionThe methodology used in the realization of the project will be based on “do-it-yourself” and “hands-on” to allow the involvement of practical and creative activities of the students at the best. Participating schools:Agrupamento de Escolas da Maia (Portugal), Enieo Eidiko Epaggelmatiko Gymnasio - Lykeio Katerinis(Greece), Colegiul National Samuel von Brukenthal (Rumania), Grobinas gimnazija (Latvia), HBLA Oberwart (Austria)These are higher schools providing general education and higher vocational schools.

The current society is marked by the exponential development of technology, the deeper penetration of artificial intelligence into everyday life. The use of these existing resources is limited by the rather low level of user competences due to a perception of the scientific and technological concepts that underlie their implementation, often inadequate. Another limitation is due to the lack of qualified or poorly qualified workforce. The motivation is that few students are attracted by the study of these areas, the possibility that after their graduation they will be active in this field.Schools are the ones who can look for solutions to tackle these issues. For this, it is necessary to redefine the methods on which the teaching/learning process is based.The SciCon project wants to offer a possible solution, resulting from the experience and expertise of the ten partners included in the project. The analysis behind the idea that led to the project has also led to the selection of the priorities to which we will address. These priorities are:-Supporting individuals in acquiring and developing basic skills and key competencies.- Open education and innovative practice in a digital era.- Social inclusionOur schools have different profile and experience. Economically, we live in different environments. Our students' skills and key competencies are diverse, from a little bit above the average to below average, for most of the seven schools, according to PISA evaluation.The three universities are interested in having students with a good level of skills and competencies, so each of the partners is interested to make efforts for changing the students'perspective about sciences and technologies, to contribute to their better level of knowledge and needed skills. researchers from the three universities. Students and teachers will be involved in Learning/Teaching/Training activities, testing and evaluation of new methods and resources that the researchers (from universities) and teachers (from schools) will develop under the Intellectual Outputs activities.The project is an Erasmus+ Strategic Partnerships for School Education. The Main objective of the project is Innovation. The major objectives of the project are:-to use technology for supporting the learning process-to apply at organization level digital changes in education, especially the transferable ones-to establish effective partnerships for cooperation, that can solve common problems-to enable teachers to face the fears of using new technologies-to raise teachers skills, for modern and adequate teaching of students expectations-to make equitable and inclusive the digital education-to make educational resources under a creative common license-to enable students to gain practical skills, a new understanding of the connection between sciences and technologies, useful for a future job.The project addresses both students and teachers in middle and high schools. There will be three Transnational Project meeting, the first Kick-off meeting, the mid-term for evaluation and corrections, and the final for preparing the report, finishing and publishing the outputs, sustainability of the project. Two people from each partner will participate in each TPM (Transnational Project Meeting). The purpose of these Transnational Project Meetings will be management monitoring and evaluating the whole project.For teachers will be two short-term joint staff training events, one at the beginning, for the first topic, Virtual laboratories and videos, in the second month, and the second meeting in the 15th month, for the topic Programming and Arduino. Also, each short-term joint staff training events will have activities training for integration and evaluation methods, adequate for each major theme. Two people from each partner will participate in each short-term joint staff training events that will last five days.Each school will organize one blended mobility for students, in a system of peer-learning. Five students accompanied by two teachers, from each school, will participate in each mobility that will last five days.Two Intellectual Outputs will design methods and will give ORDERs to be used by schools for science education. The third Intellectual Outputs will be a pedagogical tool intended to teachers, to apply the new methods and use the resources given by the project outputs.In an internal logic of the project, Intellectual Outputs IO1 and IO2 will give methods and resources that teachers will be trained to use and will be applied for students activities, based on theoretical aspects given by IO3. Teachers and students activities evaluation will give resources for IO3 and will give confirmation for the first two outputs. In other words, the activities of the project are cyclical.In the future, new projects based on new problems that schools face can be developed starting from the results we will have when we will finish the SciCon Project.

"We pursue with the model of a ""European School"", the importance of the European Community for the security of its people and their peaceful coexistence. Educational priorities should be: the inner-school coexistence, conflict management, teamwork and common shaping of the future.Together, we wanted to find new ways to projectively explore school life and learning in terms of anticipated European challenges as well as to prepare both students and teachers for future need at school and work life.We have started the project with a questionnaire where we found out that students are very positive at school. Students wand to be prepared for life, they want to use new technology and are totally interested in new learning methods, also in new subjects. We have done a lot of workshops with students from different countries. They discussed about better ways of teaching and found common standards and ideas. We created a platform to exchange current school life. We found many differences but the logo of the European School and the values, which were created by students at the beginning of the project, were always the identity to stick together. In the workshops, we focused on timetables, subjects, roles of teachers and students, on skills and digital movements. As am example, results from the workshop about values were, that students agree on basics as tolerance, respect, freedom, integration, democracy, fairness, honesty, safety, equality. If we are going to build a European School of the Future it is important to have the same European values. The project offers the possibility to get open minded, to accept different ways of living and shows that we are all human being in a European Union but are still all individuals. This expectancy of the values got transparent in daily school life, which is the biggest result and one big goal of Erasmus+, I am proud of. The project was initiated by the Gebhard-Müller-School (Biberach, Germany), a vocational school with a commercial profile. Our partner schools were: ITET ""E. Fermi"" (Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto, Sicily, Italy); PCVO Nijverdal-Rijssen CSG Reggesteyn (Nijverdal, Netherlands); Agrupamento de Escolas da Maia (Maia, Portugal); 2 Geniko Lykeio Rethymnou (Rethymno, Greece); Borgarskolan Gävle (Gävle, Sweden). The project involved students between the ages of 15-18 years. All partner schools are active in the upper secondary level. The focus of each school is on general education as well as tourism, finance and marketing administration, information systems, international relationships, environmental and territorial buildings, economics and business management and law. The shared benefits of these international relations created a long-term cooperation and intercultural exchange for other projects with some partners. The new intercultural competences that were acquired in the project, both for the students and the teachers, train the ability to act in dealing with pupils from other cultural backgrounds. Both students and teachers became aware of European commonalities and diversities and recognize their value. Through the planned intercultural activities, we were pursuing an extension of the personality development of each participant. The personal competence of the individual that results in a greater flexibility and security in the intercultural approach had an impact on the classroom and school climate and on the participants’ private and professional life."

"In a world where the school is known to reproduce a pedagogical model for the last two centuries, the four partners involved aimed to change the school's daily routines by introducing innovative pedagogical scenarios on Game-Based Learning and Gamification (GBL&G) that enriched the two main target groups: teachers and students. The schools were chosen because they were feeling the need to be updated, to bring innovative pedagogical scenarios that engage students in their own learning. Part of their students was not engaged in their own learning finding the school a boring or not appealing place. The University was chosen for its experience in Educational Training and their connection with the innovative pedagogical scenarios. Altogether there were 3 primary schools (AEM from Portugal, SPn.41 from Poland and ICS from Italy) and the University of Minho. The main goals were to transform the teachers' pedagogical practices introducing innovative pedagogical scenarios inside the classrooms and engage students in their own learning. Teachers were to improve their professional work (language, digital and pedagogical skills) with new pedagogical scenarios on GBL&G and would benefit from the ideas shared by project partners about their practices and the implementation of the project in their schools. Pupils were to become more autonomous, creative and engaged through experiencing/participation in various forms of activeness with the Game-Based Learning and gamification innovative pedagogical scenarios; they would develop their digital, language and collaboration skills but also their cultural perceptions and respect for difference. This project covered 300 students and 18 teachers (5 sent in training and 1 chaperone per country) from the schools involved. The Elementary School students (6-12 years old) were from different social and economic backgrounds and two of them with Special Needs. The teachers were the ones that already work in collaboration, known to be pro-active, dynamic/interventive in their context and willing to accept the challenge. Regarding the activities, the project had three Transnational Project Meeting to discuss the beginning, the ongoing and the end of the project. It also had four Short Term Joint Staff Training Event (involving 5 teachers from each school and the principles in the first training week) and three Short-Term Exchange of Group of Pupils (involving an average of 9 students and 1 teacher from each school). The partners also had the Presentation Event in each local community, a Mural in each school, presented the project to their peers and to parents and created and maintained the online platforms (facebook, eTwinning and website). It also had the producing of Intellectual Outputs, as follows. The methodology consisted of making a diagnosis on the good practices used, making a Survey of the state of the art of each of the partner countries on experiences in Game-Based Learning and Gamification innovative pedagogical scenarios (IO1). Afterwards, the partners researched for training plans on GBL&G and collaboratively designed a training plan on GBL&G (IO2). The teachers in training applied/monitored what they have learnt, analysed their pedagogical practices, reflected on them and shared it by presenting it to the partners in the following moment of training, and posting it on the online Training Course platform (IO3). At the end of this project, the partners had already built an eBook with Apps and Pedagogical Practices using Game-Based Learning and Gamification (IO4) and also wrote a book on ""Experiences and perceptions of pedagogical practices with Game-based Learning and Gamification"", from teachers involved in the project and other experts. The strongest impact felt was inside the schools, the transformation of the pedagogical practices of the teachers involved and students that acquired a set of skills by being active actors in the construction of their own learning. The potential future benefit is the change of the practices of all teachers in each school involved and also the promotion of a new type of student: more collaborative, creative, communicative and thinking critically, prepared to be an active citizen, willing to take a part in the world."