The area of disability includes physical, mental, developmental and age-related disorders. People facing these problems, encounter several major obstacles that prevent them from seamlessly integrating in society. Nowadays more and more of these people have their capabilities, rather than their disabilities, recognized and accepted by the general public. The rapid technological advance of past decades, has also triggered a dramatic progress in technology usage for assistive and training purposes. Since true inclusiveness, and deinstitutionalization process pass through all the professionals involved in the care of persons with disabilities, from the lowest levels to the highest ones, there is an increasing need to integrate existing skills, with new approaches and competences, able to properly meet these new challenges. New and up to date training curricula need to be developed, to respond to the needs of social care employees and properly take advantage of new opportunities offered by technologies. DDSKILLS project, aims to develop an Alliance for providing new competences and skills for Health and Social care sector professionals supporting persons with Disabilities and Mental Health Problems. Within the proposed training qualification of DDSKILLS project, skills shortages will be verified and addressed on EU scale, relevant knowledge and learning outcomes will be discussed and finally mapped to ECVET points and EQF levels and project will be promoted at European Level. Professional caregivers (Occupational therapists, Psychologists, Social Workers, Special education teachers, Nurses, Gerontologists, Rehabilitation experts) will be able to follow these courses to learn how the use of new technological devices(sensors, assistive devices, robots, virtual and augmented reality headsets, brain Computer Interfaces).

Teaching is a very stressful profession. Researchers point out that one of the sources for that stress is dealing with challenging student behavior . By challenging, we mean behavior that is oppositional, defiant and overall uncooperative. Handling disciplinary issues or better, not being able to handle disciplinary issues, is one of the major reasons for teacher attrition (Ingersoll, 2001a· 2001b), particularly for novice teachers. Moreover, failed attempts at managing challenging behavior in the classroom is a cause for many hours of instruction lost. Self efficacy, the perceived ability to influence outcomes (Bandura, 1977), is very important for teachers (Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2007). Teachers' low self-efficacy in managing student behavior is considered one of the variables that have a longitudinal effect on teacher burnout (Brouwers & Tomic, 2000).Pre-service (prospective) teachers while attending university they are informed about behavior disorders and strategies to deal with them. It is only only probable, however, that while placed at a practicum, pre-service teachers do not come into contact with behaviors that we would consider challenging. The supervision provided by a professional teacher during teaching practice takes away from the novice the authenticity of the teaching experience and short but eliminates the chance of having to deal with problems of student conduct.Giving teachers the opportunity to deal with challenging behaviors in a controlled environment with the appropriate supervision would improve their level of professional preparedness or effectiveness (if already professionals) and decrease their chances of developing burnout and eventually dropping out of the profession. Such an opportunity can be simulated by using Virtual Reality technology in a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). A Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) includes simulated students (Avatars) that provide teachers the opportunity to develop their pedagogical practice in a safe environment that doesn’t place real students at risk. Through the experience of training in a VLE prospective teachers practice the management skills they need to become effective in their chosen professions, and pre-service teachers can hone and refine their skills. For the purposes of our project participating pre-service and professional teachers will be teaching one STEM or one language based subject (Language, history etc) while supervised by an experience trainer. In the VLE the teachers will respond to student-avatars who may exhibit some kind of inattentive, oppositional of defiant behavior.Overall VIRTUOUS intends to create a compendium of all behavior management techniques and methods that have been documented to be effective and develop a training curriculum that will teach those skills. A number of teaching scripts (scenarios) aligned with that curriculum will be developed in the context of teaching STEM and language based subjects (Language, History, Religion). We will develop the student-avatars and a Virtual Learning Environment in which the trainee will be enacting the scenarios and finally evaluate the effectiveness of our program. There will be 10 participants (5 novice or prospective teachers, 5 professional teachers) who will be trained in a VLE to exercise their behavior management skills.Our intention is to develop a new paradigm for training teachers by creating an environment with ample opportunities for trainees to develop, or hone behavior management skills. We aspire to further develop this paradigm so as to encompass all teaching subjects and eventually offer a convincing case to universities or schools of pedagogy to adopt our paradigm as the least threatening, full of training opportunities, inexpensive and effective way of imparting new skills to prospective teachers.

"The latest OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) data show that one in five pupils in the EU has insufficient proficiency in reading, mathematics and science. Between 2012 and 2015, the trend in underachievement for the EU as a whole has worsened. In the countries involved in the OECD Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC) 2012, between 5% and 28% of adults are proficient at only the lowest levels in literacy and 8% to 32% are proficient at only the lowest levels in numeracy. According to the European Commission's contribution to the Leaders' meeting in Gothenburg(17/11/2017), the share of pupils with low achievements in mathematics has been stagnating for years at around 20%. These young people will encounter serious problems on the labour market. IDEA project through experiential action aims to address underachievement in the basic skills of maths. It aims at working effectively in relation to the subject of mathematics (covering maths material of the first 3 grades of the primary school including addition, subtraction, fractions, measuring length in millimeters and centimeters, decimal numbers, patterns, multiplication, division, geometrical shapes, etc) focusing on the ""multiplication table"" because of the complexity and the succession of manoeuvres needed for its application. IDEA project through experiential action will be fostering critical thinking skills by addressing cultural context in teaching science. IDEA comes to help teachers help students overcome their fear of maths. IDEA's 3D cultural games, will make pupils work effectively fulfilling missions, including confidence-building mini-games that look challenging but enable all students to do well. Experiential Teaching methodologies and learning by doing will be utilized to develop teachers’ relevant professional skills and boost pupils’ confidence and self-efficacy in maths, but also social, civic, linguistic and intercultural competencies.The project will be based on cartoon 3D environments representing selected cultural routes, one in each participating country. In these environments, with the help of mini-games, tasks and missions, the students will be able to interact with the 3D objects and get points, rewards and badges. The innovation of the 3D environments is that those will be available on web browsers (WebGL) and tablets, and that the content will be dynamically updated by the teachers through their web browser or tablet. Teachers will be able to select the mini-games they want, customize and translate the content, add narration, select the rewards and set up a personalized training path for each trainee.""IDEA PLATFORM"" will be built using state of the art technologies and will be available in WebGL format that can run on any browser without the need for plugins. The platform will be free for all schools and parents to use. The platform will be open and more training material (math or other) would be possible to be added and used for training purposes. Free Apps with training scenarios will be offered through Google Play for Android. The consortium is composed from 10 partners from 4 European Countries (Greece, Cyprus, Ireland, Spain) collecting all the required expertise in the design and development of interdisciplinary tools and learning by doing methodologies for maths training, covering maths material of the first 3 grades of the primary school. The duration of the project is 24 months. As far for the implementation plan of IDEA this is structured around the main goal of the project that is to deliver the foreseentraining tools and evaluate it against real needs of students. Thus, the first activity foresees the drafting of the pedagogicalframework of the IDEA platform. The activities that follow deal with the scenarios development (exercises covering the basic skills of the maths course of the first 3 grades of the primary school). From the proposed cultural scenarios the needs for 3D models, animations and graphics will be determined. Next these assets will be developed and together with the required mechanisms and game mechanics to support maths skills development will be integrated in the IDEA Educational 3D Game platform. In parallel, 2 teachers from each school will follow the short term joint staff training event from Galway University in Game Based Learning, Digital Storytelling and the use of Tablets in Primary Education. Real application and evaluation of the platform will then take place with the participation of the schools for an entire school year. During this period multiplier events will be taking place in order to disseminate the project's outputs. The training contents that are going to be produced as a result of IDEA project will be offered as Open Educational Resources (OERs) under a Creative Commons Public License (CCPL)."

"Traffic Safety & Mobility Education in Europe is not a dedicated subject at primary schools in the majority of member states and the way how this education is given to students differs widely across Europe. Moreover, Teachers are not adequately trained on how to deliver road safety activities in class. According to ETSC the way how traffic safety and mobility education is addressed during the education of teachers also differs greatly across Europe. Taken the above into consideration it may come with no surprise that according to the latest WHO Global Status Report on Road Safety (2018), road traffic injuries are the biggest killer that school-age children face worldwide. Every 3 minutes a child or young person dies as a result of road traffic injury: 227,000 children (0-19) die on the world’s roads every year while walking, cycling or riding on motorcycles. For every child who dies, another suffers a life changing disability.MOVING STARS (MOVING Safely To All RoadS) project aims to bridge this gap by bringing together schools, road safety experts, teachers and advanced educational applications developers to design, implement and validate an innovative games-based learning/teaching programme for Traffic Safety & Mobility Education. The project objectives are to O1: set the pedagogical framework of the training programme for the delivery of Traffic Safety and Mobility Education through traditional movement based learning games and interactive Serious Games techniques. O2: develop a Training Programme that will provide critical support to primary school teachers as they utilize various types of games and interactive activities in order to teach Road Safety. O3: design and develop a movement-based learning game app using motion sensing input devices, O4: Create a Hub for traffic safety exploiting the project outputs at selected schools that will consist the Network of 100 pilot schools, and O5: develop and pilot a systematic validation methodology that could identify the measurable impact of the proposed approach.The work is divided into 7 main activities, namely: A1 PROJECT MANAGEMENT & QUALITY ASSURANCE (Leader: RSI. Contributors: all partners)A2 DEFINITION OF THE PEDAGOGICAL FRAMEWORK (Leader: RSI. Contributors: all partners) A3 TRAINING PROGRAMME & MATERIAL DEVELOPMENT (Leader: RSI. Contributors: all partners) A4 Application development (Leader: OMEGA Contributors: all partners) A5 SCHOOL IMPLEMENTATION & TRAINING ACTIVITIES (Leader: RSI. Contributors: all partners) A6 EVALUATION AND VALIIDATION (Leader: INNOFY Contributors: RSI, ITS, Escola) A7 DISSEMINATION & EXPLOITATION ACTIVITIES (Leader: RSI Contributors: all partners)Seven partners with complementary competences are joining forces in order to achieve desired results and to develop a series of innovative outputs that can improve the situation in the participating European countries:The Greek Road Safety institute (RSI) ""Panos Mylonas"", based in Greece, has been a pioneer in Traffic Safety & Mobility Education in Greece. Since 2009 RSI has trained more than 220,000 students and 800 teachers of primary and secondary schools. RSI has promoted and advocated for the introduction of Traffic Safety & Mobility Education in Greek schools as a compulsory subject. It has been selected by the Ministry of Education as one of the major organizations to consult the Ministry and participate in the development of relevant resources (Educational Radiotelevision road safety videos and digital creation contest). ITS, based in Poland, is the main Traffic Safety and Mobility Education provider in its country and has developed educational materials for teachers and students on different road safety issues, class scenarios, aids for teachers etc. OMEGA, based in Greece, is an IT company with expertise in 3D e-learning applications among others. OMEGA has already developed the e-Drive Academy (www.edrive.yme.gov.gr) under the auspices of the Ministry of Infrastructure, Transport and Networks, a platform dealing with Road Safety training and awareness issues. INNOFY, based in Greece, is a Compliance and Enterprise Risk Management Services company in Greece recognized for Responsible Research and Innovation services. Escola A. Aguilera, based in Spain, is a center of education for early childhood and primary education in Terrassa. Zographeion, based in Turkey, is a minority school in Instabul and Kildare Town Educate Together, based in Ireland, is a primary school that caters for children from Junior Infants(4 Years old) to 6th Class (12 years old)."

Background In the last 2 decades, education and research have been inextricably linked to advanced technologies. The area which has not been thoroughly investigated yet is that of “real-time education” with experimentation and collaboration between different Institutions. This constitutes a hybrid space located between the virtual and real space. The scientific coordinator of this proposal, Professor M. Santorineos and his research group, have been working towards this direction for more than 10 years. Different experimentations have been developed in physical and virtual space, towards the definition of a collaborative virtual space for artistic education and experimentation, under Erasmus Intensive Programs (Delphi, Greece 2004, 07, 09 and in Paris, 2008). Those activities were organized by Athens School of Fine Arts (ASFA), University Paris 8 and other institutions. Throughout those periods of experimentations, it was not feasible to produce an integrated platform fully supporting the idea of a virtual artistic laboratory. Eventually, with the support of Erasmus+ this idea has become a reality. Objectives The main objective of @postasis is the use of the existing educational and research experience, together with advanced creative technologies, towards the conception of a platform capable of supporting and unifying under a common infrastructure, collaborative education with real-time experimentations, and the production of joint artistic projects and large-scale events. A particular characteristic that makes @postasis platform important and interesting is that it combines – on equal terms – advanced technology with an educational methodology. Each professor / teacher / instructor takes an empty ‘intelligent’ space with lots of technical facilities and creates his/her own environment and course.Participants Athens School of Fine Arts (www.asfa.gr) and Paris-8 University (www.univ-paris8.fr) the initiators of this idea, have contributed the main educational requirements and methodologies. Omega Technology (www.omegatech.gr) a software company specialized in digital culture implemented the backend infrastructure, MAD Emergent Art Center (https://madlab.nl/), a non-profit organization targeting self-education concepts provided the platform's interaction with a wider audience and its technological connection to the physical space through Internet-of-Things (IoT) technology, and ARGENIA (argenia.it), an association for Generative Art has covered related theoretical and educational aspects. Activities During the 28 months of the project’s implementation, the partners have developed an interesting technological infrastructure, the platform @postasis, which offers a creative environment towards innovative Intellectual Outputs: Apart from the backend infrastructure of @postasis supporting real-time virtual multiuser spaces and the interconnections between them, a set of front-end tools were also created (Behavior Interactive Interface, IoT connectivity especially for @postasis). All these gave the οpportunity for different methodologies of use, innovative educational scenarios to Fine Arts Schools, Universities, and secondary schools. In addition, interactive projects were created, as well as real-time theatrical performances in collaboration with Festivals, and art exhibitions in the linked physical and virtual spaces in collaboration with the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens. Those actions adressed different stakeholders, students, artists, indie developers, curators, professors and school teachers.The above results have been presented to the 5 Multiplier Events realized by the consortium highlighting different aspects of @postasis Intellectual Outputs. A great part has been recorded to printed or audiovisual material and is accessible through the website of the project. Results and impact More than 8 innovative educational proposals (workshops, seminars, courses) have been produced, illustrating different uses of @postasis platform, and addressing different levels of knowledge, and types of education (e.g. academic, self-education, STEAM, deeper learning). A rich set of materials have been produced, e.g. texts, interactive 3D content, multiuser project templates, DIY manuals, etc. Most of the educational proposals are documented, also, theoretically. A lot of people and Institutions are interested to use the platform and its results.Longer-term benefits @postasis platform provides a space which is powerful, creative and highly aware of the needs of contemporary artistic education, as to real-time experimentation. It is a structure that enables the production of artworks and educational materials in different levels, and it has a special library with all the experience archived. The composite structure of the platform and its capabilities anticipate the development of an international network of people working in the field of education and the creation of new ideas.