Our project was aimed at creating a new curricula to develop students’ language competences through Art-oriented activities in an ICT-based environment. When choosing these major thematic fields we took into account the following realities:-learning a foreign language is absolutely necessary for a successful integration into the open labour market and for a complete personal and professional development -classes can sometimes fall into routine, that’s why using Art as a means for creating a more enjoyable learning environment could help students become more enthusiastic and motivated to develop language competences in a non-classical manner, by experiential learning and educational games. The project was implemented by collaborative working of 9 schools from all over Europe: 3 high-schools focused on Arts which guided the Art related activities (Romania1, England and Portugal), 4 elementary schools with English and Arts expertise at their level which contributed to the creation of the Art-based English teaching activities (Cyprus, Croatia, Slovenia and Turkey) and 2 Computer Science high-schools in charge with transferring the teaching activities into the digital book (Spain and Romania2).The target groups was made of students aged 6 to 18, according to each partner school’s type.The project lasted for 24 months: September 2015 – August 2017.From October 2015 till March 2017 we created the course and its curricula which includes the rationale, general and specific competences with examples of learning activities, learning contents, and evaluation tools. Attached to the theoretical part of the curricula we created a teacher's guide with examples of lessons as methodological suggestions for English classes taught through Art-oriented activities. It contains 8 modules, one for each month of the school year, consisting of various learning topics which cover different areas of interest/ knowledge connected with everyday life/ human activities/ natural environment and/or with Arts. Starting from these topics, each partner school made 4 lesson plans for English classes which can be taught through Art-oriented activities. Each lesson includes English, Art and ICT tasks. According to their own school type, each partner suggested 4 lessons for either primary, lower secondary or high-school students, respectively. There are 96 lesson plans totally which can serve as support for local project activities (classes held in each partner school) and short-term students exchanges. From April 2017 till May 2017 we finalized the book in paper format, which includes QR codes which lead to short video of each lesson and to teaching resources used and/ or created for these lessons. Thus, these resources can be freely accessed and used by any teacher who would need them in his/ her daily teaching activity. It also displays examples of augmented reality activities which can be read both in the classical way and by using a device (smartphone, tablet) having installed Aurasma. There were 4 short-term students exchanges and 4 teaching activities aimed at trying out the course curricula created at local level. For a good project management and implementation we organized 3 transnational project meetings.Among project results, we can mention:-a new website .eu domain which contains the course curricula, project information and an e-learning platform-the course curricula on paper and in its digital version which will be freely available and openly licensed for downloading from our e-learning platform for anyone interested in using it as teaching aid. The book was printed in several copies so that each partner school's library could have it. Other books can be offered to schools on different occasions. Thus, schools from the neighbourhood can benefit from the promotion of this innovative project product which can be used during English classes for both primary and secondary education.Impact:-Students enhanced their English competences and digital skills, creativity, team working skills, self-confidence.-Teachers broadened their horizons and exchange information on different school systems and developed their teaching competence, foreign languages abilities, social, managerial and ICT competence-Participant schools increased their visibility and improved their own image in the eyes of the local community-The local community became internationally known and had the possibility to get in contact with institutions from foreign countries with which they can develop future partnershipsMonitoring and evaluation was done permanently. As evaluation tools we used questionnaires, periodical reports.

Europe is facing important challenges such as cultural complex diversity in classrooms, early school leaving and disadvantaged backgrounds for some children. Quality early childhood education and care (ECEC) can be a bridge to tackle these challenges. Not only children’s presence in ECEC is important but also their level and quality of active participation and engagement in the social and learning activities of early childhood provision.HangingOUT! is an ambitious project that investigates the possibilities to use 'every' outdoor environment as a way to deal with the mentioned challenges. Eleven complementary strategic partners and different associated partners from five different countries (BE, LT, PT, UK, DK) want to give students, ECEC professionals and parents the confidence, tools and support to explore and create possibilities and experiments with different outdoor educational practices.Our HangingOUT! project has 4 objectives:(1) To further develop the professionalisation of educators in ECEC within our transnational network by strengthening the confidence of teachers and responsible adults in going outdoors.(2) To enhance the quality of ECEC through implementing and recognizing innovative pedagogies in outdoor education.(3) To discover the opportunities of different outdoor environments (from city streets to mindscapes and from forests over factories to school grounds) while recognizing the wide variety in local, cultural and ecological contexts by experimenting with concrete educational practices.(4) To install a culture of cooperation and co-creation between the different partners and stakeholders in early childhood education and care; deepening on the educational context of each country (care and education, formal and informal education, different stages in education,…).To reach our goals we will establish 6 associated local networks between a HEI and 2 field partners (pre-schools, kindergartens, organisations, ...). Each local network has its own focus depending on the interest, needs and expertise of the partnership: children's participation, diversity, 0-3 year old and ICT. Via this way of working we bring together a lot of expertise, co-create with the different stakeholders and have an impact that is really sustainable.The associated networks meet semi-annual F2F and online to share expertise, ways of seeing and knowing and experiment with each other's outdoor practices. Connected to the F2F meetings are international weeks where we can share and discuss our outputs and expertise with students and other lecturers from the different strategic partners and more broadly with all interested members of the Comenius Association, a European network of teacher training institutes of which all HEI's are longtime partners.The strength of working within the local networks in Belgium, Portugal, United Kingdom, Denmark and Lithuania is the diversity and quality of the intellectual outputs it will generate; 7 intellectual outputs in total. Ranging from an innovative GoPro-video database where we will gain insights in interactions between children and the material environment that can be used by teachers, parents but also policy makers, architects, etc. Over the development of inspirational flash cards showing children’s autonomy and that foster inclusion through outdoor activities. To an App that searches for (learning) opportunities in the outdoor environment (urban and rural), bridging the gap between the digital and natural environment. Or collecting outdoor inspiration for children aged 0-3 years old, overcoming the 0-3 yo & 3-6 yo divide in ECEC in many European countries.HangingOUT! has been conceived and designed with long term sustainability in mind. The consortium has the strong intention to integrate the outdoor topic in HEI curricula. This will ensure that what is implemented during the Hangout! project lifetime will endure and strengthen the profile of future ECEC professionals who will critically adopt an outdoor approach as the new normal.The dissemination and exploitation will be extended beyond the duration of the project. The transnational knowledge exchange between HEIs will be promoted and maintained beyond the completion of the project through the online platform including links to the local websites of the different partners. The project outputs will be further developed beyond the lifetime of the project and will be made available using Creative Commons licence.