<< Background >>It is estimated that 80 % of care work is provided by informal carers in Europe. There are thousands of Europeans, mostly women caring for a family member with support needs and specially the older adults. Many of those women are out of the labour market and face challenges in accessing adequate resources, support services and social benefits. Leaving these informal carers without support exposes them to poverty, health problems and undermines gender equality. This situation is accentuated by an acceleration of the digital transformation in the healthcare sector which requires the ability to manipulate and use e-health services and related technologies, on a daily basis, to provide the older adults with an adapted level of care. And to be able to do so, informal carers need to access adequate and adapted training and skills development notably related to digital competences.The DIGITALIS project will focus on female informal caregivers (FICs) with special focus on those providing long-term homecare and who need to re-enter the labour market after a long period of inactivity. Within the “Informal care in Europe” (Verbakel and al., 2017) it was revealed that on average, 34.3% of the population in 20 European countries were informal caregivers and 7.6% were intensive caregivers (providing care for minimum 11 h a week) with a prevalence among middle-aged women (50-59 years old) who are likely to be the first to respond to higher demands for informal care, while they are also the major target groups in employment policies aiming for increased labour market participation. The DIGITALIS project will tackle two major needs of the target group:-Needs in terms of training opportunity: from a major data collection conducted in 2017 by COFACE Families Europe, it appears that almost 2/3 of the respondents were never offered the opportunity to take part in any training, or skill development. Within DIGITALIS, the training offer will be notably related to the daily usage of specific digital healthcare services that FICs have to manipulate to provide care to their older adults’ relatives. To be as close as possible to the everyday life and to the needs of FICs who will participate to the project, the national contexts and specificities associated to the digital healthcare environments will be analysed as those can vary from a country to another. -Need to enhance professional experience and diversify opportunities for employability after a long period of time out of the labour market: by providing long-term care, FICs have acquired informal learning in different fields related to care support and most of the time they are not aware of it. Through the project, those valuable experiences will be collected notably through co-creation workshops which will be conducted to better frame and support the development of the digital skills training programme content.<< Objectives >>The main objective of the DIGITALIS project is to empower female informal carers with the essential digital skills and knowledge to fully exploit the potential of digital healthcare services and technologies to improve their own professional situation as well as the quality of life and safety of their relatives.DIGITALIS will have the following Specific Objectives (SO) to support the achievement of the above main objective:SO1: Improve the digital skills and competences of female informal carers for employability through an adapted and tailored-made training programme in 2 Piloting Countries (Greece and Hungary);SO2: Define and validate a complete national digital healthcare services and technologies landscape and the related digital skills roadmap according to the female informal caregivers’ needs in 2 Piloting Countries (Greece and Hungary); SO3: Develop, test and assess innovative e-learning courses and modules based on social innovation and human-centered approaches to better respond to female informal carers learning needs;SO4: Structure the main results, lessons learnt, informal carers testimonies and policy recommendations into a practical guide to enable dissemination and replicability at the European level.Reach the identified objectives calls for transnational cooperation. The Cooperation partnership brings together a foundation, a research institute, SMEs and an association with complementary expertise from 3 European countries. Through this transnational partnership, which addresses common problematics in improving the digital skills and competences of informal carers for employability, the partners will join forces, pool their ideas and resources into DIGITALIS to capitalise on their past experiences from other European projects. Thus, the project will address the challenges of training and recognition of informal carers’ status on a European scale through two Pilot Sites: one in Greece and one in Hungary and will facilitate the large-scale transposition of the methods and contents developed through the creation of a scale-up and replication guide.DIGITALIS gathers 5 partners from 3 Programme Countries (GR, HU and IT), from public and private sectors and with a complementary expertise: biomedical research laboratory and biotechnology innovation centre (Fondazione Democenter-Sipe - DCS, IT, Private Foundation), medical research and health promotion (PROLEPSIS, GR, Research Institute), Technology Enhanced Learning Systems (PROMPT, HU, SME), informal carers network support (EPIONI, GR, national non-profit organization) and Customer Communications Management (CCM) and Digital Customer Experience (DOXEE, IT, SME). DCS and DOXEE have been already involved in a Horizon 2020 project respectively, but it would be the first time in an Erasmus partnership project. They will be fully supported by the rest of the consortium.<< Implementation >>The project will last 36 months (01/01/2022 – 31/12/2024) and 4 Project Results (PR) will be achieved. The methodology applied aims to design a digital needs and assessment scheme, adapted to female informal caregivers (FIC) to allow an adapting mapping and inventory digital health care services and digital skills (PR1– M9), to concretely develop a set of digital training content modules and sessions (PR3 – M29), to develop the e-learning platform to support the test and assessment of digital training content modules and sessions (PR3 – M29) and finally build a replication guide to scale-up the Project Results at the European level (PR4 – M34). The following implementation process will be conducted to reach the project objectives and deliver the planned results. The 4 PRs will enable DIGITALIS to reach the quality objective of the training approach and its adaptability to the specific FICs’ needs, conditions and interest. Each PR definition and implementation will be based on the previous one to ensure the coherence of the project implementation:- PR1 The coordinator DCS will design the common digital healthcare services and skills methodology aiming to assess the FIC’ digital needs. To do so, essential steps will be followed: (i) the elaboration of a digital needs and assessment scheme notably containing a digital needs survey for FICs, (ii) the recruitment of FICs and the assessment of their digital inclusion (equipment/facilities) and digital skills baseline, (iii) the inventory of the digital healthcare services and technologies in the 2 Pilot Sites countries (Greece and Hungary) and an adapted roadmap of digital skills and knowledge to the identified FIC’s needs. This general frame will be the basis content which will enable the development of PR2.- PR2 Based on PR1 outputs, PROLEPSIS will lead the development of a set of digital training content modules and sessions for FICs. The co-creation content development approach, which will involve the active participation of FICs will enable the production of tailored made training modules content which will be translated in English and reviewed. For the skills acquisition evaluation, dedicated scenarios will be designed by PROLEPSIS. Finally, translation and localisation of the learning content into Greek and Hungarian will be also produced within PR2.- PR3 PROMPT will propose several activities that will progressively lead to the development of the e-learning platform to support the test and assessment of the digital training content modules and sessions produced in PR2. A beta version of the e-learning platform will be developed in a first place to enable the integration of the training modules. A continuous optimisation of the platform will be carried on until a final version is delivered at the end of the DIGITALIS project. Within this PR, the mentors will firstly test the platform and the recruited FICs by each Pilot Sites will test and assess the training programme. The development and implementation of the interactive and animated videos to support the dedicated scenarios developed in PR2 for evaluation will be performed by DOXEE. The online course will be completely finalised based on the feedback received from the Pilots.- PR4 DCS will design a Replication Guide plan and produce dedicated material highlighting the main results and lessons learnt. This guide will primarily target similar associations in the EU that would be interested to replicate the DIGITALIS approach. A recipient list will be established during the project to ensure a broader transferability: members of EUROCARERS and the prelisted entities (see associated partners question) will receive direct access to the Replication Guide. This final Project Result will also provide policy recommendations and guidelines for improving the status of informal caregivers and their access to training opportunities in Europe and more largely, adult education programmes at the national and European scales.<< Results >>The key deliverable of the DIGITALIS project is an innovative blended learning approach proposing a modular digital skills training programme with tailored-made content, specifically designed by and for the female informal caregivers according to their national healthcare environment and context. The blended innovative learning approach relies on the co-creation content development method which involves two focus groups (one in Greece and one in Hungary, each composed of a core group of 3 volunteers’ female informal caregivers – 6 in total) who will actively contribute to the entire creation process of the training content. The core subject of the training refers to e-health services used notably by the older adults in their daily life. During the preparation phase, key e-health services categories and associated technologies have been pre-identified. They provide an initial pattern to frame the modular training programme. Those preidentified services and technologies will be finetuned after the digital needs and baseline assessment results analysis (PR1 – M9). It is then scheduled to organise 5 co-creation workshops with the focus groups (1 workshop per module to be created) in both Pilot Sites – 10 workshops in total (half a day each – from M10 to M18). Those workshops will gather the partners in charge of creating and providing the training content and the informal carers associations to structure the online modules content and to ensure that it is in line with the needs of the target group. Following this content development phase, a proof-ready e-learning platform using a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) Open-Source solution (Moodle) settled in the frame of the Erasmus + Grandis XXI project (to be adapted to the DIGITALIS requirements within PR3) will support the following 5 preidentified modules (to be developed under PR2, modules to be delivered in M20):MODULE 1 – Basic digital skills and competences for caring for older adults (using the DigComp frame) MODULE 2 - Assistive technologies and health related information services MODULE 3 – Self-monitoring and disease management by using ICTMODULE 4 – Digital adherence technologies (smartphone-based technologies, digital pillboxes, etc.)MODULE 5 - Social networks, online communities for active and healthy ageingFrom Module 2 to Module 5, the content will be adapted to the national environment of the 2 Pilot Sites with the main objective to provide learning content combined with digital resources directly related to their national context. The DIGITALIS project will also provide tangible results in the field of Adult Education and Social Inclusion. The consortium aims to reach the following immediate results for at least 20 female informal caregivers who are members of EPIONI in Greece and 30 who are members of Önkéntes Központ Alapítvány (OKA - associated partner) in Hungary (50 in total) involved in the piloting phase:•A digital needs and assessment scheme (based on the DigComp frame) to evaluate the digital skills baseline of 50 informal carers in total;•An adapted mapping of digital healthcare services and technologies to FICs needs in the 2 Pilot countries;•A complete roadmap of digital skills and knowledge adapted to informal caregivers needs (also based on the DigComp frame) in the 2 EU Pilot countries;•5 co-creation workshops for the training content in both Pilot Sites – 10 workshops in total•A five-module digital skills training programme focusing on healthcare services and technologies in the 2 EU Pilot countries;•A thorough e-learning platform capitalizing on previous project developments to support the digital training content modules;•An evaluation frame to assess the digital skills acquisition by informal carers after participating to the programme and based on 5 persona-centred scenarios animated through 3 communication videos. •A replication guide to scale-up the project results at the European level

"Background, contextInteractive multimedia for teaching / learning did not live up to expectations, nor did interactive whiteboards, although they cost a lot of money. The emergence of web 2.0 has made the first change in the use of ICT tools for educational purposes, as it has been offering (literally) thousands of easy-to-use, free applications for practice and demonstration, motivating both teachers and students to learn and to create.There are many teachers who are happy and enthusiastic about training courses that support their professional development. But when we ask educators one year after attending a course on digital pedagogy about the extent to which they could incorporate what they have learnt into their daily practice, the most optimist answer is 10-15%. Why?We cannot blame the lack of infrastructure any more, as most teachers and students have a device with internet connection. But as recent research has revealed, the problem is more complex - a technical device cannot solve anything in itself. An educator who, after a successful training, returns to the teachers’ room at school, equipped with some new digital skills and methodology, often finds her/himself in a vacuum. It is time to realize that it is impossible to integrate technology by individuals into a system as complex as learning and its environment.Specific problems:●Lack of monitoring the efficiency and integration of training coursesIn-service teacher training is widely available, but most schools and educators enrol to them with the attitude of ""let’s get over with it, let’s get the credit,"" and there is definitely no follow-up, no organized feedback on utilization or integration.●Tension between digital challenges and the average age of educators Online training is common, which is beneficial due to their flexible timing. However, because of the average age of teachers, it would be important to ""physically"" show them how to use digital tools and applications.●Isolated pioneers – slow changesEducators who are open to change are often isolated. Changes are slowed down by the lack of collaboration and knowledge sharing among teachers.●Lack of institutional efforts to embed digital cultureVisiting each other's lessons, evaluating them and collecting feedback is not a common practice in schools.The answer to the problems:On-site digital pedagogy training supported by institutional intervention.The project aims to embed the traditional digital pedagogy teacher training program in a broader context by organizing customized school-based contact training sessions, linking it to organizational development components that enhance institutional digital competence and quality culture.Target group: VET teachers, trainers and managersIntellectual outputsThe Consortium plans five intellectual outputs, all of them developed in strong collaboration of the partners. All outputs contribute to achieving the final goal of the project: developing a methodology based on multilevel interventions, enabling VET teachers and schools to renew their teaching methods by utilising the potential in digital technology. IO1: Toolkit for developing Digital Pedagogy Strategy IO2: Digital Menu Card IO3: Developing and testing workshops for schoolsIO4: ICT-based creative classroom workIO5: Digital Pedagogy Training ModelWe believe our innovative model for intervention could potentially be applied by a wide range of educational institutions (even outside VET context), bringing tangible and lasting changes in digital pedagogy, to the benefit of students."

The project aims at developing a digital tool to promote the improvement of entrepreneurial skills in students studying at agricultural VET schools. Entrepreneurial skills are compulsory elements in the curricula of vocational training courses in several member states. One of the 8 key competences identified in the Lisbon Strategy is the improvement of entrepreneurial competence, which includes both striving for changes and the ability to accept and exploit new external solutions while developing a strategic approach.Likewise the possession of these skills is important to keep and develop the competitiveness in the agricultural sector. Becoming an entrepreneur can create jobs for young people and contribute to continue carrying on with the family business.From 2006 and particularly from 2010, the role of digital game-based learning, a novel approach in education, has been brought into the focus of attention. From 2013, varied methods, recommendations related to the application of gamification were published in the education sector.The Agropoly platform, as the main outcome of the project is based on this new, game-based methodology using the revised modules of the „Learn to Become your Own Boss” (CZ/10/LLP-LdV/TOI/134003) project implemented by CULS.The project carried out two intellectual outputs: IO1 – Agropoly online platform and IO2 – Teacher’s Handbook.The development of the main outputs were preceded by a survey, which aimed at identifying the main competences to be improved by the game. Based on this survey, the following competence centres were identified: •Responsibility & Risk taking•Decision making, planning & Leadership•Cooperation, networking & Communication •Innovativeness & Creativity •Time management & Planning•Information analyzing, processing & SummarizingThe modules in the curricula of teaching entrepreneurship varied in each partner country, therefore we created a frame story (the general goal of the game is to revive a devasted agricultural land), where each competence center forms an independent module. A mentor belongs to each competence center, who is a guide for the players during the game.After registration, students are landing on an abandoned agricultural land, where they can start playing with the minigames and collect agricultural assets. Players can move up a level by collecting the sufficient amount of these agricultural assets and they can compare their performance with others’.Type of the games: •Minigames•Decision trees•Board gamesThe knowledge garden: •Knowledge bases •Glossary •Case studiesThe theoretical knowledge background of the minigames can be found in the knowledge bases. At minigames, players can test their acquired knowledge and competences through agricultural examples.The minigames have the following sub-types:oQuizoGallows treeoMemory cards o„Set theory” games oVideos with quizoDrag’n’dropoGap fillingoTrue of falseThe Agropoly platform is available in all partner languages and in English. The main advantage of the English version is, that it is suitable for extension of knowledge of the English terminologies in agriculture.At game-based learning, the motivational power of the game helps students solving the learning tasks. We created a game structure, where students can restart one minigame as many times as they would like in order to learn the right answer and feel more and more successful each time.We also developed an online board game that students can play together with their friends. The 600 board game questions refer to all of the topics in the agricultural education. Each competence center contains a decision tree with real life situations, where the right and wrong answers are illustrated with a variety of graphical elements.Case studies have added values, as they introduce good entrepreneurial examples for students.A glossary was also added to the game, which helps students to understand certain terms.The game was tested by 500 students, teachers and their feedbacks were built in the final version of the game.IO2 – Teacher’s HandbookThis contains methodological recommendations for teachers. It is available in all partner languages, including 50 copies printed in Hungarian and in Romanian and 30 copies printed in Spanish and in Czech.The partnership organized 5 transnational and 1 trilateral meetings, where partners could work on the development of the intellectual outputs together. Moreover, one multiplier event was organized in each partner country, where 220 participants from the primary and secondary target groups took part altogether.The evaluation was made by one of the partners, who helped the project management providing feedbacks from the results of the evaluation questionnaires.The vocational schools participated in the project will apply the realized serious game in their teaching practices in the future.

"IntroductionTwenty-first century Europe is experiencing an uplift in the health of its population, with adults living longer, healthier lives than ever before. This has an impact on the demographic profile of our communities, with a higher proportion of older adults among the population. The project is aligned with the problems caused by demographic changes all over the world where the number of older adults is increasing every year and creating serious load problems for accompanying social and health systems. This was recognised by the European Union Commission when it started a Research and Development programme called Active and Assisted Living in 2008 (www.aal-europe.eu), aiming to stimulate the development of ICT-based systems and new models of elderly care. These systems support the active ageing and wellbeing of seniors at home in order to avoid their hospitalisation, and to stay in their own house and environment as long as possible. The purpose of Grandis was to improve vocational education and training to optimise adoption and successful use of these systems.ObjectivesGrandis XXI. project aimed at providing a possible answer to the challenges of the ageing societies by developing curriculum and online course for the social caregivers of the 21st century based on a requirement analysis by involving the target group and beneficiaries from the partner countries. The main results of the project is the course ""Connected Care of Older Adults"" a competence-based, modular training programme designed for formal and informal carers. The course prepares carers for effective use of ICT-based tele-care and communication systems that help monitor, manage, and improve the ability of people to live independently and interact with their care network. It aims to equip carers with an understanding of the demand for new approaches to care and to enhance its delivery through the use of a variety of eHealth technologies and smart devices, like home appliance monitoring, activity sensor wristbands, movement monitors, and even some tele-diagnostic tools installed in the home. Topics addressed by the project:1. ICT - new technologies - digital competences2. Health and wellbeing3. New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training coursesTarget groups- Students of vocational education- Formal caregivers, care workers, informal caregivers involved in the long-term-care of their relatives- „Young” elderly people retired from related professions (e.g. teachers), who are interested in working as informal caregivers in online communities.PartnershipGrandis Consortium includes 8 organisations from 5 countries, among them vocational educational schools from Hungary, VET providers from Hungary and Ireland, universities from Spain and the United Kingdom, and a society with social activities from France. In the consortium experts from vocational and higher education, information technology, social care and gerontology worked together in the development of the planned intellectual outcomes.•Prompt-H Information Technology Training, Trade and Service LTD., Hungary•Szalézi Vocational School, Hungary•Veszprémi Vocational Centre Öveges József Vocational School, Hungary•Universidad Europea de Madrid, Spain,•Aston University, United Kingdom •The Irish Computer Society Ireland•Guimel Association, France•Corvus Adult Educational Provider, Hungary The beneficiaries of the project results in the long term are older adults from 55+ but with a focus particularly on those over 65.Results and impact attained, long-term benefitsThe indicators reached demonstrate the impact of the project: for about 700 older adults, 400 teachers and trainers, care workers were directly involved into the needs-analysis, the experiments and pilots and 48 Grandis certificates were issued in the five countries. The training program was built up in accordance with the educational initiatives of the European Union: EQF, ECVET and DigComp, what ensures the European wide usability and sustainability of the results.The long term benefits are supported by publishing the learning content under the Creative Commons license of ""Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International"". This license allows all European organisations to use, distribute, modify and even commercialise freely Grandis curriculum, learning content and is allowed to implement the training course in any type of e-learning systems, and to deliver the course in any kind of forms (face-to-face, online, blended form) regarding the special needs of their target group.Project portal: http://grandis.prompt.hu/ (dissemination platform for visitors)E-learning platform: https://moodle.grandis21.hu/Contact:: edu@prompt.hu"

The AISAB Project addressed the need within the EU to improve the level of innovation and its impact, particularly in SMEs. Building on the work of other innovation projects and materials, it developed approaches to create the skills that support SME innovation from an HEI context and through VET. These complementary streams of work saw implementation of initiatives to drive innovation. These have been provided sustainably by embedding the outcomes in the day-to-day activities of HEIs and organisations delivering VET to SMEs. The project objectives were to develop learning materials aimed at enhancing student skills in assessing and implementing innovation, and to build tools that students can use to facilitate their impact when consulting in SMEs. The project also developed a toolkit for SMEs to self-diagnose their innovation practice and put in place business intervention approaches that can be used to enhance innovation practices in SMEs. The AISAB consortium brought together a mix of five higher education and three VET/SME Partners, with expertise in the development of skills for SMEs. All Partners have a focus on creating real impact for business growth through their activities. Together, they are experts in the development of VET learning materials, leading learning interventions for SMEs, and engaging with SMEs to facilitate business growth.In consultation with students in HEIs and SME organisations, the project developed materials and consultancy processes that deliver increased skills for innovation and impact, through the active use of those skills in SME organisations.The project adopted a practical approach that has resulted in HEIs adopting and embedding innovation modules in a way that will ensures their impact is sustained. Similarly, the project has provided tools for SME training and service providers, so that they become an integral part of their methodology and are sustained. All of these changes aim to create greater innovation in SMEs on an ongoing basis.