“Lay of the Land” Conference

Language: The official language of the conference is English & the official language of the country is Romanian.

Currency: The official currency of the country is RON (Romanian Lei): 1 RON = 0.21 EUR (approx) = 0.25 USD (approx)

Time zone: GMT +2

Romanian visa: More information about the Romanian visa are available here.

About București

The city is rapidly gaining attention as a competitive city break that blends the wonders of modern Europe with the far flung exotism of the East. For some of us, București is just the city where you can see Ceaușescu’s Palace (People”s Palace or Palace of Parliament), for others it will always remain “The Little Paris” of the East. In fact, Little Paris is considered to be also an era in the history of București and traces of them can still be admired today in the architecture of palaces, public buildings and hotels.

WS 1

“Empowering scientists and scholars for OS. Sharing practices, discussing problems”

(Paola Rodari, Sissa Medialab, Trieste Italy)

Workshop Description

All STEM OS projects include the participation of researchers who meet and work with teachers and pupils and other actors of the networks. But also not-STEM projects may include the participation of scholars: historians, sociologists, economists, etc. All these experts need to be motivated in participating and giving their time to these activities. It is also very important that they have an open attitude and are able to understand others’ needs and to communicate their knowledge in a relevant and interesting way. That implies engagement, competences and training. This workshop aims at facilitating the sharing of good practices in the training in research communication of scientists and scholars between children unis’ organisers and other people working in the informal learning. It will tackle themes such as: barriers to the involvement of academics and ways to promote the engagement; training topics, methods and schemes; experiences in the facilitation of the dialogue between experts and not experts; etc. SISSA Medialab facilitators will organize and lead group work in different steps to come out, at the end of the workshop, with shared dos and don’ts and recommendations. Some of the ideas will be taken by the Phereclos project results.

 

Register for WS 1

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WS 2

“The City is Asking Children”

(Sibel Cetingöz & Erdoğan Kahyaoğlu, Informal Education-cocukistanbul, Istanbul, Turkey)

Workshop Description

The aim of the workshop is to reflect the purpose, guiding ideas, structure, implication philosophy and metodology and outputs of a project that successfully reached around 7 thousand children in İstanbul through a chain of more than 50 stake holders including local administration bodies, schools, museums, NGO’s, teachers and educators within the informal education area. The project was finalized on May the 2022 and realised by Informal Education-cocukistanbul in partnership with the City Council of İstanbul.
The project aims in general to understand how the children perceive the city they live in, while they voice out what they like and dislike, what they want and wish to their benefit and to the benefit of all the people and natural inhabitants living in and around the city where they also develop their own ideas and solution proposals. The project is basically a “democratic partipitation” project where the main actors are the children as “citizens”. The stake holders are there to guide and create oportunities to them to equally and activelly participate. The project furthermore aims to create a sustainable and structured link between the children and especially the local municipal authorities to evaluate the children’s ideas together, to develop a strategy for a better city and to take concrete steps to realise the childrens needs and wishes together with the children.

The workshop will be highly interactive not only with rich visuals but also with materials for the participants to actively practice. Everyone will glance at their own city through the eyes of children. Even at Bucharest…

 

Register for WS 2

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WS 3

“First Generation Project – Ready for university!”

(Thomas Troy & Eva Resch, Vienna University Children’s Office, Vienna, Austria)

Workshop Description

According to research, the educational qualifications of children in Austria are still to a significant extend determined by the educational level of their parents. Whereas 67% of school students whose parents earned a degree at a university enrol at a university, only 22% of school students, whose parents do not have a university degree enrol at a university. In cooperation with the University of Vienna, the LEC Vienna developed within the framework of the EU project PHERECLOS the First Generation Project. The Project addresses anyone who is the first in his or her family planning to study at an (Austrian) university. The objective is to promote their involvement in the university education process, fostering equal opportunities, removing barriers and to gain first experiences in the academic environment.

In this interactive session, we take a closer look at the First Generation Project and its design as well as the impact on First Generation school students and universities. Additionally we align all participant’s experiences to gain a broader perspective and discuss various opportunities to foster inclusion in context of universities and enable participation regardless of the educational level of parents.

 

Register for WS 3

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WS 4

“Dive into open schooling through maker education”

(Alexandru Toma Pătrașcu, ASUR)

Workshop Description

Make it Open is an open schooling project that proposes to bring into the classroom the philosophy of the maker movement to develop a transformational approach to STEAM teaching and learning. Make it Open adopts the concept of Open Schooling where schools are transformed from traditional educational institutions into community partnerships and become agents of community well-being.

This workshop is an opportunity for all educators to gain inspiration and reflect together with other institutions that have been experimenting with new methodologies of learning. During the workshop we will present the overall project concept and run some hands-on sessions introducing the Make it Open innovative pedagogical tools – Learning Scenarios. They can be accessed through the project’s Open Schooling Navigator and their aim is to provide a supportive framework for teachers to try out an open learning approach.

 

Register for WS 4

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WS 5

“Co-creation to solve challenges in school education”

(Selene Pineda & Ana Agudelo, EAFIT University, Medellin, Colombia)

Workshop Description

Co-creation is the sum of experiences and creativity to achieve common goals. In this workshop we will understand co-creation through solutions for social challenges where different actors such as schools, universities, companies and the government participate.

We are going to co-create solutions around social problems related to health, culture, gender equity, youth, social develop, mobility, social inclusion and environment. We will make a design process with these elements: problematize; identify solution alternatives; design and implement solutions; evaluate and adjust.

Also, we will talk about the triggers to achieve a successful co-design: consensus, conversation, activation and expasion. In the end we will talk about the co-creation experience at LEC Medellin.

The workshop will be divided into three moments for 90 minutes:

• Activation and presentation
• Teamwork to solve challenges
• Presentation of the LEC Medellín

 

Register for WS 5

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WS 6

“Going Global – A brainstorming session on setting up an International Day of Children’s Universities”

(Jolanta Różowska, Fundacja Małopolski Uniwersytet dla Dzieci, President of the European Children’s Universities Network)

Workshop Description

As a group of volunteers from the Children’s University of Lodz, we have had a chance to gain a broad experience with open schooling in recent years. Starting from a group of children who had no idea what open schooling is, we have come to the point where we can call ourselves experts in this field. Therefore, we would like to share our experience and knowledge on this subject with you.

During this workshop, with our friends from Romania, we will introduce the concept of open schooling from our perspective. We will also discuss and bring to life the practical application of these methods with the participants of the workshop.

We will try our best to create some space for a debate about open schooling from a wider perspective.

 

Register for WS 6

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WS 7

“Stronger Communities of teaching Nature Science”

(Christina Dahl Madsen, Søren Søndergaard Thisted & Mikkel Staadsen-Boesen, VIA University College, Aarhus, Denmark)

Workshop Description

The focus of this workshop is divided into two topics both with unique importance to the Danish after education project SNL (Stronger Communities of teaching Nature Science).

What is a systemic approach to continuing education of Danish Schools teachers and what’s important in designing, implementing and sustaining new knowledge and learning in the classrooms of the public schools?
The first part of the workshop contains an introduction of the Danish after education project; SNL. This project aims to change an develop the quality of teaching the nature sciences in the public schools of Denmark by using a systemic approach that focus on capacity and community building instead of a singular focus on the competencies of the teacher. The project began in 2019 and involves the Danish Governance, 6 University Colleges and 36 public schools.

The workshop will discuss the importance of;

• designing research-based continuing education with the active use of formative evaluation and action research
• an active and supportive schools management
• the influence of the time aspect
• the changing of a local school culture and difficult role of locale project ambassadors

We will dig into the process of developing and implementing the project revealing what we learned and how we used the new knowledge to strengthen the project concept.

We will also invite the participants to contribute with inspiration and ideas from their perspective and experience within the field of continuing education.

The second part of the workshop will focus on the content knowledge of the SNL-project; How to teach focusing on the natural sciences competences of the students.
This part of the workshop will be activity-based involving the participants in trying out a science experiment as a way to demonstrate how to teach within a specific mindset and focus. Afterwards there will be a plenum discussion that reflects on what challenged the teachers of SNL in there aims to implement this mindset in their school practice.

 

Register for WS 7

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WS 8 & WS 16

“Code! .. Draw! .. Stitch! / Coded Embroidery”

(Andrea Mayr-Stalder, Turtle Stitch)

Workshop Description

Learn how to use TurtleStitch in diverse contexts.

In the framework of the TEMP Partnerships, a group focused on coded-embroidery. The participants – mainly STEAM educators and artists – developed different practices and shared experiences of practical use of this design method.

The workshop at the conference introduces the Open Source Project TurtleStitch (www.turtlestitch.org) and invites active participation
(individually or in teams). Turtlestitch can be used for creating novel patterns for embroidery, combining the abstract logic of computing and the materiality of textiles. Its primary use is educational, as it offers a way of introducing programming to audiences with diverse interests.

Note: Participants need a laptop (with mouse) and Internet browser for this workshop!

 

Register for WS 8

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WS 9

“Parental Engagement through STEAM”

(Judit Horgas, Liget Műhely Alapítvány, Hungary)

Workshop Description

Builiding on ourcomes of the EU-funded Open School Doors, Parents Engage and ParENTrepreneurs projects, this workshop will explore in an interactive format the various ways parents can and should be engaged in open schooling programmes.

 

Register for WS 9

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WS 10

“Is open schooling suitable for everyone?”

(Maja, Karolina, Katarzyna and Ștefan; Lodz & Bucharest, Romania)

Workshop Description

As a group of volunteers from the Children’s University of Lodz, we have had a chance to gain a broad experience with open schooling in recent years. Starting from a group of children who had no idea what open schooling is, we have come to the point where we can call ourselves experts in this field. Therefore, we would like to share our experience and knowledge on this subject with you.

During this workshop, with our friends from Romania, we will introduce the concept of open schooling from our perspective. We will also discuss and bring to life the practical application of these methods with the participants of the workshop.

We will try our best to create some space for a debate about open schooling from a wider perspective.

 

Register for WS 10

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WS 11

“Over knowledge and into practice – assessment for skills.”

(Anna Przybyło, Kraków, Poland)

Workshop Description

According to Solo taxonomy (after Biggs and Collis 1982) there are a few stages of learning: Prestructural, Unistructural, Multistructural, Relational and Extended abstract. At school, we usually get only to Relational way of getting knowledge. This means that we teach kids how to compare, contrast, classify and relate. Students can think creatively and create only if they are let to do so. How can we change written tests into practical knowledge, and how to learn from mistakes? I invite you to my presentation.

 

Register for WS 11

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WS 12

“Open school and PBL – Great play and deep seriousness”

(Søren Peter Andersen & Anne Katrine Blond, Denmark)

Workshop Description

Get introduced to ‘Project-based learning and innovation in an open school’. The presentation is for anyone involved in teaching, innovation and PBL.

Project-based learning is a teaching method that is rapidly entering the European education system. But what elements should a PBL and Open School programme contain, and how do we create a culture and didactic stance that has a common language across the many disciplines of primary schools? In this presentation, you will hear about didactic models that provide schools and teachers with a common didactic direction for working with PBL, open school, creativity and innovation skills.

See individual models here: https://www.klimazirkus.com/english

 

Register for WS 12

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WS 13

“Family based early childhood development”

(Soner Yurtdas, Mersin Yenişehir Municipality Children’s University, Mersin, Turkey)

Workshop Description

The aim of the Family-Based Early Childhood Development “Yenişehir Model” project is to ensure that all children aged 0-8 become individuals who have reached the highest level of their developmental potential through education starting from the family, and that no child is left behind.

The model consists of seven steps, which are going to be presented and worked upon in the workshop.

 

Register for WS 13

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WS 14

“Introduction to online didactics and the use of e-learning in teaching science”

(Mikkel Staadsen-Boesen, E-learning consultant, VIA University College, Denmark)

Workshop Description

Building on our talk on the SNL (Stronger Communities of teaching Nature Science) project, I will dig a bit deeper into the specifics of online didactics and create an overview of the most important things to account for as an educational designer. This will be a short talk focused on the practical application of online learning theory, and flipped learning methods, and how they can be applied in an open schooling context.

After this we will look at the educators toolbox – videos and course designing for educators Introducing simple ways to bring the natural world into the classroom, and create engaging online support for your teaching. Finally we will look at how easy it can be to create your own online course. We will group up, and take a well-known subject, from which we will create short courses using Articulate Rise.

Note: please bring laptop for this workshop.

Key takeaways

• How to use online didactics to aid in open schooling
• What are the effects of online learning on students
• What not to do – creating online education that works
• How to get started – make your own courses using www.articulate.com/360

 

Register for WS 14

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WS 15

“Learning how to be an entrepreneur”

(Joana Santos (coord.), Vítor Silva, Clara Vasconcelos, Bruno Pinto, University of Porto)

Workshop Description

This workshop will reflect the experience of Universidade Júnior (Universidade do Porto) regarding the program “How to be an Entrepreneur”. Participants will have the opportunity to:
1 – get familiarized with some techniques on how to address a challenge (problem or opportunity) through Design Thinking.
2 – understand how the Business Model Canvas and the Lean Startup method can help young entrepreneurs to learn about the contexts of their projects, markets (clients and other stakeholders) and to extract meaning from testing hypotheses.
3 – recognize the relation between Entrepreneurship, Design Thinking, Lean Startup and the Business Model Canvas.

 

Register for WS 15

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WS 16: See WS 8

This workshop is a repetition of WS 8 in the first WS time slot

 

Register for WS 16

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Another brick leaves the wall

Istanbul Is Asking Children

Make it Open

PHERECLOS in a nutshell (2)

The European Commission and its Educational interventions 2007-2022

FIRST GENERATION