<< Background >>After 2018 European year of Cultural Heritage, professionals and institutions, public and private, working to preserve, promote, valorise Cultural Heritage around Europe increased their awareness of the importance of their role for the future of the common European house. This awareness made also more visible the need for a process of upskilling and reskilling most of the sector workforce, particularly its management especially on those skills that were felt essential for the sector challenges.<< Objectives >>EU Heritage worked to - promote innovation in Cultural Heritage by providing professionals working in the sector with competences allowing them to structure more competitive, sustainable, audience centered, digitally ready initiatives;- raise awareness of the importance of entrepreneurial, digital and other transversal and soft skills among the skills needed by sector’s operators;- build a strong alliance in the sector;- promote cross-fertilization between cultural heritage and other sectors<< Implementation >>In order to fully achieve these objectives the project has:- researched the impact of cultural heritage on the economy of the countries in the partnership;- listed and engaged the most relevant organizations and professionals working on the sector;- designed and developed a competence framework - designed and developed an innovative training program - designed the online environment of the project to be the space of the educational offer with a MOOC and a space for the sector professionals<< Results >>The main results of the project have been:- an in depth research on existing training offer and perceived training needs in the sector- the development of a training program focused on entrepreneurial, digital, transversal skills for the professionals and future professionals of the sector delivered through a MOOC and supported by a social networking platform- two level testing of the training, one online with over 1000 learners in the MOOC and national pilots in each partner country

The aim is to provide practical solutions to help close the gap between industry needs/expectations and educational system outputs, by creating a STE(A)M education master programme. The later will train in-service and future educators at all levels of education to implement STEAM-related courses in the target countries. Innovative learning material and services will be also developed offering educators a multidisciplinary perspective and participating universities the chance to exchange best practises, modernize, renew and align their curricula towards multidisciplinary skills and competencies necessary for rapidly changing job markets.In this context, the consortium will transfer significant know how from the European Educational System that will be used by the partner country Institutions to design an advanced MSc Curriculum for STE(A)M education. The absence of such a degree makes the need for its design and introduction pressing and the consortium envisages that this effort will spearhead similar endeavors in other Western Balkan countries. The Master’s Programme combines the diversity of expertise of leading European Universities and offers education oriented to a multidisciplinary understanding through the involvement of experts from complementary fields.The aim of this MSc programme is to enhance future and in-service educators, in order to:• develop a broad theoretical base reflecting current cutting edge research in STE(A)M education• comprehend and demonstrate specialised knowledge and skills in cross-disciplinary approaches• choose and use appropriate methods for active learning while teaching STE(A)M• design, develop and evaluate curricula and materials for STE(A)M-related courses• equip with the knowledge and skills to solve complex workplace problems and find flexible, intelligent, innovative solutions at the professional level• identify, design and implement effective STE(A)M-related training and development programmes

At this current time in the history of our peoples, we are facing a global crisis of culture and identity (Appiah, 2016) as evidenced through, for example, the rise in nationalism across Europe, the pathway to BREXIT and the impending ‘wall building’ between the USA and Mexico. An acknowledgement of this trajectory has led to the notion of Global Competence which is fast rising to the forefront of the European and International agenda with the hope that the development of such a competence will enable us to ‘live harmoniously in multicultural communities’ (OECD, 2018) going forward. Indeed, the acquisition of Global Competence has become increasingly important (OECD, 2018 & 2009; EU, 2018; Picardo, 2012; Facer, 2011; Clifford and Montgomery, 2011) as countries across Europe face increasing challenges, e.g. the integration of newly arrived peoples through the migration crisis, preparing our youth for life in a digitally interconnected global society, where they face uncertain futures as we enter what some argue is the 4th Industrial Revolution (Schwab, 2016). Such challenges require people to develop skills, knowledge, values, attitudes and understandings that enable us to live and work effectively in diverse societies. However Reimers (2009) suggests that the teaching of Global Competence is hindered from becoming a reality through what he terms as ‘an obsolete mind-set’ where the compartmentalization of curricula prevents teachers from approaching their subject from an interdisciplinary perspective. Moreover if educators themselves are not Globally Competent, it is unlikely that they will be able to develop this in their students (Gaudelli, 2016).Although there has been some work done in schools around Global Competence this has not been effectively addressed within Higher Education programmes (Gaudelli, 2016; West, 2012; Zhao, 2010; Longview Foundation, 2009) so that new teachers leaving university are often unaware of the need for Global Competence and are unskilled to integrate the teaching of such competencies within the curricula. This project directly addresses this challenge by working with teacher educators and trainee teachers (defined as anyone who is training to teach at any level, whether they are doing this in university or school or other settings) across the EU to achieve a key objective: to develop future cohorts of teachers who are both Globally Competent themselves but also have the skills to develop Global Competence in their students.This objective will be addressed through the development of five activities which can be summarised thus:1. Scoping Exercise and Curriculum Mapping activity that will generate a series of reports aimed at teacher educators, policy-makers and school leaders. 2. The development of Globally Competent Teacher Educators through interactive resources that will provide a platform where Global Competence can be learned about and explored within ITE programmes.3. An Awareness Raising Campaign directed at School Leaders that will present compelling evidence in multiple formats, so that Global Competence will be strategically embedded within schools.4. A Flexible Training Programme for Trainee Teachers that will support trainee teachers as they learn to both become Globally Competent themselves and learn how to develop Global Competence in their students once they become qualified teachers in schools. 5. Academic Outputs to highlight the outcomes and impact of the project and to support the dissemination of intellectual outputs amongst academics, policy-makers and other stakeholders.In addition to these activities, we will establish a transnational Global Competence Network of Educators to share, explore and validate Global Competence training within respective national teacher education programmes.The project will draw upon a Design Based Research Methodology which will guide all phases of the project including the collection of evidence to measure impact on participants, participating organisations and their stakeholders. DBR is fundamentally participatory, employing inclusive, cooperative evaluation methods to involve learners and key stakeholders. Throughout the project, we aim to involve a wide variety of stakeholders which will include academic staff, teacher educators, trainee teachers, non-formal and informal education providers, school leaders, teachers, education authorities, policy makers, leaders of multinationals and NGO executives.We anticipate that stakeholder organisations and associations which have been involved in the creation of the project outputs will endorse and recommend these resources and that the academic outputs from the respective countries are recognised as nationally outstanding reference materials to validate the effective teaching of Global Competence and are widely cited by other academics, peers and organisations.

There is evidence that Language Testing and Assessment (LTA) can have a strong impact on the quality of the learning outcomes. Yet, English Language Teachers (ELTs) cannot deliver professional results if they are not sufficiently trained in the area of LTA. Unfortunately, research has shown that in many educational systems across Europe, ELTs are, for the most part, unable to create good quality assessment materials and procedures. They have not developed, that is, what has been termed as ‘assessment literacy’, which is partly due to the lack of sufficient training in LTA. Given this state of affairs, there is an urgent need to develop an efficient, relevant, scalable and sustainable LTA training infrastructure for ELTs, which can eventually be of benefit to other language teachers as well.Consisting of a network of experts from six European countries (Cyprus, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Norway and the UK), the Teachers’ Assessment Literacy Enhancement (TALE) project is built on a solid identification of LTA training needs of pre- and in-service English Language Teachers in order to provide a training ecosystem that caters for these needs.Overall, the TALE project has contributed towards:- the development of innovative training materials and services, which can be delivered through face-to-face and online learning and offered through synchronous and asynchronous modes for the enhancement of the required LTA skills and competencies. The TALE training ecosystem, which has been piloted during the lifetime of the project, offers continuous support and mentoring to ELTs in the respective countries and beyond.- the expansion and the exchange of LTA expertise between European educational contexts in a creative and innovative way.- the cooperation between and within different disciplines, e.g. education (foreign/second language teaching and testing, assessment literacy, Content and Language Integrated Learning assessment and eLearning/distance education) and various sectors of training and the workplace in order to foster efficient and meaningful assessments suitable for all types of language learners in primary and secondary education.- the synchronization and harmonization of foreign language teacher training and assessment practices in the field of LTA in Europe and beyond.The training endeavour has followed three main phases. The first phase involved a Needs Analysis (Intellectual Output 1) which was achieved through a comprehensive literature review on current thinking in language assessment literacy and an extensive consultation with pre- and in-service teachers (n=852) and language learners of all ages (n=1788) to ensure that the training ecosystem would meet their needs. The results of this phase were used as input in the next phase. The second phase involved the development and piloting of an Online Training Course (Intellectual Output 2) consisting of eight independent sections (sub-courses). During piloting, feedback mechanisms were put in place to ensure that the stakeholders were able to evaluate the effectiveness of the training materials and services. The feedback which pilot teachers (more than 150 from various countries) provided was given due consideration and revisions were made accordingly. Once the materials were refined and the evaluation process was complete, the “Handbook of Assessment for Language Teachers” (Intellectual Output 3) was drafted, refined, piloted and finally published to enable and promote wider implementation of the project beyond the partner organisations. The Handbook contains a user-friendly book version of the training tasks, explanations and answer keys that users can find on the TALE Online Course. The third key phase of the project, which ran concurrently with the other two, involved: a) project management, b) evaluation and quality assurance and c) dissemination, exploitation and sustainability.The main target audiences of the project were: 1) pre-service and in-service English Language Teachers, 2) students, 3) educational policymakers, 4) experts and researchers in LTA and 5) pre-service and in-service teachers of other languages. In each of the participating countries, two multiplier events took place aiming to disseminate the results of the Needs Analysis and the Online Training Course, respectively. In these events mainly pre-service and in-service ELTs participated and also persons from the last three categories of stakeholders mentioned above. Near the completion of the project, a final conference was organised in order to raise awareness on the main intellectual outputs of the project: the Needs Analysis, the Online Course and the Handbook. Taking into account the innovative nature of TALE, the impact on all groups involved in the project has been more than significant, highlighting the importance of the TALE training ecosystem in helping teachers enhance their language assessment literacy and, thereby, achieve better learning outcomes.

When launching the 2013 Communication Opening up Education the Commission highlighted that, despite many investments and initiatives in the field, between 50% and 80% of students in EU countries never use digital textbooks, exercise software, broadcasts/podcasts, simulations or learning games as tools to learn. Furthermore school teachers do not consider themselves as 'digitally confident' or able to teach using digital solutions at their full potential, even if a high percentage (around 70%) of them is interested in using innovative digital based approaches. The project partnership involves 5 higher education institutions and 2 teachers training associations, all with a strong experience in preparing teachers of the future.Through their everyday experiences, and through the participation to previous projects have identified in Videogames and Apps the two aspects in which there is the highest gap between the existing and potential educational added value and the capacities of teachers to make full use of it. The project partners identify as key target group the future teachers attending faculties of education as they are more likely to be prepared and open to a more effective preparation and attitude towards using and developing videogames and apps. Therefore the project addresses the Higher education sector with specific reference to the preparation of future teachers. Within this context the project aims to: - investigate the state of art as far as educational videogames are concerned, analyzing their characteristics and technical solutions, as well as their didactic potential. - Explore in depth the methodological, pedagogical and also skills and competences assessment aspect of the use of videogames and apps for educational purposes. Both addressing those products that are planned and designed for such purposes, as Educational Videogames/Apps, and those who despite being developed only for leisure purpose, they could still be used in an educational context. - Provide future teachers with a comprehensive reflection on the innovation of didactic methods through the use of videogames and ludic apps for mobiles, and on the issues related to the assessment of competences, skills and knowledge according to the principles of the ECVET and ECTS systems, applying them to educational Videogames. - Provide future teachers with the basic knowledge of programming languages in order to make them autonomous in developing educational videogames and apps for mobile In each of the countries involved the project will impact on: - 5 Higher education lecturers, teaching to teachers, will be involved in the creation and testing of the 3 intellectual outputs - 30 future teachers will be involved in making use of the intellectual outputs for pilot testing purposes Leading to a total stakeholders benefiting from being involved in the project activities of: - 30 Higher education lecturers, teaching to teachers, - 180 future teachers The project will impact on teachers trainers and future teachers professional qualification through: - Innovative pedagogic and methodological skills and competences to understand the importance of not only make occasional use of videogames and apps in their lessons, but to plan an integrated, organic and effective educational plan including the most innovative products available on the market - A comprehensive set of guidance materials and operative tools addressing the theme of innovation of didactic methods through the use of videogames and ludic apps for mobiles. The provided materials will also allow the assessment of competences, skills and knowledge according to the principles of the ECVET and ECTS systems, applying them to educational Videogames. - Guidance materials and operative tool to reinforce their competences in creating their own didactical products that exploit Videogames and multimedia technical solutions for educational and training purposes. In order to achieve these results the project will develop 3 Intellectual Outputs: IO 1 – Repository of Videogames for Education Online database of educational Videogames and mobile apps and of commercial Videogames and Apps that despite not specifically designed for educational purpose have a clear and strong educational potential. The apps and videogames will be thoroughly categorized, analyzed and assessed in order to provide the users of the repository with a set of information aimed at making the Videogame/App effectively usable in teaching contexts. IO 2 – Guide on the use of Videogames and Apps in education Guide for future teachers on how to use videogames and apps for educational purpose. The guide will be structured in modules organised in learning units highlighting the learning outcomes according to the ECVET principles. IO 3 – Programming videogames and apps for education Online training package to introduce future teachers to the main programming languages to be used develop v