The first LTTA was hosted by the Portuguese partner in Amadora. The Week was affected by the ongoing pandemic and we could only visit one school. Due to the fact that the date for that week had to be moved several times during the project, the themes of the TTAs and the theme and dates of the LTTAs had to be changed a few times as well so we could have effective exchanges when the pandemic rules were more flexible.

This LTTA was attended by Swedish and Romanian partners, with different activities taking place every day, with focus on teachers' skills and courage. Ahead of the week we designed a 'Lesson observation sheet' that we implemented this week and used during in total 5 classroom observation. Lessons that were followed by group reflections on the classes we took part of. The teachers that we visited were` not part of the training or the project, but who made themselves available for their classes to be viewed and evaluated by the participants. The teachers got everyone's feedback about how good practices could be improved or maintained and very interesting discussions took place.

The week also included a seminar about what digital skills and courage a teacher should have, opened with a theoretical start . Davoud Masoumi,senior lecturer and a member of the ICT in Learning research group at the University of Gävle. From that we had interesting discussions about how the conditions differ between the involved countries and continued with an interesting presentation by teacher Andreia Lourenço, about how to use the available digital tools in Portugal in a good way for learning. Unfortunately the Romanian lecturer PhD Julien-Ferencz-Kiss could not attend as planned, but was, instead, rescheduled for a later seminar.

The week also included our first two lessons in a foreign language with the help of pictures and digital technology. We used Microsoft's software to translate the spoken Swedish / Romanian language into written Portuguese. The follow-up on the students knowledge in the specific subject (Swedish about Vikings and Romanian about Transylvania and Vampires) showed a significantl development, but we could also see a need of translation into the native spoken language in coming lessons.

A very positive outcome of the week was that we started a penpal project within this project (one of the teachers is looking forward to joining the next Erasmus+ project). Although inadvertaly, we ended up with almost 40 extra students involved in an European project.

We also had some time to evaluate the first teacher training activity and develop the supervisors work into the next theme.

The week ended up with a cultural visit that took place on Friday, 1st October, and was attended by elements of the Grouping board and teachers who also participated in training courses promoted by the same Project. A good way to connect not only the supervisors involved in the project, but also more teachers and staff.

Some reflections of the week were: - the fact that the Portuguese hosts concluded that Portugal also has good teachers, whom, even without access to electronic devices in the classroom, for all students, have shown that it is possible and desirable to incorporate the technology available in classes for all subjects. Students are more motivated and responsible for their learning process, which makes the teacher to be less and less a mere transmitter of content, to become a communicator, mentor and learning guide.

The Romanian partners gave feedback about their reality exposing similarities in the few digital resources available in the classroom, taking with them ideas to implement with new digital platforms shared by the teacher Andreia Lourenço.

The Swedish partners, despite having mobile devices in all classrooms, and for all students, from the first year of schooling, revealed that there are teachers who are not available to use them. There has been, on the part of the managing bodies of the schools, the Communities, an effort to train teachers, within their working hours, and certify them in digital skills, but they continue to face many human barriers due to the heavy workload that teachers have.

We all conclude that the three partner countries have room to improve their teaching practices, but that, digitally, they are very far from each other, being essential to train teachers working in the areas of technology and include in higher teacher training courses , specific subjects dedicated to the digitization of education.

The second LTTA was hosted by Gagnef’s kommun, Sweden. This week too was affected by the ongoing pandemic. This is why the dates were changed several times and the title for the week was also changed into the planed headline for the LTT in Portugal: 'Leading digitalization, for and in schools'. This mainly because we now had principals from all participating organisations together and the opportunity to reach more principals in Gagnefs kommun.

The week contemplated visits to 4 different schools and attending 3 classes. All teachers whose classrooms and classes were visited were given feedback  with the use of the 'Lesson observation sheet, designed before the first LTT.

One of the school visits had its focus on the importance of building a good educational environment, where the use of technology support wouldn't disturb the students' focus and health. This visit took place at a brand new school, recently built in the society, where a good acoustics environment has been fundamental; for example our digital screens and projectors are choosen with focus on low noise level and placed where light won't affect the image too.

There were also 3 lessons taught in a foreign language, where we used software to translate a presentation held only in Portuguese/Romanian by a teacher from the visiting organizations. We have now developed the use of the software and also added spoken translation so that the students could both read and listen to the presentations in Swedish. We have developed how to translate students questions and the teachers answers as well, even if they speak different languages and could not speak to each other without the digital support. The plan was to hold 2 lessons, but after the request from one class that had started to have contact with a class in the Portuguese school, we added a third lesson. Or actually also a fourth, since some more students came after the school day and wanted to listen to it as well! A perfect summary of how we this time had the opportunity to be more participant in the school and how the partners attendance raised interest in students and teachers.

During the week, a seminar took place with the theme "leading digitalization", with business developer Göran Anlind in charge and supported by Davoud Masoumi, senior lecturer and a member of the ICT in Learning research group at the University of Gävle, in developing the arrangement and content. A seminar attended by all partners, including, among others, 3 principals and the head of education in Gagnef kommun. The focus area was how to change a culture and rethink the education with support of digitalization and not just make the past education digitalized.

Throughout the week, supervisors had time to discuss and develop their teacher training activities and some less time to spend evaluating teacher training activities. The cultural activitities contained a visit at a nature museum to study how they have used technology to make it more interesting, available and educative for visitors and youngsters who take part in the visits and go to the exhibitions.

Generally the week increased the discussion of using digtal tools in the classroom, into more focus on how to develop a culture in the education system where the education can be re-thinked and changed with support of the digitalization. It also put focus on the importance of using digital tools without them being a distraction and disturbing the students' learning process. Mostly, the week showed how important and interesting it is for students, when an exchange like this takes place. We have so much to learn from each other, beside the topic for a project like this. 

The third LTTA was hosted by the Romanian partner Centre for Resources and Educational Assistance of Bihor County and took place in Oradea from 28th March to 1st April. This LTTA was moved several times and everything was planned and tickets booked for a week in February, but had to once again be postponed due to the ongoing Covid19 pandemic. The final dates were the last chance to have a physical LTTA and also this time it was uncertain it would take place until just a few days before the deadline. This time it was because of the nearby war in Ukraine. Due to a good work with the budget during the project, we could add one extra participant from each of the two visiting partners and also stay one extra night in Budapest, Hungary on the trip back home (which was actually needed due to the partners travelling options). This way we now had a total of 11 different travelling partipants in the project.

The title for this week was Students' achievement, which we had focused on during lesson observations, seminar and an impromptu round table with grade 12 students at the German school.

The week contained study visits to a total of 4 schools and we had also 4 classrooms observations with support of our previous developed lesson observation sheets. The observations were followed by a summarized discussion with the teacher in charge of teaching the class. Part of these discussions involved how the available digital devices were used in the classroom and helped students' academic achievement. Also how digital tools could be used to assess their learning outcomes. It also involved discussions about cultural differences in school structure, points of view about learning methods and how the physical environment can support, but also impair the learning situation for students.

An interesting seminar took place about students' achivement, with lecturer PhD Julien-Ferencz

Kiss from the teacher training department at the University of Oradea, Romania. He's specialised in educational psychology and focused his introduction on teacher training curriculum in our days and the evolution of the concept of education and curriculum, which was followed up by a discussion about the same topics but included a part about how technology has taken over teaching methodologies and how to make the best of it in the classroom.

During the week we once again had 2 lessons in a foreign language, where the Swedish and Portuguese teachers taught lessons using their native language only, both verbally and in the digital presentation. We were now more confident in using the different available software and despite some minor technical problems, the lessons were succesfully carried out and we could measure a significant impact in the students knowledge about the chosen subjects (The vikings and Portugal). Subjects were chosen considering three variables: interesting for the age of the students, lack of previous knowledge about the theme and easy to combine the verbal information with clarifying pictures.

The supervisors had, during the week, some shorter time to discuss and follow-up the teacher training activity and very much of our scheduled time for following-up the project was converted into more times at the visited schools. For example we had a group session with students in grade 12 about their choices for continuing their studies and how they can get into Universities in another European country. We also added an online meeting between a grade 4 class in Romania and a Swedish grade 3 class. The latter ended up with both classes becoming penpals during that week and have continuined their letter/email exchanges. In total we now had connected 94 pupils in the three partners organizations, having online contact and sharing knowledge about their every day life.

This week was partly for SEN students and how we could use technology to make sure they are included in the learning process and do not feel left behind in the classroom. The group visited a special school where students with mild to moderate impairment?learning disabilities or health conditions can go to and avoid being bullied in mainstream schools. There were specialist in every area of SEN, from SEN teachers to therapists, from psychologists to PT's. Students and teachers are part of several Erasmus+ programs and they have eTwinning and Erasmus+ quality labels in every project they are part of. The delegations of this project were given the opportunity to see a music therapy class and a play with children being evaluated by their interaction with their surroundings and in the activity. The teachers had a lot of technology in place to sooth the ambience in music therapy class as well as in preparing the play to test the children's achievement level.

Finally the week included cultural activities with focus on the city's long and interesting history. 

Lesson observation sheet

All LTT activities involved several lesson observation and to give the involved teachers best possible feed-back, we developed our Lesson observation sheet. This contain what we believe are the most important thing to reflect about for a teacher having a class. Feel free to use it!

Lesson in a foreign language 

During the LTT activities we had 7 lessons in a foreign language for different classes. The lessons were performed by a teacher from the visiting organizations and was only done in that native language. For example in Portugal they were done in swedish and romanian. The students were able to understand the lessons content by a audiotiv translation done through translate.it (Microsoft software) and the build in written translation in Microsoft Powerpoint. The students could also ask questions and get a respond in their native language, from the teacher, by using the app Say hi.  

During the first LTTA in Portugal, two seminars took place; 'What skills need a teacher, to promote academic achievement with digital support' and 'How do the teacher education (high school) promote the becoming teachers digital skills'. The first one was introduced by senior lecturer Davoud Masoumi, University of Gävle, Sweden and the second by Andreia Lourenco, Escola professional Gustavo Eiffel. 

The second LTTA in Sweden contained a seminar about 'Leading digitalization', with focus on the importance that the schools leaderboard take the lead. The seminar was hold by Göran Anlind, Business developer Gagnefs kommun, with support by senior lecturer Davoud Masoumi, University of Gävle, Sweden

During the third LTTA in Romania, a seminar about 'students' academic achievement, measuring learning outcomes and the life-long significance of academic engagement' took place. The seminar was hold by Lect.univ.dr. Julien-Ferencz Kiss, Universitatea din Oradea, Romania