"The Hessian Teacher Training Academy (Hessische Lehrkräfteakademie) is applying for a strategic partnership (type""Best Practice"") with the teacher training departments of the JAMK University of Applied Sciences in Jyväskylä (JYVASKYLAN AMMATTIKORKEAKOULU) and the University of Tallinn, the VÕRUMAA KUTSEHARIDUSKESKUS, a vocational school in Southern Estonia, and Gradia's Vocational College in Jyväskylä as an associated partner. It is the goal of the partnership to exchange teacher trainers, teachers and teacher trainees from different countries to come together and to develop teaching concepts and materials on the overall topic ""Teaching and Learning in Heterogeneous Classes at Vocational Schools"". This is supposed to happen during three workshops that alternatively take place in Hesse (Germany), Tallinn (Estonia), and Jyväskylä (Finland). To each workshop the Hessian Teacher Training Academy will be sending two teacher trainers and four teacher trainees, JAMK University of Applied Sciences in Jyväskylä four teacher trainers, Tallinn University four teacher trainers, the vocational school in Voru one teacher, and the vocational college in Jyväskylä as an associated partner also some teachers. The first workshop in Hesse, which takes place in November 2019, is about ""Dealing with Diversity in Vocational Classes"", the second workshop is about ""Teaching Entrepreneurial Competences in Individualized Learning Contexts"". This workshop takes place in Tallinn in April 2020. The third workshop deals with the ""Promotion of Individualized Learning with the Help of Digital Media."" This workshop is supposed to take place in Jyväskylä in November 2020. To prepare each workshop in advance the project coordinators of each partner institution will meet two months before the workshop in question takes place in the target country. A final meeting of the project coordinators in December 2020 will be about the evaluation of the project work and the future development of the partnership.The innovative aspect of this project lies in the fact that each partner institution has special competences and know how to offer, which the other partner institutions cannot offer to such an extent. The five teacher training centers for vocational schools in Hesse (Kassel, Gießen, Frankfurt, Darmstadt and Wiesbaden) and their staff, which are part of the Hessian Teacher Training Academy, have a lot of know how in the field of dealing with diversity in multicultural vocational classes and the teaching of entrepreneurial competences that it can offer especially to the Estonian partners. These and the JAMK University of Applied Sciences have a lot of competences in the field of teaching and learning through the usage of digital media, which they can offer to the German partner institution. Additionally, another innovative aspect might be the fact that teaching experts, teachers and novices in teaching (Hessian teacher trainees) come together, exchange their teaching experiences and develop teaching concepts and materials to be put into practice later on.As a result of the workshops an E-Book will be developed and made public which covers the results (teaching concepts and materials) of all the three workshops mentioned above."

<< Background >>The pandemic radically changed teaching and learning at brick-and-mortar universities. Declining COVID-19 risks are currently facilitating the comeback to the classroom teaching, but once can be stated: on-campus universities will never be the same. A sound mix of F2F and online teaching seems to be a new reality, whereby F2F teaching has to factor in smaller class cohorts and socially distanced lectures. The recent trend in the post-COVID F2F teaching is hybrid teaching (HT). Before the pandemic, terms HT and blended learning were used interchangeably and stood for the mix of online and f2f learning activities. The meaning of HT in times of COVID and also in the context of this proposal differs and is meant as a synchronous teaching with F2F and online participants. A teacher has to interact at the same time with on-campus and online students: his lecture is conducted in a physical classroom with one group of students and is broadcasted to another group of participants who are connected to the same lecture online.Thus, HT aims at creating specific learning spaces through interlinking physical and digital learning environments. In these spaces, various teaching and learning scenarios can be implemented, with variety of time, place, number of students, collaborative and individual tasks. HT seems be a solution, which could greatly support on-campus universities when designing their post-Covid teaching and meeting the needs of post-Covid students. At the HEI management level, potentials of HT were already recognized and HT solutions are highly demanded. However, HT scenarios require an excellent didactical know-how from teachers. They have not only to manage physical and online learning environments but make the best from the both worlds. The field research demonstrates a lack of supporting materials for teachers in the field of HT. It seems very urgent to provide teachers with guidance materials demonstrating strong HT scenarios and their pedagogical value.On the other hand, HT requires from teachers increased time when planning and implementing hybrid sessions. We believe, HT could benefit from virtual conversational assistants, the so-called chatbots. Chatbots are being deployed for different purposes, in education and entertainment. In HE, chatbots may facilitate interactivity, sociability, and knowledge acquisition, assessing learning styles, and harvest feedback in e-learning environments.The implementation of chatbots in HE and, in particular, in HT is still in its infancy. HEI teaching staff lacks knowledge and skills regarding the design and implementation of chatbots, and specific pedagogical competences related to the integration of chatbots into teaching. Moreover, training opportunities on acquiring relating skills are missing, as well. Thus, the project responses to the needs of F2F teachers linked with missing knowledge, skills and competences for the design and deployment of chatbot-based hybrid teaching scenarios.<< Objectives >>Based on considerations above, HYBOT project aims at empowering HEI teachers who mostly work in F2F learning environments, to create and implement hybrid teaching scenarios supported with chatbots. Specific objectives are as follows:1.To enhance teachers’ skills related to the design and implementation of hybrid teaching scenarios,2.To empower teachers to create and deploy chatbots in their hybrid educational settings,3.To improve learners’ experience in HT settings supported with chatbots.<< Implementation >>In order to achieve the project objectives, the partnership will implement a wide range of academic activities, which will deal with the two phenomena, Hybrid teaching and chatbots, separately and in their complexity. First, the partnership will conduct the extended desk research aiming at the identification and collection of available hybrid teaching practices at international level. Where applicable, desk research results will be supplemented with the interviews with HT practitioners. Obtained results will be described in terms of their technological and pedagogical design and implementation, and published in the Compendium of HT practices which will be used by HEI teaching staff as a didactical tool when planning their own HT scenarios. Through this activity, we are going to present the state of the art in the field of HT and to promote teachers’ skills relating to HT in informal way, through learning from the experiences of their international peers. In the next step, the partnership will design a methodology for HEI teachers aimed at equipping them with knowledge, skills and competences needed for the creation and implementation of chatbots. An online training program for teachers will be developed by the partnership and piloted with at least 25 participants from the HYBOT countries. To support and increase teachers’ experience with the chatbot design, a chatbot platform will be set up, customized, and populated with a few chatbot scenarios, which will be designed by the partnership for demonstration purposes. Prior to the development of the chatbot platform and training program, designated researchers/teachers from the partnership (2*HEI) will attend a 3-day LTTA led by partner KTU. During the joint LTTA event, the knowledge and skills of the project staff related to the design and development of chatbots, will be trained. In order to demonstrate that the previous activities and results can be successfully deployed under real conditions, a series of pedagogical experiments will be developed and implemented. These experiments will be carried out by teachers, who completed the training program and analysed HT practices from the Compendium. The task of teachers will be to design their own chatbot-based hybrid scenarios, to develop their own chatbots including corresponding resources, to deliver at least 10 chatbot-based hybrid sessions to students, and to report about the implemented experiments in case studies. These case studies will be added to the Compendium of HT practices (PR 1) making the experiments visible to the wider audience. In order to encourage the transnational collaboration among pilot teachers, a Community of Practice (CoP) will be initiated from the very beginning of the project. This loose online network will facilitate the experience exchange and mutual learning among HYBOT teachers in an informal way throughout the project's .The academic activities above will be accompanied by regular dissemination activities inside and outside the consortium. This will help increase the visibility of the project and its results, encourage the transnational collaboration, receive feedback on the activities and results produced, and to maximize project’s impact at regional, national, and European level.<< Results >>In terms of Project Results (PR), 4 following substantial PRs are envisaged:PR1: Compendium of HT practices: state-of-the-art collection of at least 20 HT practices identified and deployed in the countries of the partnership and outside, and enriched with 10 HYBOT-style chatbot-based hybrid teaching scenarios. The aim of the Compendium is to serve as a didactical tool for teachers willing to create and implement own HT scenarios. PR 2: Customized chatbot development tool: the platform adapted to the needs of HYBOT consortium will enable building and connecting intelligent chatbots by teachers inside and outside the consortium. PR 3: online training program on creating and implementing chatbots (including training curriculum, training contents, and online learning environment): the training will aim at enabling HEI teachers to design and implement own chatbots in educational settings. The program of approx. 100 hours will be designed in English and consist of a series of digital learning videos, animations, and supporting scripts embedded in an online learning environment. PR 4: Piloted chatbot-based hybrid sessions: they will be designed and implemented by pilot teachers and supported by chatbots that will be created by teachers, too. This project result can be split in following deliverables:-25 developed chatbot-based hybrid teaching scenarios-25 developed chatbots, -10 piloted chatbot-based hybrid sessions,-10 cases studies to be designed by pilot teachers upon completing the piloting phase. All results mentioned above will be licensed under Creative Commons license and made available open source for free to wider audience. Apart from the main PRs, further outcomes are envisaged as follows:-increased digital and pedagogical skills and competences of pilot teachers linked to the design of chatbots and their integration into educational settings, design and management of hybrid sessions;-improved learning experience of students who took part in the piloting of developed chatbot-based hybrid sessions;-enhanced pedagogical capacities and innovation potentials of participating HEIs, -5 multiplier events in each participating country with a total of at least 275 local, foreign and virtual guests to promote project results and increase the project impact.

The specific objectives of the MIRNet project are as follows: 1) to institutionalize migration and integration research carried out at Tallinn University by establishing the Migration and Integration Research Centre (MIRC); to advance the quality and volume of research on migration and integration issues in cooperation between the MIRNet project partners; to advance networking between academic researchers, policy makers and other stakeholders in the field of migration and integration in Estonia and the MIRNet partner countries; to advance public dissemination skills of the MIRC regarding the research results in the field migration and integration. These objectives will be achieved in partnership between Tallinn University (TU), Sussex University (UoS), Roskilde University (RU) and University of Tampere (UTA). The Sussex Centre for Migration Research is one of the largest and most widely respected specialist migration research institutes anywhere in the world and home to the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, the highest-ranked interdisciplinary migration journal in 2016. Roskilde University is a leading research institution in the region focusing on a broad range of topics in the field of ethnic relations and nationalism, including migration and integration, the politics of diversity and linguistic minorities. Research Centre on Transnationalism and Transformation at the University of Tampere is a leading multi-disciplinary network organisation focusing on the ways in which an increase in transnational activities is connected to political, socio-economic and socio-cultural transformation in different parts of the world. The experience, knowledge and authority of these three leading research institutions in the field will provide a perfect guide to Tallinn University and the MIRC in achieving the objectives outlined above.

Emotional competence, which characterizes emotionally intelligent individuals, is a basic competence. It includes various skills and abilities, such as emotional self-awareness, emotional self-control, self-motivation, empathy, and social skills. These refer to the ability to influence, communicate, collaborate, resolve conflicts and work as a team, and are applicable to all human interactions.The researchers confirm that young people tend to use ICT and social networks to communicate and express themselves, and companies, for their part, highlight the lack of youth skills for communication and active listening as one of their main issues faced when integrating the new generations into their work teams Therefore, there is a gap that can generate problems, especially when we talk about new technologies.The communication of emotions based on ICT has its own codes and language. The use of visual elements (such as emoticons, gifs, video, images…) and new words (gamer slang, Anglicisms, abbreviations, new meanings of words and idioms…) shape communication. And while emotions are universal, the interpretation and understanding of these elements of language is subjective and can lead to misunderstandings.Within this context, the LoeL project aimed to empower young people so that they can develop their emotional competencies, identifying and expressing their own emotions; communicating successfully with other people, both online and offline; and being aware of the limits and potential of ICT-based communication, successfully managing their emotions in professional settings (including volunteer experiences, in the company field or being entrepreneurs).The specific objectives were to:- Develop empowerment and training resources that allow young people to identify the origin and nature of emotions.- Provide a varied set of activities that combine real communication methods and channels based on ICT with work and personal environment scenarios.- Know the linguistic expressions that in different cultural contexts express basic emotions.- Learn appropriate verbal and gestural indicators to send effective messages in dialogues, negotiations or conflict situations.- Provide companies and organizations that work with young people with training material that allows them to improve the personal and work environment.LOEL's target groups are two:- Young people.- Youth workers. The project produced 2 main results:1. The LoeL APP is an interactive software designed to train young people in the identification, management, communication and understanding of their own and others' emotions. It is available for Android and iOS mobile devices and focuses on developing the emotional literacy of young people. It offers a series of games specially designed to raise awareness and develop specific skills that are highly useful in communicating emotions in personal and professional settings.From a gamified approach, the App displays a total of 10 different types of games, divided into 7 categories. A reward system is included as a motivator, which works by providing the player with experience points and tickets to customize their avatar and room. The level system includes 4 statuses: Beginner, Talented, Expert, and Master.2. The training of youth workers took place in October 2019 in Bilbao, around a 25-hour program, carried out over 5 days, based on the thematic blocks:- Some theories and many practices on Emotional Intelligence. Emotions and their link with other basic skills, such as empathy, assertiveness, and communication.- Informal methods to facilitate learning processes. LoeL concept. Knowing the LoeL APP.- Let's talk emoji. Jargon and the transformation of language in the s. XXI. The influence of ICT.- Audiovisual narrative, the art of telling stories through illustrations, photographs, and videos.The assessment of the LoeL App was very positive, as reflected in the results of the two testing phases carried out with young people and youth workers. Its application in informal and non-formal educational environments was highlighted by the latter, as one of the great added values of this product. The creation of the Guide for Youth Workers, and the availability of the materials and resources generated for the training carried out is also an additional element that facilitates the implementation of youth empowerment initiatives in the field of emotional management.