Relevance of vocational education and training has increased during the last years, especially worked-based learning (EQF 3+), which is the bridge, especially in construction sector, between training and labor marked needs. With the background of economic crisis and rising young people in unemployment some European countries, workers and especially younger ones have to be more mobile than before in order to find new job opportunities, this means also out of their home countries. By improving the quality and number of mobility placements during young people curricula, we will increase the volume of mobility throughout Europe so as to increase placements in enterprises. Young people have to be well prepared before going abroad for a mobility process and good preparation is the key point for integration. Obviously, mobility experience will be even more successful and students will be even more easily convinced of its impact and benefits, if a mobility project is well prepared and managed. To that point, it is important to guide them by using new information and communication technologies as well as social medias in all phases of VET. Digital and social media as well as mobile devices are omnipresent in daily life of participants who are in initial and further vocational education and training. SoMEx aims at adjusting the mobility processes in construction sector´s VET to future leading ways of including the current and prospective mobile devices. The main objective of this project is to create an Android Application based on an extensive tool-kit for preparation, operation and post processing of exchanges of trainees and staff related to up-to-date media, i.e. social media in use. Methods in the process are linked to social media very selectively, but do not use them in a wide specter or channel the informal use into formal use benefits. The number of features to integrate at this point is high. The individuals expect to make use of the same media feature like they do within their private life. In doing so, the acceptance (and the image of the construction sector) will be likely to increase significantly. Trainees and staff might be involved in all stages of the processes, since user generated input in real time is of great advantage to lower the barriers of acceptance and the higher willingness of being part in exchanges. So the era of coming to classroom and the rule “turn of your devices” have to be rethought. The partnership is composed of five national institutions which are all working directly with the concerned audience and organise each year mobility placements. They have agreed to work together on this three-year-project to develop the products and to disseminate information about the project and its deliverables as much as possible. Each national partner is strongly supported by national partners (i.e. professional unions), as well as by the REFORME network (see www.reforme.org), European organisation that gathers eleven professional training organizations in building vocations, which, in turn, are in charge of other regional or national networks. The aim of RE.FORM.E is to favour the professionalization of young people, professionals and trainers, in the field of construction. The methodology is based on the activities of 7 work packages. Each WP has its leader who is in charge of the managing tasks (in cooperation with the overall project coordinator) and each time, the final result is the starting point of the work package coming after. The work begins with the analysis of each national practices (i.e. what is already being done in terms of mobility and social media). In a second step, the consortium will analyse a “classical” mobility phase in order to point out how an android application can be used in order to improve the process. On the basis of this comparative analysis and taking step one into account, a first draft of the app’ will be developed. Then the product will be tested in each country on a real mobility placement. The feedback collected will be considered for drawing up improvements that have to be operated on the product. After a second testing phase, the “European Android Application for mobility in VET construction sector” will be developed and officially presented at the occasion of national multiplier events and final conference. This ready to use android application is the most important result / product of this project and will be used as methodological/pedagogical material in partners’ institutions. This has to be considered as a pilot project for VET construction sector and could be enlarged and used as a basis for other VET stakeholders and field of activities with some little adjustments.
The main objective of this project was to improve the quality of mobility processes in the construction sector for learners, staff and trainers in order, in the mid term, to increase the number of European mobilities for this target group . In order to achieve this global goal, we have set up a whole process around the mobile application, to the attention of apprentices, trainers and staff, to better understand mobility, in its preparation, its implementation and its follow-up while (linking current media, including social media). In fact, starting from the initial observation that workers and, in particular, the youngest ones must be more mobile than before to find job opportunities, young people must be well prepared before going abroad as part of a mobility process and preparation is the key to a good integration. It is important to guide them using the new information and communication technologies but also social media throughout their professional training. Learners, as well as accompanying persons (trainers or staff members), really feel that there is an ever greater desire to supervise them qualitatively. The result is a sense of security and trust that encourages more willingness to participate, which is obviously one of the main objectives of SoMEx - to increase the number of mobilities - using a more dynamic and modern way of doing things, including social media and taking into account the habits of the beneficiaries, who are, for the most part, "digital natives". The idea is to use "up-to-date" methods to facilitate the process and increase the quality of investments. To do this, we started the work with a research phase to determine the habits of our beneficiaries, in terms of social media use. To this end, we also relied on the work done in the framework of a previous project called Linguistic Reform, which included an analysis of the barriers to mobility, as well as the Euro-Dim project whose main theme is virtual mobility. Based on the results of these projects, a national and transnational analysis of the habits of our target group, we have created the "Information Guide on the Use of ICTs and Social Networks for Trainees, Trainers and Staff". VET in the construction sector ", a real starting point for our investigations for the creation of the SoMEx APP. Following this survey, we took part in a mobility observation to determine the real needs of our target group. Through surveys and observation during the mobility process of a group by country, we drew national and transnational conclusions through intellectual production 2 "Recommendation for the improvement of existing mobility through the use of a mobile app that meets the needs of young people, trainer and construction staff "by putting the point of attention on the different phases of a mobility journey: before, during and after. Based on these first two products, we then thought about and created our first version of the SoMEx APP (version 1), which we tested on a group by country according to a similar framework but improved based on previous experimentation (modification of the search tools for example). Following the analysis of the mobility path with the APP, interviews and observation, we drew our national and transnational conclusions. "IOP 4 - Recommendation for version 1 of the appen mobility according to the needs of trainees / trainers / staff ". Based on these findings and recommendations, we have modified the SoMEx mobile app to meet the needs expressed during this observation. Once version 2 of the APP was created, we tested it again with the users by going to the field and developed the IO5: "test of the product as part of the mobility process - APP version 2 "On which we based ourselves to finalize the APP and get our final product:" The Android application for trade in the construction sector ", ie, SoMEx application. The app and all products and achievements of the project are now available and free of rights on www.somexproject.eu ("results" tab) in the 6 languages of the partnership.