In September 2013 the European Commission published a Communique on "Opening up Education: Innovative teaching and learning for all through new Technologies and Open Educational Resources". This paper states, that "70% of teachers in the EU recognize the importance of training in digital-supported ways of teaching and learning" but "only 20-25% of students are taught by digitally confident and supportive teachers". Furthermore, "70% of teachers in the EU would like to have professional development on ICT skills". All 8 partners in this project are educational institutions (either VET providers, distance learning universities or e-learning providers) from 8 different European countries. We know for fact that most of our trainers hardly if at all have the technological, pedagogical or methodological skills to work with ICT and e-learning within their classes as ICT is not yet a basic part of teachers' training. To meet nowadays requirements of the job market and the learners as well as to make education within the EU globally competitive we have decided to start "SOLA - simple open learning advancement". The Communique proposes actions to overcome the lack of ICT in education and SOLA is designed according to these: - "helping learning institutions, teachers and learners to acquire digital skills and learning methods" - One of our partners is a German authoring tool provider and distance learning content producer. This partner will introduce the other institutions and its trainers to its self-developed software to enable them to produce open content while collaborating online from their workplace. Additionally to the technological this partner will train the trainers regarding didactial, methodological, pedagogical approaches in ICT-based learning. Other goals of this extensive training are the reduction of drop-outs in online courses as well as the establishment of a long-term European-wide cooperation of VET institutions regarding the production of open content. If all educational organisations would produce resources and share them openly on platforms like "Open Education Europa" cleared for adaption to regional needs the costs of e-learning could be reduced while the quality and number of topics covered can be increased. That is why all outcomes of this project (including produced contents, handbooks and manuals for trainers) will be published on the project's platform but also on http://openeducationeuropa.eu/. - "supporting development and availability of open educational resources" - as mentioned above, trainers will be instructed on how to create open content. As a result training courses regarding Sustainable Tourism Basics, Rural Sustainable Tourism and Customer Relationship Management in Sustainable Tourism will be produced and made available for all interested stakeholders (e.g. institutions, trainers, learners). - "connecting classrooms and deploying digital devices and content" - of course the results of content will be tested in the classroom. The participating trainers will run test classes based on which the handbooks, manuals and contents will be revised. The attending learners will be connected internationally to work together on the project's learning management system. Long-term the outcomes shall be used within the partner institutions, in other EU-VET institutions (those will be invited via several networks to participate in online presentations at the end of the project), by learners (they can run through the online-materials and will be able to gain Open Badges so their achievements will be recognized or the attend blended learning courses and will gain ECVET/ECTS credits depending on the institution). - "mobilizing all stakeholders (teachers, learners, families, economic and social partners) to change the role of digital technologies at education institutions" - through SOLA teachers and learners will get used to using ICT not only for training and learning but also in everyday life and for the workplace. Longterm this will result in a cycle: employers need ICT-skilled employees > employees need flexible ways for advancing knowledge besides work and need to gain ICT-skills > VET providers are required to offer ICT-based training > employers get ICT-skilled and educated employees. Through the project 66 trainers will be trained on ICT in education and 60 learners will get a chance to test and improve the pedagogical approaches and the open content. These stakeholders as well as the participating institutions will act as multipliers. The longterm goal of "Simple Open Learning Advancement" is to enable trainers to produce and work with high quality open content adapted to regional needs (e.g. language and local differences) and to create a European-wide network of education institutions producing and sharing open resources. This should result in a wider and more flexible range of distance learning options for learners.
In September 2013 the European Commission published a Communique on “Opening up Education: Innovative teaching and learning for all through new Technologies and Open Educational Resources”. This paper states, that “70% of teachers in the EU recognize the importance of training in digital-supported ways of teaching and learning” but “only 20-25% of students are taught by digitally confident and supportive teachers”. Furthermore, “70% of teachers in the EU would like to have professional development on ICT skills”. The Communique proposes actions to overcome the lack of ICT in education and SOLA is designed according to these: “helping learning institutions, teachers and learners to acquire digital skills and learning methods”. All 8 partners in this project are educational institutions (either VET providers, distance learning universities or e-learning providers) from 8 different European countries. We know for fact that most of our trainers hardly if at all have the technological, pedagogical or methodological skills to work with ICT and e-learning within their classes as ICT is not yet basic part of teachers´ training. To meet nowadays requirements of the job market and the learners as well as to make education within the EU globally competitive we have decided to start “SOLA – simple open learning advancement”. One of our partners is a German authoring tool provider and distance learning content producer. This partner introduced the other institutions and its trainers to its self-developed software to enable them to produce open content while collaborating online from their workplace. Additionally to the technological the partners AHE and UDIMA gave inputs to the trainers regarding didactical, methodological, pedagogical approaches in ICT-based learning. Other goals of this extensive training are the reduction of drop-outs in online courses as well as the establishment of a long-term European-wide cooperation of VET institutions regarding the production of open content. If all educational organisations would produce resources and share those openly the e-learning workload of content development per institution could be reduced while the quality and number of topics covered can be increased. That is why all outcomes of this project (including produced contents, handbooks and manuals for trainers) are published on the project´s platform but also on http://e-bfi-ooe.at (for opening SCORM packages; User: anonym; Password: anonym123! – Demokurse: SOLA Sustainable tourism), on http://www.sola-project.eu and on http://european-research-network.eu/index.php/Initiatives/Projects an open European research network. To support development and to enable a better availability of open educational resources trainers were instructed on how to create open content. As a result training courses regarding Sustainable Tourism Basics, Rural Sustainable Tourism and Customer Relationship Management in Sustainable Tourism were produced and made available for all interested stakeholders (e.g. institutions, trainers, learners). “Connecting classrooms and developing digital devices and content” – of course the produced digital contents were tested in the classroom training settings. The attending learners were connected to the institutional “Moodle” platforms and a common use of the learning management system was established between Austria and Poland. The other partners used other LMS than “Moodle”. In long-term the outcomes shall be used within the partner institutions, in other EU-VET institutions (those were invited via several networks to participate in online presentations at the end of the project), by learners (they can run through the online materials and are able to gain common certificates so their learning-efforts are recognized or instead they can attend blended learning courses and will gain ECVET credits depending on the VET institution). “Mobilizing all stakeholders (teachers, learners, families, economic and social partners) to change the role of digital technologies at education institutions” – through SOLA teachers and learners get used to using ICT not only for training and learning but also in everyday life and for the workplace. Long-term this will result in a cycle: employers need ICT-skilled employees -> VET providers are required to offer ICT-based training -> employers get ICT-skilled and educated employees.Through the project 95 Trainers (act as Multiplier) were trained on ICT in education and 50 learners (Multiplier) were got a chance to test and improve the pedagogical approaches and the open content. A long-term goal of “Simple Open Learning Advancement” is to enable trainers to produce and work with high quality open content adapted to regional needs (e.g. language and local differences) and to contribute to European OER initiatives in producing and sharing open resources. This should result in a wider and more flexible range of distance learning options for learners.