OBSTACLES ON THE EFFECTIVE USE OF SOCIAL NETWORKING TOOLS FOR TEACHERS’ PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND THE TRAINING NEEDS TO DEAL WITH THEM

Social networking /WEB 2.0 is the technology to support connecting people in various ways. The arise of WEB 2.0 allowed users to enhance their actions when accessing the internet not only for searching information but above all to interact, collaborate, and share content. For the specific showcase of school teachers, WEB 2.0 is providing new opportunities to build and gain professional development by assisting them to remain current on skills and issues important for a professional role. Aim of the presented work, it to build on our previous research on which specific tools are considered as the most useful for teachers’ professional development and which are the perceptions of teachers on them, in order to identify the obstacles and drawbacks to their effective utilization, leading to the proposition of a core training program tailored to the teachers’ needs.  Article visualizations

PERCEPTIONS ON WHICH SOCIAL NETWORKING TOOLS ARE USEFUL FOR TEACHERS’ PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Teachers are expected to be able to keep up with the technological development in the classroom. Integrating ICT into teaching is a complex process and they may encounter a number of difficulties. They seek opportunities for professional development, so that they can meet the needs of students leading to recognition as a “reform-minded” educator. Social networking/WEB2.0 which is the technology connecting people is providing new opportunities for professional development by assisting to remain current on skills important for teachers’ role. Aim of our research is to study, for the specific professional category of school teachers, which are the professional skills which can be strengthened through social networking and which tools are the most appropriate for this goal. Based on a collection of information from various sources we present a series of conclusions which can be the basis for the design of training programs on how to effectively use social networking.  Article visualizations

Non – Formal Education Activities For The Enhancement Of Knowledge And Skills: Investigation Of Non-Explicit Motives For Participation

In recent years, more and more adults are seeking for opportunities for additional professional engagement and strengthening their position. Non-formal education offers such a pathway since they are designed to better suit the specific needs of adults. But to make this possible, it is important to direct the relevant scientific research towards analytical investigation of needs and incentives which motivate adults to participate in non-formal education. This investigation is useful to be directed in points beyond the obvious (e.g. acquisition of additional qualifications) to identify particular issues (e.g. need for communication) which should be taken into account for the design of efficient seminars. The purpose of this study was to contribute to the above direction by identifying individual approaches and social needs which affect participation in such actions. By focusing on specific subjects of training, literature study and surveying using questionnaires and focused interviews, it was revealed that apart from the obvious goals of acquiring new knowledge and skills, there are other "internal" needs of adults who urge them to participate in seminars. These have to do mainly with two categories of needs: - The strengthening of self-confidence in relation with continuous developments of our time - The need to improve and strengthen social relations These findings are an important basis for feedback on specific elements that are not often recorded and which should be taken into account during the needs analysis in order to design adult education activities

Social Web Applications as Means to Enhance Lifelong Learning and Professional Development of Teachers: A Tool to Support Assessment of Their Impact

The application of new technologies in classroom has made the need for constant professional development more important for teachers. They should be able to keep up with the technological development in the classroom. Their professional development includes constant upgrade of their skills and knowledge on how they can meet the needs of their students or address issues derived from ICTs application in classroom. Social Web applications are providing new opportunities to build and gain such professional development by assisting to remain current on skills and issues important for a professional role. Aim of the present work is to contribute to the assessment of impact of Social Web applications for teachers’ professional development by presenting specific case studies and proposing an ICT tool to be used for the collection of useful quantitative indicators supporting this impact assessment. The assesment derived from a specific showcase of its application, provided real case results on the usage of Social Web tools from teachers which could be a useful asset towards the design of teacher training programs for the effective use of social networking tools

Green mindset: using IoT to promote energy efficiency and sustainability in Greek public schools

The Internet of Things is shaping up to be the ideal vehicle for introducing pervasive computing in our everyday lives, especially in the form of smart home and building management systems. However, although such technologies are gradually becoming more mainstream, there is still a lot of ground to be covered with respect to public buildings and specifically ones in the educational sector. We discuss here "Green Mindset", an action focusing on energy efficiency and sustainability in Greek public schools. A large-scale sensor infrastructure has been deployed to 12 public school buildings across diverse settings. We report on the overall design and implementation of the system, as well as on some first results coming from the data produced. Our system provides a flexible and efficient basis for realizing a unified approach to monitoring energy consumption and environmental parameters, that can be used both for building administration and educational purposes

Open School Doors User Needs Analysis Report: Developing diverse school / parents’ communities through innovative partnerships.: (Intellectual Output 1)

This report presents the first intellectual output (IO1) of the Open School Doors project. IO1 has been jointly produced by the whole project consortium. It summarizes the national policies and initiatives among the partnership concerning the parental engagement / involvement of migrant / refugee parents toward school life. To this end literature resources have been collected and then analysed, with the following aims: a) Profile the target group per country, i.e. outline what is the main audience, its specific cultural characteristics (if any), what has to be taken into consideration for the design of a Training Framework that will match both their learning and cultural needs, etc. b) Elaborate on certain cases of successful parental engagement / involvement, i.e. mainly EU, nationally or locally funded projects. The rationale behind the intensive search of such cases was to identify practices that really work but not to ‘reinvent the wheel’, and have a valid starting point for Open Schools Doors (OSD) Training Framework ‐ no doubt that the amplitude and variety of such programs are good indicators of each country policy and posture towards social inclusion and provision of equal opportunities to education. c) Identify the gaps in the current situation among the participant countries and design a Training Framework that will actively facilitate parents’ engagement / involvement to school life in a tangible and long‐term manner. Methodically authors started with desk research and apart from that empirical data was collected from focus groups which were organized with the view to validating what was theoretically concluded from literature resources by asking the main target audience of the project about the Training Framework specifications and features. To this end the last section summarizes findings of both theoretical research and focus groups, providing thus an overview of what is needed and on which directions OSD didactic approach should focus.:Abstract 6 Introduction and scope 7 1 Conceptualising Home School Interaction 9 1.1 Models of Parental Engagement 9 1.2 ‘Hard to reach’ parents or Hard to Reach Schools? 11 1.2.1 Intersectionality 13 1.2.2 Social Class and home ‐ school interaction 13 1.2.3 Ethnicity and home ‐ school interaction 15 1.2.4 Colonialism / Post‐colonialism 16 1.3 Home school interaction and technology 17 1.4 Infusing home ‐ school interaction with Literacies 20 1.4.1 Home ‐ school interaction as literacy work 20 1.5 Refugee Adults and Digital Literacy 22 1.6 Looking forward: Third Spaces and Multi‐Directional Parental Engagement 24 1.6.1 Multi‐directionality 25 1.6.2 Family Learning 26 1.6.3 Family learning and ‘Digital success stories’ ‐ ideas for future engagement? 27 2 The European dimension 29 2.1 European policies on parental involvement 29 2.2 Facts and figures 30 2.3 European and international experiences: interesting cases of parental involvement projects / practices beyond the consortium partner countries 33 2.3.1 Empowerment of Roma: An interesting practice followed in Croatia 33 2.3.2 Toddler: Towards Opportunities for Disadvantaged and Diverse Learners on Early Childhood‐Road ‐ an EU project 34 2.3.3 ASPIRA Parents for Educational Excellence Program (APEX): An ongoing parental involvement project 37 2.3.4 Involve Parents – Improve School – COMENIUS Multilateral Project 38 2.3.5 Language courses for people of a migrant background: An interesting practice from Sweden 41 2.3.6 More chances with parents: An interesting practice from the Netherlands 42 3 National Experiences 46 3.1 Austria 46 3.1.1 National initiatives, projects and articles in the area of parental engagement/involvement of migrant/ refugee parents 48 3.1.2 Recent initiatives and programmes to further language development 49 3.1.3 Political support for initiatives to engage immigrant parents 50 3.1.4 Lessons learnt 52 3.2 Germany 58 3.2.1 Parental involvement among migrants in German education research 58 3.2.2 Projects on parental involvement 59 3.2.3 Research results on (intercultural) parental work 63 3.2.4 Summary 65 3.3 Greece 67 3.3.1 Good practices and research about migrants’ parental engagement 67 3.3.2 Interventions and projects with migrants’ parents in Greece 72 3.3.3 Summarizing Comments 78 3.4 UK 78 3.4.1 Home school interaction and migrant parents 78 3.4.2 Home School Interaction and Roma families 80 3.4.3 Good practice – cultural acknowledgement 82 3.4.4 ‘Good practice at the grassroots’ 84 4 Focus Groups 85 4.1 Organization and scope 85 4.2 Overview about methodical aspects 86 4.3 Trans European focus group 87 4.4 Focus groups in Austria 90 4.5 Focus groups Germany 93 4.5.1 Focus groups Germany 93 4.5.2 Focus Group “German Parental Association” 93 4.5.3 Focus Group “Teacher Training Programme TU Dresden” 95 4.6 Focus groups Greece 99 4.6.1 Organization 99 4.6.2 Analysis and main findings 102 4.7 Focus groups UK 107 4.7.1 Issues and Themes Emerging from Focus Group Discussions 107 5 Conclusions and recommendations for the design of Open Schools Doors training framework 135 5.1 Leadership 135 5.2 Underpinning principles 136 5.3 Priorities for Teacher development: 139 Bibliography 142 Publications recommended for further reading 151 Appendix 152 A.1 Interview Guide 152 A.2 Feedback Template 154 A.3 Attendance List Template 15