Up2U professionals gathered late July in Rome to discuss the most urging matters of the project:  how to include more schools in the pilot activities in the partner countries, and how to highlight the pedagogical aspects of this activity. 

The national coordinators of the participating countries shared their best practices, listed the lessons learned and the way forward. The meeting was also an opportunity to share views on the training activities done so far, including the video tutorials and live webinars on the Up2U platform tools as well as on the teaching methodology for the development of key competencies (such as teamwork, collaboration, creativity, autonomy, flexibility,…). Security was also part of the meeting, as participants gathered feedback on the cybersecurity guidelines and video-tips created within the project on key topics such as cybersecurity for students and teachers, digital identities, GDPR and Open Educational Resources. During these years of the Up2U project, there was a fairly common tendency for a number of teachers to be interested in upgrading their classroom activities, whereas schools are more hesitant to join the initiative. To address this tendency, a new approach was initiated from Lithuania, Spain and Poland: third parties (universities and private companies) got involved in producing ready-to-use content for schools, in subjects like biology and informatics that teachers can easily adapt for their lessons.
So far more than 150 schools’ students tested our platform from the following countries: Greece, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Spain. Depending on the country teachers can choose from online, face to face or hybrid training possibilities and can form a community where they can support each other during their journey towards a Next Generation Digital Learning Environment-Up2Universe.

As the upcoming academic year approaches Up2U partners are eager to work with more and more schools in Europe. If you wish to implement tools that improve your students’ digital skills reach out to us-let us introduce your school into the world of Up2Universe! For more details check under Contact us.