<< Background >>[MOTIVATION TO APPLY]The hospitality industry is a major source of revenue for Europe, offering jobs to more than 8 million EU citizens (https://bit.ly/3nynTiO) and the tourist accommodation sector’s popularity, in particular, has been steadily increasing, becoming a valuable pillar for the European economy (https://bit.ly/3jDBNPK). Upon the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, however, the EU tourism has been plagued as it dropped by 61% (Eurostat, 2021) negatively impacting the hospitality industry. Accommodations located in rural areas were rather affected by this decline, as they had already been facing challenges due to limited access to training. HERE4you aims at restoring balance as fast as possible, by acting towards attracting tourists to rural European areas. To achieve that, hospitality accommodation owners and employees will acquire the essential skills to improve guest satisfaction and offer unique experiences to tourists. Since raising environmental awareness has become a focus in Europe over the past years and travellers demand more choice regarding ecotourism options (https://bit.ly/3FCmzE2), a very efficient way to attract tourists while protecting the environment is by offering alternative, eco-friendly activities near the accommodation unit.[NEEDS ADDRESSED]Recently, there has been an increasing need for the introduction of new training standards in the hospitality industry due to the numerous newcomers entering the sector as a result of the job displacements and staff shortages that the pandemic brought about (https://bit.ly/3CjF1iv). For the hospitality sector to get back on its feet, quick and immediately usable training solutions that equip hospitality professionals with the essential skills need to be developed. Current needs of the industry include basic service skills and communication between teams. HERE4you will tackle this need by teaching English language and service skills to hospitality professionals, leading not only to improvement of the communication between the staff and the guests, but also to the promotion of international staff mobility within the sector by increasing awareness of the importance of speaking English in accommodation units. Especially in rural areas, where people have limited access to training options, staff upskilling will open the way for new opportunities, such as more revenues and increased mobility. To this direction, another major challenge that needs to be tackled in the hospitality industry is the need for increasing digital competence among the sector’s professionals. Bearing in mind that today’s tourists book accommodation and arrange their vacation mostly through digital means (Wang et al., 2016) the emphasis on employees’ skills to respond to these trends is becoming increasingly important. The current project will help new and existing hospitality professionals in rural areas to become digitally empowered to attract more guests, build strong relationships with them, and become competitive in the global market. Finally, considering the global environmental crisis and the fact that “Europe faces environmental challenges of unprecedented scale and urgency”(https://bit.ly/3jDkdv8), any step towards sustainability is considered valuable and of utmost importance. The European Union, in the context of developing a strategy for sustainable tourism, highlights the importance of promoting ecotourism and rural tourism – especially in the post pandemic era (https://bit.ly/3b3Xvrx). Moreover, ETC sees COVID-19 as a unique opportunity to redefine tourism in Europe and permanently steer it to a more sustainable direction (https://bit.ly/3Ec6QKs). Considering the above, HERE4you will equip the hospitality professionals in rural areas with the knowledge and skills to promote ecotourism in their region. In this way, they reinforce environmental protection and sustainable tourism while promoting their businesses and supporting their local economy by attracting ecotourists.<< Objectives >>HERE4you will develop a complete, web-based training course for hospitality professionals focusing on boosting their English language and service skills, their digital competence and their environmental awareness along with creating an interactive, role-playing game environment aiming at knowledge retention and an interactive mapping tool demonstrating accommodation units and ecotourism possibilities in rural European areas accompanied by an Eco-Guide with instructions on how to use this tool to make the most out of it. Accommodation unit owners and employees will have access to a free, innovative, easily accessible upskilling methodology no matter their geographical location or socioeconomic education. Moreover, VET educators will possess a strong, digital training tool for providing students within the hospitality sector with hands-on, simulation-based training.HERE4you has as main objective to promote the upskilling of hospitality employees working in rural European areas by offering a training approach that entails introduction of hybrid skills, retention through simulation, and development of a new interactive tool with instructions on how to use it. Upon completion of the training, learners will be able to offer a unique service experience to their guests and promote their businesses worldwide while offering environmentally friendly entertaining options. This will attract more tourists and support their local community.In terms of specific objectives, HERE4you will serve the following:- Raising awareness regarding the importance of communication, service, digital and environmental training and upskilling in the hospitality sector, especially in rural European areas.- Providing hospitality professionals and VET institutes with a complete, open access e-learning course, developed to pass new skills to new and existing members of the hospitality sector.- Developing an alternative training approach that promotes skill retention through simulation and role playing on Minecraft.- Reinforcing access to high quality, effective and inclusive training in the digital era regardless of one’s location or socioeconomic situation. - Promoting ecotourism and sustainable activities in rural European areas to tourists worldwide. - Equipping hospitality professionals with the skills to advance their businesses while promoting and supporting local SMEs, rural and ecotourism centers.<< Implementation >>HERE4you will deliver a new training standard for the hospitality industry to be used both by individual professionals and vocational centers that offer hospitality and management programs, comprising an e-learning course, a simulation game to be performed in a digital learning environment and a detailed guide with information on how to utilize an interactive mapping tool to promote ecotourism activities. This will be achieved through a series of constant collaboration between subject matter experts (aka hospitality professionals and environmentalists), game developers to first identify the needs and set the learning objectives, and later implement them in a virtual environment. Role playing helps trainees remember their experiences while gaining new knowledge, so simulation will create everyday working challenges for them to solve within Minecraft. Apart from facilitating the improvement of English and service skills, the game will also familiarize them with the use of digital technology and boost their confidence. Project activities comprise:- National reports developed by the participating countries which will work as a framework presenting best practices, weaknesses and needs for improvement as perceived by hospitality professionals in rural areas. The reports will enlighten the public and raise awareness about the immediate need for staff upskilling in the industry.- The development of an Essential Skills Pack e-learning course: The ESP e-learning course aims at providing a complete solution to hospitality professionals in rural areas by improving their English language and service skills, helping them develop digital competence and promoting environmental awareness. The online, asynchronous lessons will be accessible from everywhere and at any given time.- Minecraft Hotel World: A dedicated custom Minecraft world to help learners retain and practice the knowledge previously gained through elaborated hospitality challenges in the context of a mission to be accomplished.- Mission: The complete game scenario describing the non-player characters (NPCs), the game elements, the walkthrough introducing the different game areas and tasks, the after the game practicing session. - Mapping Tool: the interactive mapping tool will exhibit ecotourism options in various rural European areas and accommodation units that are located nearby.- Eco-Guide: a guide with detailed instructions will be created regarding how to register a hotel in the mapping tool and the ways to combine accommodation with eco-friendly activities.- The results will be tested first internally and then an improved version based on the results of the testing will be subjected to a series of validation activities with the involvement of representatives from the direct target group, mainly professionals in the hospitality industry, ecotourism professionals and VET instructors.- Based on the conclusions of the validation exercises, a final release of the results will be provided towards the end of the project.- A series of Multiplier Events (5) to generate awareness about the launch of the HERE4you project.- Roll out of the results<< Results >>HERE4you will encourage inclusive training focusing on hospitality employees in rural European areas based on the need for communication and service upskilling, as well as digital and ecotourism training in the hospitality sector.Expected tangible outcomes comprise the following:- Essential Skills Pack course will contain modules that will help hospitality professionals to acquire the target skills (improving English language & service skills, developing digital capabilities, and raising ecotourism awareness). - Hotel Minecraft World, enriched with resource packs and mods which will allow interactive, role-playing training.- HERE4you Interactive Map, an interactive mapping tool that will provide accommodation and ecotourism activities available in rural European areas.- An Eco-Guide which will provide interested parties (rural accommodation unit owners, NGOS, environmental organizations, SMEs) with instructions on how to use the interactive mapping tool to register and promote their business.Apart from the direct benefits that are related to the upskilling of hospitality professionals, HERE4you will also:- increase awareness regarding environmental protection and promote sustainability - socioeconomically support rural areas by attracting more tourists - support inclusion, as innovative training methods will become available to people in remote rural regions who face education, training, and employment barriers

<< Objectives >>The project focuses on the benefits that ecological activities may have for NEETs. By using ICT-enhanced experiential learning and training on small-scale actions, the project aims to engage young NEETs to the labour market, increase the eco-preneurial skills, bridge the communication gap between young job hunters & future employers and provide them with innovative tools in order to thrive.<< Implementation >>Alongside project management and quality control activities (WP1), the project involves the development of interactive gamified activities in the form of OERs, based on experiential learning and social tools (WP2), a 2-week period of seminars, aiming to train the trainers on small-scale actions, which if applied, could have a positive impact on NEETs (WP3) and online workshops, coaching and mentoring services for EcopreNEETs (WP4).<< Results >>T2.1 Kick off meetingT2.2 Needs Verification with NEETs involvement & White PaperT2.3 Eco-Preneurial Competence Framework T2.3 Interactive inclusion glossary T2.4 Blooming MOOC with multimedia resourcesT2.5 Multilingual MOOCT3.1 Reports on existing methodologyT3.2 2nd TPMT3.3 Methodology for seminarsT3.4 2-week period of seminarsT3.5 Booklet of needsT4.1 e-Traineeship methodologyT4.2 Online coaching workshopsT4.3 3rd TPMT4.4-6 Teaser EventsT4.7 Continuous Improvement Process

<< Objectives >>The objectives of ANIMATOPEDIA, are to:-Prevent and redirect sex-based discrimination and (sexual) harassment, including digital harassment, and promote gender equality among young people through education-Combat sexism and gender stereotypes in the young generation- Advance and empower women in general, migrant and refugee women, and the LGBTQA communityThe abovementioned objectives are directly related and interconnected with the selected priorities.<< Implementation >>1.1. Organisational and administrative tasks 1.2.2 TMs1.3.Quality Assurance and monitoring2.1. Methodology/studies and implementation2.2.Comprehensive report-feedback/adjustments/summary2.3.Proofreading/translations3.1.Video production3.2.Toolkitproduction3.3.Webinar recommendations4.1.Pilot testing:guidelines,tools and implementation4.2.Training for youth workers/trainers5.1.Dissemination plans5.2.Website5.3.-5.7.Dissemination events NL,IT,CY,PT,ES 5.8. Branding<< Results >>-WP2:-A set of guidelines for the methodology design and implementation-4 national reports in the partner countries-A comparative study, and summaries -WP3:-Educational interactive videos-A toolkitfor youth workers/trainers -Webinar-WP4:-A piloting activity and a results report of the pilot testing and feedback--A training for youth workers/trainers and a training report-WP5:- Dissemination/promotion

"<< Background >>CONTEXTIn this era of rapid technical advancement, there are growing debates around the idea of nanotechnology. Nanotechnology materials are being utilized in our daily lives in many ways, often without consumer knowledge. This key technology is considered not only a major source of innovation in technology, medicine and other fields, but also one of the main challenges for the 21st century. European universities and high-level vocational training programmes already cover this technology extensively but not schools.The European Commission (EC) has explicitly included nanotechnology as a theme in its research funding programmes over the past decade and supported scientists through the European Research Council (ERC). But while the clear priority of the new funding programmes (Horizon and Erasmus+) is to bridge the gap between research and the market, the central tenant of the European research effort remains excellent science, without which there can be no progress. As known, knowledge is an important parameter of the global economy. Also, countries must support research, development, and new job creation based on innovation. NEEDSHowever, although the word nanotechnology will be familiar to many high-school students, the subject is not widely taught in European schools. Attempting a targeted search on the subject of nanotechnology and schools in the EU, returns only one relevant research publication ""Teaching nanotechnology in primary education, Achilleas Mandrikas, Emily Michailidi, Department of primary education - University of Crete, 02/07/2019"". The conclusions from this research state that teaching NST is worthwhile even in primary education and that moreover, Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (NST) provide an appropriate context for the introduction of Responsible Research & Innovation (RRI) in science education.In the near future, the level of a country will be the indicator of that country’s economical power and countries that are able to control nanotechnology will control industry, too. Because of this, the need for labour force capable of using nanotechnology and contributing to production increases every day.TARGET GROUPSDuring the project:•Direct: Professionals (teachers) working with children 11-17 year old, Children between the ages of 11 and 17, Schools, Children's associations and organisations, social workers working with children, Policy makers and educational stakeholders deciding about subjects covered by school curricula.•Indirect: Parents, Universities educating teachers Designers & developers of teaching material for kids, Children’s curriculum developers, Computer & Internet trainersAfter the project:•Commercial organisations producing serious games and multimedia curricula for educational purposes.•Universities with pedagogical departments MOTIVATION TO APPLYThe partnership was formed with a view to deliver an educational package which will address the existing gap in EU schools with respect to the integration of NST (NanoScience and Technology) activities to the existing science teaching setting. In the process, educational content for NST for secondary education will be developed for the first time. The content will be complemented by instructional material and guides for educators to be in position to integrate the content in their teaching and generate awareness among school children about the importance of NST for our society. But this is not the major innovation of the project. The most innovative aspect lies at the creation of a dedicated Minecraft World to support a game which delivers NST related challenges which children can accomplish and in the process learn about NST and its connection to science subjects.The creation of this exciting educational offering is major motivation for the partners to apply as it delivers multidimensional benefits in relation to their mission (for the school, association and HE institute) and their commercial aspirations (for the companies)<< Objectives >>OBJECTIVESDue to the explosion of nanotechnology applications, there is a necessity to update school science curricula (secondary education) by integrating nanotechnology-related concepts that are both relevant and meaningful to students. The integration of nanotechnology in school science curricula comes in response to nanoscientific development and the mission of educators to instil and arouse students’ curiosity in learning about both what is and what will be more dominantly occupying the marketplace [Integrating nanotechnology into school education: a review of the literature, Nadira I. Ghattas & Jeffrey S. Carver]The project aims to increase awareness of nanotechnology among European science teachers, especially for the purpose of making the young become aware of developments in nanotechnology, and of the importance of the subject, to make them include nanotechnology within their career plans.Enabling our youth to develop and understanding and engage with nanotechnology at earlier education levels will be an important step to meet the need for labour force in this area. Our main objective in this Project is to enable our youth to meet nanotechnology at school level, and through this initial knowledge, create awareness about its importance for our society. We strongly believe that NANOWARE will help in meeting EU needs within this context. The fundamental output of our Project will raise awareness among teachers and subsequently school children about Nanoscience and nanotechnology and affect their future career plans positively regarding this subject.Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (NST) have been recognized as an emerging technology of the 21st century. The interdisciplinary nature and remarkable applications of NST have prompted science education researchers to recognize its potential in science teaching. NST have also been acknowledged as a vital field in technology in order to understand the socio-scientific issues of innovations as described by the EU framework of Responsible Research & Innovation (RRI). Nanotechnology is fundamentally a European issue with clear EU goals. The project brings together a range of actors who all have a role to play in the achievement of these goals and so collectively can respond from a range of perspectives and circumstances. NANOWARE objective is to increase awareness of nanotechnology among European science teachers of secondary education, especially for the purpose of making the school children become aware of developments in nanotechnology, and of the importance of NST to our society and economy and subsequently to their professional career in the future. Moving nanotechnology-based activities into the school science setting will be a major achievement of NANOWARE and is a huge motivational factor for the partners. Because of NANOWARE, secondary school teachers will be able to integrate NST activities to the teaching of science subjects taking advantage of the interdisciplinary nature and remarkable applications of NST which have prompted science education researchers to recognize its potential in science teaching. Important by-products also emerge from the promotion of Minecraft as a digital learning space for delivering Problem Based Learning experiences to students which enhance key competences and increase knowledge and awareness among subjects which are important for their future.<< Implementation >>The primary objective of this project is to deliver to the school community an educational package comprising a new curriculum for NST targeting secondary education. The NST curriculum will capitalise on new media technologies accompanied by a specialised delivery environment in Minecraft which will support the delivery of NST related educational challenges so as to support the teachers with the integration of NST related to their science teaching setting. To achieve this main objective the project will satisfy a set of intermediate objectives aiming to provide all inclusive NST related resources to professionals working with secondary education children, such as those below:-Design the NANOWARE curriculum based on the research carried out at proposal level and the classification of NST related material based on their suitability for secondary school science related education.-Engage with secondary education teachers to validate the design before deciding upon the final structure, coverage and modules.-Develop the modules accordingly.-Interact with secondary education teachers to identify the prerequisite knowledge of NST related terms and glossary in order to ease the adoption of the Nanoware package by the teachers and schools. -Connect with teachers through focus groups to discuss the kind of support that is needed by the teachers in order to integrate the NST activities to their teaching setting. -Elaborate challenges in Minecraft. Teachers will be presented with the initial challenges in order to provide their feedback and drive the work towards the elaboration of challenges which are meaningful and possible to integrate to their teaching setting. -Implement the NANOWARE Minecraft world, enriched with resource packs and mods and model inside it the NST related challenges, porgram their logic and connect them to a complete mission for school children-Create Instructional material and a guide with the help of the teachers to decide upon the contents of the educators pack in relation to the use and integration of the Nanoware Minecraft World to the teaching setting. -Validate the results with the teachers under real conditions. -Define a skills and achievements framework for non-formal recognition of NST related knowledge (award Badges) of children which successsfully complete the NANOWARE Minecraft Mission.-Prepare a virtual space, the Nanoware Foundry where teachers will find all the support they need to use the educational package and drive its design and functionality for future releases.It is apparent from these activities that the involvement of the teachers is envisaged from the start of the project. This will break the natural resistance to new ways of doing things for the initial group of teachers that will be involved form the beginning and will cultivate a feeling of ownership as they will become major stakeholders. Their involvement from the start of the project will lead to incorporation of sustainability specifications to their initial design of the results and subsequently their long term viability.A series of targeted knowledge awareness activities with the help of the teachers, the teaching community and the associated partners will lead to the dissemination of project related knowledge and the spark of interest on the NST subject. The envisaged multiple events will be a great facilitator towards achieving the necessary awareness for the NANOWARE Foundry virtual space which will serve as the single point of access to all NANOWARE results and the communication and collaboration hub of the NANOWARE community of teachers and educators.<< Results >>The main outcome to increase awareness of nanotechnology among European science teachers and provide them with an educational package to allow them to integrate NST related activities to the science teaching setting will have multidimensional benefits for the students. Ultimately, the outcome for secondary school students will be a better understanding of NST and its interdisciplinary nature. As a result, NST related professional careers will be considered by more students leading to better employment opportunities for them and to the further growth of the NST industry and relative EU research.Important by-products also emerge from the promotion of Minecraft as a digital learning space for delivering Problem Based Learning experiences to students which enhance key competences and increase knowledge and awareness among subjects which are important for their future. The promotion of digital learning spaces is also a desirable outcome of the project as they offer an efficient solution with multidimensional benefits, especially in situations such as the current COVID-19 pandemic. The Minecraft Massively Multiplayer Online platform has penetrated to almost every EU house that has children of school age and its educational potential remains for the most part unexplored as today we can only find individual educational challenges as opposed to complete educational packages fulfilling a series of learning objectives. NANOWARE can also achieve a significant outcome in this aspect through the promotion of Minecraft as a digital learning space of high educational value.In order to achieve the envisaged outcomes, the project methodology comprises three tangible results:- R1: NANOWARE Educational Pack: comprising the Nanoware curriculum, glossary and online repository, the Nanoware Educators Guide and a Learning Motivation Environment which will deliver the material to the learners.- R2: NANOWARE Educational Challenges in Minecraft: a collection of educational challenges in Minecraft and the Nanoware Minecraft world comprising resource packs and mods for the challenges and instructional material and guides for parents and teachers- R3: NANOWARE Foundry: a foundry virtual space designed to power a community of adopters and provide a feedback loop mechanism to retain an open channel between the implementers of the Nanoware package (partners) and the adopters (school community) with a view to drive the evolution (corrective, perfective, evolutive maintenance) of the Nanoware package, initially by the partners and later on by the educational community itself. The foundry will feature also a recommendations pack for the use of the Foundry space and tools and the Nanoware skills & achievements framework for the recognition of knowledge acquired through Nanoware.These results are produced following an iterative methodology which will allow them to evolve by incorporating feedback from the testing and subsequently the validation of a previous version. An initial version will be first tested internally, and the outcome will drive the development for the next release, the validation release which will be validated under real conditions with representatives of the intended target group, secondary education science teachers. The conclusions from the validation will feed the corrective/perfective/evolutive maintenance of the final project release. Then, the feedback loop between the community of teachers that will use NANOWARE with their students and the partners, facilitated by the FOUNDRY virtual space, will drive the further maintenance of the educational package based on the needs of the NANOWARE community."

It is true that Europe had to quickly adjust to the new reality in education, that the COVID-19 pandemic brought. To cope with this situation, schools had to quickly adapt and deliver courses and training remotely, something that was not always executed successfully, since neither teachers nor students were prepared for the transition.The main reason why Carcraft project was formed was to provide a response to the COVID-19 situation, which has affected VET education mostly. VET education relies more on hands on experience and WBL than theoretical education. COVID-19 has caused temporary lock downs in March, for the majority of European countries, which meant that schools had to be closed and student’s had to rely on digital resources to follow classes. The project CarCraft comes to fulfill the above identified needs, by assisting the modernisation and digital transformation of VET education, through the creation of a virtual game based on the minecraft world, especially designed for automotive mechanics VET courses.The specific objectives of the project are:-To increase the digital education readiness of the VET schools involved in the project-To train the trainers on how to utilize simulation games to enhance their teaching-To help VET students, who can not attend face to face classes (eg. due to COVID 19 infection), continue with their education, so that they do not feel excluded or left behind-To raise awareness about the future of digital education The target groups of the project are VET organisations, VET students and VET educators. CarCraft project will be implemented by 6 organisations, from 5 different countries: UK, Greece, Netherlands, Cyprus and Hungary. Partners participating in this project, wanted to equip their education institutions and training systems, in order to face challenges presented by COVID and the sudden shift to online and distance learning. Our goal thus, is to modernise the education provided in VET education, by providing high quality, engaging and inclusive digital education. The means to do so, will be by providing an online simulation game, for car mechanics, based on the popular game Minecraft. The CarCraft project will produce a simulation game for VET learners. The game will be based on the minecraft world (education edition), an already existing and popular online game. The Carcraft simulation game will be enhanced with car tuning challenges, especially designed for the students who follow automotive mechanics classes. The students will have to identify problems, build their own cars and implement corrective measures. To achieve this, a learning methodology will be created and learning outcomes will be applied in the car tuning challenges that will be described and transferred into the simulation game. Resource packs and modifications software programmes will be created, which will be then uploaded on the minecraft game. Furthermore, a manual and lesson plans will be created, addressed to VET teachers, on how to integrate the game into their classes. General results of the project are:Capacity building of VET teachers on using innovative digital tools in their classrooms, to teach classes that usually require practical exercises. Awareness raising on the benefits of utilising digital education tools, to engage the students and provide alternative solutions for teaching and learning, in crisis situations like COVID. Contribution to the digital education readiness of VET schools, which are going to be equipped with alternative solutions in case of a new lock down. Contribution to the general development of digital skills of students and teachers.Engagement of students to continue their education and training through digital tools even in periods of lockdown. The project is expected to have major impact on participants, the target group, participating organisation, stakeholders as well as impact at local, regional, national and European level. The project will facilitate the implementation of the digital education action plan (2021-2027), for the provision of high quality, inclusive and accessible digital education in Europe, since it will support the digital transformation plans at VET education and training through an Erasmus cooperation project. In particular, it will facilitate the 1st priority (Fostering the development a high-performing digital education ecosystem) by creating digitally by creating competent and confident teachers and education and training staff offering high-quality learning content, user-friendly tools and secure platforms which respect privacy and ethical standards. It will also support eh 2nd priority (Enhancing digital skills and competences for the digital transformation) by building basic and advanced digital skills to participants, which also ensures that girls and young women are equally presented.