"So far, practiced educational model by universities is the so-called factory education model. Factory model school and factory model education are terms describing both a style of learning and of educational facilities. The key characteristics of factory model education are top-down management, separation from the community, emphasis on management, centralized planning, standardization, outcomes designed to meet societal needs, and efficiency in producing results. The system has been described as being ""designed to create docile subjects and factory workers"". If such an education system was valid in the past, it doesn't fit anymore today. The point is that students in the 21st century are frustrated with the factory model. They think they know better. Many researches have shown that the reasons why countless students drop out of school every day are that: a.) school is boring, and b.) school is not relevant to their lives. The biggest problem is, educational system doesn’t motivate students. Millions of students do not know any purposing of going to university, except obligation. Various studies have shown that the best results are in those activities, which are based on internal motivation. That's why our project aim is to focus on innovative methods and approaches, which is focused on internal motivation - that students learn because they want to not because they have to. And in the end that kind of methods and approaches will help lecturers and students in their future work smarter not harder. This project is great opportunity to gather all good practices, to develop new innovative methods and approaches, to create methodology material and create Professional development courses of academic staff and also already to train first lecturers. There will be systematized and summarized the best methods and approaches from European high schools, complemented by leading business companies recommendations. Since in he project is also involved Didactic material Center and Teacher Training departments from our partner organizations, it will provide professional training material development and we have already negotiated with them that the Intellectual output of the will be officially introduced in Professional development courses of academic staff. The most important project participants - experts who will develop methodology in daily life are teachers at the same time. Other participants - students, will be involved in the project thanks to lectures. They will not have mandatory action to spend time in project activities, but this will happen in natural way in their daily routine. The project timetable is subordinated to higher education regime that allows us to easily reach our target audience. The contribution of the project will be observable in significant impact on all the involved - individuals and organizations: - for the very first time there will be developed a set of innovative methods and approaches for higher education that will be officially included in teachers' life long learning courses. - this course will give access for teachers to the range of new teaching tools. Using developed set of innovative teaching methods and approaches, that kind of professional development for teachers will become as standard across all European institutions."

"<< Background >>The topic of media use and production for remote and online teaching activities has been receiving major attention due to the shift to remote digital teaching during the Covid-19 crisis. It has highlighted the urgency for developing and up-scaling effective media-based learning strategies and resources in European Higher Education (HE). This calls for significant and focused effort in terms of research, development, training, and the sharing of good practices, in the creation and use of media-based learning resources and strategies. Good quality, research-based and pedagogically robust teaching and learning concepts involving media are increasingly important in HE due to the value and impact they can bring. This is true not only as a way to support emergency remote teaching as we witness in many HE institutions today, but also due to the intrinsic value they can provide. Media can be used to promote and support active, motivating, and effective learning strategies in HE. Multimedia-based learning helps to stimulate learning and to make it more flexible and personalized. Media for learning and learning with media are established practices in HE but with the pandemic, the importance of the topic is greater than ever. Media production, media didactics, and media pedagogies are key in fostering innovation within higher education. With the accelerated large-scale move to online teaching, several questions, which need scientifically informed responses as well as strategies and tools with a strong focus on efficiency and effectiveness have been coming up about the best way to deliver pedagogically effective, media-based teaching and learning strategies. This urgent demand for research-based solutions, support, practical guidance, and useful resources is what motivates and drives the TransACTION project. The project addresses teaching and learning support and service centers in universities, lecturers and teaching staff, as well as technical and support staff, educational technologists, innovation specialists, audiovisual staff and others in universities involved in multimedia design and production. This target includes what we often refer to as ‘Third Space’ staff, i.e. those learning designers, learning media producers and HE teaching experts working in HE who’s job is to support academic staff in their use of media to enhance their academic teaching and research work. TransACTION also addresses policy and decision-makers in order to stimulate media-based teaching and learning offers in HE at regional, national and European levels by providing expertise in the effective and efficient large-scale utilization of media-based teaching and learning services.<< Objectives >>Objective 1: Supporting digital capabilities of the higher education sectorTransACTION intends to strengthen the expertise, know-how, design, development, and implementation of media for learning and multimedia-based teaching and learning opportunities in Higher Education. In this way, the project has a strong focus on supporting digital capabilities and solutions in Higher education teaching and learning scenarios, delivering a research-based framework for enhancing and promoting multimedia learning design, an open online course on media-supported learning, a hub including resources, educational offers, and materials, training units on multimedia learning design as well as recommendations and strategies for promoting media-supported teaching and learning in the framework of Higher Education.Objective 2: Stimulating innovative learning and teaching practices in Higher Education enhanced by high quality and scalable learning mediaThe implementation of innovative learning and teaching practices, particularly referring to the use of digital and media-supported solutions, has been attracting major attention since the Covid-19 pandemic situation demanded a massive increase in the implementation of remote and online teaching and learning formats. Media-based practices had to be designed and developed in huge numbers and under massive time pressure in order to ensure the continuity of higher education. More than one year later, as we move on from emergency remote teaching to more sustainable and effective future-proof models, the TransACTION project seeks to reflect the use of the media-supported educational practices and to develop a research-based framework and online training offers in order to guarantee not only quantity but also the quality of innovative, digital and media-supported learning and teaching practices. This means that the project will stimulate innovative learning and teaching practices by developing frameworks, good practice examples and training offers that are based on research-based quality criteria and thus give orientation and support to HE media and learning centers, teaching and service staff, and private sector businesses involved into the design and production of high-quality multimedia learning design and implementation in higher education.Objective 3: Addressing digital transformation through the development of digital readiness, resilience, and capacityThe project aims at supporting academic teaching staff in using, adapting, designing, and applying multimedia teaching formats in higher education, at providing concepts and tools in order to further improve and innovate multimedia concepts and approaches, in promoting these formats within the European researcher and practitioner community, in promoting collaboration, exchange, and sharing of resources in HE teaching and learning. This means that the project addresses to a significant extent digital transformation by developing frameworks and tools to be used in higher education teaching and learning. Competencies and skills of media and learning centers and academic teaching staff as well as the media designers and producers are also an objctive. A Recommendations Report on strategies for high-quality media and learning design will further address - besides the direct target groups of the project - decision-makers involved in HE policies in order to enhance digital transformation, resilience, and capacity.Objective 4: Sharing and reuse of good quality media resources and online teaching practices in higher education TransACTION develops a hub with a media-repository area that supports the sharing and reuse of media for learning in higher education. Through the strong involvement of the Media and Learning Association, its members, and associated networks the project reaches out to the major and more important networks, HE Institutions, business companies working in the field of media for learning, and media-enhanced learning in HE.<< Implementation >>The TransACTION Project aims at supporting the development of a common European interest area in the field of research, innovation, and production of media for learning in HE. Overarching aims are:-Supporting academic teaching staff and students in using, adapting, designing, and applying multimedia teaching formats in higher education;-Defining a co-creation framework for media design and production; -Supporting service staff within the universities in designing, developing, and producing scientifically sound innovative concepts for multimedia learning and teaching;-Promoting media formats within the European HE researcher and practitioner community, while taking into consideration the influence of institutional and national contexts;-Promoting collaboration and exchange of experiences in the field;-Promoting the exchange of (open) resources for HE teaching across EuropeThe project is structured around 5 Workpackages with 5 key results and their ambitious realization is planned over a 36 months period. The work in each work package is allocated to one coordinator and all partners contribute to all activities.WP1: Management and Quality ManagementThe WP organizes the management, monitors the project development and achievement of all milestones and results, monitors and assesses the quality, and organizes and promotes communication within and about the project. It also defines the evaluation framework for the project and its results. Within this WP the evaluation activities for the project and its results are performed, analyzed, and concluded for further developments.WP2: Co-Creation FrameworkThe WP lays the theoretical foundation for the project and integrates it into a framework for the co-creation of learning media and media-based teaching and learning activities in HE. Theoretical underpinning: Open-Innovation, Curriculum Design, Value Co-creation. The WP structures and defines the workflow for the co-creation framework for learning media and media-based teaching and learning activities in Higher Education. WP3: Development of an Open Online Course and Training activitiesIn the context of the WP, the work towards the production of an online course is integrated. Additionally, the production training concept and training activities are defined and performed.WP4: Hub for Co-learning & SharingThe WP will focus on gathering, presenting, categorizing, and sharing high-quality learning content within a content repository (OER) and best practice examples. In the digital platform the network, the project, and the activities are presented. Existing and new resources will be shared. WP5: Networking, Dissemination and Exploitation activitiesIn the context of the WP, the dissemination and exploitation strategy is agreed upon and operationalized. The multiplier events are defined, organized, advertised, and performed The work towards “R5: Recommendation Report on Strategies for Promoting Media and Learning Design in Higher Education” is detailed, organized, and performed. The interactive presentation of the result is conceptualized and produced. All dissemination and information and tools are developed in the context of the WP.<< Results >>The TransACTION project is based on five main development areas, which are also directly associated with the five main project results: R1: Co-creation Framework for enhancing and promoting Media and Learning Design in Higher EducationInvolving all actors of HE teaching and learning process in the creative design of media-supported learning processes, aims of the framework are: Co-creating ideas and new teaching and learning scenarios, promoting innovation; co-creating multimedia learning solutions; co-creation framework for developing and innovating multimedia learning scenarios that are research-based and use student-centered innovative pedagogies.R2: Production of Distributed Open Online Course on Media and Learning DesignThe Course will comprise four independent modules: 1. Learning Design Principles; 2. Designing and Developing Multimedia Learning; 3. Offering Online/Blended Courses; 4. Facilitating Online-Teaching. The Course leads to a credential of ""digital learning design and multimedia production"". R3: Hub for Media Resources for Higher Education The hub will focus on presenting, categorizing, and sharing high-quality learning content within a content repository (OER) and best practice examples. R4: Training on Media and Learning Design in Higher EducationThe result will identify training scenarios for result 2 (the Open Online Course) and will define, apply and evaluate interactive and media-supported training approaches. R5: Recommendation Report on Strategies for Promoting Media and Learning Design in Higher EducationThe Recommendation Report will focus on questions such as: What does good digital teaching and learning with multimedia look like?; How can HE achieve it? Which are the key components of successful digital teaching and learning with media that academic teaching staff and third space staff can directly apply in their work? How can we collaborate to develop innovative solutions, so European organizations can take a leading role in a globalized HE world?Additionally, the project will promote dialogue and networking of Europen Universities towards sharing, reuse, and co-creation of media for learning and digital teaching and learning activities. These results have a high impact on academic staff, third space, service providers, technical staff, students, researchers, and the media and learning industry to design, innovate, and upscale effective media-supported learning solutions.Furthermore, the consortium expects to have an even broader impact by promoting scientifically sound and efficient media production and HE teaching and learning usage. We will do this through our planned collaboration with practitioners, researchers, and policy-makers at the local, national, and European levels."

"Efforts to curb the outbreak of COVID-19 led to the closure of education and training buildings, campuses and other sites and a forced shift to emergency modes of digital education. In many Member States, most institutional leaders, in particular those in mid-level positions, had little if any experience of organising teaching and learning online or the different infrastructural, human resource and administrative challenges associated with it. The gulf between responses of different institutions to the crisis has shown that leadership is one of the most important enabling factors for a successful move-to-digital. Institutions that had previously invested in building the digital capacity of their management were better prepared to adapt teaching approaches, keep learners engaged, and continue the education and training process. In defining how to move beyond the unplanned and emergency phase imposed on education providers, institutional leaders need to acknowledge that the shift to digital has been permanently accelerated and that institutions that do not embrace it will exacerbate a digital divide in education and the labour market. Students expect institutions to exist within a digital society and recognise that collaboration, socialisation and learning already happen in a variety of physical and digital environments, and to prepare them to thrive in a digital-first economy and society.StrategyHack supports the priorities of the Digital Education Plan, focuses on capacity building on mid-level institutional leaders since a resilient transformation requires strengthening the connecting tissue between the high-level management strategy level and the digital-pedagogy level which these personnel provide. We intend to:• accelerate digital transformation of staff, programmes and institutional processes within Higher Education;• promote and nourish high quality self-directed personalised learning environments with a strong digital component;• lock in gains made to perceptions of digital learning during the COVID crisis, and using these to promote more sustainable models of digital educationOur consortium consisting of 3 Higher Education Institutions with expertise in the topic, two associations of Higher Education and a digital learning consultancy, will work together to take a European Approach to these challenges by creating:Capacity Building Course on Digital Education StrategiesThis will be designed around a set of 15-20 digital management skills, grouped around 5 dimensions of change', namely pedagogical, organisational, technological, economic & political and institutional change. with a micro-module being designed to acquire each skill by following a challenge-based approach that will instruct participants by giving the opportunity to practice and develop the required skill. The course will take a self-directed free flowing approach, to allow participants to personalise their own learning pathways based on their specific needs.Peer-learning methodology for Digitisation Strategy ImprovementWe will describe a problem-based methodology for institutional leaders to cooperate within and across institutions to solve specific strategy problems. Inspired by coaching, design-methodologies and hackathon events, we will design intensive online events, with participants over several sessions identifying a problem, sharing best practice on potential solutions, and then working in small groups to propose solutions. Each event will address a challenge such as ""How do I conduct assessment remotely and securely for my institution?; How do I map staff's digital competence? How do I address accessibility challenges in my department online?"" and aim for institutional leaders to leave the event with a set of concrete ideas to try and implement within their institution. We will:· develop the methodological handbook to run these digital leadership development events;· run six events, focusing on different areas of priority· publish the 'hacked' institutional strategy proposals via the project's website, to inform other actors on insights gainedModel Management System for digital educationThis will consist of a strategy-guidance document, that will give institutional leaders a map to build their institutional strategies and cover:• Leadership documents to integrate digital learning into the institution's identity• Strategic approaches to manage risk and sustainability• Methodologies to manage resources efficiently• Tools and techniques to tackle the most challenging operational activities in digital educationOver the course of the project we intend to reach between 150-250 institutional leaders, each of which will gain additionally capacity to deploy digital within their institutions and communities. We will further carry policy recommendations to regional, national and European levels to inform policies within the Commission and the Bologna Process."

The “innovative methodS for Media & Information Literacy Education involving schools and librarieS” (SMILES) project will address the topic of media literacy and combating fake news in Europe, with a strong focus on digital media use and COVID-19. Following the rise of fake news and disinformation, fuelled by the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a strong urgency for the participating organisations to develop and test new methods for media and information literacy. Representing libraries, media literacy organisations and a research institute, the consortium is determined to contribute to a safer and more responsible use of digital technology, particularly amongst young people. The SMILES project aims to test innovative educational approaches in the form of fake news workshops at secondary schools held by school teachers and librarians, and monitor their effectiveness. The project method is to deploy a 'train the trainer' approach, in which school teachers and librarians are equipped with the necessary knowledge, skills and materials to deliver workshops to secondary school pupils (age 12-15). Concretely, 60 school teachers and librarians are trained in organising ‘fake news’ workshops to young people; and they will organise the workshops at secondary schools in Belgium, Spain and the Netherlands for 600 participating young people.In order to reach the overall objective to enhance the digital readiness of secondary schools and empower young people to critially use digital technology, the consortium will develop three Intellectual Outputs. A Baseline study will be conducted in the three countries to research and connect different educational approaches in Europe, enabling the development of a shared methodology on fake news workshops (intellectual output 1). Based on the results of intellectual output 1, the SMILES training programme to promote the safe and responsible use of digital media tools will be developed and deployed, including the production of a manual for trainers and a digital toolkit (intellectual output 2). Finally, the project partners will develop a report on the effectiveness of the workshops and tested methodology in the three countries (intellectual output 3). As part of the project, transnational meetings and dissemination activities will lead to a sharing of knowledge on the effectiveness of the fake news workshops between three European countries (Belgium, Spain and the Netherlands), as well as on a wider level through a dedicated dissemination plan. The ultimate goal of the project is to help create more awareness and trust of young people in the institutions that provide verified information - i.e. schools, libraries - and the essential role these institutes play in the information society.

Acknowledging that the educational institutions are a place where diversities meet and interact on a daily basis and that they are the first pillar of the societal integration and acculturation, the project aimed at the topic of Diversity Management at school, focusing on the teachers as key actors in the process of transfer of knowledge, values, skills and competences. In contrast to the numerous initiatives providing the teachers with skills and competences of 'how to teach diversity', the current project focused on one significant gap, identified in the teachers' training: How to teach diversity, how to teach in diversity and how to manage diversity. The project envisioned following objectives and activities:1) Teachers’ empowerment through:• Development of solid knowledge and understanding of diversity management (training packages, handbooks, methodology); • Enabling the knowledge-based transfer and development of civic competences from teachers to their students (testing and monitoring); • Raising awareness about diversity management mechanisms and development of new skills and approaches to diversity (dissemination activities); 2) Supporting the early societal integration at school level through recruiting educational staff aware of and knowledgeable about culture-sensitive learning, mechanisms for mitigating intercultural conflicts, facilitating intercultural communication; 3) Establishment of an international educators’ network for real time self-support in addressing diversity challenges and of a mobile application for facilitating the network’s interaction; 4) Development of a training module and open educational resources in diversity management for teachers and 5) Adapting the developed training package for online training in diversity management for teachers. There were 10 organizations from 8 European countries in the consortium: the European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI), Germany - Research Centre; Workers Education and Training College (WETCO), Bulgaria - NGO working in the area of Adult training and VET; Danmar Computers LLC, Poland - a private company that provides vocational trainings in the field of IT (expert on online platforms); Kairos Europe Limited, the United Kingdom - Vocational training centre that develops programmes aimed at intercultural exchanges between European countries; Fryske Academy Mercator, the Netherlands - research institute; MEDEA: Media & Learning IVZW, Belgium - multimedia association; EURAC, Italy - Research Institute with the focus on legal issues; CSP, Italy - research centre working on industrial development; Asociatia Paradigme Educationale, Romania - NGO, excluded from the consortium due to lack of competences and poor English language skills; Liceul Pedagogic “Mircea Scarlat” Alexandria, Romania – Secondary school. Main activities of the project: -6 transnational partnership meetings aimed at coordination of the work of consortium, testing of the products and clarification on the possible content-related issues/approaches to teaching the modules;-Development of the products, their translation and finalization (during the whole project time 2016-2018);- 2 multiplier events: pilot face-to-face trainings (February-March 2017); Final round of the multiplier events: presentation of all products, including testing of several modules from the Training package and the online platform (October-November 2018). Impact attained: 125 people attended face-to-face trainings in 7 partner countries; 100 people attended final MPE in 7 partner countries; 69 people form 12 countries took part in the testing of online course. The responses of participants while evaluating this course were very positive both on the part of the facilitators and participants. The analysis of the course evaluation determined a great deal of interest in this type of training.The modules can be used at any educational level (the course proposes materials for trainers and teachers, along with future teachers, students and pupils), they can be used in a form of standalone training (online training) or as a face-to-face training that shares interactive exercises on how to manage diversity in a classroom. The need in these trainings is also confirmed by the level of requests to conduct the whole training or some modules of interest: e.g. on the 6.12.2018 the ECMI staff conducted a training on religious diversity for IFA, Stuttgart; on the 28.02.2019 the ECMI team was invited to conduct a one-day Teach-D training in frames of a Teacher Training Day for Eckernförde school, Flensburg. In Bulgaria, the Ministry of Education included the Teaching in Diversity training in the obligatory Teachers Qualification Programme for school teachers for 2019-2020.