"Teaching and training professionals has changed over the course of years. The importance of new technologies for educational practices is unquestionable and considerable amounts of digital tools are offered, presented and tested in schools every year. However, teachers and students seldom have the privilege to reflect over the effectiveness and learning impact of these tools. Teachers, pupils and school staff can easily find themselves as mere passive receivers in an always evolving world. Together with the constant and vast stream of digital solutions that teachers and pupils are exposed to, little or no pedagogical and didactic reflection follows. ""IT's the future"" is an international project which has as its main goal to deepen the expertise and knowledge of integrating new technologies into existing educational practices. The project aims to exchange practices for the implementation of new technologies in education. Hence, it aims to generate an arena where schools, teachers and pupils can apply new technologies in a critical and reflective way.The project is formed by a partnership of five European upper secondary schools (Belgium, England, Iceland, Norway and Spain) which are currently embarked in a full scale implementation of digital tools to their educational practices. Specific working areas are defined for the partners in the project. Heilig-Harthandelsinstituut Waregem, Belgium, will guide the partner schools into the exploration of ""gamification"" as a learning and teaching tool. Experience, expertise, and a thriving developer environment have determined the solvent background of this choice. Sykkylven vgs, from Norway will contribute with expertise on the pedagogical background of the most used digital tools for education. Close links to external partners such as Norwegian Maritime Competence Center and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology will strengthen the synergies generated by the project even further. San Fermín Ikastola, from Navarra, Spain, will share its experience and knowledge utilizing digital tools for the teaching of core subjects like Language and Social Sciences. This Navarran school is currently part of a vanguard attempt (the EKI project) for the replacement of all traditional learning tools with digital ones. The St. Margarets school Bushey in England and Fjölbrautaskólinn í Breiðholti, in Iceland, will introduce free/open software solutions to the partner schools. Both institutes are in the middle of a full scale digitalization program and it will contribute with expertise in managing and implementing the necessary changes for it. ""IT's the Future"" is a project targeting pupils of 15-18 years old and their teachers and members of staff of the schools involved. Many of the project activities will take place during the transnational school visits. However, the project is conceived to be a part of the normal academic year as well, ensuring a constant flow of outcomes through the whole project. In other words, the project will be integrated as a significant part of the schools' main study plan and thus the technological innovations and digital solutions and tools will be tested and integrated into the project and the curriculum to be used hands-on. In order to maximize the synergies generated by the school partnership, several external partners will be included to the project. The external partners of this project are sound developers and stakeholders within the field of digital technology and education. Moreover, in order to further strengthen and widen the insights of the theme, senior academic researchers are also integrated to several activities like seminars and workshops.Acknowledging the needs and challenges of our time, the methodology of the project will be based on an entrepreneurial approach. This project will open up an arena where five European schools will have the opportunity to meet, discuss, and reflect over the didactic tools that are changing the very core of the educational practices of our time. This way of thinking is taken into consideration when designing activities, defining concrete goals, and evaluating its corresponding outcomes. Thus, goals and outcomes of this project will deem the needs of a target group, whereas a clear strategy to communicate and evaluate its impact will be defined. Furthermore, the project has a strong focus on transverse skills and intents to cover and incorporate several school subjects to all activities and outcomes."

"The importance of new technologies for educational practices is unquestionable, let alone the educational benefits of its application. Considerable amounts of digital tools are offered, presented and tested in schools every year. However, teachers and students have seldom the opportunity to reflect over the effectiveness and learning impact of these tools. Moreover, the time-frame between presentation-implementation-new presentations-new implementations is often so short that one has not enough time to evaluate the pedagogical and didactic convenience of a given tool. Thus, teachers and pupils can easily find themselves as mere passive receivers: end-users. Together with the constant and vast stream of digital solutions that teachers and pupils are exposed to, little or none pedagogical and didactic reflection follows. Furthermore, scholars researching digital tools for educational purposes often mention the insufficient pedagogical background and test ground of the different digital tools to be applied in education (Jelstad 2015 quoting Professor Magnus H. Sandberg: ""Technology and teaching"", Utdanning nr. 17, October 16th, 2015: Oslo). ""Crossroads with the future: digital technology and education"" is an international project which has had as its main goal to deepen the expertise and knowledge of integrating new technologies to existing educational practices. The project aimed to exchange practices for the implementation of new technologies in education. Hence, it intented to generate an arena where schools, teachers and pupils could apply new technologies in a critical and reflective way. The project was formed by a partnership of five European upper secondary schools (Belgium, England, Iceland, Norway and Spain) which are currently embarked in a full scale implementation of digital tools to their educational practices. Specific working areas were defined for the partners in the project. Heilig-Harthandelsinstituut Waregem, Belgium, guided the partner schools into the exploration of ""gamification"" as a learning and teaching tool. Experience, expertise, and a thriving developer environment determined the solvent background of this choice. Sykkylven vgs, from Norway, introduced Kikora, a multilingual learning platform for Mathematics. In addition to this, the school contributed with expertise on the pedagogical background of the most used digital tools for education. Close links to external partners such as the Norwegian Maritim Competence Center strengthened the synergies generated by the project even further. San Fermín Ikastola, from Navarra, Spain, shared its experience and knowledge utilizing digital tools for the teaching of core subjects like Language and Social Sciences. This Navarran school is currently part of a vanguard attempt (the EKI project) for the replacement of all traditional learning tools with digital ones. In addition the this program San Fermín Ikastola managed to integrate succesfully the University of Navarra in Pamplona to several activities. The St. Margarets school Bushey in England and Fjölbrautaskólinn í Breiðholti, in Iceland, introduced free/open software solutions to the partner schools. Both institutes are in the middle of a full scale digitalization program and it will contribute with expertise in managing and implementing the necessary changes for it. ""Crossroads with the future"" has been a three year, full time, project targeting pupils of 15-18 years old and their teachers. Many of the project activities took place during the transnational school visits. However, the project was conceived to be a part of the normal academic year as well, ensuring a constant flow of outcomes through the whole project. In other words, the project was integrated as a significant part of the schools' main study plan. In order to maximize the synergies generated by the school partnership, several external partners were included to the project. The external partners of this project are sound developers and stakeholders within the field of digital technology and education. Moreover, in order to further strengthen and widen the insights of the theme, senior academic researchers and research programs were integrated to several activities like seminars and workshops. Acknowledging the needs and challenges of our time, the methodology of the project was based on an entrepreneurial approach. This way of thinking was taken into consideration when designing activities, defining concrete goals, and evaluating its corresponding outcomes. Thus, goals and outcomes of this project deemed the needs of a target group, whereas a clear strategy to communicate and evaluate its impact was defined. Furthermore, the project had a strong focus on transverse skills and aimed to cover and incorporate several school subjects to all activities and outcomes.To conclude, this project sought to open up an arena where five European schools would have the opportunity to meet, discuss, and reflect over the didactical appli"