Annual Report2020

European Schoolnet is a network of 32 Ministries of Education (MoEs) from across Europe, leading
educational innovation at European level. European Schoolnet (EUN) operates key European
services in the area of innovation in education on behalf of member Ministries of Education,
the European Commission and industry partners. European Schoolnet articulates three strategic
priorities to achieve its goals:● Providing concrete evidence and data about innovation in education on which to base policy
recommendations;● Supporting schools and teachers in their teaching practices;● Developing and sustaining a network of schools engaged in innovative teaching and learning
approaches.

Publisher:

European Schoolnet (EUN Partnership AIBSL)
Rue de Trèves, 61
1040 Brussels, Belgium

Editor:

Dimitra Drakaki

Designer:

Jonatas Baptista

Please cite this publication as:
European Schoolnet (2021). European Schoolnet’s 2020 Annual Report, Brussels, Belgium.
ISBN:

9789492913968

Web version: www.eun.org/our-work
Published in April 2021.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
Images: pp. 1, 54, mechkalo; p. 5, Gorodenkoff; p. 12, Alessandro Biascioli; p.15, dlyastokiv; p. 18, WavebreakMediaMicro;
p. 23, Mangostar; p. 26, Robert Kneschke; p. 31, Blue Jean Images; p. 34, smolaw11; p. 38, Irina Strelnikova / stock.adobe.com

Foreword

08

Who We Are

102020 in Numbers

12

Response to COVID-19

FOCUS AREAS

06

16

DIGITAL
CITIZENSHIP

46

Looking Forward

48

Our Members

50

Funding

24

STEM
EDUCATION

32

EVIDENCE
FOR INNOVATION

36

PROFESSIONAL
DEVELOPMENT42

SCHOOL
NETWORKING

Contents

6European Schoolnet Annual Report 2020

Foreword

ForewordWe are glad to present European
Schoolnet’s Annual Report for 2020.
This was of course an exceptional year.
The COVID-19 pandemic brought anunprecedented crisis to school systems acrossEurope and beyond. The spread of COVID-19
arguably led to more technology-supportedchange in schools in that period than in thepast 20 years. Digital technologies becamea fundamental necessity in providing muchneeded continuity and support for teachers,
learners and families in ways that would havebeen unimaginable, if not impossible, only a
few years ago.
Ministries of Education rapidly put in placemeasures linked to the closure of schools
and launched a range of emergency
remote teaching initiatives to support theschool community. European Schoolnet took
immediate action to enable its members’
network to share experiences and challenges
by organising a series of regular online
meetings. During those online monthly
webinars, policy-makers and members of

Ministries of Education came together toexchange information about the measures
decided in each country, the use of digital
tools for remote teaching and learning, discuss
about the challenges faced for the schoolcommunity and later on exchange practices
on how to organise school attendance safely
and efficiently by using alternative teaching
and learning methods. At the same time
European Schoolnet launched an online
platform with up-to-date information aboutschool systems’ status in European countries
as well as measures in place. The COVID-19
crisis may provide a wake-up call to schools
which helps them (and parents) recognisethat, in more normal circumstances, they are
not exploiting the extent to which innovative
pedagogical practices involving ICT (e.g.,
flipped classroom, MOOCs and other forms of
remote teaching) can improve learning.
Under the unprecedented circumstancesthat the pandemic created, European
Schoolnet strove to continue working via its
projects and working groups on the priorities

identified for 2020. European Schoolnet
continued supporting teachers’ professional
development and innovative pedagogies;
targeting initial teacher education, where
working with providers in this area is a routefor mainstreaming successful innovation andpreparing future teachers to be fully prepared
for the classrooms of today and tomorrow
when they enter the profession; defining themost appropriate innovative ecosystems
and approaches that support large-scale
deployment and adoption of the wide variety
of successful innovations; moving towards awhole-school approach where issues suchas leadership strategies, digital citizenshipeducation, STEM education, developmentof flexible learning spaces and innovative
pedagogies are themes to be discussed
and plans developed at whole-school level;
supporting new learning ecosystems with anincreasing need to link formal, non-formal
and informal learning opportunities that takeplace in and out of school.

When the situation becomes “normal” again
we may be faced with the following challenge:
how to manage the wish of teachers tocontinue leveraging technology and thepossibility that the school/system is making
them go back to the old ways? In addition, asecond challenge will be not to let teachers
reject educational technologies due to theconstraints and any negative experiences
during the COVID-19 crisis.
If we want to change the normal schoolingmodel, we have to demonstrate the added
value of educational technologies. In that
context, it will be essential to identify those
new learning activities where it is important
to use educational technologies. It is part of
the remit of our network to identify, federate,share and analyse all the digital innovative
pedagogies developed.

Marc Durando

Executive Director of European Schoolnet

78European Schoolnet Annual Report 2020

9

Who we are

WHAT WE OFFER

Who we areEuropean Schoolnet is a network of 32 Ministries of Education from across Europe,
leading educational innovation at European level. European Schoolnet

operates key European services in innovation in education on behalf of member
Ministries of Education, the European Commission and industry partners. We
act as an interface between education policy and practice, bringing together
Ministries of Education, schools, research and industry for fruitful exchange andcollaboration.

● A European forum where Ministries of
Education can exchange knowledge andexperience about what works (and what
doesn’t) in educational innovation and theintegration of ICT in education;● Pilot projects and policy experimentations
to test new models of teaching and learning,
involving Ministries of Education, researchand industry as well as other national andEuropean partners;● Evidence-based
reports
andrecommendations concerning educationalinnovation and the pedagogical use of ICT tofoster national policies;● Large-scale surveys to gather quantitativeand qualitative data on policy and practice,and develop an analytical framework tobenchmark, analyse and compare national
findings with other countries;● Innovative educational tools validated
by various countries and adapted for use atnational and regional levels;● Accreditation services for schools
enhance their eSafety and STEM profiles;to● Free online professional development forteachers and other education professionals
through the European Schoolnet Academy;● A Future Classroom Lab where teachersand students, as well as representatives
from ministries and industries, can explore
new technologies to help them implement
innovative pedagogies;● A Learning Resource Exchange offeringover 330,000 Open Educational Resources in
30 languages from 80 content providers.

OUR FIVE FOCUS AREAS
Our core activities in 2020 focused on testing,sharing evidence and spreading innovation in
five areas:

OUR MISSION AND REMIT
Our mission is to support education
stakeholders in Europe in the digitaltransformation of education processes. We
do this by identifying and testing promising
innovative teaching and learning practices,sharing evidence about their impact andsupporting their mainstreaming so as to alignwith 21st-century standards for the educationof all students. Digital technologies are asignificant focus of European Schoolnet’s
work because of the critical role they play indesigning and implementing future classroom
scenarios and in supporting new forms oflearning both in and out of school. European
Schoolnet continues to position itself as a key
organisation in Europe concerned with thedevelopment and demonstration of scenarios
for the school of the future.

DIGITAL CITIZENSHIPSTEM EDUCATIONEVIDENCE FOR INNOVATIONPROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENTSCHOOL NETWORKING
A sixth area of activity arose due to the impactof the COVID-19 pandemic on the schoolcommunity with the aim of supporting ourpolicy-makers and also our practitioners inthat period.

This work has been supported by several
publicly and privately funded projects, aswell as by European Schoolnet’s Policy andInnovation Committee, the Learning Resource
Exchange Subcommittee and four working
groups supported by Ministries of Education on
indicators, digital citizenship, STEM educationand the interactive classroom. Activities havebeen undertaken collaboratively with ourmembers, partners and stakeholders, and thisreport provides them and the wider education
community with an overview of the past year’sachievements, as well as looking forward to
future challenges and goals.

10European Schoolnet Annual Report 2020

2020 in Numbers

2020
in Numbers
44

Projects

21

Publications

12

50

Major events

115
VideosPublic webinars

16
New Massive Open
Online Courses(MOOCs)128k+

Social media
interactions

31k
+
MOOC

registrations

26k+

Facebook
page likes

25k+

Twitterfollowers

1112European Schoolnet Annual Report 2020

Response to
COVID-19

Response to COVID-19

The levels of professionalism anddedication of teachers and headteachers have been inspirational,
as has the commitment shown by
students and families to the schoolcommunity in extraordinarily
difficult circumstances. In thelonger term, we need to address
issues such as access toequipment, connectivity, tools,
resources, equity, professional
development and exchange ofpractices. It is important therefore
to reflect, in the light of the various
experiences, on emerging formal
school models, to rethink school:
space, time, content and tools,
processes, and, most of all,people.”Marc Durando
Executive Director of European Schoolnet
The crisis generated by the spread of
COVID-19 has arguably, due to necessity
rather than choice, led to more technologysupported changes in schools in a few weeks
than in the past 20 years. Throughout Europe,
our Ministries of Education have rapidly put inplace measures linked to the closure of schools
and launched a range of emergency remoteteaching initiatives to support school leaders,teachers, parents and of course young people
in this exceptional period. Our network is
supporting our ministries, as well as the schoolcommunity in that context. For the time being,
many education stakeholders have joined
forces to respond to respond with astonishing
speed to COVID-19, but undoubtedly, school
systems will never be the same again after thiscrisis.

Two main actions have been initiated at thelevel of European Schoolnet:● Providing to our network of Ministries of
Education a platform for exchange andorganising webinars to support exchange
between ministries.
● Supporting school leaders, teachers, andthe whole school community as regards
immediate urgent needs, by leveraging all our
various projects, such as eTwinning, Scientix,
Better Internet for Kids (BIK), Future Classroom
Lab (FCL).
For its part, European Schoolnet moved
quickly to enable member ministries to shareexperiences and challenges. A Covid-19 work
programme was put in place as of March
2020.
Building on the recommendation of Ministries
during an online round table, European
Schoolnet:

1

Launched a series of monthly
webinars.

Those webinars targeted policy-makers,
researchers,
expertsandsometimes
practitioners, depending on the topic. They
focused on challenges and opportunities
of remote teaching (April 2020), gradual reopening of schools before the end of theschool year (April 2020), assessment in times of

13

14

European Schoolnet Annual Report 2020

Response to COVID-19

COVID-19 (May 2020), ways to foster inclusion
in a health crisis (June 2020), outlook for the
coming 2020-21 school year (July 2020),
start in practice of the 2020-21 school year
(October 2020), teaching during COVID-19,
putting digital infrastructures to the test andpolicy options ahead (November 2020), ways
to foster equity & support disadvantaged
students in times of COVID-19 (December2020).

of Safer Internet Centres as a key source of
localised support and advice for children,
young people, families and educators during
these challenging times. Topics covered
included wellbeing during lockdown, remote
emergency teaching and learning, sources of
positive online content and protecting online
privacy, along with guidance on minimisingrisks from fake news, disinformation, scams
and similar.

● Launched an informative public andprivate website informing about the status
and measures in place of education systems
across Europe.

Within BIK, an Insafe Training meeting (June2020), a joint Insafe-INHOPE Training meeting,the 2020 edition of the Safer Internet Forumand the corresponding BIK Youth Panel (alsoNovember 2020) were all organised online
to the great satisfaction of the stakeholders
involved. In fact, due to their online nature,these meetings and events were able to draw
an all-time high number of participants fromacross and beyond Europe.

● Identified a range of resources and tools to
supportcollaboration,
professional
development and online safety for theeducation community as well as raiseawareness on the challenges of thecircumstances for policy-makers.

2

Leveraged, in full consultation with
the Commission, the activities offeredby some EC-funded initiatives andreplaced face-to-face activities with
online alternatives.

As the school community became increasingly
reliant on digital technology, everyone wasconfronted by the many opportunities it
provides but also the online risks. A COVID-19
mini-campaign was therefore launchedon the Better Internet for Kids portal andsocial media from March 2020 onwards, toshowcase useful resources for staying safe
online and to position the European network

Meanwhile, a co-design workshop on ageappropriate design with industry, which wasplanned under the BIK Youth Pledge initiative,
was reshaped into a set of decentralised
industry-led activities, which helped to makethis activity line more meaningful for bothcompanies and young people. Similarly,
for CO:RE and ySKILLS, the project teams
had to be creative to transform a range
of face-to-face consultations with young
people and teachers into an online format.
While this surely challenged the recruitment
process, also because of other priorities suchas the ongoing adaptation within schools to
emergency remote teaching, the project
teams were able to find creative solutions toensure successful delivery.
eTwinning supported teachers as early asfrom February when the first schools started
closing. The group “eTwinning@home” wasestablished and in a few days more than 10,000
eTwinners were already sharing practice andideas on how to address emergency remoteteaching. The platform has been used as a

virtual classroom by thousands of teachers in“intra-school projects”, but at the same time
the usual activities continued with even moreengagement.
For the first time too, the eTwinning Annual
Conference took place online on 22-24
October under the theme “Classrooms inaction – addressing climate change witheTwinning“. The event hosted more than 600
participants and run more than 40 online
workshops.

We have learned a lot from it,
including how important the senseof community really is. Since
the beginning of the pandemic
eTwinners have been better
prepared to go online and moreused to helping, inspiring and lifting
each other’s spirits.”
Speaker Mariya Gabriel
European Commissioner for Innovation,
Research, Culture, Education and Youth
School Education Gateway highlighted
information and resources about online anddistance learning with two surveys addressedto the topic, on distance learning andthe return to school experience. Teacher
Academy adapted its new courses to support
the new reality of most teachers.

In the European Schoolnet Academy MOOCs,
the course coordinators and moderators wereencouraged to explicitly address the impactof the health crisis on schools. The Future
Classroom Lab face-to-face courses werecancelled but instead a reinforced offer ofwebinars and an online “learning community”
was introduced.
Many projects including Scientix, STE(A)M IT,
Europeana, NBS and Aerospace in Class, toname a few, transformed workshops to online
events and reinforced communication withteachers and other stakeholders. The iLearning
Scenarios created within these projects wereadapted to distance learning and tried out
with students across Europe.
With the support of Scientix and Amgen
Teach, European Schoolnet launched acomprehensive international survey onteachers’ practices and use of educational
technologies during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The survey, addressed to teachers in primaryand secondary education (students aged
3 to 19), was available in 25 languages.
The study collected information on the
educational technologies that teachers usedin the weeks that followed the outbreak of
the COVID-19 pandemic, the problems theyencountered, the solutions they adopted andrecommendations they may wish to share. The
answers to this survey will help shape future
actions to support teachers better and will bemade public in 2021.

15

16

European Schoolnet Annual Report 2020

Digital Citizenship

Digital Citizenship

WHY IS DIGITAL CITIZENSHIP IMPORTANT?
The digital society places an increasing
range of expectations and responsibilities
on education and its major actors, both at
systemic and at school level.
While digital technology can be an enabler
in many positive ways, COVID-19 has put
the spotlight on a persistent digital gap, interms of access and skills, which risks leaving
behind vulnerable groups on the groundsof sex, disability or socioeconomic or ethnic
background.

2020 edition
celebrated in
more thanSince 2012,

3.2k+labels have been
awarded in schools

170
countries

669

worldwide#SID2020 and#SaferInternetDay
hashtags trended
across the globe

labels wereawarded in 2020

62countries
SELMA Toolkit available in

7 languages:

English, Danish, German, Greek
Finnish, Polish and Portuguese

Nowadays, digital skills and literacy havebecome an essential part of what it takes tobecome an active citizen. Public and private
stakeholders have a shared responsibility tomake it possible for all children and young
people to grow up in a digital world where they

feel comfortable and confident to play andexperiment, exploring and creating a diversityof information and content, developing
their personal identities and relationships,
uninhibited by any form of online bullying,harassment, misinformation or hate speech.
European Schoolnet continues to invest in avariety of projects and platforms equipping
pupils and students with basic skills from anearly age, fostering critical thinking andcreativity as they grow older, while building
towards more advanced digital expertise in
an inclusive manner.
The pupils and students of today will drive
tomorrow’s future. Through digital citizenshipwe empower them to become innovative yet
responsible agents of change.

OUR WORK TO DATEEuropean Schoolnet continued driving
teachers, schools and pupils to safe andresponsible use of digital technology. By
running the BIK platform – on behalf of theEuropean Commission – European Schoolnet
provided access to child-appropriate andchild-safety-related content and resources
and coordinated the network of Safer
Internet Centres (SICs) in Europe (comprising
Insafe awareness raising, helpline and youth
participation strands) in collaboration withINHOPE (leading on the hotline strand). Within
this context, European Schoolnet continued
to maintain and develop the BIK portal as apublic Web interface, along with associatedmini sites for BIK Youth, Positive Online Content
and Safer Internet Day, while animating aninternal space catering to the needs of thecommunity of Safer Internet Centres, allowing
them to build capacity and share knowledge
and expertise in the delivery of national online
safety services.

The eSafety Label initiative, which started
in 2012, continued to support schools in
shaping a culture of safe and responsible
use of digital technology amongst pupils,
teachers and other school staff. In 2020 theeSafety Label community provided assistanceto its stakeholders on aspects ranging from
infrastructure to policy and best practice.
Meanwhile, the Label further grew as anaccreditation tool with a cyclic re-assessmentof its members every 18 months.
Regarding online hate speech, the SELMA
project provides online resources for teachersand other professionals who wish to educate
children and young people about online hatespeech. In 2020, the SELMA Toolkit on online
hate speech was newly translated into Polish,
Portuguese and Finnish. Outreach efforts willcontinue along these lines with the aim ofmaking SELMA available across EU countries
and languages.

17

18

European Schoolnet Annual Report 2020

European Schoolnet further collaborated with
the Interactive Software Federation of Europe(ISFE) to create a new version of the GIS –Games in Schools handbook for teachers –“Using educational games in the classroom:
guidelines for successful learning outcomes”.
Published in September 2020, the handbook
outlines the educational benefits of digital
games and supports teachers in using themas educational and motivational resources intheir lessons.
Finally, focusing on Entrepreneurship Educationand Women’s Entrepreneurship, the EE-WE(Peer-Learning Activities in Entrepreneurship

Digital Citizenship

Education and in Women’s Entrepreneurship)project aimed to increase coordination andfoster exchange between different actors
and countries by peer-learning activities for
public administrations and key public andprivate stakeholders. 2020 efforts included
the animation of a dedicated online
community space with further collaborative
activities currently being designed to gather
relevant input for the formulation of policy
recommendations and roadmaps promoting
entrepreneurship education and female
entrepreneurial activities.

OUR CONTINUOUS WORKIn 2020 European Schoolnet continued
strengthening 21st-century digital skills andcompetences for teachers and pupils andresponsible use of online technologies throughseveral new projects and activities.
Under the Connecting Europe Facility, European
Schoolnet, Tremend, DIGITALEUROPE, LIKTA,
European DIGITAL SME Alliance and Public
Libraries 2030 started developing in 2020– on behalf of the European Commission –the Digital Skills and Jobs Platform (DSJP) to
become the key infrastructure for boosting
digital skills in Europe and a one-stop shop
for anyone interested in digital skills and jobs.
Digital skills will be critical for the recovery andgrowth of Europe. The DSJP will play a strategicrole in addressing the growing digital skills
gap across different sectors of business andsociety, such as the shortage of ICT specialists

and the need for upskilling/reskilling of EU
citizens in digital technologies. The DSJP will
become a core resource to support the futureskills pillar of the Digital Europe Programme,
also playing an important role in delivering the
Recovery and Resilience Facility and helping
EU Member States bridge the digital skills gap intheir countries. The platform will bring together
a Digital Skills Community from all acrossEurope, providing a collaborative space
though a community tool for a wide range oforganisations to work and grow together. It will
empower the National Coalitions to becomecore contributors by providing an opportunity
to cooperate, share resources and improvetheir visibility and knowledge, animating
the connected national infrastructuresand supporting them through a dedicatedHelpdesk. The DSJP will be open andaccessible for everyone interested in digitalskills. It will provide free access to high-quality
information, training, and support, helping
users advance their knowledge, further theircareer and bring value to their organisation.
The DSJP will be launched in March 2021.
The ySkills project aims to establish a better
evidence base to understand which skills 12-

to 17-year-olds need to use ICT technology
responsibly and ethically. European Schoolnet
has coordinated a series of interviews withexperts to better understand the role of digitalskills education in schools and informal learning
settings, as well as the digital skills needed tocope with technological transformations in
the labour market.
Digital SkillUp is an education initiative witha focus on emerging technologies. It is oneof the learning pillars within the Digital Skills
and Job Platform ecosystem. The Digital
SkillUp initiative (brand name of the European
Digital Academy project) is funded by theEuropean Commission and coordinated by
European Schoolnet with a consortium ofpartners representing a large segment ofindustry and citizens’ organisations in Europe(DIGITALEUROPE, European DIGITAL SME
Alliance and Public Libraries 2030) and theFinnish tech company Reaktor, experienced
in online learning technologies. The Digital
SkillUp initiative aims to make basic knowledge
about emerging technologies (such as
artificial intelligence, robotics, cybersecurity,
blockchain) available and accessible to all
citizens and SMEs. Citizens of all ages and

Nowadays, digitalskills and literacy havebecome an essential
part of what it takes
to become an active
citizen.”19

20

European Schoolnet Annual Report 2020

educational backgrounds need to better
understand how digital and emerging
technologies are – and will increasingly be– part of their daily life, for health services,financial transactions, leisure and shopping,and so forth. Meanwhile, SMEs have employees
who face significant challenges in the processof digital transformation while trying to makethe most of emerging technologies forbusiness processes, including communication,commerce, security and automation.
This initiative aims to put into practice theprinciples and general objectives of the New
Skills agenda and the Digital Education Action
Plan while paving the way for a successful
integration within the broader Digital Skills and
Job Platform ecosystem.
The Digital SkillUp website will be launched in
Spring 2021.
Educational and Training Landscape – Training
Needs of Citizens and SMEs’.

Digital Citizenship

The Children Online: Research and Evidence(CO:RE) project works to create a panEuropean knowledge base centralising thelatest research, empirical data and policy
recommendations on the impact of newtechnologies on young users. European
Schoolnet carried out a few targeted
consultations with school leaders, teachersand students on how to make academic
research more accessible and user-friendly,
while starting to explore opportunities toco-create resources with and for thesestakeholders.
Under the School of Social Networks (SOSN)
project eduPad and European Schoolnet
educate primary school children on how to
use social media safely and responsibly byinteracting and experimenting with chatbots
in a fun, safe and pedagogical online
environment. A tool in French and English was
created combining an engaging chatbot
experience for children with a rich set of
education materials and activities for teachersand partners.

and Evidence (CO:RE) project, addressing
three main overarching themes:● Children’s
technologies

engagement

withdigital● Digital technologies and education● Content/design of the CO:RE platform
At the third online meeting the Working Group
members shared their know-how on primaryschool digital citizenship approaches andresources.

PROJECTS
Better Internet for Kids

eSafety Label

Better Internet for Kids (BIK) aims to create asafer and better Internet for children and young
people. The project provides a coordinationrole to the European Network of Safer Internet
Centres (SIC) and provides a secure online spacewithin the core service platform to support theircollaboration and knowledge sharing.

The eSafety Label (eSL) is a Europe-wide
accreditation and support service for schools.
eSL assists schools in introducing the safe use of
online technology as part of their teaching andlearning experience. Schools can review theirown eSafety infrastructure, policy and practices
against national and international standards.

CO:RE

Games in Schools

COMMITTEES AND WORKING GROUPS
Digital Citizenship Working GroupThe Digital Citizenship Working Group,composed of members or nominees from
Ministries of Education, was established in2017. It tackles challenges related to digitalcitizenship, whilst keeping teachers and schools
actively involved in its debates and the designof its action plans. 11 countries participate in
the working group: Belgium, Finland, Hungary,
Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway,
Poland, Portugal, Spain, Turkey.
The Working Group met online three times
to develop a strategic digital citizenshipframework, provide a space where network
members exchange best practices andchallenges, and identify future work areas.

In March 2020, the Working Group reachedimportant conclusions as to how digitalcitizenship policies and strategies can
successfully be translated into practice, bothat macro and micro levels. Members were able
to exchange on recent experiences in termsof policy implementation in the Netherlands,
Belgium (Flanders) and Portugal. In addition,
the Social Media Literacy for Change project
coordinator shared strategy implementation
recommendations based on a whole-school
perspective.
A second online Working Group meeting took
place in September 2020. It incorporated asemi-structured focus group discussion linked
to the EU-funded Children Online: Research

To ensure children’s wellbeing, health andsafety, researchers are looking into the positive
and negative impacts of new technologies
on young users. The CO:RE (Children Online:
Research and Evidence) project maintains an
innovative, dynamic European platform thatprovides data, from all possible fields, connected
to how technological transformations influence
the attitudes, problems or activities of children.

The Games in Schools (GIS) project explores
the opportunities and challenges offered byintegrating games into teaching and learning.

SELMA

The SELMA Toolkit offers educational resources
to help us tackle the growing issue of online hatespeech. These include over 100 customisable
resources for professionals working with children
and teens.

21

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European Schoolnet Annual Report 2020

The School of Social Networks

The School of Social Networks teaches primaryschool children how to use social media safely
and responsibly. The tool implemented via theproject lets them interact and experiment with
chatbots in a fun, safe and pedagogical online
environment.

ySKILLSySKILLS (Youth Skills) is a large international
research project launched to ensure the impactof the digital environment on children andyouth remains a positive one. The project aims
to uncover which skills young people in a digitalsociety need to thrive in terms of wellbeing,education and social life.

Digital Skills and Jobs Platform (DSJP)The core objective of the project is to develop,
launch, and actively populate with content the
DSJP – a one-stop-shop for information on digitalskills and an active stakeholder community. The
platform will provide free access to high-quality
information, training, and support, helping users
advance their knowledge, further their careerand bring value to their organisation.

Digital Citizenship

Digital SkillUp

Digital SkillUp is an educational initiative with afocus on emerging technologies aiming to makebasic knowledge about emerging technologies
available and accessible to citizens and SMEs.

EE-WE
The
EE-WE
(Peer-Learning
Activities
in
Entrepreneurship Education and in Women
Entrepreneurship) project fosters the creation andimprovement of strategies supporting women
entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship education.
It facilitates information sharing across countries
between entrepreneurship policy stakeholders
such as public administrations and key public
and private stakeholders.

23European Schoolnet Annual Report 2020

STEM Education

STEM Education

Online STEM Events

STEM Discovery Campaigns
800

1000

980
610

Activities

800
600
400
200
0

94

119

2016

2017

2018

Schools

4800
1600
0

32
2016

1.5k
2017

n/a

2018

15.5k

20000

Teachers

16000

4000
0

33
2016

2017

2018

2019

Students

0

1.1k
2016

13.3k
2017

2018

2019

160000120000
40000
0

2020

162k

20000080000

Organised on 2 October, the STE(A)M
IT 2nd Co-Creation Workshop gathered
60
participants,
includingindustry
representatives (Airbus Foundation, GSMA,
SissaMedia Lab, Texas Instruments, Transport
Malta and LEGO Education), Ministriesof Education, experts in STEM education,
researchers and teachers. Together, theparticipants discussed and exchanged on
the status and development of the STE(A)M
Integrated Framework and the enrichmentsof its various components.

2020

68.4k

n/a

90000

2.2k
2016

15.3k
2017

89.3k

50k
2018

2019

2020

25

Major Publications
Sustainability in Formal Education:
Ways to Integrate It Now
STE(A)M IT Integrated STEM Teaching
State of Play
Nature-Based Solutions in education:
Validation report
Review of Existing Educational
Materials on Climate Change andSustainability

122k

120000

30000

14.4k

2k

150000

60000

2020

n/a

12000
8000

2019

Scientix, STEM Alliance and STEM School
Label organised a High-level Event online
on 25 and 26 June, with plenary talks,
discussions and interactive sessions with over
400 participants – Ministries of Education,
researchers, school representatives andindustry representatives.

2020

4.7k

6400
3200

2019

7.7k

8000

Participants24

On 17 November, the Nature-Based
Solutions (NBS) pilot study organised
an online Workshop for Ministries of
Education.
70
participants
attendedincluding representatives from 19 Ministriesof Education, as well as Scientix National
Contact Point representatives (including
Universities,
STEM
organisations
andTeacher Training organisations) and NBS
Pilot teachers. Participants exchanged on
the role of NBS in education, and that ofeducation for NBS and sustainability.

Sustainability emerged as a way
to address global challenges‘without leaving anyone behind’.
Nevertheless, sustainability is hard
to implement. At the individuallevel, education can help, as
recognised at the international
level. This paper looks atsustainability for education, andvice versa…. This interplay can exist
without intervening in the national
curricula, by focusing on studentcentred pedagogies and the roleof teachers. Three projects showhow, through learning scenarios,
massive online open courses andcompetitions, teachers can support
sustainability education.”
Paper: Sustainability in Formal Education:
Ways to Integrate It Now

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European Schoolnet Annual Report 2020

STEM Education

WHY IS STEM EDUCATION IMPORTANT?
The lack of young people choosing STEM
studies and careers continues to be a major
challenge facing Europe. Education can play
an important role in partnership with businessand other stakeholders to help increaseinterest in STEM studies and occupations. The
need to foster STEM talent in young people sothey can become the much-needed STEM
professionals of tomorrow continues to be a top

or Inquiry-Based Science Education (IBSE) in
Life Sciences with Amgen Teach.
priority for European Schoolnet. Furthermore,
STEM disciplines continue to be taught in
an isolated way. Initiatives that promoteinterdisciplinary teaching, connected to reallife challenges (like sustainability or research),
collaboration and whole-school approaches
in STEM education are a priority for the coming
years.

● STEM subjects as a whole – looking at STEM
subjects as a whole, we continued to support
the STEM education community through:Scientix, the community of Science Educationin Europe, which developed professional
development activities (including MOOCs
and workshops), campaigns (with the 2020
STEM Discovery Campaign reaching almost
90,000 participants in spite of the COVID-19● Emerging technologies – identifying,
selecting and accelerating the most disruptive
EdTech solutions through the Impact EdTech
project.

COMMITTEES AND WORKING GROUPOUR WORK SO FAR
In 2020 the work on STEM education was split
into five strategic areas:● Pilot projects – looking into how to integratedifferent topics in education enhancing thecurricula through the projects Three Rs on
Animal Research, Nature-Based Solutions,
Bioeconomy,
Augmented
RealityandAerospace.

● Green projects – focusing on sustainability
related issues like Oceans through the
EU4Ocean Coalition for Ocean Literacy projector tree planting as nature-based solution in the
LifeTerra project.

The Ministries of Education STEM Working Groupschool shutdowns) and dissemination actions;
the STEM Alliance project, supported by 14
major industry and private partners, aiming atstrengthening links between STEM educationand careers; the STE(A)M IT project looking
into integrated STEM teaching; or the STEM
School Label, with more and more schools
getting their STEM strategies developed andrecognised.
● Exploratory projects – addressing different
topics like Space Education via projects likeSpace EU or STIM, citizen science with BRITEC

The
Ministries
ofEducation
Science,Technology, Engineering and Mathematics(STEM)
representatives
Working
Group(MoE STEM WG) is a platform for discussion
and exchange for Ministries of Education
regarding their STEM education policies. The
overall objective of this initiative is to help lay
the foundations for medium- and long-term
strategies and activities among MoEs in thefield of STEM education, and especially within
the Scientix project, following an agenda that
addresses the ministries’ priorities and maininterests. EUN coordinates the working group.
MoEs are responsible for appointing themembers of the MoE STEM WG. The kick-off
took place in March 2016 and set the first topics
and actions of the working group. Since then,the MoE STEM WG has met annually and in2020 participated in two additional meetings/
workshops on Integrated STEM Teaching andIncluding Nature-Based Solutions in Education.
24 Ministries of Education from 23 countries
have confirmed their participation andappointed a STEM representative as of 8
November 2020.
The main priorities in STEM education indicatedby the MoE STEM WG:
Priority 1. Supporting primary schools with theteaching of STEM.

Priority 2. The limited information on STEM
careers.
Priority 3. Results from projects presented
by teachers and teacher collaboration as away of sharing results with policy-makers andamong themselves.
Priority 4. Getting leading schools to work
together and share expertise.
Priority 5. Supporting
working group.

exchanges

inthePriority 6. Scientix should support thefederation or cohesion (dissemination) of
national initiatives.
Priority 7. Ways to make research results moreaccessible to teachers.
Priority 8. How to mainstream innovative
practices, validation and piloting fromdifferent initiatives.
Priority 9. Integrated STEM teaching andlearning framework with a special focus on 1)
transversal themes; 2) secondary education
and VET; 3) addressing pre-service and initialteacher training; 4) whole school as a learning
ecosystem.
During the meeting of June 2020, the MoE
STEM representatives agreed not to add any
further priorities for the time being.

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European Schoolnet Annual Report 2020

STEM Education

PROJECTS
Aerospace in Class
The Aerospace in Class project aims to integrate
STEM resources (Learning Scenarios) from theAirbus Foundation Discovery Space in classes for
8- to 12-year-old students.

Amgen Teach

Amgen Teach provides secondary life scienceteachers in Europe with meaningful professional
development opportunities through a new pilotscience education programme.
ARETE

IMPACT EdTech

Ed

Scientix 4

STEM Alliance

Tech

IMPACT EdTech establishes a start-up incubatoraccelerator to help European digital education
innovators to bring their digital learning solutions
into the market, focusing on those solutions
that can contribute to extend personalised
and inclusive educational models that support
the development of the skills that are relevantin today’s world. It is important to follow andsupport the EdTech sector to help break thebarriers to education and enhance learning
experiences in a new era of human-centred
digital education.

Scientix 4, the Science Education Communityin Europe that promotes Inquiry-Based Science
Education (IBSE) and other initiatives at national
level, will ensure the continuation and adaptationof Scientix 3 activities and will contribute to thedevelopment of national strategies for a wide
update and dissemination of IBSE and STEM insociety.
SOS-ACTThe STEM Alliance – inGenious Education andindustry, brings together industries, Ministriesof Education and education stakeholders topromote Science, Technology, Engineeringand Mathematics (STEM) education andcareers among young Europeans and address
anticipated future skills gaps within the European
Union.

STIM

Make it Open
The ARETE project aims to support the panEuropean interactive technologies effort bothin industry and academia, through multi-userinteractions within AR technologies evaluatedin education in both professional and privatecontexts.

BRITECBR TEC
BRITEC proposes introducing research intoclassrooms through Citizen Science activities,
co-designed between schools and research
institutions, initially in the partner countries andwith the long-term view of massive uptake inEurope and beyond.
Eurostat Videos
Eurostat has produced short tutorial videos
accompanied by learning materials (such as
exercises, student toolkits for the classroom, etc.),
targeted specifically at teachers, on how to use
European official statistics in the classroom. EUN
supported providing advice and preparing acommunication campaign.

Make it Open brings the inquiry-based
approaches of science education to meet the
expansive philosophy and creative classroom
approaches of the maker movement in anaccessible and actionable framework.

The SOS-ACT project aims to prepare innovativeeducational programmes to standardise the
STEM and Coding practices which currently varyfrom region to region. These programmes willdefine the content, duration, participants andactivities of the training.

The overall objective of the project Schools
Tune Into Mars (STIM) is to provide pedagogicalmaterials with high-quality lessons related toplanetology, to which all teachers shouldhave access for their continuing professional
development to keep up to date with the latest
space research and ways of teaching.

EU for Ocean (OL4ALL)

STE(A)M IT

Three Rs Pilot [Concluded]

Ocean Literacy aims at supporting thedevelopment of a European network of Blue
Schools that will contribute to the acquisitionof the necessary ocean knowledge, skills andcompetences – from primary, lower and upper
secondary, technical and vocational schools.

STE(A)M IT – An interdisciplinary STEM approachconnected to everything around us will produce
the first European integrated STE(A)M framework.

The Three Rs pilot created learning activities forsecondary school to introduce the principles of
the Three Rs: the Replacement, Reduction and
Refinement of animal experiments. Students
will develop their critical thinking and science
literacy skills by exploring topics such as ethics inscience, how the European Union is protecting
the welfare of laboratory animals and what
high-tech non-animal tools are available asalternatives.

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European Schoolnet Annual Report 2020

BLOOM [Concluded]

BLOOM aimed to establish open and informed
dialogues, co-created by European citizens,
civil society, bioeconomy innovation networks,
local research centres, business and industry
stakeholders and various levels of government
including the European Commission.
NBS – Phase 1 [Concluded]
Building on scientific evidence and on
experiences from Nature-based Solutions (NBS)
demonstration projects in cities, the educationalpilot study exploits recent research results todevelop innovative educational programmes
and resources to raise awareness of NatureBased Solutions (NBS) and their benefits amongchildren, young people and families.

spaceEU [Concluded]

spaceEU promoted partnerships and activities
between the education community, families andthe space sector with the main goal of attracting
students to space subjects and space-related
careers and guiding them towards studies in
STEM fields.

STEM Education

STEM School Label [Concluded]

The project gave recognition at the national
and European level to schools engaged inpromoting STEM activities by providing them witha quality European-wide accreditation called
the STEM School Label. The label supports
other schools engaging in a similar process via
the development of an online ecosystem. The
STEM School Label will continue from 2021 under
Scientix.

TIWI [Concluded]

The Teaching ICT with Inquiry (TIWI) project
aimed to provide teachers with tools and skills inorder to train them in digital literacy with the helpof an inquiry-based approach to teach coding
and motivate their students to choose ICT- and
STEM-related fields as a possible future career.

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European Schoolnet Annual Report 2020

Evidence for Innovation

Evidencefor Innovation

5 new reports
1

How to Improve Completion and Assessment inScalable Online Courses for Teachers

2

Implementing Personalised Support In Scalable
Online Courses

3

Peer Versus Expert Assessment — How To Make
Assessment In Online Teacher Training Work

4

TeachUP Evaluation Report5

Languages: DE, EL, ES, ET, HU, LT, PT, SK, TR

WHY IS EVIDENCE FOR INNOVATION IMPORTANT?
Today’s educational issues and solutions
are complex. The need to revisit curricula,competence
frameworks,
learning
environments, and governance is immense.
To face such challenges, European Schoolnet
aims at providing and brokering evidence
from research, policy and practice in thearea of innovation and digital. Evidence fromresearch is crucial for policy-making to get
the best possible understanding of reality,
but not enough. It must be complemented
by evidence from policy to understandconstraints and stakeholders’ interplay, andAnimation video
Results of the TeachUP
Policy Experimentation

Particularly, we collect and analyse data
through pilot and experimental projects, policy
analysis and second-level analysis of data(such as TALIS, ICILS and other international
surveys). By doing so, European Schoolnet
intends to inform its network at European
level in a grounded and transparent manner
about successful practices and practices that
require adaptation and improvement.

OUR WORK SO FARTeachUP is a policy experimentation
concluded in 2020 which tested an innovative
instructional design for online courses,
involving personalised support to participants
to understand how such support helps topromote active participation in online courses
and improve retention rates, which it did by
up to 10 percentage points. TeachUP involved
4,000 teachers and student teachers in ten
countries. The experimentation results are
acutely relevant in the context of the hybrid
and remote teaching experienced in 2020.

Evidence from the TeachUP Experimentation
Languages: DE, EL, ES, ET, HU, LT, PT, SK, TR

by evidence from practice to benefit fromdaily experience, feed-back and knowledge.

Snapshot from video “Results of the TeachUPPolicy Experimentation”

The Learning Leadership for Change (L2C)
project came to an end in 2020. It aimed
to support shared leadership approaches
in schools, fostering a new culture in whichteachers, students and potentially parents
willingly take responsibility for leadership in theschool community. The project encouraged
effective networking through capacitybuilding (self-assessment, training and sharingof best practices) within three areas: STEM
education, innovative use of ICT in teachingand digital citizenship.

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European Schoolnet Annual Report 2020

Evidence for Innovation

OUR CONTINUOUS WORK
Assess@Learning (A@L) is a current policy
experimentation promoting digital formative
assessment practices via a toolkit supporting
teachers, school heads, students and parents.
In 2020, A@L enriched the toolkit and adapted
it to the needs of educators operating in (post-)
COVID-19 contexts. The A@L randomisedcontrolled trials will start in October 2021 in fivecountries (Estonia, Finland, Greece, Portugal,
Spain).
Under
the
Structural
Reform
Support
Programme (SRSP), European Schoolnet
coordinates in cooperation with the DG
Reform and the Greek Ministry of Education,
an assessment of the use of digital technology
in Greek school education; the development

PROJECTSof a roadmap and action plan to improveeducational outcomes in Greek school
education; and interactive online courses(MOOCs) on innovative digital pedagogies
and competences.
In parallel, under the Structural Reform Support
Programme, EUN provides technical support
to the Flemish Department of Education andTraining to develop and pilot an evidenceinformed framework and guidelines for
implementation of teacher induction in
Flemish schools. The intervention will aim
at raising quality and professionalism in theteaching force, tackling teacher shortages
and creating an effective continuum ofteacher education.

TeachUP

TeachUP was a policy experimentation
which tests two different instructional design
approaches in Initial Teacher Education
and Continuous Professional Development
by delivering courses on new teacher
competencesinfourareas:
teachercollaboration, personalised learning, formative
assessment and creative thinking.

Learning Leadership for Change

COMMITTEES AND WORKING GROUPS
ICT@school
The ICT@school indicators Working Group (WG)
includes 16 participating countries: Austria,
Belgium (both Flemish- and French-speaking
communities), Denmark, Estonia, Finland,
France, Ireland, Italy, Malta, the Netherlands,
Norway, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden,
Turkey.
In 2020, the ICT@school WG continued theregular exchanges of information aboutfindings of country-level surveys about digital

education with more in-depth information froma survey run in Croatia about mentors’ support
to distance learning during the COVID-19
pandemic. The WG also contracted theFoundation Bruno Kessler – Research Institutefor the Evaluation of Public Policies (FBKIRVAPP) based in Italy to produce and discussa second-level analysis of 2018 TALIS data
about continuous professional development,
professional capabilities and innovative
teaching practices.

European Schoolnet aims at
providing and brokering evidence
from research, policy and practice inthe area of innovation and digital.”

The aim of the Learning Leadership for Change
project (L2C) is to foster shared school leadershipand effective networking through capacitybuilding (self-assessment, training and sharingof best practices) within three key areas: STEM
education, innovative use of ICT in teachingand digital citizenship. l2c.eun.org

Assess@Learning

Assess@LearningisaEuropeanpolicyexperimentation which aims to support thesystemic uptake of Digital Formative Assessment(DFA) practices in schools.

SRSP Project (Greece and Belgium)
In collaboration with the Flemish Department of
Education and Training the SRSP project aims
to develop and pilot an evidence-informed
framework and guidelines for implementationof teacher induction in Flemish schools. Similarly,
European Schoolnet coordinates, in cooperation
with the DG Reform and the Greek Ministry of
Education, an assessment of the use of digitaltechnology in Greek schools.

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European Schoolnet Annual Report 2020

Professional Development

Professional
Development

3.4m

Participants

72k

Activities

84

Countries
Most active countries:

10

Webinars

35

Presenters

4.2k+
Twitterfollowers

8.7k+

Facebook
followers

250+

Network oflearning labs

16

MOOCs

31.4k+
Enrolments

Turkey (23,580 activities)
Poland (20,653 activities)
Italy (9,833 activities)
Austria (3,192 activities)
Romania (1,955 activities)

51%

41%

Engagementof participants weregirls or women

48%

84%

Completionof activities organisedin or by schools

WHY IS PROFESSIONAL
DEVELOPMENT IMPORTANT?
The teaching profession was one of those that
faced unprecedented challenges in 2020
due to the school closures and “emergency
remote teaching” (ERT) put in place. Such
exceptional circumstances allowed no time
for preparation. It became evident that theteachers and schools who had done their“homework” were better off: appropriate
equipment, tools and infrastructure combinedwith staff with sufficient digital skills andconfidence to move their teaching online
made learning possible even during long
periods of complete school closures.
European Schoolnet has always aimed toprovide high-quality, versatile Continuous
Professional Development (CPD) to teachers
and all school staff across Europe. While inprevious years the CPD offer was delivered
both face-to-face and online, in 2020 online
training became the only option. All active
projects reacted to the situation quickly byamplifying and/or transforming their CPD
activities, resulting in a vast offer of online
courses and webinars (and anything in
between). European Schoolnet supported
teachers in this difficult period, helping themto adapt their skills for distance teachingand discovering and trying out new ways ofteaching.

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European Schoolnet Annual Report 2020

Professional Development

OUR WORK SO FARTeachers’ professional development andcapacity-building are integral parts of the
majority of European Schoolnet’s projects. A
large part of the CPD activities is channelled
through two flagship initiatives: Future
Classroom Lab and European Schoolnet
Academy.
The Future Classroom Lab (FCL) is aninspirational learning environment in Brussels,that allows stakeholders (policy and decisionmakers, teacher trainers, EdTech providers andschool staff) to explore innovative approaches
and technologies and engage in discussion
on ICT, pedagogy and learning space design.
FCL is supported by over 30 industry partners
and by the network of Future Classroom Lead
Ambassadors representing 15 countries.
The FCL worked hard to support teachers
in the sudden switch to distance teaching
and learning. The “FCL Talks” webinar series
addressed the topic “Teaching in time ofCorona”. Three webinars were organisedwith industry partners Microsoft, ESRI and
Dassault Systèmes on the use of educational
technology to support remote/blendedteaching and learning. A new type of online
learning event was introduced: “Active
learning in the hybrid classroom” was a shortlearning activity including both synchronousand asynchronous sessions over the course offour days (as an alternative to webinars andMOOCs). Additionally, the network of learninglabs was rebranded as “Future Classroom
Lab Network of Innovative Learning Labs andSpaces” and a new membership label was
designed and distributed. The list and map ofmembers was updated, including at the endof the year over 100 labs.
The European Schoolnet Academy (EUNA)
offers massive open online courses (MOOCs)
to school staff and educational professionals
on innovative pedagogical concepts, whole-school strategies, and tools and resources toenhance everyone’s teaching practice. In
total, 16 MOOCs were offered in 2020. The
courses covered several topics including
leadership for change, animal use in science,
space exploration and astronomy, coding,integrated STEM teaching, digital skills andcultural heritage.
EUN continued working with national andregional entities (Spanish regions and thePortuguese CCPFC) to enable teachers tohave their EUN Academy certificates formallyrecognised.
Some new initiatives were introduced too.
The “Europeana MOOC” was organised infour languages in addition to English. The“Designing for Personalisation and Inclusion
with Technologies (DEPIT) course” was the first
MOOC hosted in EUNA by an external provider.

Finally, the EUN Academy Blog was launchedin March 2020 providing useful resources, tools
and ideas for remote teaching and learning
scenarios drawn from Academy courses,
as well as the Academy’s experiences indesigning online learning.
Other relevant work done in CPD includes theEuropeana Education initiative mainstreaming
the use of digital culture in classrooms, acrosscurricula and at a transnational level. In
the 2019-2020 academic year, over 2,000
primary and secondary-level teachers from 37
countries created and used learning scenarios,
shared their experiences on the Teachingwith Europeana Blog and participated in theEuropeana Education Competition.
Since 2018, EUN has supported the European
Commission in scaling up EU Code Week. The
initiative aims to promote coding and digital

literacy in schools providing professional
development opportunities to educatorsand engaging activities to students. In 2020,
EUN ran two MOOCs as part of the initiative.
These courses aimed to introduce the initiative
to participants and to foster coding andcomputational thinking in teaching practice.
EDURegio (Digital Regions for Education) aims
to empower schools and teachers in using
digital technologies, encouraging them tobe active and innovative, according to EUpriorities on digital citizenship and skills. In 2020,
the project delivered an online course to foster
teachers’ confidence and competence in theuse of digital technology in education.
The Novigado project focuses on active
learning in innovative learning environments.
In 2020 the activities included webinars,
preparation of an “Active Learning Reference
Framework”, creation of an online scenario
tool and development of a capacity-building
programme for schools.

OUR CONTINUOUS WORKIn November 2020, the Mentoring for School
Improvement (MenSI) project was launchedwith the aim of carrying out a pan-European
investigation into how different approaches tomentoring can support the mainstreaming ofinnovative digital teaching practices in primaryand secondary schools. Involving Ministries of
Education in six countries, MenSI – funded by
the EC’s Horizon 2020 programme – will createa network of 24 Mentor Schools working withsome one hundred Mentee Schools. By theend of the project, the network will open up
to other schools interested in applying school
mentoring approaches to develop innovative
pedagogical practice involving digitaltechnologies in teaching and learning.

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European Schoolnet Annual Report 2020

In summer 2020 LEGO Education® and EUN
set up a pilot project to experiment withand champion the effective pedagogicaluse of LEGO Education® solutions with theactive engagement of the FCL network andcommunity. Within the pilot, which will last
until 2021, FCL Lead Ambassadors from fivecountries (Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France
and Italy) carry out professional development
and training activities using LEGO Education®
solutions.
The Designing Future Innovative Learning
Spaces (Design-FILS) project aims to use ICT ininnovative learning environments, to transfer
developing and changing applications
to multi-disciplinary fields and to solve
scenarios based on real-life problems byProfessional Development

following scientific steps in flexible learning
environments. The project is funded by
Erasmus+ KA2 and is coordinated by theTurkish Ministry of National Education.
EUN in collaboration with the Institut françaisand ARTE created the European Film Factory
platform for film education. Available ineight languages, the platform offers freeaccess to European film to students aged
11-18 and teachers. Under the guidance of
EUN a teachers’ focus group created ten
educational kits that include in-depth film
analysis and ready-to-use lesson plans. A
webinar series in eight languages aims tofamiliarise educators with the platform and its
educational value.

COMMITTEES AND WORKING GROUPSInteractive Classroom Working GroupThe Interactive Classroom Working Group
brings together seven Ministries of Education(Czech Republic, Ireland, Italy, Luxemburg,
Belgium (Flanders), Portugal and Switzerland)
to explore common areas of concern, shareexperiences and address policy challenges
related to the integration of a wide range oftechnologies in classrooms and their impact
on teaching and learning. In 2020, the Working
Group capitalised on the effort dedicatedto Makerspaces in schools and finalised theforeseen publications, including the guidelines
for Makerspaces in schools, addressed toschool leaders, and 15 case studies from ninedifferent countries.
The results are published on the Future
Classroom Lab portal and were presented
during a multi-stakeholder event organised in

December involving national and European
policy-makers, as well as schools who
virtually opened their Makerspaces doors
to the international audience. The WG has
been reflecting on what should be the next
focus and has decided to concentrate on
digital technologies for interactivity andengagement. Considering the impact that the
pandemic has had on teaching and learning,
the WG will look at how technology has
helped and can help to facilitate engaging
digital learning and will provide resources andexamples to teachers and heads of schools tobetter face the opportunities and challenges
of a digital age.

PROJECTS
EDURegio project

Europeana

EDURegio project aims to empower schools
and teachers in using digital technologies,
encouraging them to be proactive andinnovative, and to implement the developmentof the main EU Commission priorities related todigital citizenship and skills. The project fosters theexchange of good practices among regional
professionals and policy-makers.

Europeana empowers the cultural heritage
sector in its digital transformation by developing
expertise, tools and policies to embrace
digital change and encourage partnerships.
Europeana facilitates the use of cultural
heritage for education, research, creation andrecreation.

EU Code Week

EU Code Week is a grassroots initiative whichaims to bring coding and digital literacy to allschools in a fun and engaging way. The initiative
provides to the general public, and in particular
to teachers and other educators, resources,
virtual spaces for networking, and professional
development opportunities, such as online
courses and train-the-trainer programmes.

MenSI

The Mentoring for School Improvement (MenSI)
project analyses and supports different formats
of school-to-school mentoring with the aimof mainstreaming innovative digital teachingpractices across schools in Europe.

Novigado

Design-FILS

The Design-FILS (Designing Future Innovative
Learning Spaces ) project will create a training
programme for an international groupof teacher trainers, with focus on learning
environment, use of ICT and innovative
pedagogy.

The Novigado project aims to support schools
and related stakeholders in the transition froma conventional and teacher-centred classroom
to teaching practices that promote active
learning with the support of innovative learning
environments and use of relevant ICT.

European Film Factory

European Film Factory is an open platform forfilm education available in eight languages
for students aged 11-18 and teachers acrossEurope.

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42European Schoolnet Annual Report 2020

School Networking

School Networking

48 News articles
7 Video interviews
5 Surveys & Reports
26 Teaching materials

12 Expert articles
12 Practice articles
13 Thematic areas

22-24
Oct
eTwinning
Annual Conference“Classrooms in Action:
Addressing Climate
Change with eTwinning”

132.5k+New teachers

35k

New projects

4

New MOOCs

9.8k+

Enrolments

60%
Engagement

52%

98%

98%

Completion

Say courses met
expectations

Rated courses
as valuable

2.1k+

eTwinning
school labels

19k

National
Quality labels

11.3k

European
Quality labels

600+

Participants

48

Workshops

6k

Prize Ceremonyviewers“

We have learned a lot from it,
including how important thesense of community reallyis. Since the beginning of thepandemic eTwinners havebeen better prepared to go
online and more used tohelping, inspiring and lifting
each other’s spirits.”
Mariya Gabriel
European Commissioner for Innovation,
Research, Culture, Education and Youth

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European Schoolnet Annual Report 2020

School Networking

WHY IS SCHOOL NETWORKING IMPORTANT?

OUR CONTINUOUS WORK

Networking is about growing together.
European Schoolnet empowers individual
educators by providing opportunities to meetand collaborate so that thousands of schools
can grow and improve. Networking activities
provided through European Schoolnet enableeducators from different countries and fromCollaboration between schools remains
one of the most efficient, cost-effective andsustainable ways of improving teaching andlearning at classroom and teacher level.
Communities of practice, peer and online
learning – all elements offered by European

varied backgrounds to learn from each other,be inspired to tackle new challenges andemulate their most innovative and creativecolleagues. Networking allows the wholesystem to grow: everyone with their own
competences, skills, attitudes and qualities
can help and support the others.

PROJECTS

OUR WORK SO FAR
One of the founding principles of European
Schoolnet over 20 years ago was to enable
schools and teachers across Europe tobecome part of an interconnected system,
benefiting from the experience of the mostinnovative schools and nurturing the lessadvanced ones, for the sake and growth of
the whole network. For this reason, since its
beginning, European Schoolnet has been
involved in pan-European school networking
activities which prepared the ground forthe development of eTwinning, a European
Union initiative, named “The Community for
Schools in Europe” and later of eTwinning
Plus, an expansion of the network to eightneighbouring countries. In 2020, European
Schoolnet continued to provide the Central
Support Service for eTwinning. Funded under
the Erasmus+ programme, on behalf of theEuropean Commission, eTwinning is a vibrantcommunity that in its 16 years of existence has

Schoolnet initiatives – are highly effectivemeans of sharing and spreading inspiring
innovative practices. For this reason, European
Schoolnet will continue to invest in fosteringschool networks and teacher communities.

reached 880,000 teachers working in 210,000
schools. In 2020, despite the pandemic andschool closures, 95,000 teachers took part in
at least one project, involving more than two
million students across the continent.
2020 was Year Six of the School Education
Gateway, the European Commission’s
platform on school education. The platform
helps schools plan their Erasmus+ applications
and projects through a catalogue of on-site
courses as well as a partner-finding tool. It also
provides education professionals with useful
information and resources, such as teachingmaterials, good practices, news articles,
surveys and video interviews. Users also benefit
from professional development opportunities
on the platform’s Teacher Academy, including
free online courses and webinars, offering
introductions to monthly topics by experts inthe field.

eTwinningeTwinning, currently available in 36 European
countries, promotes school collaborationand teachers’ professional developmentby providing support, tools and services forschools through a variety of means, including a
sophisticated digital platform where school staff
can develop projects together and participate
in online learning opportunities.

School Education Gateway

The School Education Gateway is a European
Commission initiative as part of the Erasmus+
Programme offering a place for all practitioners
to engage with European policy and practice inearly childhood and school education.

eTwinning Plus

Teacher Academy

eTwinning Plus is an expansion of the eTwinning
network to 8 other neighbouring countries:
Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, Tunisia,
Ukraine, Jordan and Lebanon.

The Teacher Academy, by the School Education
Gateway, supports teachers to access relevant
training opportunities by providing them witha platform to search for, participate in andevaluate training courses available on-site andonline across Europe.

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Looking Forward

Looking
ForwardIn 2020, the European Commission published its
communication on achieving the European
Education Area by 2025 and its new Digital
Education Action Plan (DEAP) 2021-2027“resetting education and training in the digitalage”. European Schoolnet and its network of
Ministries of Education welcomes these two
major publications which set the European
agenda regarding the development of digital
education in Europe.
The transformation of education processes
for 21st-century teaching and learning in adigitised society is at the centre of the remitof EUN. In its publication in November 2017,“Driving innovation in education: How far
we have come and where we are going”,
EUN capitalised on the latest research on thedevelopment of digital education and its rolein shaping tomorrow’s society.
Over the past 20 years, the educationallandscape and society in general havechanged rapidly, thanks to the developmentof new technologies. These changes require
stakeholders to focus not only on the digitalskills of teachers, school leaders and students,
but also on supporting citizens in the digitalsociety more holistically.

They increasingly also require policy-makers
to develop whole-school approaches topedagogical innovation and flexible learning
environments and to facilitate new ways ofincorporating innovative formal, non-formal
and informal learning opportunities. It is also
vital to train future generations of teachers
effectively to work in an increasingly multidigital working environment where newpedagogies, new ways of working between
teachers and among schools and new waysof accessing professional development
opportunities
aremadepossiblebytechnological developments.
Nowadays, it is even more of a priority toconsolidate, identify and refine effective
mechanisms fostering large-scale adoptionof the wide range of successful innovations
being implemented by the policy-makers,
school leaders and practitioners.
EUN’s key strength over the past 20 years has
been its ability to act as an effective broker
between educational policies and practices.
As it continues to work closely with schools on
European cooperation projects, EUN remains
uniquely placed to provide relevant evidence
to its Ministries of Education members thatcan support informed policy-making andanticipate new challenges and opportunities
arisingfromemerging
technologicaldevelopments.
All these issues related to digital education
have become even more pivotal during
the COVID-19 crisis, where all our education
systems have faced tremendous challenges
in the struggle to ensure the continuity ofeducation provision, for example, throughemergency remote teaching processes
established by the majority of Ministries of
Education in Europe. Now, the challenge is toreflect on and apply new models of schooling,as hybrid and blended schooling models are
currently emerging linked to the continuationof the COVID-19 crisis and the preparation ofa new recovery period.
In that context, with its long tradition interms of European cooperation in the digital
education area, EUN has developed a uniqueexpertise (foresight, methodologies, delivery
tools, indicators, etc.) and has a proven trackrecord in how to build a solid cooperative
network consisting of EU education ministries,
major EdTech providers, educational experts

and practitioners that can contribute to thisnew European digital education agenda.
European Schoolnet and its Ministries of
Education have stressed the importanceof reinforcing the activities it has alreadydeveloped as well as strengthening further
the cooperation between the European
Commission and member states. We believe
that, through its various activities, EUN cancontribute and support the Commission in
the development and implementation of the
DEAP.
In parallel, the political priorities defined by
the new European Commission, namely
innovation in education, science education,
climate change (related to education) andthe digital skills gap are taken fully into accountin the development of future activities.
European Schoolnet looks ahead to growing
its shared network and to continuing to
improve the future of education, with the helpof the European education community which
it serves and works alongside.

Marc Durando

Executive Director of European Schoolnet

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European Schoolnet Annual Report 2020

IcelandOur 32
Members
Belgium (FR)

Hungary

Ministère de laFédération WallonieBruxelles, Administration
générale del’Enseignement (AGE)

Oktatási Hivatal

Belgium (NL)
Vlaams Ministerie vanOnderwijs en Vorming

Bulgaria*

LatviaFinland
Opetushallitus/
Utbildningsstyrelsen

FranceMinistère de l’Éducation
nationale et de laJeunesse

Georgia*
Germany*
GreeceΥπουργείο Παιδείας,Έρευνας καιΘρησκευμάτων

Ireland*Lithuania

The Netherlands
Belgium

PolandGermany*

Luxembourg

Czech Republic
Slovakia

FranceSwitzerland

HungaryItalyΠαιδαγωγικό Ινστιτούτο
Κύπρου

Hariduse Infotehnoloogia
Sihtasutuse (HITSA)

LatviaIsrael*CyprusEstonia

Estonia

An Roinn Oideachais
agus Scileanna

Kosovo*Dům zahraniční
spolupráce (DZS)

SwedenIreland

Ministarstvo Znanosti i
obrazovanja

Czech Republic

NorwayIceland*

INDIRE, Istituto Nazionale
di Documentazione,
Innovazione e Ricerca
Educativa

Croatia

Our Members

FinlandRomania*

Croatia

Portugal

Italy
Spain

Georgia*

SerbiaKosovo*Bulgaria*

Izglītības un zinātnes
ministrija

Lithuania

GreeceTurkeyNacionalinė švietimo
agentūra

Luxembourg
Ministère de l’Éducation
nationale, de l’Enfanceet de la Jeunesse– Grand-Duché deLuxembourg

CyprusMalta
Israel*Malta
Ministry for Educationand Employment

The Netherlands
Stichting Kennisnet

NorwayUtdanningsdirektoratet

PolandRomania*

Slovakia

Spain

Switzerland

TurkeyMinisterstwo Edukacji
Narodowej

SerbiaMinisterstvo školstva,vedy, výskumu a športu
Slovenskej republiky

Instituto Nacional deTecnologías Educativas
y de Formación delProfesorado

educa.ch, Institut suisse
des médias pour laformation et la culture

Milli Eğitim Bakanlığı
Yenilik ve Eğitim
Teknolojileri Genel
Müdürlüğü

Portugal
Direção Geral da
Educação

Ministarstvo prosvete,nauke i tehnološkog
razvoja, uz operativnu
podršku Fondacije
TempusSwedenSkolverket* Active membership process underway

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European Schoolnet Annual Report 2020

Funding

Funding

Co-funded by the Horizon 2020 programme of the European Union
Co-funded by the
Horizon 2020 programmeof the European Union● MenSI● Next-Lab● OL4ALL

Co-funded by the Creative Europe Media programme of the European Union

PROJECTS FUNDED BY THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION

Funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union
Funded by the
Erasmus+ programmeof the European Union● eTwinning● eTwinning Plus
● School Education Gateway● Teacher Academy

Co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union
Co-funded by the
Erasmus+ programmeof the European Union● Assess@Learning● BRITEC● EDURegio● Design-FILS● eSafety Label● L2C● MENTEP● NOVIGADO● SOS-ACT● STE(A)M IT● STEM School Label● STIM● TeachUP● TIWI

Funded by the Horizon 2020 programme of the European Union
Funded by the
Horizon 2020 programmeof the European Union● ARETE● BLOOM● CO:RE● IMPACT EdTech● Make it Open● Scientix● SpaceEU● ySKILLS

Co-funded by theCreative Europe Media programmeof the European Union● European Film Factory

Funded by the European Union Connecting Europe Facility
Funded by the European Union
Connecting Europe Facility● Better Internet for Kids
● Digital Skills and Jobs Platform● Europeana DSI 4

Co-funded by the Rights, Equality and Citizenship programme (2014-2020) of theEuropean Union
Co-funded by the Rights, Equality
and Citizenship programme (20142020) of the European Union● SELMA

Funded by the European Commission● 3Rs● EE-WE● EU Code Week
● European Entrepreneurship● Nature-Based Solutions
Funded by the European Commission with support of the European Parliament● Digital SkillUp
Co-funded by the Structural Reform Support Programme of the European Union● Supporting Digital Educationin Greece (Phase II)● Implementing an Effective
Induction System for Novice
Teachers in Flanders

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European Schoolnet Annual Report 2020

Funding

PRIVATELY FUNDED PROJECTSSTEM Alliance

Future Classroom Lab Industry Partners

Amgen TeachGames in Schools

School of Social Networks

Aerospace in Class

Eurostat Videos

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www.europeanschoolnet.org