In this partnership for the promotion of digital education, the ZAWM Eupen from Belgium works together with five other partners, all of whom are active in the field of vocational education and training in horticulture. These are four vocational schools or vocational training centres from Poland, Austria, Latvia and Switzerland. In addition, the association of European horticulture teachers, EU-Horticulture-Teacher asbl, based in Luxembourg, is also a partner whose main aim is to network European players in horticultural training. It is also active in the field of further training for horticulture teachers and organises, among other things, Europe-wide competitions for young gardeners. In increasingly digitalised teaching, but also especially now during the corona pandemic, teachers must have opportunities to convey teaching content digitally, and learners must be able to train themselves digitally and have access to expert content for this purpose. The ZAWM Eupen has very little experience with digital teaching materials so far, as does the partner school from Latvia. The partner schools from Poland, Austria and Switzerland, on the other hand, are already very experienced in digital teaching and therefore offer activities that are not offered or used in any other partner institution. In concrete terms, the following teaching and learning activities are involved: Creation of a digital herbarium of perennials for plant science lessons in conjunction with workshops for learning how to scan plants and create plant images with maximum depth of field by the Swiss partner. Digitalisation of a school perennial garden with the seven areas of life of perennials, by the EU-Horticulture-Teacher association. Possibilities for the use of "augmented reality" in horticultural education by the Austrian partner school and the production of learning videos on various topics of horticultural education such as vegetative or generative plant propagation, grafting of fruit trees, fruit tree pruning and care or the targeted production of symptoms of nutrient deficiency in plants by the learners of the partner schools from Poland, Latvia and Belgium. In addition, teaching materials produced in past Erasmus projects will also be uploaded to this learning platform. All together they are working on a digital "Escape Room" in a garden environment. The association EU-Horticulture-Teacher asbl makes its homepage, which is still under construction, available for the distribution of these digital teaching and learning materials by adding a learning platform to this homepage. These digital teaching materials will be produced in such a way that they can be used in other horticultural schools and by horticultural students in Europe, regardless of language. They will be accessible via the homepage www.hortiteach.eu and published on the European results platform. The local work of each partner to produce these digital training materials will be complemented by virtual and physical mobility and collaborative work between the learners and the teachers of the partners involved. At each partner school, the learners of one or more classes of horticultural trainees, about 150 horticultural students from the age of about 16 years, directly participate with their teachers in the creation of these digital teaching materials, about 50 people participate in the mobilities.
We wanted to and have developed a digital learning platform that is publicly accessible throughout Europe and beyond to all interested persons, upon request, by setting up a user account. This learning platform is integrated into the homepage of the Association of European Horticultural Teachers, which ensures a good dissemination as well as the maintenance and sustainable support of the platform. As originally planned, some materials have been created without language; pictures or pictograms from horticulture are self-explanatory. This allows learners to acquire specialised knowledge in a playful and puzzling way, e.g. with a memory game from the field of plant protection. In order not to neglect the cultural diversity of the partners involved, but on the contrary to emphasise it, other materials were created in the languages of the partners or in English as the lingua franca. We also wanted this platform to enable teachers and learners to benefit from the partner schools' offerings and, thanks to them, to incorporate teaching materials from colleagues into their lessons in areas that are not necessarily prioritised at their own school, or for learners to continue their education independently.
In view of the coronavirus pandemic that emerged in 2020, schools had to switch to digital teaching very suddenly. This created a need for teachers to receive further training and qualifications in the teaching of digital teaching materials. Learners also had to familiarise themselves with understanding and processing digital learning content. Due to the limited teaching times, learners also needed to be given the opportunity to acquire work-related learning content on an ongoing basis and to be able to take it on board. Due to the limited travel options, there was also a need to continue exchanging teaching materials with colleagues across national borders and to be able to organise joint teaching units, as the usual joint practical lessons were no longer possible. We therefore wanted to create a platform on which teachers and students could create and share teaching materials so that they could continue to utilise some of the opportunities offered by the partner schools.