Name of project: WorkQual - Workmentoring within a quality management system. Structure for cooperation between school and small and medium-sized Enterprices (SMEs).Coordinator: Verkmenntaskólinn á Akureyri (VMA). https://workqual.vma.is The project was based on two big ideas: First: Building a handbook and a framework with processes, necessary data collecting sheets and checklists for the work needed when preparing and following a student in a workplacement. Second: Structuring a network needed for strong workplace education opportunities in the community.The project partnership consisted of four colleges and two consultants. VMA in Akureyri, Iceland, Charlottenlund in Trondheim, Norway and Axxell in Finland, are vocational colleges offering many types of vocational study. NTA Jules Rieffel is an agricultural college in France working with small workplaces in agriculture. The consultants, IFSAT in the Netherlands, also connected with a re-integration program for young unemployed, and Broadshoulders in England, have been involved in developing many different things in vocational education, particularly the role of workplaces.The need for this project was identified when evaluating the WorkMentor http://workmentor.vma.is/wiki/index.php/Work_Mentor project. This was the 3rd in a series of projects dealing with the learner in the workplace using a portfolio of evidence to report on his learning progress (ProVoTrain project), a project for the support to and teaching of VET teachers who needed professional adaptation to blended learning (POÈTE project) and the WorkMentor project which developed training packages for work mentors guiding learners in the workplace. During this evaluation we felt that a solid support structure, a framework of agreements, arrangements and matching documents, could increase the efficiency of the learning placement and clarify the role of each of the three parties in the agreement.The main purpose of this project was to develop a system of processes, sheets, forms and inspections to use with workplacements that can be incorporated into the quality management systems vocational colleges or other providers work with. This was directly linked to the efforts of the European Commission when developing tools to use when comparing and cooperating within the scope of vocational education. ECVET, EQF and other tools established to facilitate the flow of students and qualified workers.The WorkQual project started by collecting information on which aspects different stakeholders wanted to discuss when looking at learning in the workplace. This was summarized in the Inventory of Needs Report. Some of the partners had formal meetings with local stakeholders and all collected opinions from employers, students and teachers. The common points made were written into the processes in the manual after the partnership had gone through all the steps and with suggestions from the experience the partners brought to the project.The final major output is a system integrated for the general European system proposed in the European tools. The manual is written to match the processes a Quality Management System proposes for planning and implementing a workplacement.It is the belief of the partnership that this system for working with students in workplaces will be of great importance now when many countries have been working on their vocational education systems. Often the responsibility of training in the workplace is placed on the colleges/schools/providers. This calls for a structure and a transparent system to use when placing students in workplaces and monitoring their competence.Even if many countries have good structure for this they are not taking the role of workmentors in the workplace into account. The general assumption was that there are three responsible partners involved: a college/provider, a workplace and the student. The system takes this into account so the education will be manageable for the college, not a burden for the workplace and it will be relevant and inviting for the student.Our goal was to develop a system that can be used in many sectors. We feel we managed to do this.Even if there are different competences to gain in the workplace for different vocations we feel there are general factors involved in the success of students. How can we match the student to the most suitable workplace? What does the underlying agreement look like? How can we support the students during workplacements? How can we evaluate the student without expecting workplaces and students to deliver lengthy reports? Will the workplacement be valuable for the student when entering the vocation? The same questions should be asked in every sector of Vocational Education and Training.The outcome of the project is that we think the manual can be used in different types of workplacement in different sectors.See http://hepg.org/hep-home/books/schooling-in-the-workplace

"AppMentor project continues the work that began during the Leonardo da Vinci Project WorkMentor (2011-1-IS1-LEO05-01263) chosen to be a ""success story"" by a panel of experts from the Directorate-General for Education and Culture of the European Commission and WorkQual (2014-1-IS01-KA202-O00180). The need for AppMentor in VET has arisen as an increasing part of the learning is conducted during work based learning (WBL) away from the VET provider. Sometimes it is impossible to travel to the companies and have mentoring sessions on the spot. Many work mentors & mentoring teachers already see the benefits of using mobile technology (=SOME) in mentoring. Also reporting and registering is already done online in many sectors of industry and service. In order to do this work mentors and mentoring teachers need tools and encouragement to guide and support them to start using SOME when mentoring. They don’t want to be made feel inferior to the students who use different forms of mobile technology and social media. By implementing the outcomes of Appmentor we will give work mentors and teachers the tools needed in order to start using SOME when mentoring. This will make mentoring more flexible and it will create a learning experience which is user friendly, meaningful and up to date with the working environment. Students used to using mobile technology (blogs, facebook, Instagram, chats etc) use it because it is useful, flexible, instant and a way to keep track on what is going on. Students might however need support and encouragement to use these forms of mobile technology in a “new” way, a way that encourages and supports learning. AppMentor provided teachers and work mentors with tools and ideas on how to guide students to use SOME for learning. AppMentor transferred & implemented mobile learning to work placements. 2) encouraged work mentors to use mobile technology (e.g. apps, social media, virtual learning platforms) when mentoring students/apprentices during WBL, 3) deepened the cooperation as well as information and data sharing between work mentor and mentoring teacher during placement by introducing tools for mobile technology, 4) ensured that all students regardless of where they have their work placement receive continuous mentoring & feedback through mobile technology and thus raising the quality of learning received during work placements, 5) introduced tools, methods & materials that support the work mentor and student during work placements.AppMentor had the following intangible results/impact 1) Better cooperation between the work mentor and teacher, 2) Improved communication between student, work mentor and mentoring teacher, 3) Raised quality of WBL both nationally and abroad, 4) Flexible and qualitative mentoring fit for the 21st century and 5) An attitude change relating to how learning and mentoring should be done.The project lifespan was 24 months + 2 extra months to ensure that the outcome(s) were qualitative and user-friendly. Appmentor partners hosted five transnational project meetings during this period. Each meeting lasted for 3 days. In order to ensure time to work on the intellectual outputs there was 1 meeting every 5-6 months, the first meeting was held in December 2016. Throughout the project each partner cooperated closely with employers, work mentors and students and develop the Intellectual Outcomes: 1) Online Micro Learning mentoring course, 2) Manual of mobile technology and social media that can be used to facilitate and strengthen the quality of the mentoring process and 3) Guidelines for mentoring students online using mobile technology. All 3 IOs are included in the AppMentor - An online course for coaching and mentoring at work (https://appmentor.weebly.com/). The AppMentor Online Course is open for all interested parties to use and implement and is available in English, Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian, Dutch, Icelandic, French and Spanish.Dissemination was and continues to be an important part of the project and all partners were active in disseminating the project though SOME media such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram and by participating in conferences and seminars as well as other events. AppMentor has a project web page http://thalttun.wixsite.com/appmentor and an open Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/AppMentor.project/ that function as dissemination channels.By the end of the project all partners had implemented the outcomes of the project in their daily activities and are committed to ensure that the outcomes will be sustainable and used in the future. Appmentor project partners are: P1 = Axxell, Finland (coordinator), P2 = Broadshoulders, UK, P4 = Charlottenlund Upper Secondary School, Norway, P5 = Nantes Terre Atlantique, France, P6 = Verkmenntaskolinn a Akureyri, Iceland, P7 =Education and Mobility, Spain and P8 = Het Idee, The Netherlands"