 Hello everybody, do you hear us? Does everything work fine? We will start in one minute. I hope you can hear us and I think we are ready to start. Hello everybody, welcome to this webinar and welcome to this course of Teacher Academy. We're very glad to have you here. The main goal of this webinar is to facilitate entry and engagement in the course for those who are not familiar or less experienced with this Teacher Academy online courses. We hope that after this webinar you will have a clear understanding about how things work on Teacher Academy, how you can make the most out of this course, and how you can complete it successfully. To this end, we have asked you to post any practical questions you may have, and we will try to address them during the webinar. Before starting, let us introduce ourselves first. My name is Efis El Tiddu. I'm the instructional designer and course coordinator of this course and other courses of Teacher Academy of School Education Gateway and I work as pedagogical officer in European School Net supporting the pedagogical and professional development activities in the future classroom lab and other European School Net projects. But in this course, of course, I'm not alone. I'm very happy to have with me Cornelia. Cornelia, would you like to introduce yourself? Yes, thank you. So my name is Cornelia and I'm a teacher in Slovakia and that is Slava. I teach at the Hotel Academy, but I also am an engineering ambassador for 13 years and Microsoft Education expert and I am very happy that I also can cooperate with European School Net and also School Education Gateway and co-moderate courses and also read some workshops for it tuning teachers and also other teachers. So now I'm happy to be with you again. Excellent and of course it's not only you and me Cornelia, right? So we have a great group of teachers. We have many teachers actually that we have gathered here because of this course. We have many participants from different countries, European, but also not European. And that definitely gives us a great opportunity to connect with colleagues, discuss any concerns and share ideas around the topic of project based learning. So a big welcome to all of you. Before we start and considering that the last period was quite challenging for a lot of us, both at the professional level but also at the personal and social level. We have the following question for you. How would you like to feel during this course? I would like to ask you to go to menti.code and menti.com and use the code that you see now. So 7683412 and answer to this question. We will give you two minutes to reply. So we can switch to this slide now. So because of the COVID-19 pandemic, education has changed dramatically with a distinctive rise of distance learning whereby teaching is undertaken as many please move to the previous slide actually show the results of the mentor with a distinctive rise of distance learning whereby teaching is undertaken remotely and on digital platforms. Considering the current situation, the fact that some teachers now are teaching remotely. Some others are in the classrooms and some others follow a blended approach. In this course, we will try to approach the method of project based learning having in mind these three different scenarios. So we hope that whatever your case might be, you will be able to find some inspiration and guidance. So. I hope you have submitted your answers already. Cornelia, would you like to comment a bit on the answers that participants submitted? Yes, I just want to say that I usually give this question to my students at the beginning of the school year every year. And it's very simple question, but it's important because then I see and then next questions usually are and what do you need to experience? What do you need to experience these feelings and then what can you do to experience them? And then we create rules. So now we are not going to create the rules, but these answers are important for us so that we can see what can we do for you so that you can feel really well. You can enjoy learning and have fun because it is proved, you know, that in a such mood we learn better. So now we are curious. How do you want to feel? What would you like to feel? How would you like to feel during this course? And hopefully we will see the results. Yeah, I see some results already in my on my screen, so I see that some parties. Most of the participants want to feel inspired, and I hope you will feel inspired through this learning journey. And some they want to feel relaxed. Some others they want to feel supported. Uhm, I see curiosity. I see enthusiasm. I see I see innovation. Some participants want to exchange experience and be challenged. That's good. That's good because we have challenge ourselves in this period. I think quite a lot, so it's good to see that we want to challenge ourselves more, especially at the professional level. That's that's a permanent situation that we should chase. Empowered they want to feel part of a community of a community. I think definitely you will feel that you're a member of learning community that hopefully it will inspire you to try and test different practices. They want to be heard. They want to feel. Support it great. Yeah, I'm not I'm not sure. Do we have I think maybe we have a problem with with showing the results? But yeah, I see it. Yes, but but you can now there is a question that you need the link, so you can see the link. I mean, yeah, right? Maybe I can share that on the chat. Hopefully you can see it or maybe not. Well, so I have just posted the link and you can see the results here. And now we see now as well. Great. Yes, so it's good to know because now we can see what we can do for you and for sure we will try to give you support. And but to be relaxed, then it's in your hands. So just don't take this course too seriously. I mean. Have fun and enjoy it. That is important because again in such an environment we learn much better and also give support to each other. And we know that teachers are so great that they usually give support to each other. And also you will see that we have many. Like possibilities how to interact and share our experience and also give support. So great. So I think that we can move on now. And the question is why is this course important? So let's go to the. Next slide please. Great, so. Yes, we face a big challenge. We all know that, but also the challenges that we need to equip our students with competencies that are important for the successful life. And the question is what is a competence and what competencies should we focus on? So because we know that to be competent doesn't mean only just to know something but being able to really effectively apply a combination of knowledge, skills and attitudes to react to the situation or to solve a problem in the real world. So that is competence and competencies are expressed in different ways. Probably you have seen many different frameworks, but in this course we will use the European Union framework. And they have these, they identify these eight key competencies that enable really every citizen to adapt to changes of society. And the framework also sets out the key themes or transversal skills that you can see in the middle of the circle. And these skills just underpin each competence. And project-based learning has really been identified as really popular and effective methods to teach these key competencies and also these transversal skills. So let's have a look what this course really offers to you. So next slide. Okay, so as you probably know, we have started on Monday and the end will be on the 4th of November. And the course is mostly asynchronous. You can follow the course at your own pace, but there are three synchronous events that you can see now. If you can't take part in these webinars or also in Twitter chats, then don't worry because there will be, of course, the recording of both webinar and also this teach meet. And you will find these recordings at the course platform. So no worries. And Twitter chat is maybe for many of you, especially even though something new, but again, no worries because you will learn more about Twitter and Twitter chat in the third module. And you can get ready for that. Even now you can start maybe and that will be one of the challenges on Facebook for you to tweet also. So we will have from time to time challenges for you so that you keep engaged a bit. So next slide please. And each module will open on Monday. So every Monday there is a new module open around noon. And as you can see, these are the topics of each module. So why PBL? Then we will talk more about implementing about these steps, how to implement PBL. And then of course important part like assessing PBL. And because we know that we are busy, you are busy teachers, we all are busy now. So you can see this very important information that yes, last module opens on the 19th of October, but then you have more days, like 10 days to finish your tasks. So don't worry if you just can't manage. And it doesn't mean I would like to point out to this that it's of course nice if you are able to finish the task for each module by the end of this first, I mean by the end of the week, but no worries if you can't, you just finish them whenever you want. So important is for you, the next slide please. It is important and really mandatory activity for you is that you will have to prepare your final classroom project in the last module and submit it so that three participants of this course can give you review, your feedback, yes, constructive feedback. Again, we will of course give you support and you will know, you will see the structure, how to give a constructive feedback. So again, no worries, you will enjoy it. And of course you will then have to review the final work of your three peers. And this is really mandatory for you because without this, you can't get your certificate. So again, what is needed for a certificate? So please visit all sections of the modules and it's really great if you are an active participant and then engage in discussions because you know how important it is for teachers caring, sharing is caring, yes, that's it. So be active participants, share your inside, your experience and just share resources that you have. We have many platforms for this, and but most important will be, and Effie will tell you this padlet, but to be active, it means that really you care and we can learn from each other. And I'm really curious about your insights on these topics and your experience really. And then what is important is deadline, keep in mind this deadline, 4th of November. So by, this is deadline for even review of the project of three of your peers, yes. If you decide to submit your class on project on the last day, then keep in mind that maybe it could be a bit late because then you need to do the view of your peers and everything by the 4th of November. So of course I would recommend you to do it a bit earlier. And then, next slide please, what we recommend to you is to keep your learning diary and you will really a very nice description of what the learning diary is and why it is needed. And because learning diary is a great way to keep the record of your thoughts, of your reflections, but also you can just keep or save the links of the resources and information and also experience information from your colleagues, not only from the experts and this course or course expert, but also whatever you find interesting because this way we learn actively if you keep a learning diary. I have to say because there are many questions about that. No, it's not mandatory, but we recommend it because it's much better and also it's great if you then will recommend this to your students to keep learning diaries for them in their studies. So now if you want to, I will. Yeah, so I can say something about the discussions as Cornelia very well explained. You're joining a big community of educators. Every professional brings his own ideas and his own inspiring methods. They use to engage their students with the best possible way. So in these podcasts, you will find a great resource of inspiration as you wanted to feel inspired at the beginning. So we highly recommend you to join these discussions, submit your ideas on the Padlet, spend some time to read the contributions of your colleagues and take the most of this course in any possible way. So as you already know, we are active also on social media. We have the Facebook group that you can post your questions there. You can exchange and discuss with your colleagues there as well. Myself and Cornelia are also members of this group. So if we see that some participants have a question or they need some support, we are very happy to support them. And we are also active on Twitter. We have a specific hashtag that we are using to collect all the messages related to this MOOC on a specific space. And of course we can also interact there. As we said at the beginning, we will also have a Twitter chat and you will find more information about this in due course. Twitter chat is an organized discussion at a specific date and time. So we will have the opportunity to discuss based on some specific questions related to the course topic. Last but not least, of course it's also, it's not too late to invite your peers and your friends to join the course. So please feel free to share the course with your colleagues or from your school or the friends that you have. So you can learn together because learning together is always better. There is time to join. We have just started and there is time to catch up since we are still in the first module of the course. So that's all with some technicalities about the course regarding the topic. As we explained from the beginning, we will try to approach the project based learning and see how it can be a practical and useful method for using in any setting. So in an in-school setting or in blended with a blended approach or in a distance learning scenario. So we hope that whatever your case is, really you can find some useful ideas that can benefit your practice. Also we will try to see how project based learning is useful for supporting the needs of the students that face some learning difficulties or some special educational needs. So I hope that you will find most of the answers that you have regarding the content in this course throughout these four modules. And now I think we have some time for questions. So if you have any question that we have not answered yet, please post it on the chat room and we are happy to provide some answers. Yes, so now I can see one question that the learning diary, where should you publish or keep it? So learning diary is recommended, of course, to keep it for yourself, but if you want, it's quite a nice sometimes practice that you can maybe share your learning diary for others to see how you... But it's really, learning diary can be your private, like diary to keep the record of your learning, but it's nice if you want to show it in our Facebook group or on Twitter or in the forum of the course. So we will create, maybe we can create like one forum for this case. So if you want to proudly share what you have done, so then it's great. It's not mandatory, but it can be helpful maybe for others. It happened already many times that I even, I learned from others, learning diaries, took inspiration. And you wanted also Facebook group, links are like posted it here, so you can see. Probably you can see now the link. And another question that, do we choose ourself three projects to review? No, even we don't do it, it's just this system, so it will do automatically. So no, we are not involved in that. It's of course, it's set, so we have this technology for that, which is great, we don't need to do it. And if you don't want of course to use Twitter or Facebook, then it's okay, it's not a problem. So it's not mandatory, it's only if you want. And if I can add also something else about the learning diary, because we shared the link in the presentation, this link was actually to provide you some instructions, some guidance on how to create your own learning diary. So when we will share this presentation because we are going to share the presentation and the recording in the platform tomorrow or the day after, you will find the link, which you can find also in the course introduction as well about how to create your learning diary, what kind of tool you can use and what submissions you should put there. As Cornelia said, it's not mandatory, but it's very helpful for your own professional development and for keeping track of what you are learning throughout this course, which is might be quite useful at the end when you will need to develop your own project plan. And again, I can see this mandatory, whether it's mandatory to participate in the forums, it's the mandatory you have this one task that you will have to do your final work and to do three reviews. That is really without that, you just can't get your certificate. And then also to read and to go through all these modules and yet to participate in the forum. So in these puddlets, of course, if you don't want to have time to share your ideas in each puddle, then yes, it's okay, but we would be really happy to see your suggestions or your reflection and really just your expertise. It would be great to have it from you. So please, yes, we are a big community from the whole world and it must be, it's just exciting to learn from each other. We also received a question, but I'm not sure if I understood correctly what the question is about, how is action research related to this competencies approach. I'm just trying to understand the question, but I would say related to this topic, we see project-based learning as an approach to develop key competencies. I'm sure you have read a lot of articles or a lot of publications coming from the European Commission that say that we should focus on the competency development during our relations. So we see how we can develop these key competencies by engaging the students in project-based learning practices. So that's the main goal of this course. And there is one question, are we going to learn how to deliver a competence like entrepreneurship in a PBL approach? PBL approach, so we are not going to talk about like each competence, each of these key competencies, it will be, because there are even more courses focused on each competence separately, but this PBL approach is important, like steps and if you will see how to really implement this project-based learning generally, then you will also see or learn how to deliver those or develop those certain competencies because entrepreneurship, if we are talking about entrepreneurship, so it's again, entrepreneurship as a competence has maybe you know it, 15 more competencies included. So according to the entry comp, but of course, if you want, we can, if you ask me directly on the Facebook group or Twitter or in the forum, then I can give you the link where how to develop this competence exactly if you are interested in that, but you will have this structure, you will have this PBL approach that is important in this course and to see how all these different kinds of competencies such can be developed. It depends on your approach and depends on the topic that you will, you will of course offer to your students. And indeed, the only strict thing in this course because as you understand, it's quite flexible. I'm not sure if all of you haven't experienced of a MOOC before. You know the flexibility that a MOOC can offer. You can learn wearing your pajamas as I used to say for a MOOC. You can learn when you're sitting at your couch or when you're lying at your bed. You can learn either at night or early in the morning, but there are some specific deadlines that you have to respect if you want to complete this course successfully and qualify for a certificate. So please keep these deadlines in mind if you want to receive a certificate at the end of the course and of course, follow the guidelines for the final activity that you will find in the last module. And maybe I would recommend you if I know that many of you don't want Facebook or Twitter or the social media, but still we will have some like question of the week where we or challenge of the week where you can maybe also share your ideas and resources. So I think that it would be nice also to be there and also I will remind you always of the deadlines or things that are important also in this social media. So you can also follow that could be helpful for you. Essential for PBI Younger Learners, it's age group essential. No, it's not important what is the age group for PBL because how I like to say usually to my colleagues that in anything that you want to start, keep in mind, kiss. Kiss, keep it short and simple. You know, like your first kiss. When you have your first kiss it was short and simple probably. And then it was more and more complicated, let's say. So keep it like that. And even with young or even with older, I mean students, but at the beginning just don't do complicated things. And so just you will learn this structure and that I'm sure that you will be able to implement this tool. Yes, even took in the garden where I guess yes, this is the question. Yes. And something else I would like to highlight is that we want you to submit nice works. So at the end we will try to gather some good submissions, some good lesson plans and we are going to curate that. We are going to engage some active participants to provide to evaluate these submissions in order to share with the whole audience some good examples that have been developed throughout the course. So be active throughout the course in order to join this editorial board at the end. Make a good project plan, make a good submission because at the end you are going to be awarded for this, awarded in a way that your work will be published in the School Education Gateway website and you will receive recognition for that. And of course, PBL can be applied to from kindergarten level to adult education. It's up to you to see how you can adapt all the practices, all the ideas that you will see in this course in your own setting, in your own age group, in your students, in your own subject you teach. So you get the inspiration, you get the concept and the ideas and then it's up to you how you can adapt it in your own environment. So I think that's all the questions we had, right Cornelia? I think we have one to answer all of them. And since we have completed, I think it's now time to adjourn this live event to say goodbye, to wish you good luck, to enjoy the first module, to stay in touch with each other, to feel free to connect with us if you have any questions. We are here to support you, to complete this course successfully and make the most out of it. So enjoy, have fun, share, exchange ideas and keep on learning. Yes, thank you. And now there is a very nice last comment. Maybe finally I'll start to use Facebook. It's important to know our students' word. Yes, so that's it. That is very nice, so thank you. And yes, with this message, let's go for challenges also as teachers and I really wish you good luck. Enjoy this, don't really worry, don't feel stressed about this because now you are just going to learn with other great colleagues who decided to do something for the students. And so keep learning, have fun, yes. And see you soon. See you on social media, see you in the platform and don't worry whatever you need, then we are here for you. So thank you. Excellent, thank you. Thank you, Cornelia, as well. Thank you everybody for joining this live event. See you at the next live event and have a lovely evening. Goodbye.