The Schools in partnership (“M. Polo - R. Bonghi” State High School in Assisi, “Mechanics and Electrotechnics Technology Professional”High School in Lovech,“Mehmet Kemal Coşkunöz Mesleki Ve Teknik Anadolu Lisesi”in Bursa and “Šolski Center Novo Mesto”) try keeping up with technological developments, as it emerges from the suggested Educational Offer to their learners, aimed at guiding them towards future changesand by the equipments the laboratories have gradually equipped themselves with. The European Union has defined a “Digital Education Action Plan” for the integration of technologies in Education, for the purpose of pursuing 3 objectives: - to improve the use of digital technology for teaching and learning in schools; - to promote the development of digital skills and competences; - to improve Education through better data analysis and forecasting. In the near future, 90% of jobs will require e-skills, so it is important that education systems provide the required qualifications. Cooperation at European level will help to start the exchange on possible responses to emerging challenges that transcend national boundaries regarding technological trends such as artificial intelligence, automation and robotics. From the awareness that education and training systems must be adapted to the digital age “R.O.B.E.: impRove knOwledge By stEm” originates from, that will comprise the cooperation of the partner schools to implement a proposal that will allow 112 learners enrolled in the Two-year Period of Technological and IT High Schools to undertake a path of international exchange about STEM methodologies and technologies. It will be understood, therefore, the importance of improving competitiveness in the field of science, technology and development. Thanks to the mobility for a total of 7 days (5 days for ‘LTTAs’ and 2 travel days), the following specific objectives will be achieved: - to achieve innovative knowledge about Automation and Home Automation, Plant Engineering, IT, Robotics; - to achieve skills through learning modes related to Distance Learning; - to improve multilingual comprehension and communication skills, both in written and oral form; - to enhance EU key competences related to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) subjects; - to initiate internationalization processes; - to improve digital competences; - to improve transversal competences such as Entrepreneurship, Creativity, Team Working, Problem Solving, Design. At the same time, Schools will achieve the following objectives: - internationalization of the educational offer; - exchange of good educational practices; - fight to early school leaving; - update of teachers' educational and linguistic skills; - to improve the design skills of the school staff. The creation of “R.O.B.E.” local network will be an opportunity for the schools in partnership for continuing along the path of cooperation, creating a long-lasting twinning,with the aim of promoting training of excellence regarding STEM subjects. The Schools will encourage learners to create video-lessons in foreign languages to be shared online with international partners, which can be used as a support for teaching and self-learning. It will be created an annual competition for encouraging the launch of new projects and new proposals, also from international groups of learners, who, cooperating together on eTwinning, will use their skills and abilities in the STEM field. The competition will allow the inception of new outputs to be disseminated in order to promote schools that will be able to act, in an international way, as virtuous Training agencies, able to develop high skills and abilities among their learners. The competition will be extended on eTwinning to new Schools, in order to increase the international cooperation network. The Schools will also create paths dedicated to female students, often unwilling to undertake a specialization in the framework of STEM subjects, both on eTwinning and through extracurricular paths or through distance learning. The latter can be used to allow learners, especially those with fewer opportunities, to take part in highly training and specialized sessions. “R.O.B.E.: impRove knOwledge By stEm” will therefore be the starting point for a constant and continuous cooperation that can be an example for local and international Schools that will decide to start an international cooperation path and use the methodology of Distance Learning, or didactics through eTwinning, to allow their learners to achieve full educational success.
The "R.O.B.E.: impRove knOwledge By stEm" project which involved the Institutes in partnership (the Institute of Higher Education "M. Polo - R. Bonghi" of Assisi, the "Mechanics and Electrotechnics Technology Professional" High School of Lovech, the "Mehmet Kemal Coşkunöz Mesleki Ve Teknik Anadolu Lisesi" in Bursa and the "Šolski Center Novo Mesto" in Novo Mesto) pursued three general objectives: technological, educational and social. The first objective was pursued by organizing educational courses aimed at deepening knowledge of electronic and information technologies which form the basis on which to build the professions of the future as identified by the "Digital Education Action Plan" of the European Union. We therefore worked on the construction and implementation in the various mobility of educational experiences based on STEM methodologies and technologies. During the mobility in Turkey, the topic of applications of electronic and information technologies in the medical sector was addressed, deepening the aspects related to hardware and software development and the creation of interactions with portable devices. In mobility in Bulgaria, the theme of renewable energies has developed both from a technological point of view and from the point of view of building environmental awareness. During the mobility in Italy, the theme of educational robotics was addressed, highlighting the obtainable results both in terms of the development of IT skills and transversal skills of a mathematical logic type, team working and problem solving, just to name a few. Educational robotics also offers new opportunities for the development of teaching methods to complement the already consolidated ones. During the mobility in Slovenia, the themes of human-machine interaction and the security of information technologies were addressed. The second objective was focused on the use of electronic, digital and information technology to broaden the boundaries of teaching and learning in schools and promote the development of students' digital skills and competences; in the first three mobilities in particular, ample space was given to a design approach that saw the students as protagonists who worked in teams on concrete themes with applied results that required research and production work. The third objective was pursued by working on the aspects of improving linguistic communication skills and understanding both in written and verbal form, on the improvement of transversal skills such as self-entrepreneurship, creativity, team working, problem solving, planning, cooperative learning. This was achieved in particular whenever it was possible to work in teams made up of pupils of all participating nationalities, and by encouraging interpersonal communication during the various cultural activities. All of the above must be placed in a context of extreme organizational difficulty due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic for a good part of the project's implementation period, which significantly conditioned the mobility design, planning and execution activities, also of the different health regulations in force in the participating countries. The pandemic situation has led in particular to a repeated rescheduling of mobility, the renunciation of welcoming students into families and consequently to a deep and constant revision of the spending budget which obviously influenced the planning of the various activities. The composition of the groups of participating students has also been revised based on the availability of the families and of the students themselves, in some cases concerned about the possible developments of the infections. In any case, the “R.O.B.E.: impRove knOwledge By stEm” project involved the expected number of students; seven for each mobility for a total of 112 participants.