"""Europe as a workspace"" was a student and teacher based two-year project addressing the specific objectives of the Europe 2020 Strategy as outlined by European Commissioner Jean-Claude Juncker in his 2014 agenda for Jobs, Growth, Fairness and Democratic Change. The main objective of this partnership was to develop students' skills (both hard and soft) and employability and to develop teachers' ability to teach students these skills. The national coordinators of each school discussed the project with their students and teachers during the planning phase and we realized all the schools more or less face similar challenges and needs to be addressed. The students commented that they felt unready for the world of work and that they were having hard time in focusing their attention in lessons. They also complained they were expected to focus on just academic success or vocational qualification but they felt unsure of what skills are required at the next level of education or for various professions in the world of work. Besides they had problems making decisions about their future careers .The teachers commented that they didn't know how skills can be taught in the best way in classes and assessing the acquisition of skills was a great challenge for them. The partnership had two primary objectives, one aimed at students and one aimed at teachers:1- Concerning the students; to equip them with both hard and soft skills that can encourage each student to participate effectively and constructively in the workplace and socially both inside and outside their own countries. 2- Concerning the teachers, to strengthen teacher's skills based teaching practice through transnational cooperation and by adopting innovative, effective and new methods and tools in order to bridge the gap between education and employability skills.The target groups and stakeholders of this project were the students and the teachers that participated directly in the project; the other students and teachers of the 8 participating schools; the local business communities such as experts from employment bureaus, chambers of commerce, companies; other schools as local stakeholders; universities; educational authorities; families; and the students and teachers from other schools in Europe.The project results are both of tangible and non-tangible character. The tangible results are: an e-book (the final product); a toolbox of skills; the project related videos created by the students; a toolbox for teaching and assessment of skills; a collection of lesson plans prepared according to the innovative lesson plan model; a board game; a promotional poster, brochure, video and the project logo; the project website; the teachers' wikispace platform; the e-twinning group; the twinspace project on e-twinning; an innovative product or service based on students' coding experience; the students' professional portfolios; the learning diaries; the online newspapers, two surveys to evaluate the success of the project, the students’ blogs and the promotional video. Referring to the non-tangible results; the students became more creative and enterprising and held a practical experience in communication and collaboration, critical thinking, problem solving, decision making, meta cognition, personal learning strategies, citizenship, life (and career) skills, personal and social responsibility, cultural awareness and expression, interpersonal and intercultural skills. Thus, the students became more motivated to stay at school and continue with a higher education. We also realised an enormous increase in the teachers' skills based teaching practice through transnational cooperation and by adopting innovative, effective and new methods and tools.During the two year project duration, there took place 3 transnational meetings and 4 learning/teaching/training activities. The first and second transnational meetings at the beginning of each project year were for planning and preparation purposes while the last one was organized for the evaluation and the sustainability of the project. Also there took place teacher training alongside with each transnational meeting and learning/teaching/training activity.In the long term we aim at recognition of our e-book, the toolbox for teaching and assessment of skills and innovative lesson plan model as teaching materials. We believe the project will also contribute to a well-qualified and highly motivated workforce in Europe while employers will be able to access the workforce with the skills they need. We would like to be an example for similar educational organizations and, if possible, we want to help our colleagues, all school stakeholders and NAs in promoting the Erasmus+ projects about teaching and assessing skills"

"The idea of the “70 Y.E.H” project was born under the acceptance of how few things students know about European History, about the process of European unification and the reasons that led to it. We strongly believe that in times of crisis such as we are experiencing in recent years, it is crucial to cultivate the “shared memory”, to enhance the faith of young people to common European values and to promote discussion on issues regarding our common future as European citizens. This project was designed to contribute to the improvement of all participants’ knowledge of European History and to provide them the opportunity to develop critical thinking on issues concerning E.U. Motivated by the above considerations, eight upper secondary schools of different types (general education, vocational, theological and private) were joined in order to accomplish the following aims:1. Learn more about the historic events that took place in Europe after the end of World War II2. Find out how these events effected on the artistic evolution in painting, literature, cinema and music3. Connect the historic events with the scientific and technological development of the European countries by that time4. Find out the reasons that made the creation of the E.U necessary5. Cultivate skills in searching and using information critically6. Introduce new methods and teaching tools with a European dimension within school education by exchanging teaching practices7. Expand digital competences of both students and school education staff8. Stimulate the curiosity of students9. Contribute to the increase and deepening of knowledge, aiming to achieve better performances10. Foster the spirit of cooperation between people from different cultures and contribute to the removal of existing geographic, national and ideological borders in the school environment11. Cause reflection and debate on issues about E.U and our common future in it12. Promote the development of a common European consciousness and identity and contribute to students' development into active European citizens.The “70 Y.E.H” project lasted 2 years and Greece was the coordinating country. A great number of participants (students, teachers, administrative and educational staff from all partner schools, parents, members of the Education Offices and Municipal Councils, as well as members of the academic and the local community) was involved in it, through a variety of activities. The project included activities at both local and transnational level, designed to achieve the realization of its objectives and the delivery of the final products. These activities aimed to strengthen cooperation among partner schools by exchanging of practices and to promote the development and the implementation of innovative teaching methods.Local activities included: information research, workshops, debates in classroom, interactive classes, webinars on the web2.0 tools, lectures, on line conferences, presentations, informative seminars, study visits to museums /art centers /scientific laboratories, meetings among members of the local teams, competitions, song festivals, exhibitions and dissemination activities.The transnational activities (a total of six) combined short-term exchange of groups of students and short-term joint staff training events and included: attending courses, participating in presentations/ debates/interactive lessons/ exhibitions/ festivals, carrying out researches and studies and visiting monuments of historical interest, art galleries, museums etc.There were also, two transnational meetings (at the beginning of each project year) among History, English and ICT teachers of the schools’ local teams for coordinating and management purposes.Almost all the final products of the project are available in both digital and printed form. Among them there are: a collection of work and evaluation sheets, a historical guide, a vocabulary booklet, a film file, a board game, an application for mobile phones, two albums, timelines and the official project’s blog.The ""70 Y.E.H"" project had a great impact on students by offering them a different education prospective, discovering new ways of learning and achieving greater cognitive development by cultivating most of the ""21st century skills"" like critical thinking, research skills, team work, ICT competences etc. At the same time it equiped teachers with new tools for interdisciplinary teaching for courses like History, Art and Science and helped them to introduce a European dimension in the classroom. An overall ambition of our partnership was to contribute to the improvement of knowledge and dissemination of the culture and history of the European people."