Since Covid-19 emerged to a pandemic in 2020 it has compelled many governments around Europe to take extreme measures of lock down to a degree unimaginable until then. As a result millions of Europeans were forced to stay home for an extended period of time. Unexpectedly employees had to work from home for the first time, teachers had to teach from home for the first time, students needed to continue learning from home for the first time and parents had to support their families – both their kids and parents - in a different way from the one they were used to. This new reality found most, unprepared to adapt their working, leaving, producing, creating, learning, teaching and living habits and be as productive and effective while staying at home. Thus, CONOCO project aims to collect practices from the partner countries and beyond, on how the Europeans employees- employers, educators-students, parents- grandparents, were coping with staying at home and also highlight original, atypical approaches that proved to be efficient and help peoples productivity and creativity. This collection will be grouped and prepared in an easy readable digital document that will map what happened in the following categories, which could become guidelines on how to cope with isolation at home covering many different parameters of everyday life and how people can develop competences to be adaptable to this at any time. THE CASE OF WORK FORCE: The Covid-19 pandemic accelerated instantly the practice of ‘teleworking', ’working remotely” or “working from home”. According to Eurostat data (2018) the percentage of employed persons aged 15 to 64 in the European Union (EU) who usually work from home was at 5.0% in 2017. This figure was highest in the Netherlands (13.7%), Luxembourg (12.7%) and Finland (12.3%), and lowest in Bulgaria (0.3%) and Romania (0.4%). Also, the EU says that flexible work is indispensable to achieve greater balance and productivity [European Parliament resolution of 13 September 2016 on creating labour market conditions favourable for work-life balance (2016/2017(INI))]. THE CASE OF TEACHING AND LEARNING (School and Higher education): Through the years, schools have experienced several closures as a result of health issues or other crises, causing educational disruptions among millions of children and youngsters. Aware both of the importance of maximizing the social distancing meant to limit the spread of the new Covid_19 virus, and the incentive of continuing the educational process teachers have been focusing on online teaching-the application of online techniques to provide learning to students at a distance. Even though the current pandemic according to the indication is coming to an end, as the previews experience has shown similar obstacles and situation may occur at any time in the future. That is why, it is absolutely necessary to discoever the problems now so school and HE distant teaching and learning can be improved. THE CASE OF PARENTS AND GRAND-PARENTS: Probably the main actors of such crises are the parents and sometimes even grand=parents who have been scientifically impacted by the Covid-19 outbreak and it is this category who not only have to adapt their working schedule and habits to the new situation but found themselves in the challenging position of supporting their families in a different way from the one they were used to. The project will collect practices from this group as well. This project does not produce Intellectual Outputs as its aim is a collection of good practices. The following result deliverables are planned: D1: Online Survey implementation and result D2: Focus groups and interviews in order to produce the national Reports D3: C1 Short Learning, Teaching Training content D4: C2 Short Learning, Teaching Training content D5: Preparation, editing and finalization of the video testimonials D6: E-book comprehensive collection of results D7: Diseemination Strategy and Plan D8: Quality Assurance Stategy and Plan The project has duration 20 months.
The CONOCO project wanted to achieve a big collection of practices from the partner countries and beyond, on how the Europeans employees- employers, educators, students, parents- grandparents, were coping with staying at home and also highlight original, atypical approaches that proved to be efficient and help people’s productivity and creativity. This collection would then be grouped and prepared in an easily readable digital document (An E-Book) that will map what happened in the following categories, which could become guidelines on how to cope with isolation at home covering many different parameters of everyday life and how people can develop competences to be adaptable to this at any time. The categories of people we gathered information are: Teacher-Professor Employee, non-teacher employee, Parent, Grandparent/older person, Employer, Student, Pupil, Special needs The reason we selected these categories of people is to gather information and good practices in the sector of education, on the work force. Also, to gain general tips based on peoples experiences difficulties and how the overcame them Lastly, by implementing this project, we wanted to give to people the feeling of belongingness and unity since people from all over Europe were going through the same experience and going trough similar emotions. This is especially achieved by the video testimonials in which people from partner Countries are talking about their experiences during lockdown (Good and Bad) and how they managed to cope (or not). Lastly, the E-book will provide many good practices that can also be applied in times without any pandemic, while also act a guideline for any future lockdowns.
Since Covid-19 emerged to a pandemic, it has compelled governments around Europe to take extreme measures of lock down. As a result, Europeans were forced to stay home for an extended period of time. This new reality found most, unprepared to adapt their working, producing, creating, learning, teaching and living habits and be as productive and effective as before the pandemic, while staying at home. Focusing on the drastic change of workforce, people had to work from home. The project addressed the need to collect good practices on how people managed to work from home, balancing working and family life. Also, the project focused on the needs of teaching and learning and included a collection of practices from students and teachers operating in an online environment, and students how they managed to study and cope in this new online school, and how they kept their social life. Grandparents were also included in our sample to highlight how they adapted. Lastly, needs of people with special needs or health issues, who in some cases needed support in their daily lives were investigated. Thus, the aim was to collect practices from the partner countries and beyond and produce survey results, related video testimonials and an e-book.