<< Background >>The desire to continue a long-time project – Spreadthesign –, and the drive to provide a more innovative approach on making sign language contents available and accessible in different European countries, was what led us to the idea for this project. So, on the one hand, we aim to keep addressing the target group needs – deaf pupils, their teacher and families –, namely by the production of new contents in sign language for beginners, which is an area to be explored since many of those teacher and families are hearing and lack knowledge and vocabulary in sign language. That way, through the products we will produce, we intend to contribute to expand their skills and competences in sign language and, therefore, to establish better communication processes with their deaf pupils and children. This is an undeniable right of the deaf, to have access to education, culture, information and other aspects of social life, in their own language, the sign language. In this way, a new sign language – Serbian sign language – will also be added to the Spreadthesign dictionary, increasing the number of partners and sign languages represented on it, and also provide more opportunities for the Serbian deaf and hearing to develop more competences in their languages or learn new languages. On the other hand, with the introduction of the contents related to the partner countries’ traditions, characteristics and facts, and also the mobile app and the quiz to incorporate all these contents, we aimed to operate an innovation, in the way that there are no similar tools available both at national and international levels. So, the deaf pupils will be able to learn aspects from different European countries, to know other cultures, other languages, and doing so by means of digital and interactive means and platforms.This will not only provide the opportunity to expand the knowledge of their own country but also to nourish a feeling of European belonging, seeing that there are other realities and contexts to explore and new people to meet. And it will also increment the digital transition for educational settings announced and planned in Europe during the last decade. Education and learning are now more flexible concerning the “where” and the “when”, and our mobile application and the content it will carry – in different sign and written languages – will be another step further to allow deaf pupils and other people to learn sign language in mobility contexts, be it in everyday situations locally, or abroad while visiting or studying in another country. The requests made by the target groups, asking for sign language materials and contents, has been in our minds since the beginning of this process, and it is because of such requests that this partnership put together the above mentioned ideas, to address those requests and, with the outcomes to be available, to have an impact on those people’s lives. The need for simple and easy ways to learn sign language, as beginners, has always been there, but we have been focusing on other projects and features until now. In this new call we feel we are ready to take on this big and important task. This is also related to the fact that in many of our partner countries, national online dictionaries have never been developed by those who should do it for their deaf citizens, namely the governments or other national institutions. Our dictionary www.spreadthesign.com has been doing that through EU fundings since 2006, and has already had nominations by the European Commission as Best Practice project in the areas of inclusion. Deaf people belong to a minority group in each national society, often secluded from the important centres of decision and often kept away from educational and cultural contexts. We hope that through the development of the project products, and the dissemination of our work in the community, more people get to know sign language and get to know and relate with deaf people.<< Objectives >>The practical aim of this project is to develop contents and materials in sign languages of the 15 partner countries, so that they become accessible to deaf pupils and other beginners in sign language, through an easy to use platform (mobile app) and a website in which they can learn and explore those contents. Through this we configure the ultimate goals of this project:- We want to fight for literacy for the deaf and increase the communication between the hearing and the deaf, to promote an inclusive society.- We want the small “islands” of deaf pupils spread around in Europe to learn about each others’ national traditions, what is typical, geography, and so on, in their first language, in the national sign language of their own.- We want them to be able to get a wider range of vocabulary with the help of an e-learning quiz, so that they develop themselves cognitively, achieve academic success and become active and participative citizens in their countries and at European levels. All that in one mobile app and on the website, too. On top of that, we want to add a brand-new country to the dictionary, one that did not have its sign language accessible on the web before. This will be Serbian sign language and the partner will try to reach 15.000 words/signs. This will enable more deaf and hearing people from Serbia to learn their sign language and also to learn written and sign languages of other countries. Their flag should be seen here:https://www.spreadthesign.com/sv.se/select_language/?back=%2Fsv.se%2Fsearch%2F%3F The partnership of this project will incorporate 15 partners. Together we will cover a big part of the European map and get a large impact on the production and dissemination of contents in different sign languages and written languages. The massive translation work of all scripts into all 15 written and sign languages will make this educational material very accessible for different target groups in need. We want to contribute to raise the knowledge and skills in sign language in the population of the partner countries, and simultaneously we seek to increase the awareness of the European context we are in, all of this through means that promote the digital transition in terms of education and learning.<< Implementation >>Concerning the production activities of the project we will have:- A sign language learning tool for beginners, with everyday sentences and important expressions- Video contents in sign language with the presentation in sign language videos of each partner country- A quiz, as an educational game for deaf pupils to learn the contents in a more attractive way- A new partner (Serbia) and its sign language so that the Spreadthesign dictionary keeps enlarging the amount of contents available for European deaf people Concerning the project’s dynamics, we will have project meetings where team elements from each country participate, to build the pedagogical script for the educational material to be produced in the project. A lot of the staff from each country are deaf, so we will have sign language interpreters in the meetings. These meetings will be both physical and virtual, especially if the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic are still in place. In this case we will be flexible and implement hybrid meetings too, to achieve the goals of the project. We will also implement testing and proofreading of the products (translations, videos, quiz and mobile app). Testing will be done with teachers and deaf pupils of each country. Feedback from the users is essential to get a final product that will be used and works well, and that meets their needs and expectations. Each partner has their own network, within their own country, through which our final products and results will be disseminated to the target groups. If the production phase is of utmost importance, the discussion and debate in the meetings or through other means (sharing platforms, online meetings, e-mails), and also the dissemination of the products, will be the core of our work. The things we want to implement are to be seen and divulged into the community, so our efforts will be another link in a chain that started our first project in 2006.<< Results >>With our project, we aim to put sign language in the hands of even more people in our partner countries, both when they speak sign language, and when they learn it through our website and app, wherever they are, whenever they want or need it. Only through this flexibility, provided by digital means, we will be able to reach more people, to let them know about deaf people and sign languages, and to raise the awareness that we are diverse within our neighbourhoods, our schools, our countries, our continents, our world. In the “Sign language for beginners in Europe - Spread the sign” project there is a big economic advantage and a running start, as the sign language dictionary www.spreadthesign.com is already developed and widely implemented in our partner countries, through previous EU-funded projects. Therefore, we will now implement a new innovative feature based on the past work. It consists of a mobile app with sign language for beginners, with new contents in sign language, with country presentations in sign video and a quiz. It will be designed to have an attractive and intuitive interface to promote fast and easy to learn processes. Also, given the amount of daily users that the dictionary already has around Europe, this new-featured app will gain a very large impact instantly within the deaf schools of Europe. Our dissemination activities will enable this impact and will increase the use of the dictionary and app as a pedagogical and learning tool. With our work, we seek to contribute to the expansion of educational and lifetime horizons for deaf and hard-of-hearing pupils, as well as to provide important tools for teachers of the deaf and, ultimately, to contribute to social inclusion, by increasing the levels of literacy and social participation of deaf people in democratic life. The Spreadthesign dictionary aims to do this expansion on an increasingly global scale, throughout Europe and the World, as a provider of a accessible sign language, as an enabler of human and cultural rights, as an enhancer of better educational pathways and a promoter of social and cultural inclusion for the deaf.“Imagine if all deaf children could be united under one language - worldwide, a kind of Esperanto. But of course, due to different cultures, it remains just a dream.” From HM Queen Silvia´s speach at the launch of Spreadthesign in 2009. Sign language is not the same everywhere. It is as different as the spoken languages. Otherwise, there would not be a great need for our website spreadthesign.com.

In the EU member states, approximately 750.000 people are deaf from an early age and use a sign language as their preferred language. Deaf people not only have their own language, but also their own culture: Deaf Culture. The education of deaf children has a long -, and controversial - history going back centuries. Today, most hearing people do know about sign language, but they may know little or nothing about Deaf Culture, Deaf Education.Deaf Clubs, for centuries the centres of Deaf Culture, are disappearing quickly or have vanished already. Most deaf children are now mainstreamed. As a result, the heritage of Deaf people is at risk. In the Deaf Museums project, we will develop Open Educational Resources (OER), including an online training course in museum and general entrepreneurial skills for and by Deaf sign language users, to promote, preserve and share the Deaf Heritage.The Deaf Museums project has 2 long term goals:1.To promote, preserve and share the Deaf Heritage and by doing so: to promote Deaf awareness in the widest sense possible.2.To improve the employability of Deaf sign language users and the success of Deaf entrepreneurs by providing them with the necessary mindset and skills.In so doing, it will support the Erasmus+ goals for the participants in Strategic Partnerships: increased capacity and professionalism to work at EU/international level: improved management competences and internationalisation strategies; reinforced cooperation with partners from other countries and other cultures. Short term objectives of the project are:1.To develop online Open Educational Resources including a training course in basic Museum skills, for and by Deaf sign language users. The course will include examples, guidelines, signed stories and case studies, all produced and/or tested by the participants in the project. Included will be topics that state of the art mainstream museums are addressing: “Who are museums for and why are they working to engage new audiences? How do visitors respond emotionally to museum objects and spaces? And how can museums play a role in the pursuit of social justice, human rights, or health and well being?” (https://www.culturepartnership.eu/en/article/5-free-online-courses-for-museum-workers). Special attention will be given to the use of social media and ICT tools. All information will be in International Sign, written English, and as many of the partners’ signed and written languages as possible.2.To output case studies and good examples of museum exhibitions (e.g. about Deaf Culture, Deaf Art, Deaf people during WWII, Deaf migrants, Deaf in the European Union), produced by the participants in the project. The case studies and exhibitions will be included as examples in the training course and will be used to promote the project and disseminate its results both during and after the project's lifetime. 3.To research the state of the art in this field through surveys and interviews, to use the results to set up a platform for the promotion of real and virtual Deaf museums and Deaf Heritage initiatives, nationally, across Europe and globally, and to promote and support transnational collaboration in this field.Methodology and participating organisationsThe participating organisations represent a diverse mix of organisations from different fields of education, training, and other socio-economic sectors, including institutes of higher education, NGO's and SME's, from 7 European countries. In the consortium, participants from 'the Deaf world' and from the 'mainstream Museum world' will work together to produce high quality results and output by sharing and comparing each other's expertise. Our methodology will be based on peer-learning and challenge-based learning. Partners as well as several invited experts will share their expertise in specific fields. Partners will be asked to find solutions for the challenges that Museums in general, and Deaf Museums in particular have to deal with. They will learn practical entrepreneurial skills by planning, producing, promoting and evaluating the exhibitions that they will develop during the project. At each consortium meeting, they will be interviewed about the work they have done and about lessons learned. These interviews will be included in the OER and will be used to disseminate information about the project, both during and after the project's lifetime.Impact and potential longer term benefitsInterest in the Deaf Heritage and Deaf Culture and how to preserve and share these, has been growing rapidly in recent years. Therefore, we expect the project to have a major impact on Deaf people and Deaf Organisations in general, and on Deaf Museums and similar initiatives in particular. We also expect the project to have impact on mainstream Museum professionals. Long term benefits: bridging gaps between generations of Deaf people, between Deaf and hearing people, and between Deaf and mainstream Museum professionals.

"""Everybody should learn how to program because it teaches you how to think..."" Steve Jobs Digital access is a right and not a privilege, and as such the consortium pioneers to address the right for access and participation of a neglected group of young people/students with deafness and/or hearing impairment to introduce them to the world of coding and robotics thus opening up for them new routes for careers orientation and further studies.Programming and computational thinking skills are becoming ever more important in our society and working life. Today, a growing number of countries in Europe and internationally are refocusing their ICT curricula on developing students’ computer programming and coding skills, and introducing the topic in national, regional or school curricula.The European Commission's European Disability Strategy 2010-2020, adopted in 2010, builds on the UNCRPD which emphasis is that accessibility, participation, equality, education and training and others aspects are of great importance. Based on the above the project addresse the following priorities:HORIZONTAL: Strengthening the profiles of the teaching professionThe target group of school teachers (mainly IT or from related fields or any other interested in the field of coding and robotics) who work with students-young people with deafness or hearing impariment either in formal schools (mainstream schools or special schools or school for deaf or special units as per the regulations in each partner country) or in non-formal settings. In this group, the consortium includes sign language teacher who are interested to be educated to support and help students with deafness to learn how to code and how to program a robot, who can have various backgrounds. The profiles of the above teachers will be upgraded and strengthened through the professional development programme to be developed to acquire the digital, coding and robotics skills to support students. All the material to be developed as part of the INCLUSIVE DUAL ROBOTICS4DEAF PACK both on-line and off-line accompanied with multi-media tools and resources to target the needs and requiement of students with deafness will support teachers’ practices. HORIZONTAL: Social inclusion The project targets students with deafness and hearing impairments. Deaf people are very different in their way to communicate with the hearing world; however they share a common barrier in the language. Language is not developed as typically in childhood, due to the lack of input, both from a quantitative (bilateral neurosensory hearing loss in the volume of sound perceived in decibels), and from a qualitative point of view (type of sounds perceived on frequencies measured in hertz). As a result language of deaf and hard of hearing children is often insufficient, both in comprehension and in production. In understanding, deaf people can use a compensatory strategy for the impairment (such as hearing aids, cochlear implants, subtitles), and/or with a real alternative language, the Sign Language.Disability is thus not just a health problem. It is a complex phenomenon, reflecting the interaction between features of a person’s body and features of the society in which he or she lives. Overcoming the difficulties interventions to remove environmental and social barriers. As a result the main aims of the project are to:- ensure access, participation and inclusion of students in the digitalised labour market as purported by the 2018 Digital Education Action Plan- ensure gender equality and non-discrimination for girls in relation to supporting the access to digital technologies and skills. The project aims to equip the above group of young people/students with digital, robotics and coding skills in order to support their employability prospects and ensure social inclusion in the digitalisation of the labour market.HORIZONTAL: Supporting individuals in acquiring and developing basic skills and key competences HORIZONTAL: Open education and innovative practices in a digital era In the above context the project comes to address the recommendation of the recent EC Report titled “New priorities for EU cooperation ET 2020” Report (COM 2015- 408), which stresses that “knowing how to code is empowering. It allows to understand the digital world we live in and to shape it. Basic coding skills are essential for accessing the jobs of tomorrow and today” and for achieving a better skills-match between education and the world of work. “Coding is seen as the red thread that runs through future professions”.The 2016 ‘Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition’ reinforces the need of all to help meet the high demand for digital skills in Europe which are essential in today's job market and society. Europe is lacking digitally skilled persons to fill job vacancies in all sectors, missing out on up to 750,000 Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) professional jobs by 2020."

On one hand, integrating young Deaf people into the job market is a key challenge; a high percentage of them are unemployed, and those who are employed are often in low-skilled and low-paid jobs. Nowadays, the education on offer for Deaf people in Europe is sparse, and heavily focused on school and apprenticeships, rather than long-term employment. With EU funding, it is necessary to export its concept across Europe, boosting training for Deaf people, helping them to find jobs.Every European citizen has got equal rights in participating at the active and democratic life of Europe and language is the most important instrument to communicate and convey ideas and feelings. For this reason, since Sign Languages are the mother tongues of many Deaf youth, it is important to promote the use of Sign Languages in every context in order to facilitate their empowerment and inclusion.On the other hand, the concept of a museum is no longer just a physical place where artworks are collected and housed, but is conceived as an active institution that should offer a diversified range of services to make art and culture accessible to all people with disabilities. Museums need to adapt to a diversifying society and shall offer accessibility to inclusive, comprehensive and creative educational experiences that embrace and foster cultural, social diversity, and provide to everyone the ability to live and participate equally in a pluralistic society. Based on this framework, the main project objective is to find ways to diversify the museum, its interpretative tools and practices in order to become a tool for Deaf youth social inclusion. For this purpose, the partnership built an educational model engaging Deaf youth in art training for becoming museum guides for Deaf audience, so to favor their social and working inclusion, and the engagement of Deaf audience in the museums. The activities implemented in Austria, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Romania, Slovakia were as follows:-Context analysis in six partner countries collecting 30 existing learning experiences, services and activities to enable Deaf youth to learn about art and to increase the engagement of Deaf audience in the museums and in cultural activities. The results from the context analysis, in terms of knowledge, competences and approaches, represented the first contribution to the development of MADE educational model.-5-days learning activity addressed to 16 (and 6 additional participants) young Deaf and hearing trainers experienced in art disciplines or Deaf education from all partners countries in order to build new training model and curriculum to engage Deaf youth in art training for becoming museum guides.-Development of MADE educational model for Deaf youth, a tailor-made training programme including 4 learning modules aimed at enabling Deaf youth to acquire transversal skills and professional competences to become a museum guide. The Educational model and learning materials are available in the partners languages.-Development of a Toolkit meant as a virtual space hosting the learning and teaching materials developed within the Educational Model, available both in written partner languages and national Sign Languages as well as International Sign Language addressed to young Deaf trainees and trainers.-Implementation of six national study circles involving 60 Deaf and hearing trainers, experts in the field of art and Deaf teaching, museum institutions representatives for analyzing the Educational Model adapting it to the national contexts.-Testing of MADE educational model in six partners countries through the implementation of at least 30 teaching hours and the simulation of museum tour involving 85 Deaf youth and 27 Deaf and hearing trainers in cooperation with national museums.-Six multiplier events in the partner countries, involving 150 participants, aimed at presenting the MADE educational model advantages and methodology to the Deaf community, stakeholder organisations such as museum institutions, educational and training centers, public institutions working on the field of social inclusion and labour market.The main target groups involved in the activities were: Deaf youth, young Deaf and hearing trainers, museum institutions, VET providers working in the field of Deaf education, Deaf community and general public interested to the project topics.The project results positively impacted on the MADE target groups who directly or indirectly participated to the project activities. Mainly the young Deaf people benefited by the project results empowering their soft skills and professional competences so to undertake a new job opportunity. The other target groups benefited from the project activities by increasing their awareness of the need to diversify and offer educational programmes adapted to the specific needs of Deaf young people and by expanding opportunities to make art accessible to the whole Deaf community using sign language.

The main aim of the project was to provide the deaf vocational students from all over Europe with a fully accessible visual tool to acquire better language and communication skills in both, spoken and sign language, within their profession of education – and through this also to potentiate the students’ cognitive skills and facilitates coping in the work and study environments in general. A total of 420 360-degree images were photographed in each 14 partner country in a wide diversity of vocational and work environments, form very practical to highly academic ones. In each 360 photo numerous profession specific objects were captured , that got a clickable hotspot and connection to the corresponding videos in the partner countries’ sign languages. All the photos were added to an already existing online educational tool - an international sign languages` dictionary Spreadthesign (www.spreadthesign.com). Spreadthesign is a free visual sign language dictionary on the web that started out as a Leonardo pilot project in 2006 and today it inholds more than 580.000 sign language videos from 40 countries all over Europe and beyond. Sign languages are different all around the world and there do not exist any other dictionaries of the kind, where so many different sign languages with such a huge number of entries are presented. That is why there is a need for creating, maintaining and developing further the sign language dictionary Spreadthesign. The second project aim was to support the educational needs of deaf Slovakian students by adding 15.000 sign language videos in Slovakianto the Spreadthesign dictionary and make the Slovakian Sign Language accessible to the native users of it as well as everyone else who needs to learn it as a foreign language. Adding the 360-degree photo feature to the online dictionary is truly vocational, visual and innovative, created for the deaf vocational students and their trainers, but also to all the other specialists, co-students and colleagues who need to communicate with the deaf people in any kind of professional or educational setting – this also applies for student exchange situations, where the deaf need to cope in a foreign language environment. Due to the hearing loss, the unfavourable growing-up environment (as 95-98% of the deaf children are born to the hearing parents, who don`t know any sign language themselves to be able to support the development of their child enough) and limited access to information and communication, the deaf are a disadvantaged group in need of better language skills. The 360 will facilitate their integration process to the vocabulary of their future work life, as well as their educational opportunities by helping them to learn the vocational sign language and the professional spoken language which they struggle to acquire due to the hearing loss and tend to have a huge backlog in compared to their hearing peers.Some of the general objectives were:1) To support the social inclusion and integration of the deaf and raise awareness.2) To provide equal educational opportunities to deaf and people with hearing disabilities from partner countries.3) To support vocational trainers in their work with deaf students with a freely accessible and easy to use tool.The specific objectives were:1) To enrich the on-line visual dictionary Spreadthesign with video recordings of the Slovakian Sign Language.2) To offer an open, modern and advanced platform on the web (www.spreadthesign.com), and App, for sign language learning, to people all over Europe. 4) To organise National Conferences to spread the project's products and results.These fourteen transnational partners with the relevant, but also complimentary experience, carried out the project successfully:- European Sign Language Center in Sweden- Mert Öztüre Special Education Vocational High School in Turkey- UNIVERSITAET KLAGENFURT in Ausria- Savez gluhih i nagluhih grada Zagreba in Croatia- Vyssi odborna skola, Stredni skola, Zakladni skola a Materska skola, Hradec Kralove In Czeck Republic - Kuulmispuudega Laste Õpetajate Selts in Estonia- Rheinisch-Westfälisches Berufskolleg Essen in Germany- UNIVERSITA CA' FOSCARI VENEZIA In Italy- Kauno kurciuju ir neprigirdinciuju ugdymo centras in Lithuania- Polski Zwiazek Gluchych Oddzial Lodzki in Poland- UNIVERSIDADE DO PORTO in Portugal- DeafStudio in Slovakia- UNIVERSIDAD REY JUAN CARLOS in SpainWe also got an added value to the project with three partner countries from the Eastern partnership - Ukraine, Russia and Belarus, who joined this Erasmus project too via Swedish Institute funding’s and their Baltic seed projects.