CONTEXT AND NEEDSAdaptive tools, including AI-based software in education, are predicted to have a huge potential to empower learners through personalized learning and at the same time a profound impact on educational practices by enabling new ways of teaching. This new and rapidly growing area of education has been identified by researchers and experts as well as several European framework and reports as the key of future learning. Yet it is an area where practitioners and politicians alike lack information and understanding. The EMPOWER2LEARN project derives from an urgent need for strengthening the profiles of the teaching profession and support for educators in the area of personalized learning with ICT, through transnational and explorative (both scientific and practical) approaches. The project partners from Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium and the UK are teacher trainer institutions, local authorities and universities that all have a broad network of primary schools teachers/educators and that bring not only their own area of expertise to the project but also the expertise of associated partners.OBJECTIVESThe objectives of the EMPOWER2LEARN project is to: EXPLORE, DEVELOP, PERFORM, EVALUATE AND DISSEMINATE METHODS FOR PERSONALIZED LEARNING WITH DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES THAT CAN BOOST THE COMPETENCIES OF TEACHERS AND EDUCATORS AND EMPOWER ALL STUDENTS IN THEIR LEARNING.More specifically this means to: -Explore and analyse existing studies and best practices, useful digital tools and pedagogical models in primary schools EU-countries related to personalized learning -Develop an analysis and design framework that will be used to design (and redesign) effective CPD-activities supporting personalized learning -Perform and evaluate CPD activities with teachers in each country -Collate and disseminate digital resources for personalized learning to a wider target group within and beyond the partnership-Create synergies between research and innovation and promoting new technologies as drivers of improvements in education-Initiate international cooperation and strengthen the European dimension in partner organizationsPARTICIPANTS AND ACTIVITIESMore than 100 ICT educators, researchers and policymakers and 400 K-12 teachers will take part in activities that will be disseminated and have the potential to reach and benefit a minimum of 5000 K-12 teachers and ICT educators, 60000 students and 500 policymakers across the partner countries.Tasks have been organized into 4 WP:s (1. PROJECT MANAGEMENT, 2. PROMISING PRACTICES , 3. CPD-ACTIVITIES ON PERSONALIZED LEARNING WITH ICT, 4. EMPOWER2LEARN TOOLKIT ) and distributed democratically among the partners on the basis of their expertise. They all include intellectual outputs (IO1: ONLINE RESEARCH COLLECTION, IO2: PROMISING PRACTICES, IO3: REDESIGN OF CDP ACTIVITIES, IO4: EMPOWER2LEARN TOOLKIT) that will give both new and complementary input to the entire field of ICT-supported personalized learning in education.RESULTS AND IMPACTAt a general level EMPOWER2LEARN is expected to result in enhanced knowledge how different technologies, including those using adaptive learning and artificial intelligence, support personalization among teachers, educational institutions, school leaders, policy makers and researchers as well as innovative and efficient practice for educators and teachers within and outside of the participating countries. The international cooperation will create expertise and interchange of insights and methods as well as facilitate a validation of methods for ICT supported personalized learning in education, training and youth systems on a regional, national and European level. At the same time it will contribute to more positive attitudes towards European collaboration and shared European values. The integration of the EMPOWER2LEARN-outputs in regional/national/international policy frameworks and reports is expected to lead to changes in national curricula and impact the modernization of European educational systems, increasing the quality and social inclusion in education. Ultimately, EMPOWER2LEARN is expected to impact the learning outcomes and development opportunities of ALL students, through a higher presence of personalized learning with ICT in European classrooms.All these results and impacts are in line with the Erasmus+ programme priorities as well as the one stated in the Paris Declaration from 2015, as differentiation and personalization can contribute to reduce disparities in learning outcomes affecting learners with disadvantaged background.

CONTEXT AND NEEDSThe 2014-2020 Erasmus+ programme is, based on a number of mid-term evaluations in all EU-countries considered as one of the EU's best-known successes not only impacting millions of individuals but educational systems at large. The forthcoming Erasmus+ programme period (2021-2027) will increase the focus on mobility, providing learning opportunities to 12 million people (three times as many mobilities as in the current programme), building a European Education Area and strengthening the European identity. This all means that more schools, in particular schools with disadvantaged students will need to build capacity for Erasmus+ participation in order to for the programme to reach its full impact. This also implies that widening participation in the programme is necessary in order for the Erasmus+ programme to be successful. The BE+ partnership, consisting of school, local school authorities, municipalities and transnational networks from Sweden, Italy, Norway and Germany have found that the participation of schools in the Erasmus+ programs is either not widely spread in their local communities or happening in a way it can fully lead to school development. OBJECTIVESThe objectives of BE+ is to increase the administrative and organizational capacity in K-12 school education so that teaching and management staff is better prepared to transnational collaboration within the Erasmus+ framework. More specifically this means to: -Support schools in identifying their needs in relation to capacity building -Develop innovative methodology and tools to meet the training needs of school staff-Improve the skills of school staff in understanding and implementing a project cycle management -Develop a toolbox that will prepare schools for the next generation of Erasmus+PARTICIPANTS AND ACTIVITIESMore than 500 school staff and policymakers will take part in activities that will be disseminated and have the potential to reach and benefit a minimum of 2000 K-12 schools.The line of events/activities have been organized into 4 core activities ( Project management, IO1 A Self-Assessment guide for need analysis in Schools, IO2 Training course on capacity building and IO3 Capacity Buildning Toolbox) that are key elements in reaching the overall project objectives.Activities related to IO1 provide the partners as well as the project with a more profound, up to dated understanding of the needs of schools in a more holistic manner and will result in a self assessment tool that sets the stage for the other intellectual outputs. Building on IO1, IO2 will start of with a content development phase for the training courses that will be tested and evaluated during 2 Learning Teaching and Training activities. Core activity 4- IO3 summarizes the entire project by collating all of the resources in one accessible and easy-to-use place. The toolbox makes it more likely that the outputs will be used by a larger cross-section of teachers, educators, policymakers and other stakeholders, going beyond the project partners network, beyond the partner countries and beyond the project timeline thus ensuring the sustainability of the project, upon its ending.RESULTS AND IMPACTThe project will result in many outputs related to capacity building, from identified needs of schools, the development and testing of innovative tools and methods, increased knowledge about the Project Management Cycle, increased confidence in engaging in application for Erasmus+ funding to the uptake in in new school contexts and the strengthening of the European dimension in K-12 Education. The long term impacts of BE+ are ultimately to increase the administrative and organizational capacity in the entire educational system so the Erasmus + program can be used as a vehicle of the modernization of European educational systems.

Career guidance has a strong impact on social inclusion as it enables better access to employment, improved welfare and increased competences. It has the potential to play an important role in supporting youth to make well-informed decisions about their future careers. This is particularly true for schoolchildren and students with special needs and/or from socio-economically deprived backgrounds. The Covid-19 pandemic has brought widespread difficulties in the coaching and teaching field. The education sector has shown great courage, strength and innovative power to face the sudden shift to online and distance learning, career guidance and coaching. Even though, schoolchildren and students have now marginalised or changed opportunities to take part in guidance and coaching - and students who thrive in a face-to-face learning environment have their chances reduced. As a result of this, staff working with career guidance have experimented with new ways of coaching and interacting, mainly through digital tools and methods. The challenges identified have been many and at the moment there are big gaps in both theoretical knowledge and best practice in regard to how to create well-functioning, tangible and inclusive digital environments. From this problematic development and extensive needs for increased digital knowledge and, methods and practices – the project #Guidance have emerged. The project builds it base on combining the Erasmus+ horizontal priorities of social inclusion and innovative practices in a digital era, which both goes hand-in-hand with the identified needs of the project partners and the well-structured activities to be implemented throughout the project. #Guidance project objectives are: •Promote social inclusion and equality in career guidance throughout the education system.•Promote that more young people and students complete their education and increase their opportunities to get a job. •Promote more young people and students make well-thought-out study choices.•Increased perceived health and hope for the future among young people and students.With the overall project objectives as the umbrella - the following expected Project Results during the project are:(1) Increased skills and competence on how to create an inclusive digital environment throughout the education system. (2) Increased skills and competence on how to use and adapt digital tools and methods to make career guidance more inclusive.The target groups have been identified thoroughly together with all partners of the consortium. With the project focusing on promoting social inclusion these groups consist primarily of individuals with lacking opportunities/disadvantages to take part of guidance and coaching through digital tools and settings. Considering this fact the target groups are: 1) Individuals in the risk of being socially excluded within the following groups: (A) school children (primary and secondary school) (B) students (high school and university) (C) youth not in employment, education or training (neet:s). Also, parents are a group that’s need to be addressed: (D) caregivers. 2) Groups responsible for both strategic and practiced career guiding and coaching (E) Career guidance counsellors (F) teachers and school-leaders (G) development managers working with career guidance and (H) Non-governmental organisations staff (NGO).The consortium consists of 8 partners representing 5 Member-States which bring a wide range of expertise directly related to the aims of the #Guidance project: On-the-field experience of guidance in digital environments; Methods on how to reach social inclusion for groups and individuals in risk of exclusion and drop-out; Regional and municipal experience on guidance and coaching management and policy with digital tools and resilient methods; Extensive knowledge about labour market training as a part of guidance in digital contexts and; Widespread experience on successful management of international projects. Moreover, the variety of partners also brings a wide range of perspectives and approaches to guidance and coaching which are rarely brought to the samt joint strategic development work: 1 regional authority, 3 municipalities, 1 university, 1 private company and 1 social profit organization. They will all bring unique and varying knowledge linked to their specific structural role and ensure real impact at school level. Key actions to achieve the Objectives and Results of the project are incorporated in two Intellectual outputs (IO):• A digital toolkit for an inclusive environment (IO1) lead by Region Örebro County. • A training package (training program and material) for teachers and career counsellors (IO2) lead by Município de Lousada.Validating project outputs with target groups, participants and relevant stakeholders are a key activity in which partners will invest time and resources. This will create long-term effect in each country and organization.

Social inclusion is recognized as a central aspect both for pupils' well-being and for educational outcomes. It is inversely related to school attrition rates, truancy and school violence. Social inclusion among pupils can be increased by strengthening pupils’ participation. Professionals in education can enable or hinder social inclusion. To engage children in participating actively in their lives, teachers must develop learning opportunities where pupils can experience themselves as active agents. The purpose of the project is to allow teachers to explore and develop professional work based on pupils' perspectives and experiences on social inclusion to firstly deepen professional knowledge and competence on best practices and collegial international exchange, secondly to create didactical and educational material and thirdly to evaluate strategies where teachers and researchers in cooperation develop learning opportunities that support pupils' social belonging and agency which then can be shared in the professional community. Project partners are national educational researchers (2 per country ) and national professionals (3 teachers/educators per country) of primary education from 4 (5 with the associated partner) European countries, developing activities for educational settings that enhance social inclusion. 5 work packages describe the national conducted activities to implement, document, try out, elaborate and innovate educational activities that are shared and evaluated internationally, linked with theoretical knowledge in 4 training sessions to finally present (virtually and as a hard copy) a handbook and a toolbox for teachers, educators and children presenting the most successful strategies and activities tested in the 4 (5) European countries. Children’s centered methods to capture their perspectives are the keystone for all activities and the foundation for the teachers’ efforts in developing didactical tools. National and international professional collegial exchange among researchers and practitioners is considered as expert coaching that initiates innovative professional development. A longitudinal study allows a measurement of achieved success in the perception of social inclusion in education. A website is documenting the project and offering open access to educational activities and strategies.The intellectual outcomes integrate newly developed professional knowledge on social inclusion and educational activities that enhance social inclusion in all national languages and English. Whereas the handbook is addressed to teachers and educators and contains educational material, the toolbox is a set of activities for children to use independently.The project outcomes serve principals, educational advisors, policy makers, stakeholders and researchers in education who all have important political mandates in relation to the teaching profession and its professionalisation and the children’s right to participate in society. The project's outcomes and outputs are disseminated in 4 Multipiler events, via project webpage, electronic newsletters and through articles and presentations in educational journals and conferences. The project benefits from the European cross-cultural exchange, from the wide range of expertise represented by the project partners and their cultural and educational background and the diversity and different cultural experiences of pupils’ inclusion across different national contexts. The project aims for educational actions with a European dimension that are transferable to diverse educational contexts: to support teachers and their professional development by gaining deeper knowledge about social inclusion as well as to develop a variety of didactical tools to work with social inclusion in their everyday practice. The diversity of children’s voices is a strength that creates attractive conditions to develop sustainable knowledge and didactical tools to enhance social inclusion which meet pupils’ different needs in Europe.

CONTEXTThe outbreak of Covid-19 had immense consequences for education. The closure of schools forced teachers to rethink their approaches to education and how to adapt pedagogy to remote contexts. Not only did they need technology to contribute to effective student learning, teachers also needed additional knowledge and skills for digital pedagogy. In many cases, the digital skills of both students and teachers turned out to be insufficient. OBJECTIVESIn this project we want to: Exchange good practices and new approaches to remote and blended learning Investigate how solutions and practices from different countries work in different (national) educational settingsInvestigate the blended learning approaches which work best in different contexts; for example in upper primary and lower secondary schoolsInvestigate how positive results of distance learning can be maintained and sharedInvestigate how the characteristics of good teaching in the classroom are paralleled online in a remote or blended contextInvestigate what digital and pedagogical skills are needed for teachersDevelop training for digital skills and pedagogical approaches for blended learningConnect teachers and schools to exchange ideas and work together on these ideasPractice online teaching and communication between the participating schools and organisationsUse case studies and action research outcomes in the participating countries to improve our (digital and blended) educationApply learning from academic research and experiences of distance learning in Higher educationPARTICIPANTS Across the 5 countries involved, over 18 teachers (including ICT coordinators), 8 headteachers and 12 educators will be directly involved in the project. Beyond that, 100+ teachers will participate in the action research case study activities that will be disseminated to more than 10,000 school teachers and ICT educators and 60,000 students. ACTIVITIES3 transnational project meetings 5 blended learning teaching and training activities will take place in partner countries5 action research case studies The project will culminate in a final training and dissemination event to ensure that learning from the project is integrated into local practice and outcomes from the project are embedded into each region's professional development programme for local schools.METHODOLOGYThe transnational nature of our consortium is a core to our methodology. It enables us to apply methods and lessons developed in other countries’ contexts and to learn from best practice outside of our immediate environments.Project methodology will include:Action research projectsCase studiesTeacher professional development eventsRESULTSThe project will result in establishing clear evaluated and documented knowledge, approaches and pedagogies for remote and blended learning. Results will include an eTwinning page with shared resources, materials and lesson plans, and a website for dissemination at a local, regional, national and international level. Also teachers competences will be increased as a result of the training activities. IMPACT This project impacts the digital pedagogy and skills of teachers and therefore the way students learn by using digital technologies in the classroom and online. This results into a new approach to education, on a global level, in which blended learning is integrated. As the teachers in the participating countries get to know each other face to face and online, they will keep in contact also after the project, using eTwinning.