Category: News

This week we have had the kick-off meeting of the VR4VET Erasmus+ Project in Jyväskylä, Finland. HETEL´s international department and teachers from Egibide and Sopeña Bilbao joined the rest of the team from ROC van Amsterdam (NL), Provrex (NL) and Aarhus Tech (DK), coordinated by the hosting organisation, Gradia (FI), during 3 days to start the development of a virtual environment which will host 4 domains with 3 scenarios each to train customer care skills in different VET branches: hospitality, consultancy, hairdressing and beauty and retail. Our industrial partners, the Basque organisation SAYMA among them, also joined virtually during some sections of the meeting. We are coming home with a lot of homework, but specially with enthusiasm and satisfaction for such a great start and partnership. Looking forward to meeting our partners again in September in Amsterdam, and on-line in the meanwhile!

Last week the Build@Home team met in the Dutch VET school ROC Da Vinci for a working session to prepare the next training event to be celebrated at the end of March in Bologna (Italy). This event, addressed to international coordinators of VET schools, will be aimed at promoting internationalisation at home activities in vocational colleges, with a special focus on inclusiveness and create “ambassadors” for internationalisation in VET schools. After this topic, we also had a working session dedicated to the Build@Home digital learning environment, where students from ROC Nijmegen (Dutch VET school, coordinator of this Erasmus+ KA2 project) presented different alternatives where all materials developed by the project (the international compass, the cards to promote international education, and the digital warehouse), will be available, following a process to implement internationalisation at home in VET schools, from the initial discussion about “WHY” to internationalise vocational education, to the “WHAT” and “HOW”. The digital learning environment will be available in March 2023.

Last week, Maristak Durango and HETEL hosted the partners of the DualECO project in a transnational meeting to exchange on our plans for piloting the good practices on partnerhips and collaboration between VET schools and other organisations of the VET ecosystem of each region represented in the project (Bremen, Northern Ireland, Lombardia and Basque Country). HETEL and Maristak Durango are just starting the pilot, with an encounter between VET teachers and companies from the IT sector to find out possible actions for the improvement of the VET curriculum related to IT and, specially, cybersecurity. We will publish the results of these encounters in our project website! http://dualeco.eu/

During the 12th and 13th of December HETEL Heziketa Teknikoko Elkartea hosted in Durango the meeting of partners of the Erasmus DIGISCHOOL project (AMSP-Asociace Malých A Stredních Proniku a Zivnostníku (CR), Institut INPRO (CR), RegioVision (DE), Ilmiolavoro (IT) and HETEL with the participation of UGLE VET School). The DIGISCHOOL project aims to develop an educational platform, aimed at vocational training teachers, in which through innovative content, teachers can acquire new skills and increase their knowledge and use of digital tools in all their educational activity. During the meeting, big progress was made in finalising the best practices identified (DIGI Cases) and the appropriate tools to be used by teachers (DIGI Toolbox), as well as in defining the characteristics that the platform and the contents of the micro-learning units should have (DIGI Hub). Over the coming months, progress will be made in the creation of these micro-learning units and the training of teachers in relation to the selected tools, starting with a training activity to be held in the Basque Country at the end of January.

Last week HETEL received 2 IT teachers from Da Vinci College  (Netherlands). As part of the visit, they went to our associated school, Maristak Durango, where the students of the specialization in cybersecurity and of the higher VET programme in administration of computer network systems presented them, in English, the various challenges they are facing in class. We also visited Urduliz42, the programming campus part of Fundación Telefónica and supported by the Provincial Council of Bizkaia, and we exchanged ideas to collaborate on a project on cybersecurity in the industry. The HETEL-Da Vinci collaboration is long overdue and it is always a pleasure to welcome you. Until next time! Abantean!

In-Di is an Eramus+ KA2 project aimed to work, from different perspectives, on how to support students´ wellbeing in vocational schools to keep them engaged and motivated with learning. From May to mid-September, the project partners collected feedback from almost 1000 VET students in different EQF levels (but mostly level 3) to have an idea of their current wellbeing at school, how situations at home and in previous schools may have influenced them, and what they appreciate and what they miss in the schools they attend to at the moment. Although with some differences among countries (Germany, France, Italy, Czech Republic, Latvia and Basque Country), the main factors they point out as key for their well being are: exams and assignments calendar, the role of the teachers and the class atmosphere. Suggestions given on how to improve their situation are: more empathetic and available teachers, more sensible exams calendar and dedicated workshops on team building, time management or emotional management. In the case of HETEL, the school involved in the project is Colegio Ángeles Custodios, in Bilbao, which hosted this meeting, involving students from VET EQF level 1 who gave a great presentation about what they do in class and offered the meeting participants delicious food prepared by them. This wonderful hosting definitely helped to our successful meeting! Next time we will meet in Latvia to exchange on the strengths of each of our VET systems to support students and to identify possible actions to put in place in each country to keep accompanying our students in the best possible way.

Last week HETEL Heziketa Teknikoko Elkartea hosted in Oteitza Lizeo Politeknikoa (Zarautz) the meeting of eVET4AI Erasmus project partners (ITKAM, Confindustria Veneto – SIAV, HETEL, ECOLE, Cooperation Bancaire pour L´Europe (BE), Qualifizierungszentrum Region Riesa GmbH (DE)). The EVET4AI project aims to provide new digital tools to trainers active in mechanical training courses in the development of new digital skills and confidence in the use of new teaching methodologies. During the meeting, we discussed about the 2 approaches followed by the project: Artificial Intelligence applied to training, focused on how artificial intelligence can improve training provision, follow up and guidance, and training for Artificial Intelligence, about which are the main technologies applied in the metalworking sector, how they are applied, the purpose and the competences necessary to do it. In the next months, the first training materials will be available in the project platform, accessible in: https://evet4ai.eu/

The new academic year is starting strong in the international department. And never better said, as we have a new member, Aitor Ruiz, who will work hand in hand with Tamara Rodriguez to accomplish all challenges set in this field. Besides, 6 students, start next week their apprenticeships abroad, destination: Italy! We are also retaking international projects after holidays. On-line meetings within the projects Build@Home, DigiSchool, e-VET4AI and DualEco to take over work on topics such as internationalisation at home, digital competences for teachers, artificial intelligence in VET and cooperation between companies and VET schools, respectively. Next week, we will host our first international visit of the year in Oteitza Lizeo Politeknikoa, receiving our partners in the e-VET4AI project. Internationalisation in HETEL resumes its trip, keep track on our steps through our Website and social networks!

In-Di is an Eramus+ KA2 project aimed to work, from different perspectives, on how to support students´ wellbeing in vocational schools to keep them engaged and motivated with learning. During our meeting in Turin (Italy), we have created a questionnaire to collect feedback from students to help us how to help them, gathering results about how to support them with stress management, how can we improve the school and class atmosphere or how can we support them from an academic and emotional point of view. HETEL, counting with the cooperation of its associated school, Ángeles Custodios, will host the next project meeting at the end of September in Bilbao.

ViMo in VET is an Erasmus+ KA2 project which started at the end of 2019 to exchange good practices among schools from Italy, Denmark, Basque Country, France and Serbia on the applications of virtual cooperation for internationalisation. With the aim to learn from each other in this field, we had foreseen several study visits to the different partners but with the covid pandemic we had to limit our work together to the on-line world. On one hand, this has brought some good opportunities to experience by ourselves how an international exchange is also possible just working on-line, brining benefits different to physical mobility. On the other hand, we´ve also missed the added value that personal interaction brings to networking and the reinforcement of our connections. But these days on May we´ve finally been able to meet each other in Denmark, for some of us for the first time, which has helped to gain better knowledge from each other, in particular from our Danish partner, Roskilde Business College, which has shared with us their expertise in the application of Virtual Reality for learning, with the collaboration of the Danish Centre for Digital Knowledge. HETEL´s international coordinator, Tati and Antonio from Sopeña Bilbao and Xabi Ametzazurra from Maristak Durango have shared a wonderful learning experience and bring some useful ideas to adapt to our own reality. In October, it will be HETEL´s turn to receive our partners in the Basque Country. We´re looking forward to it!