Course overview

The outbreak of the Covid pandemic has been a wakeup call on the urgent need to integrate digital tools into teaching and training. Google Suite for Education offers to teachers and education staff a wide range of possibilities and tools to manage online and blended learning. Approaching online tools was not only an obligatory choice to deal with the pandemic, but seems nowadays an urgent need for all the schools willing to adapt to the 21st century work habits. It represents a wide and unprecedented challenge, that needs a proper guidance to be faced.
Taking part in this training course on Google Suite for Education tailored for teachers and educational staff you will gain an outlook on the Google tools to empower and support online education. Through an hands-on approach and learning-by-doing methodology the participants will develop concrete ICT skills related to Google tools, discuss and exchange best practices in their past or current usage and reflect together how to use them in online education and in the learning  process.

​Learning outcomes

This structured course allows participants to make the most of Google Suite for Education tools in a practical and concrete way together with other teachers and education staff throughout all Europe thus gaining as well a broader understanding of education in Europe and exchanging best practices and experiences. The general aim of this training course is to foster excellence in education by empowering teachers, trainers, headmasters and other education staff to integrate Google Suite tools into synchronous and asynchronous teaching and education.
The course has a flexible approach in order to adapt the learning outcomes to the particular needs and ICT skills of the participants.
Thanks to this course the participants will:

• Learn the basic concepts of online and blended learning and digital classroom;
• Get acquainted with the key tools offered by Google Suite for Education;
• Learn how to effectively integrate Google tools to foster excellence in online and blended learning;
• Learn how to bring effective communication, organization and cooperation in the digital classroom;
• Learn how to deliver interactive, engaging and effective lessons online;
• Learn how to properly assign, manage and evaluate students’ assignments and work online;
• Contribute to foster digital citizenship and 21st century skills and competences;
• Exchange best practices and share experiences with participants and staff coming throughout Europe;
• Make contacts with individuals and organizations working in the education field in Europe through everyday cooperation and networking activities.

Courses planned

Please mind that at the moment we do not have any sessions planned for this course.

We still consider the possibility to hold this course for a group of 6-8 teachers coming from the same school organizing an ad hoc course.
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If you are interested in this option, please submit a request using the form below.

Target audience

This course is addressed to teachers, trainers, educational counsellors, career counsellors, school psychologists, headmasters, school management and administrative staff working in primary schools, secondary schools, vocational schools, training centres, adult education schools, higher education and NGOs. Please mind that the course may include teachers from different school levels.
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This course is especially recommended for institutions that have already joined the Google Suite for Education but is open as well to institutions that doesn’t have the suite yet and would like to start working with it.

Language

The course is held in English. For groups with at least 8 participants, we can organize an ad-hoc session in a different language.
Please write an email to [email protected] to get more information about it.

Standard daily programme

Please find below the standard indicative daily programme that will be personalized on participants needs and professional profiles.
Our standard program comprises 7 days of course, of which the first one is dedicated to networking, preparation and cultural immersion and the last one to follow up, specific needs and cultural activities. Please note that we always do our best to accommodate the specific needs of our participants in a flexible way, including but not limited to budget restrictions and travel arrangement. Participants can choose to arrive 1 day before the start of the course and/or leave one day after the end of it in order to enjoy a deeper cultural immersion. Upon specific request we can organize longer or shorter versions of this course.

Sunday	-  Participants arrival  - Orientation and information about the venue and the city   - Networking activities  - Walking tour in the venue’s city
Monday	-  Course introduction -  Needs and expectations evaluation -  Team building exercises -  Introduction to Google Suite for Education -  Using Gmail to connect and communicate with your classroom and colleagues -  Discovering advanced Gmail features  -  Using Google Drive to effectively manage and organize your resources -  Practical work: upload and organize documents on your Drive -  Using Google Doc, Google Sheets and Google Slides for the creation, sharing and simultaneously editing of documents, spreadsheets and presentations -  Making the most of Google files to facilitate cooperative learning and create engaging content for your lessons -  Practical work: create, share and simultaneously edit a Drive file
Tuesday	-  Using Google Forms to create and share surveys and evaluation quizzes -  Practical work: create and send a survey and a quiz with Google Form -  Schedule meetings and appointments with Google Calendar to organize your work and online classroom -  Practical work: create and share a Calendar, create and edit events -  Plan and lead video lesson with Google Meet -  Discovering advanced Meet features (e.g. lesson recording, video sharing, creating small groups..) -  Practical work: simulating a videoconference and practicing Meet features -  Cultural activities in the venue’s city
Wednesday	-  Introduction to Google Classroom to manage your classroom and teaching -  Google Classroom main settings and stream -  Practical work: creating a class, sending communications to students -  Sharing materials and documents with students, create arguments to organize content -  Practical work: adding materials to your Classrooms and organize them -  Optional cultural visit outside the venue’s city (Florence, Cefalù, El Teide...)
Thursday	-  Creating, assigning and evaluating assignments in Classroom -  Practical work: create aa assignment with a template, assign, edit and evaluate it -  Creating, assigning and evaluating Google Forms quizzes in Classroom -  Practical work: create and assign a task with quiz, evaluate it importing grades or manually -  Introduction to Google Jamboard, preparation and sharing of virtual whiteboards -  Sharing and using Jamboard during asynchronous training -  Practical work: create and edit a Jam, share it via Classroom or Meet
Friday	-  Additional Google tools to manage your tasks and classroom -  Discovering Google Keep as a tool for task management -  Practical work: create a note or a list of notes, organize them into labels and share them with collaborators -  Additional useful web platforms, apps and tools to make online and blended learning more engaging and interactive -  Tailored practice based on the participants learning needs and expectations -  Cultural activities in the venue's city -  Farewell dinner
Saturday	-  Space for discussion of future cooperation and planning follow up activities -  Course roundup and final evaluation -  Validation of learning outcomes and certification ceremony -  Additional training session tailored to specific needs (optional) -  Optional cultural activities or additional guided visit in another major city -  Participants departure

Other relevant facts

• Methodology
  
• Costs and Erasmus+ Funding
• Certification and Validation of learning outcomes

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We tailor the working methods based upon participants’ needs, attitudes and professional profiles in order to ensure high productivity, effectiveness and transferability into practice.
The standard methodology is highly practical and participative with hands-on approach that comprises real-job examples, case studies examination and simulations. We embrace collaboratively working methods that foster mutual learning and cooperation among participants. Our focus is on learning in an interactive and international environment knowledge applicable to the real contexts and/or in the classroom. The pedagogical methods that we use are based upon experiential training, group and peer activities, learning-by-doing and best practices’ exchange. They include visits with local schools and institutions allowing the participants to better understand the local education system as well as exchange ideas and contacts.
Morning Wrap-up and brief daily evaluations are foreseen to ensure quality of education and to adapt the learning programme to participants' needs better tailoring the education.
We organize optional social, networking and cultural activities in order to give participants the opportunity to know Italy as well as to exchange best-practice and establish professional cooperation and links.
The training and staff team is multinational thus giving a full European dimension to the course.

Teachers, trainers, headmasters and any other staff of education organizations are eligible to receive an Erasmus+ grant covering all the costs to attend our training courses including travel, board and lodging, cultural activities and all fees. Our training courses are tailored to be fully funded by Erasmus+ and we offer different options to ensure the best comfort and quality at a price that is within the Erasmus+ grant.
We are proud to tailor our training courses to both participants' learning and practical needs and to ease your participation at our training courses, we will gladly take care of all the practical arrangements. If you prefer, you can take care of some of the practical arrangements by yourself (e.g. meals, local transport...), though we will manage the organization of your accommodation in order to ensure optimal logistic organization, safety and time-efficiency. We always provide board and lodging in the same hotel in which we organize the course  thus ensuring optimal comfort and potential of networking with the fellow participants. Read more about  how we take care of your subsistence and practical arrangements. 
The most common option that we offer to schools and organisations costs 1280 EUR in Bologna, 1220 EUR in Tenerife and 1130 EUR in Palermo and includes course fee, certification and support fee, accommodation in single room, 2 coffee breaks per day, walking tour in the venue’s city, a sum-up dissemination video. This standard option in Bologna and Tenerife inlcudes all meals from Sunday lunch to Saturday lunch, while in Palermo inlcudes all breakfasts and three networking meals in local restaurants. For schools sending 2 or more participants we can offer accommodation in double rooms and we can provide as well accommodation for people or relatives accompanying the participants.
When attending our courses, we recommend you to request 9 days of individual support for your subsistence costs, 7 days for the course plus 2 additional days for the travel. In this way you can have more flexibility in planning your stay and you can enjoy all the cultural activities planned from the first to the last day of course. You can read here more about the Erasmus+ funding. Shall you have need any help with filling the budget during the application stage or have any problem with your grant please let us know and we will see how to support you.

At the end of the course, each participant will be awarded a certificate of attendance, together - if requested - with the Europass Mobility Certificate. The certificate are in line with the Erasmus Quality Standards and include a short description of the course and its learning outcomes, dates, venues, the name of the course provider and the course instructor(s).
We support the participants in every step of certification and validation of learning outcomes with specific focus on European instruments and Erasmus plus requirements such as staff mobility/learning agreement, quality commitment and Europass mobility certificate.
We experienced that schools and education organizations may require additional documents to certify the competences learned or the presence in the training course. Upon request we can provide additional certification and reporting documents as well as we provide photos of the training course and a sum-up video that can be used for visibility and dissemination purposes.

Videos and photos of previous training courses

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