The final Meeting – Is AdELe really over?

Erasmus+ “Adult Education – It’s Never too Late to Learn”, our AdELe, as we call it, has finally come to an end. Three years, full of events, work, fun and joy have brought us to a quite different ending than we were thinking, once, we were planning the project. We are really happy and proud that the circumstances, that ruined the travelling part of the last meetings, didn’t pull us down and we took the bull by the horns and kept going with online meetings.

AdELe is on the halfway – coordinating meeting in The Hague

During September 23 – September 27 2019 the coordinating group of AdELE (Erasmus+ “Adult Education – it’s Never too Late to Learn”) met in The Netherlands The Hague. The meeting was hosted by one of the partners – ROC Mondriaan.

During this meeting of the coordinating group, the following activities took place:

1. Evaluation of the project August 2018 till September 2019
2. Workshop about activating learning by Lineke Klomp (trainer Dutch as a second language)
3. Workshop about 21^st century skills and new professions by Sebastiaan Bliemert (project leader House of Innovation)

The coordinating group has the opinion that the project is going on according to the expectations. After the first meeting of the coordinating group in Haapsalu, Estonia (30/10/18 – 3/11/18) the project objectives were made clear and the preparation for the meetings in The Netherlands and Italy could start. Both visits in The Netherlands and Italy were well assessed. The participants were given a good impression of the subjects that were discussed. All the partners were asked to update the information of the webpage as well as Facebook.

In the workshop we looked if it could be interesting to use ‘activating working forms’ in the project. We first experienced some of those exercises ourselves around the topics ‘introduction’ and ‘team-building’. It was good to see how the whole group participated. 

After that, the group had some information about ‘activating working forms’ and explored their own ideas with this concept by making a ‘place-mat’ in small groups. When back together all groups named three words or short sentences (see picture).  After this some information came about what ‘activating working forms’ specifically can mean in this international project. Special attention is needed for language and the kind of exercises.  Finally the time spent together was being evaluated through a last evaluation, by every participant saying one word that summarized for them the meeting. All in all it seemed a good experience.

In the House of Innovation we experienced a lot of initiatives to motivate students of different levels. Secondary schools get the opportunity to send their students to this House of Innovation to join experiments and meet students as well as teachers from the vocational school. Furthermore, students from the University of Applied Science do their assessments here together with students from vocational level. The House of Innovation is an initiative of five Mondriaan schools. School of engineering, building & construction, it, automotive and electronics.

The group agreed on several improvements and future activities and shared the tasks for the upcoming weeks before the next meeting in Croatia. The colleagues of Croatia will send all partners the necessary information for the visit in November. The next visits are planned as following:

• Croatia, Rijeka,  November 3^rd till November 9^th 2019 , theme marketing strategies
• Greece, Patras, March 29^th till April 4^th 2020 , upgrading education for migrants and  unemployed
• Estonia, Haapsalu, Mai 10^th till May 16^th 2020 , effective use of IT for teachers

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the Hague – some days to remember

It’s always good to listen, to talk and to feel but the best is to see. Here are two VIDEOS made during the fantastic days the AdELE people spent in the Hague.

The Best Moments in the Hague

But good things usually always end and give some space for the next good things to happen. The best moments of the LAST DAY in the Hague was also captured by our hosts from ROC Mondriaan.

The Last Day in the Hague

The AdELe team in ROC Mondriaan

THE NETHERLANDS: Branka Tomic, Mariska Sondervan, Rogier Nebbeling,  Alexandra Driessen

ESTONIA: Ingrit Kera, Aile Nõupuu, Kaire Reiljan and Eneli  Uibo

ITALY: Laura Brazzabeni,  Irene Calzoni, Alessandra Lovatti Bernini, Alessandro Vernizzi

CROATIA: Ms. Antonela Marjanusic, Maja Medica, Manja Slavicek Kamenar, Judith Jennert

GREECE:  Vasiliki Lazarakopoulou,  Anna Theofani,  Anna Yfantidou, Athanasia Tryfonopoulou

The topic in the Netherlands is Cooperation

AdELe’s first study visit brought all partners into early spring of Netherlands, Hague.  March was not hospitable, but our host, vocational school ROC Mondrian, was well prepared and all guests felt great hospitality during the trip. All partners from Italy, Greece, Croatia and Estonia introduced different cooperation possibilities in adult education. ROC Mondrian had done an interesting and various agenda for the visiting days. During the trip, all teachers who participated got a versatile overview of how a school could do collaborate with different partners.

We got a lot of different experiences. For example, half of Hague’s population is Dutch and the language learning has a high priority. People need it to enter the labour market or communicate on a private level. ROC Mondrian does not do language courses only in schools but in different places. It helps to reach the right target groups. It is very common to do courses in health centres or in libraries. The process includes many volunteers who are interested in teaching.

A lot of attention is paid for employing people with special needs. The specialized work centres offer affordable work for everyone like bookbinding, furniture restoration or making candles and park benches.

One of the most impressive experience was visiting one bicycles’ shop, where were classrooms for regular lessons or repairing old bicycles. This social enterprise is dealing with boys who have dropped out of schools. Because of the popularity of cycling in the Netherlands, they do not have to worry about unemployment- there are repair shops everywhere!

The program offered many activities, which helped us to achieve the project objectives. On the last day, all the partners had an option for evaluation and collection of ideas for the next meetings. The AdEle’s team will meet soon again, forthcoming study visit will bring all partners to Italy and the topic to be discussed here is the preparation of curriculums in adult education.

Netherlands ahead

The first meeting in the Netherlands is straight ahead and it feels really exciting. The participants have been selected and are doing their preparations.

The first Training Activity is about cooperation with different parties (local organizations, municipalities, enterprises, companies, unemployment agencies etc.). The everyday life of every adult education institution.