<< Objectives >>The aim of CONNECT is to develop a multipliable guideline for digital and green skills teaching for vocational training in sculpture, to enable them to use digital tools in the development and positioning of sculptures in the virtual world and to use materials in a resource-saving and circular way. The project will be implemented and established in a partnership between vocational schools and a developer of innovative delivery formats.<< Implementation >>CONNECT is implemented in 5 activities. In a workshop on knowledge transfer, analysis of strengths and weaknesses, definition of curriculum requirements. In an analysis of good examples. In the development and testing of a practice-oriented intensive training. Finally, the results will be incorporated into a guideline for teaching digital and green skills and disseminated to the partner schools and other arts and crafts schools<< Results >>As a result, a guideline for digital and green skills training, consisting of a best practice collection and a proven curriculum for a practice-oriented intensive training, will be developed and can be used in different contexts of arts and crafts schools. A roadmap will sustainably establish the innovative educational partnership between vocational schools and a developer of practice-oriented training offers for digital technologies.

"Background of project:Design has become an everyday concept.The aim of this project is to research different cultural, geographical as well as philosophical approaches to the concept Design with the students to support their own ideas in the field of architecture, furniture construction and interior design. For this, the students will study both European similarities and regional and national characteristics in order to become more self-confident in designing and crafting.During the project the students visit international furniture fairs (Cologne and Milan) to get new ideas, to improve their knowledge of modern design and to compare their ideas and final products with ideas proposed by famous designers. This project encourages students to work efficiently in international teams.Objectives:The target of the project ""Design - a Definition Approach in a European Context"" ist to engage students in research of well-renowned designers coming their own national background. The outcome will be presented in international teams which gives students the opportunity to learn and perceive cultural and professional differences by comparison and contrasting. Different cultural and historical background of team members will foster cross-cultural communication abilities.The next project phase contains the development of specific furniture objects using cutting-edge technology such as 3D-planning tools or augmented reality tools. At the end of this creative work phase students from Austria, Finland, and Latvia will meet for a workshop giving them the chance to manufacture models and prototypes of their ideas.Finally the outcomes of the workshop will improved and discussed with regard to economic, ecological implications. A final meeting in Riga, Latvia will be scheduled to evaluate the project, extract learning experiences and to plan professional dissemination of project outcomes.Participants:The participants are 2-3 teachers focusing on design theory, art history, and manufacturing technology from each participating school, respectively. These teachers supervise student teams up to 20 persons, age 15 to 20 years old. During work phases, 4 students will be chosen from each national team to represent their sending school at the international meetings described before. They are responsible for presentation and communication with the whole group.All students involved have a background in interior design or craftmanship.Activities:First of all, students will be engaged in research to get a good overview about design history of Europe. The teachers involved will meet in Brussels to widen their horizon and to visit EU-institutions in order to qualify them for knowledge transfer of EU-topics. The students involved will have a first project meeting in Raahe, Finland, where the output of the design phase is discussed. Afterwards the teams will develop specific furniture objects. It is planned to enable them to visit the interior design fairs in Cologne and Milano. These high-end trade fairs will give immediate feedback on the quality of own drafts. As a next interaction, selected team members will travel to Hallstatt, Austria to take part in a realisation workshop. Models and prototypes of furniture will be the output. Finally, real objects will be produced at each institution. These will be presented in the framework of a final project-meeting in Riga, Latvia, where the whole project will be critically discussed and the learning process will be evaluated. The remaining time will be used for the dissemination of project results.Methodology:Methodically, learning will be fostered by working on real-life projects and by the work in international teams. In other words a common project language - English, different cultural backgrounds and differeing problem solving strategies demand a high degree of flexibility and intercultural communication. Training these key competences throughout the projects is likely to improve the students competence to contribute to a progressive and peaceful European community.Results:At the end, the project should generate promising furniture object-drafts, high-quality visualisations (including virtual reality studies), technical drawings of the designed objects, real size prototypes, and a website showing the results.From a meta-level students professional and social abilites should be improved by the project and their interest for pan-European working should be enhanced. Finally, the organisations involved should expand their experience about EU-projects to go on with further projects in future.Impact:The impact we strive for is a positive connotation of Europe in students' minds. Also, the cooperation in a multi-cultural team is likely to lead to innovative designs, open-mindedness for different cultures, and improved English-language skills. From an organisational point of view, the project improves the EU-project management competence at the schools involved."

The Austrian Federal Constitution explicitly stipulated that the Austrian schools are required to ensure the highest possible level of education while constantly ensuring and developing the best possible quality. The mission statement of the Section for Vocational and Adult Education of the BMBWF explicitly addresses the area of internationalization. The goal of VET schools is, in general, to provide students with skills that enable them to take up (highly) -qualified occupations and continue their education at universities and technical colleges. The graduates of vocational schools, especially technical and commercial schools, are characterized by a high employability and are therefore hardly threatened by unemployment. In order to maintain this in the future and also to avoid an increasing number of early school leavers, continuous further development of state of the art teaching methods for engineering training and pedagogic have to be forced and applied. New technologies and processes have to flow into the lesson without delay.To achieve the overall goals to maintain or increase the high level of employability of our students and to reduce the number of early school leavers we have identified the following objectives for the project. We want to develop an innovative learning and teaching environment for a task based on digital technology, fostering Problem-solution oriented and networked action and finding a cooperation-based learning approach in an international environment.To achieve the project's objectives, we will confront the participating students with a task that shall be solved by constructing and programming a Robot from LEGO parts - like the well-known First Lego League. Constructing the Robot is only one part of the Project. The task given by the teachers includes also a research and market research task related to the function of the robot and the students must provide a simple business plan which lines out how they will market the products.In this project 8 teachers and 100 students of a total of four different schools will participate. The pupils are in the age group of 14 to 16, are student of technical schools and have already learned the basics of the tasks in front of them. Groups of students from the participating schools will compete against each other to solve the task given by the instructors. By using the universal LEGO parts and a simple program language we allow students to create their own Robot and find creative and unique solutions. Using the LEGO parts, we make it easy to construct the robots and try them out. Possible none working designs can be corrected easily. This ensures a stress and frustration free working environment which is important to stimulate creativity and Innovation.As a result, we expect innovative, new products that solve the tasks presented by the teachers, together with a complete documentation including the product documentation, a research document, a Project Management report and a business plan. We will exhibit all the products on etwinning and on our webpages to document those results.The internationalization element will be achieved by choosing the task that involves activities that involve local students, staff and excursions to companies etc. where the students have to speak English and also learn to communicate and work with people in the hosting country. The Objectives for the teachers are to be a coach to the groups and to document and asses the work of the group and provide some mentoring and tutoring if necessary and study the teaching methods in Austria and Portugal and visit companies. That way also the teacher can compare the processes and learning activities within the groups during the competition and during the normal classes. We expect that the teachers can find some common methods or challenges which are possible starting points for future projects and they will also learn some new methods an use them in their regular classes.

<< Objectives >>We want to contribute to the climate goals and innovation. Since the Building sector is a contributing significantly to CO2 emissions and use of materials, we want to contribute to the transition of the building sector towards (more) circularity. More and more regulations are being put into force. Our VET schools want - in cooperation with companies and governments - further increase our knowledge towards about circular building & exchange experiences and good practices.<< Implementation >>A baseline study (based on desk- and field research), dialogue sessions with companies and making a final visual about what we have learned.Live meetings where European VET schools and building companies can meet each other.<< Results >>- A higher awareness of the importance of circularity in the building sector amongst teachers our VET schools and in companies in our regions. - A strengthened dialoge and partnership between VET schools and companies about curcular building > cooperation agreement- Better knowledge about the current situation regarding circular building, (future) regulations etcetera.- Strenghened international view and cooperation amongst our VET schools, expecially the E+ KA2 non-experienced partners

<< Background >>The whole project derives from a need that has been identified in all of our schools; namely that many of our students seem to be unsuccessful in their studies. There are a number of students that run the risk of failure and may not be able to complete their studies as planned. Reasons for that may include mental health issues such as anxiety and stress, inadequate study habits that leave them unprepared for different assignments and tasks, as well as faulty time management skills which result in them not handing in their work on time. In the project we will compare different methods that we use in school for tackling these problems. By comparing methods and having project meetings with students where both students and teachers work together using different methods to deal with the problem. By doing this we will gain more knowledge about the students' problems and find better methods to deal with students' failure in their studies and avoid procrastination. To work with learning approaches and contexts for continued learning.This project will work with the priority of tackling mental health issues among students, early school leaving, procrastination and lack of motivation .Our project will handle conflicts on different levels like internal and external conflicts. Internal conflicts are closely connected to external conflicts in the sense that students encounter information that at times may be difficult to process. Topics such as gender equality, violation of human rights, sexual harassment, the climate crisis and bullying are addressed in the classroom but might be delicate to manage and therefore it may create stress and a feeling of hopelessness among the students. This in turn may lead to lack of motivation, anxiety, procrastination and early school leavings. This is the area of conflicts that we have chosen in this project, it is about conflicts that we have in society and school (external) but also the inner conflicts that may arise. How they are connected and how they can be resolved.<< Objectives >>- Students’ and teachers’ survey, learn and study different methods on how to handle students' failure in school.This could provide professional experiences for teachers and offer a set of good practices and exchanges that will improve the students’ results. - Teachers learn how to study school related problems by methods like proven experience and systematic quality work in school.This will strengthen teachers professionalism by creating pedagogic tools on how to cope with problems that affect students' schoolwork. This project will also strengthen teachers' knowledge in pedagogy by working together - discussing and comparing different methods.-To increase the competences of students and teachers regarding democracy, human rights, social and civic competences, climate changes, cultural awareness and expression, skills in communicating in a foreign language.- To learn more about different cultures in Europe what we are common so the teachers and students feel that they are EU citizens-To engage teachers from participating schools in new teaching and pedagogical methods about how to handle conflicts in the school environment.This will strengthen both students’ and teachers’ possibilities to cope with internal and external conflicts. For students this could provide an internalization of hope and optimism about future outcomes. Specially focus in this project is for students' internal conflicts to cope with stress related issues in school, procrastination of students work for external conflicts to cope with climate changes, covid-19, prejudice, cyber bullying,equality and gender issues, -The project will result in a home page and a small publication about pedagogical methods of coping with external and internal conflicts in school. The project result can be used in the partner schools and also be shared in the different school countries’ network.-By working together in digital documents that are shared, video conferences, e-twinning platforms and blog sites, the knowledge of digital competence among teachers and students will be enhanced. -To improve students’ and teachers’ skills of teamwork and cooperation with students and teachers from other countries. Their cultural awareness will increase and they will learn more about the EU and their countries. Teachers may, by working together about how to cope with problems that affect school, get a deeper understanding of pedagogy and it will strengthen teachers' networks. - The students are going to learn how to cope with problems using a method called “self-leadership”. With the help from the project's associated partner Wallenberg Academy they are going to learn this method. - To investigate how teachers and students cope with covid-19 in different schools. How did teachers and students cope with the transition to digital lessons? Best practice and advice. How did students and teachers cope with the situation of being at home compared to being at work?<< Implementation >>This project is going to create pedagogical materials to deal with internal and external conflicts that could be used in schools. With more knowledge on how to act when encountering conflicts associated with e.g. students’ mental health, motivation and procrastination, we will gain more civic engagement and increase participation in society by students as well as teachers and staff in schools. How do schools incorporate conflict management in the different subjects on an internal and external level? By comparing and learning about different conflict situations and solutions from the participating schools and the local communities they represent, as well as including knowledge from global work and work at EU-level we can elaborate on the issue, hence forming a deeper understanding among the participants. By gaining a better understanding for conflict management and giving participants a set of tools to navigate their lives, this will result not only in better mental health but also give participants the ability to act like a good citizen with respect for different people and respect for the environment.The project will also result in a deeper knowledge in school subjects such as social science, natural science and language.In this partnership between schools and associated partners we can develop an agenda of conflict management. The project result, like the home page and publication, could be tools for schools to improve their results of students’ failure and students’ participation in society and schools.Home page - the official place for the project (the focus will be on the outcome of the project). This is also the part of the project that will be publicly accessible after the end of the projectA small publication will provide information of pedagogical methods that we use and that teachers want to share - also this will be accessible after the end of the project.<< Results >>This project is going to create pedagogical materials to deal with internal and external conflicts that could be used in schools. With more knowledge on how to act when encountering conflicts associated with e.g. students’ mental health, motivation and procrastination, we will gain more civic engagement and increase participation in society by students as well as teachers and staff in schools. How do schools incorporate conflict management in the different subjects on an internal and external level? By comparing and learning about different conflict situations and solutions from the participating schools and the local communities they represent, as well as including knowledge from global work and work at EU-level we can elaborate on the issue, hence forming a deeper understanding among the participants. By gaining a better understanding for conflict management and giving participants a set of tools to navigate their lives, this will result not only in better mental health but also give participants the ability to act like a good citizen with respect for different people and respect for the environment.The project will also result in a deeper knowledge in school subjects such as social science, natural science and language.In this partnership between schools and associated partners we can develop an agenda of conflict management. The project result, like the home page and publication, could be tools for schools to improve their results of students’ failure and students’ participation in society and schools.Home page - the official place for the project (the focus will be on the outcome of the project). This is also the part of the project that will be publicly accessible after the end of the projectA small publication will provide information of pedagogical methods that we use and that teachers want to share - also this will be accessible after the end of the project.