 Hello everyone and good afternoon. I'm happy to welcome you to this thematic webinar of school education gateway and today is a special day. Today is the last time we meet in such a remarkable year of 2020. So in this special occasion we'll talk about student mobility and student mobility in real and a digital world. My name is Ina and together with me today is my colleague I see and we're delighted to support this webinar and our speaker panel today is. Yosef Brand Steiner who is a 40 years of career in education and extensive experience in coordination, convenience and European Erasmus Plus project as well as a student and mobility projects in several European countries. We also have with us today Isabel Lascaux, who is a teacher from France and who is an active member of the coordination coordination team for Erasmus projects in her school. She will also showcase to us the activities of the Erasmus projects that she is working on. And yeah, I think it's going to be very interesting webinar because student mobility has always been a very important element in the education and this year it had been significantly challenged by the restrictions that were imposed on physical mobility and therefore it has given a room for this phenomenon to be developed also in a digital world so I'm very much looking forward to listen to our speakers. As usual, I just want to point out that this webinar will be recorded and it will be published later on on the webinar page and on the YouTube channel of School Education Gateway as well. Feel free to pose the questions to our speakers in the question answer box and we'll try to address as many questions as possible in the end of the webinar. So, Yosef, if you are ready to start, I'm happy to give you the floor and start this webinar. Thank you. Yes, I want to start with my presentation about student student mobilities about advantages disadvantages of student mobilities. My school has a lot of experience with student mobilities. We started when student mobilities have been implemented in a convenience project some years ago. It was, I think, about 2010-11. And yes, it was very good for our school because our school is very focused on languages. The students study English, French, Spanish, Italian, Russian and Latin. We have also a lot of connection to another schools in Europe. And as I said, a lot of experience with long-term mobilities for students. Yes, what are the advantages of long-term mobilities? I think long-term mobilities increase also throughout the school. It's very important. Also, the parents are very interested that children go out to another school to another country to improve their language competencies or to learn a new language or fix a better one. Also, it's the personal maturation process enhanced very strong. The students are more mature when they come back. They have fixed new skills, their knowledge, understanding, also in the question of intercultural competencies and also the experience is shared with peers, with teachers, with a family. So, these are very good advantages. This year it was because of corona, of COVID. We couldn't do any long-term mobility. The students wanted to go to Finland and to Spain, but they connected or had contact to the students in the partner school via digital instruments. Yes, what are possible problems and difficulties of long-term mobilities? On the first, of course, home sickness. Yes, always home sickness always arrives, but I think it's very easy to solve. We always had a system of mentors. We have mentors in our school and mentors in the host school. So, this mentor can solve these problems very easily. Also, problems with the host family or problems with classmates at the host school. Another thing is, yes, how did, how do the students get the subject matters from the home class? We did it always by digital instruments, as, for example, e-twinning or Microsoft Teams, etc., also with emails or similar things. Another very important question is how to assess the learning outcomes of student mobilities. Yes, to assess the learning outcomes is very difficult and also often the result becomes visible later, not in the situation. Progress in school should not be hindered by mobilities. Our students, when they go abroad, are normally good students, but whereby I have also had parents who have said that it doesn't matter if the student loses a year because the overall positive effect of the mobility takes precedence over the positive competition of the year. But that's mostly singular opinions. We always created a learning agreement. This learning agreement is made by the both by the mentors of the schools, of the host school, and of the sending school, and with the students. The student has to sign and also the mentors have to sign this learning agreement, so you can control the success in the school. The student mobility recognized by schools. It's a very different situation in very different legal approaches on different countries. Austria has a very special situation. I will explain this very special law in the next slide. I've heard the European Commission is working on automatic mutual recognition of upper secondary education qualifications and learning outcomes abroad. Very special is, as I said, our Austrian school law. Austrian school law says if a student is more than five months abroad visiting a foreign school in a foreign country, except in a foreign language, it's not possible to visit the school in Germany for that reason, but in the foreign language, then if the student comes back after five months or more, up to one year, he can upgrade into the next class without passing any exams. I think this law is very singular in the whole European Union. What are the advantages of this Austrian school law? The student has no stress to pass the exam, so he can be really... It's very easy for him to be, to stay in the school, to take part on the lessons in the foreign school without exams. For that reason, the best time for long-term mobilities for Austrian students and from an Austrian point of view is the 10th grade. The 10th grade, the students are 15, 16 years old, and it's two years before the final exam. The final exam in Austria is called Matura, so the student has the possibility to catch up on missed learnings in the next school year. He can study the subject matter in peace and has no stress. That's also the reason why our students are normally good, very good qualified students. How do we select our students for long-term mobilities? The most important thing, of course, is the personal motivation to go abroad. Also the support of the parents to go abroad and also the experience of elder students and friends plays a major role. If a friend has did a long-term mobility last year or a colleague of the class, it's very positive. That was the reason why in our school the number of students going abroad increased every year. Then very important things, also the academic performance. Good students are also more likely to go abroad. As I said in our school, normally only good students want to go abroad. Another point is the maturity of the student. Another very important thing for us is the principle of reciprocity. It's very difficult to find families in abroad to host students. So we use this principle of reciprocity. That means a student has to host also a student from the partner school. He has to accept it. This matter is a matter of balance. The parents, the families didn't get don't get any monetary benefits for the student accommodation. So it's fair to host another one and very important. So the intercultural contact is more intensive. Often happens that the families visited together in holidays and so the intercultural contact is not only between students, also between the families, between friends and so on. Because of that reason of the Austrian law the lengths of the stay abroad is normally more than five months, as I said. And we prefer a so-called three-three-three month concept. That means the first three months, for example, the students are together in Austria. A Spanish student comes to Austria maybe in October. They stay together for three months. They know each other better in that time. Then the Austrian student goes in the next three months, for example, to Spain or Finland and stays there separately. And in the last three months the students are together in the host country. So that's also the problem of home sickness would not be so big because they are friends, they get becoming friends normally and so it's easier for both students to be abroad. If a student stays shorter abroad, for example, with the Finnish schools, the Finnish schools wanted only stays up to four months, so three or four months. So we do the stays one after the other. So the students are always together and with all these advantages I said, less home sick, less problems with the family. How do we communicate with our partner schools? Yes, we have the principle of mentoring. There is a mentor in both in the partner school and in the host school and this mentor is responsible for the communication between the two schools to mentor to mentor as well as the communication between the host parents, the host school and the student. It's not good if in case of problems the parents of the students communicate with the parents of the host, of the parents of the hosting family, it's better to communicate with the mentor and the mentor communicates with the mentor of the other school. So it's easier to solve problems. A mentor should always be in between as a connecting and balancing element. We have very good experiences with the system and the mentors of our partner schools and the mentor of my school, of our schools, they know each other personally. So there is also a connection, a friendship and that's very important if problems arise or problems increase. We use all the communication tools, mobile phones, of course, email, social media and digital. In the last year the students communicated with GoToMeeting or Microsoft Teams to see together because they had contact before the real meeting should start it. That was a possibility but it can't be, it's not like a physical exchange and we hope that students mobility will be possible in the next year, in the next time. Very important also is to create a so-called crisis plan. This crisis plan regulates the procedure in crisis situation. This plan is signed by the mentors, the parents and the students. Our experiences with long-term stays or long-term mobilities in the last 12, 13 years are very positive. The pupils do not have any school problems after return home. The students can also take part on lessons also in a digital way. The pupils have to organize themselves how they receive the learning materials. The learning materials of the home school are mostly delivered by email or digital in digital version but also in students can take part on lessons at the home school via, for example, Microsoft Teams via computer especially when they have free lessons in the partner school in the host school. As I said, crisis management also works via contact from mentor to mentor to the sending school and the mentor to the host school. Between the mentors we make always agreement, yes, so-called learning agreement between mentors and students. This learning agreement is defined by the lessons who have to be visited and the timetable of the host school. The student must attend the lessons scheduled in their own school also in the host school. If the lessons are not offered in the whole school, for example, there is no religious lesson in Spain but we have religious lesson in Austria so the student have one free lesson in that time. During this time he has to work on the project. Every student who is of our school, who stays abroad, has to work on a special topic for the whole time for example to compare the different school systems, the school system of the host country, the school system of the home country. When the student is back home he has to explain to his colleagues in the class this different in the presentation or the student has the possibility to take part in this free lesson on the lesson in the home school via Microsoft teams or via digital possibilities. Very important the students are not allowed to leave the school house before the end of the regular timetable because of security reasons. What are the results of a long-term stay for a long-term mobility for the students? They improve their language skills or learning a new language as I said. They get more personal maturity based on this experience. They get friends, get intercultural contact, get more tolerance and became more self-confidence and tolerance as I said became even even more European people, European students. How do we organize this procedure, this long-term mobilities? In the year before of this day we ask interested pupils for long-term mobilities. If the students are interested we organize a meeting with parents for information about accommodation, legal situation in the host country, national laws for the protection of minors in the host country, information about the host school and possible partner pupils. Then the pupils will stay in contact when we have selected the students pupils. They go in contact with his partner, his in the host country and it's very important to attend the mandatory pre-departure training of our national agency. Thank you very for your attention. I hope you got some new information that was interesting for you and I am interested and waiting for your question. Thank you very much. Excellent thank you so much. Thank you so much for such an interesting presentation. So we will address more questions in the end of the webinar right now. I suggest for Isabel to take the lead and continue with her presentation and later on we'll address my questions. Please wait to pose your questions in the chat box. Thank you. Okay hello my name is Isabel Lascaux. I am a French English teacher based in Clermont-Ferrand. I'm going to make a presentation of the Erasmus Plus project entitled lieu which means places in English, lieu incubateur de mobilité intelligente in French responsible mobility incubator which is a European partnership project on mobility. So this presentation will be three fold. In a first part I'm going to make a presentation of the project starting with the goals we have set then I will be telling you about the organization. In a second part I will show you some practical activities we made on Twitspace to promote the interaction and the communication between the participants. And finally I will briefly tell you how we have tried to adjust to the pandemics by imagining a few digital activities. So presentation maybe. I would like to introduce the partners we're working with. Sorry here we go. So six partner schools from six European countries are involved in this partnership. One in Valango, Portugal and one in Dynastia Basque Country Spain, one in Rome Italy, one in Cavalla Greece, one in Munich passing Bavaria Germany and one in France. The French, German and Portuguese teams have known one another for quite a long time now. Some teachers have participated in various partnerships over the last 20 years. The Spanish, Italian and Greek teams joined the project in 2019 and we've had the opportunity to meet twice already. The coordinating team is the French one and French is the common language of the project. So now I would like to present the educational goals of our project. In fact the project was born out of the observation that the new generation is far more mobile than the previous ones. It is a generation on the move who's used to traveling with a family, with friends, especially thanks to the development of low-cost flights for instance. This generation is used to taking gap years before or after university. Some young people even do internships abroad or they take courses etc etc. So this generation is definitely the connected one, the one who was born with the internet, who communicates mostly via social networks but still the question is are these young people really prepared to such a wide access to mobility? Do they even realise the variety of offers they are being proposed? Do they realise the hardships disabled people for instance may come up with? Are they aware of the stakes of the assets of the dangers of the problems entailed by all the various forms of mobility? So basically the main goal of our project is to raise our 12 to 19 year old students awareness on the upcoming challenges of mobility, be it real or virtual etc. The point is also to sharpen their critical thinking so they could act as European citizens, to make them think and get to work through collaborative work, to help them gain autonomy, to build their own opinion and then be able to act. Of course it is important that they should know more about your they should open up on Europe through of course interaction and connection with other young people. Many tools can help them reach these goals like the mastering of common information and communication technologies to promote an opening on the world and on Europe along of course with the learning and the practice of foreign languages. So now I'm going to present you the different areas of work. So to meet these goals the project offers common learning educational activities focused on the discovery of the different source of mobility, to show their advantages but also the problems they might trigger off. So indeed those activities revolve around four areas of work. Ecological mobility, reduced mobility, digital mobility and cultural mobility. Four important notions run through the project. The notion of consumption which can be linked with ecological mobility for instance and the point is to promote the idea of an eco attitude that is to say to get a critical thinking about the over consumption of mobility. I mentioned for instance previously that is quite common now to travel with a low cost company but this has consequences. For example this year we chose the French teachers, the French team chose to travel by train rather than to fly to Munich last February and that was a choice because we thought that traveling by train was cleaner than flying for instance. But this change of attitude requires a transition period, hence well the idea of support in the sorry energetic transition which could be both digital and cultural. It's always very important also for us to share good practices and to cooperate. For example we have some examples of infrastructures set up to carry out green mobilities in the field of transportation in Germany. We have also implemented workshops where good practices can be shared and what is crucial of course is the commitment of the participants in group activities and it's a priority for us. So let's talk about the way we organise ourselves. Six transnational activities meetings sorry gathering the six delegations are planned to implement learning, teaching and training activities and centered around the specificities of the hosting schools and countries. We have also decided that twice a year one of the schools would host two teachers and two students which is an experience an opportunity for the students to experience a cultural immersion with the host family. So this year two students were supposed to experience a longer mobility, a long mobility, a French one and a German one but unfortunately it had to be cancelled due to the the pandemics. We also have two transnational meetings which are planned to implement and organise all the various activities one to launch the project and another one to conclude and all in all 16 learning activities are planned. So here is a number of examples of learning activities. Shall I show them or not? Okay brainstorming travelers day, walk amide my shoes, travel diary etc etc. In the respect of a quality approach a regular assessment measures the impact of the project on the target audience. You can see a survey it's in French and Fréd. These activities are assessed all along the project both by the students but also by the teachers. Okay as you can see here these as you can see the assessing tools are easy and fun to use. They do not require much time. The students answer with you know energies about the quality, the atmosphere, the organisation etc and they do not have much to write so it's quite easy and quick. So I am now going to tell you about the making of. We have used a collaborative tool namely a padlet to organise a brainstorming and to classify our ideas into different categories and I'm going to show you maybe here we go. So here you have the goals, objective in French, the activities, assessment, expected impacts, the specific tasks etc. Okay I'm going to get rid of this. To communicate virtual meetings have been organised via Twinspace so I don't know if we don't have maybe we don't want to go on Twinspace right now but the mission of the project is also to expand its network by relying on the expertise of local players and relevant stakeholders to bring more maybe more scientific and educational insight and to knowledge and value the project. So now I'm going to present the second part student mobility. We to prepare our students for their mobility we have developed common tools. So first a call for candidates. It's a YouTube link so I'm not too sure I can show it to you. The students who are eager to apply, who are motivated, willing to try this experience should set a letter, a cover letter or a video to their teachers. Two students are chosen according to a specific criteria, specific selection criteria. Okay I'm just trying to show you but doesn't seem to be working. Sorry about that. Here we go. Here we go. Here are the criteria so we have a list of criteria. The students are then prepared to their mobility given a preparation sheet to help the teachers set up pairs according to common tastes or interests about the passion, the music, favorite color, favorite movie, etc etc and to enable, as I said before, the students to know a little bit more about their penpal. A roadmap with useful information is given to the students. It's a video. I'm not too sure it's going to be working. So we, yes here we go. Okay so that's what we call a roadmap. Okay we have many useful information along with a word baggage with educational material which was created by the way by students from a previous sorry from a previous Erasmus Plus project. Okay so we have been using a twin space to cement the relationships so it's a very useful tool tool to communicate and exchange and many relevant resources can be found there. There is a range of icebreaker activities. It's a place where the participants can interact and share results, share tools, showcase their project and it's also a place where you can keep all the documents and it's like a memory. So here is a few examples of the twin space. Okay for example where do we come from so people introduce where they come from. We have organized a carpool karaoke to get to know each other. It was a lot of fun for everyone and of course it's season Christmas time so it's always nice to say Merry Christmas happy new year. There are a few examples of brainstorming activities here. A calendar has been made also and a few quizzes on the different countries. There is a photo exhibition on what's in my bag, what's in my backpack where the students had an opportunity to introduce themselves through what they keep in their backpack. Okay so I think I'm going to get back to my presentation. So we are very deeply convinced that the intercultural experience is really crucial since we've had many positive feedbacks. It's an opportunity for the students to travel abroad and to improve their knowledge of the European cultures and meet different people. Some of them had never flown for instance they had never been on a plane so that's quite an important experience for them. Others had never left home for more than a week so here again it's quite an interesting experience. So the project is also clearly a means to offer young people who do not have the chance to travel to do so. So it is definitely a cultural asset and opening on the world to discover traditions to build friendship and connection. It's also a way to get out of one's comfort zone because you have to adapt to adjust and it's also a way to experience gratitude. So for the teachers these transnational activities reinforce the motivation also for the children as well. It is also important to note that the mastering of the new skills discovered throughout all the activities are valued through the Europas ceremony at the end of the stay. So I'm going to show you now a few oops sorry student testimonies very positive ones and so as you can see they are my experience in this meeting was magical this time will always be a second home to me piece of our hearts etc. So I'm going to now move on to the last part part three the project and COVID-19. As everyone else we have tried to adjust to the COVID-19 pandemics we've tried our best to carry on and to find solutions to for example the transnational activities have been postponed when possible and the activities that were planned have been rescheduled online. Of course some activities are on hold right now especially well due to lockdown and to this lack of mobility. Yet new activities adapted to the circumstance being added and so we had to meet with the new new challenges. I am going to show you maybe one or two of them so we've asked our students to express themselves and to tell them about their daily life during lockdown or you know during this pandemic and to share their feelings about the situation and about the lack of the lack of liberty and of mobility. So here we have a long text by a young lady who says that she has been reading a lot she has tried her best to make the most of it. We have also organized a radio program about mobility during the Erasmus days. I'm not sure I can show you maybe yes maybe I can show you a little bit of this experience it's in French and so it was a way to use the skills and the knowledge acquired all along the project and some students in Portugal have created a website because they couldn't have the opportunity to do their professional internship this year so thanks to our project they have been able to complete their curriculum so we're quite happy about that and we also have a website that you can see right now where the students can which has been set up during the during lockdown. So to conclude we could say that the current situation has made it clear that digital mobility is definitely part of our daily life hence the importance of mastering its code and I think that that's it thank you for your time and attention. Excellent thank you so much Isabel for an illustration of this project so right now we have some time to address questions and we already received a couple so while we're waiting for more questions to come I could already address some of them to our speakers so Jozef we've received a couple of questions while you were presenting so one question sounds like this seems to be a very good structure based on years of experience do you find that most of other schools and countries also have this level of planning are there certain improvements to make across Europe in your opinion thank you okay yes yes I think we have a very special situation in Austria because of our law so it's very easy to go abroad because of the possibility to come back without any stress any exams so in the structure we organize the structure with our experience as I said we started the long-term mobilities when this program started with Cominiers 12 years of 30 years ago and we have sent I think four or five students per year abroad to different countries to France to Finland to Spain to Italy and so on and yes I think it's very easy for us because of our law I have seen the problems with for example the Spanish students they have to pass all the exams afterwards they sent the exams to my school they have the exams in my school they sent them back for the correction it's much much more complicated so yes I think we are in a very good position in Austria about that thanks so much you guys are very good to know and the next question we have for Isabel Isabel what do you think how to assure that the contract for virtual mobility is fulfilled and which are the cause that can be supported by the project I cannot hear you you have to unmute okay is that okay sorry yes yes sorry what the question was sorry ah the question was how to assure that the contract for virtual mobility is fulfilled and which are the cause that can be supported by the project well that's a difficult question I'm not too sure I can answer that question myself that is too much for me to answer I'm sorry I cannot answer that question yeah no problem and then we can move forward so we have another question that was addressed to Jozef so Jozef could you please tell us more precisely what the previously mentioned crisis plan looks like yes the crisis plan we have information about the medical situation about the medical standard of the students they have to go to the doctor they got a letter about medical situation and when they go and the host family gets all this information also we have also the crisis plan when yes when some unseen situation happens like this covid or like political problems in the country to bring back the students all that things are organized in this crisis plan excellent thank you and so there is another question for Isabel Isabel could you could you explain who decides the selection criteria okay the teachers do the team together decides of the criteria and the they have to to be to be part of this project the students have to participate in the activity to show they are willing to very eager to participate to be very motivated and then the teachers decide which one well after we have of course read their application letters and watch the videos and we decide which which one would be the best to go excellent thank you so much i think we'll take two more questions so Jozef there was another question for you sounds like you have a great process with the partner schools for how long you have been working with the partners for example the partners from Finland and in Spain with the Spanish school we've worked more than 25 years we started with convenience projects with Erasmus Plus projects with the Finnish schools we work since more than seven years yes we have a very long contact to the schools and that's very important because that's the reason why the teachers know each other the mentors know each other there's a friendship between the mentors and between the teachers in our school and in the host school so it's much easier to handle problems okay thank you and one last question we have for Isabel also as a feedback great presentation Isabel could you please explain how the mastering of student skills is enhanced through the your your past ceremony um i myself uh have not been part of a your past ceremony i have i'm new in the project and this project so i'm going to ask my colleague maybe uh if she can help me with that so yeah there's a celebration there's a celebration uh and you know you you give the the diploma to uh to the students um and they go home with their diploma and it's very rewarding thank you so much excellent um thank you so much i think uh for for the time being we answered more or less all questions that we have received and we are uh coming exactly uh to the time to finish so try to finalize it and draw this webinar to the end i want to thank our speakers for being with us today and for such a fruitful contribution that you gave um i think it was very interesting and very bright illustration that you gave so it was really uh great to have you on board today and i also want to thank our audience our participants for being with us today and for your attention so a couple of practical matters um that is usually very important to mention too so as you know this webinar was recorded and you will be able to um see the recording and um also up also see the presentation that the speakers were using during their during the during the webinar it will be published soon uh on the webinar page and what's also important we have them as you can receive certificates and to do this it's important to be registered on School Education Gateway platform and be logged in on Teacher Academy and we just published in the chat the link for feedback survey so once you submit the feedback survey you'll be redirected for the automatic download of your certificate of participation so please um make sure that you save this link so you don't lose it when the webinar is over and um that is it from our side i want to thank you one more time and i wish you wonderful winter break and i'm looking forward to uh see you all again next year with the fully recharged batteries and um yes congratulations for this for completing this challenging year and um uh have a nice evening and uh nice a week ahead thank you so much good bye thank you very much good bye thank you very much bye bye bye have a nice uh Christmas holidays bye bye Merry Christmas to everyone good bye thank you bye thanks for me bye everyone thanks so much for the presentations and for the participants