Promotion & Valorisation

Dissemination activities

International EIF / LINQ Conference 2014

“Changing the Trajectory: Quality for Opening up Education”

Organized by the University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE, Germany) and European Foundation for Quality in e-Learning (EFQUEL, Belgium)

7-9 May 2014, Rethymnon, Crete, Greece













The Early Change project participated in the EIF/LINQ conference and presented the initial results of the evaluation of early childhood education (ECE) quality in six European countries. Various aspects of the ECE quality in different educational systems were discussed and analyzed.














According to the Early Change members participated in the conference, such comparisons can create a fertile ground for communication and collaboration among the educational communities of different European countries and promote open education. Implications and future recommendations are also discussed.

International Pre-school Education Convention

“Investing in Pre-school Education in Times of Economic Crisis”

Organized by the Pan-Hellenic Association of Early Childhood Educators
4-6 April 2014, Thessaloniki, Greece

The “Early Change” project had the opportunity to present the results of the project regarding the professional development of early educators to around 1000 delegates. Dr. Zachopoulou, Dr. Gregoriadis, and Dr. Grammatikopoulos participated in the round table and analyzed thoroughly the project’s achievements and possible future exploitation towards the professional development of early childhood educators.

NTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ORGANISED BY THE EU PROJECT CREATIVE LITTLE SCIENTISTS

“Enabling Creativity through Science and Mathematics in Early Years Education”
22-23 March 2014, Pallini Attikis, Greece

The “Early Change” project was invited to present the project’s results in the international conference organized by the EU project “Creative little scientists” (FP7-Science-In-Society-2011-1).
Dr. Grammatikopoulos attended and presented the results of the project “Early Change” to over two hundred delegates. Among the participants were several coordinators of relevant EC funded project and the participation in this conference was an opportunity to interact and share experiences with them.

ICERI 2013: 6TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE OF EDUCATION RESEARCH & INNOVATION

SEVILLE, SPAIN 18-20 NOVEMBER 2013

The “Early Change” project presented in the ICERI 2013 conference the comparative results that were collected during the training phase II from the early educators. The title of the presentation was “COMPARING ASPECTS OF THE PROCESS QUALITY IN SIX EUROPEAN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATIONAL SETTINGS”

EARLY CHANGE PROJECT went to BERLIN

At the 7th, 8th and 9th of May 2012 the ‘International ECERS Meeting 2012′ was held in Berlin. The meeting was organized by University of Bamberg and was held in in Freie Universität Berlin. You can read information and see photos in the attached file. Link to word.

EECERA 2012 Conference

‘Early Change’ project participated in the EECERA (European Early Childhood Education Research Association) 2012 Conference, organizing a symposium under the title ‘EARLY CHANGE: A cross-national project of early childhood education quality’. Three papers were presented in this symposium: a) ‘Early Change’ Project: Promoting the professional development of early childhood educators, b) Quality assessment of early childhood education: A cross-national approach, and c) Comparing early childhood education systems in six European countries.

LINQ Conference 2013

‘EARLY CHANGE’ will be presented in the Learning Innovations and Quality Conference – LINQ 2013

http://www.learning-innovations.eu/2013/conference

The Conference will take place in Rome on 16th and 17th of May, 2013

Symposium inED / Polytechnic Institute of Porto

‘Early Change’ project was presented in Symposium inED which took
place in School of Education (ESE), Polytechnic Institute of Porto,
Centre for Research & Innovation, on 10th and 11st of May 2013. The
Portuguese team of ‘Early Change’ project worked on it.

More information:

Early-C_InEd

Program of the Symposium

Symposium ‘Education and Teacher Education worldwide: Current reforms, problems and challenges’ / University of Crete, Greece

Dr. Grammatikopoulos presented the paper ‘Evaluation of educators’ professional development: Implementation of the four-level model approach’ in the 1st International Symposium ‘Education and Teacher Education worldwide: Current reforms, problems and challenges’ . The Symposium was focused on the Education and Teacher Education in modern world. Particular emphasis was given to the challenges facing education systems and teacher education in the 21st century. It took place in University of Crete (Greece) on 28th – 30th of May, 2013.

http://symposiumcrete2013.weebly.com/index.html

Download the ppt file

1st Joaquim Bairrao Symposium ‘Transatlantic Trends in Childhood Intervention’/ University of Porto, Portugal

Preliminary results of ‘Early Change’ project was presented in 1st Joaquim Bairrao Symposium ‘Transatlantic Trends in Childhood Intervention’, which took
place in Faculdade de Psicologia e de Ciên-cias da Educação (FPCEUP), University of Porto, on 8th and 9th of July 2013.

This Symposium closes a serious of transatlantic consortia developed in the scope of the EC/US Program for Cooperation in Higher Education and Vocational Education and Training, (2001-2005), (2006-2008), (2009-2013) Transatlantic Consortium in Early Childhood Intervention – in which Professor Joaquim Bairrão participated.

Flyer Simposio Bairrão

1st Simposyum Joaquim Bairrão posters presentation

Early-C Symposium Joaquim Bairrão
 


Early Change Project Partners Project Activities

Early Change Project
Partners
Project Activities
Photo of the announcement.pptx

LINQ Conference 2014

25.02.2014  |  Comments Off

Results of the ‘EARLY CHANGE’ project will be presented in the EFQUEL Innovation Forum 2014 and International LINQ Conference 2014

http://www.learning-innovations.eu/2014/programme

The Conference will take place on the island of Crete in Greece, from 7th to 9th of May, 2014.

 

Photo 4

EARLY CHANGE WORKSHOP – PROGRAM

05.12.2013  |  Comments Off

International Perspectives on Early Childhood Education

25th of January 2014

Venue: Convention Center of Bank of Piraeus (Katouni 12 – 14, Thessaloniki)

 

EARLY CHANGE Workshop Program

3rdSESSION

Work Plan

26.01.2012  |  1 Comment ››

STAGE OF THE PROJECT OUTPUTS ACTIVITIES TIME PLANNING PARTNERS INVOLVED
1st MEETING Workplan, Deadlines, Allocation of tasks, Evaluation strategy, Financial issues 1st Meeting February 2012 Thessaloniki / Greece University Members
SELECTION PHASE List with assessors / List with classes Selection of: 1) assessors/early educators and 2) preschool classes February – May 2012 University Members
TRANSLATION PHASE Translation scales / manuals / Seminar Workbook Translation procedure February – July 2012 University Members
2nd MEETING Organizing the Training seminars 2nd Meeting September 2012 Porto, Portugal University Members
TRAINING PHASE I Training materials Training Seminar in each country September – December 2012 All Participants
PROGRESS REPORT Progress Report Preparing the Progress Report January – March 2013 (Deadline: 31/3/2013) All Participants
TRAINING PHASE II Evaluation data: ECERS-R score sheets, Good Practices Evaluation of preschool classes in all countries January – June 2013 All Participants
DATA PROCESSING Results Entering data / Analyzing data June – September 2013 University Members
WRITING PHASE Research papers, Conference presentations, E-book Writing procedure June 2013 – March 2014 University Members
PREPARING THE FINAL PRODUCTS Translation scales in 5 languages / Evaluation Report for each country / E-book Organizing the final products September – March 2014 University Members
DISSEMINATION PHASE Proceedings of the Workshop International Workshop May 2014, Greece University Members

Aims of the project

26.01.2012  |  No Comments ››

Aims
Three are the basic aims of this project:
(i) The first is the enhancement of the professional development of early educators,
(ii) The second is the implementation of ICT’s in the training of early educators from 6 E.U countries, and (iii) the third is the evaluation of the early
childhood education environments of these countries.

Objectives
(i) Professional development:
(a) One objective has to do with the acquisition from early educators of skills to work as trained assessors of Early Childhood Education Environments through their participation in the training phases of the project.
(b) Another objective is the development of self-assessment skills through the the implementation of the ECERS-R scale in their own classrooms.

(ii) Implementation of ICTs in the training of early educators:
(a) One objective is the enhancement of the e-literacy of early educators through the constant use of the web-based platform in the whole project.
(b) Another objective is the effective communication, support and feedback of early educators from the academic staff through the synchronous and asynchronous use of the website and the web-based platform.

(iii) Evaluation of early childhood education environments:
(a) One objective of the project is the collection of empirical data for the assessment of the structural quality and process quality of educational care and pre-primary settings for toddlers and preschoolers. These data will be collected by the participating early educators during the training phase II.
(b) Another objective is the comparison of the quality of early childhood education environments across six different educational systems by processing the selected data using advanced statistical analyses.
(c) A final objective is the recording of a wide range of ‘best practices’ implemented in early childhood classrooms in the participating countries. These data will be collected from the early educators during the training phase II, with the usage of an observation tool.

Project description

26.01.2012  |  1 Comment ››

This proposal will contribute to the professional development of early educators (approximately 120) from 6 countries (Greece, Finland, Denmark, Portugal, Romania, Cyprus) who will be trained in using the Early Childhood Environmental Rating Scale-R (ECERS-R) that evaluates the quality of early childhood environment. These educators will acquire the skills to work as assessors in using ECERS-R and develop skills for an effective self-evaluation.

This proposal will also combine the professional development of educators with the implementation of ICTs with the use of a web-platform with synchronous and asynchronous sessions, thus enhancing their e-literacy skills. The web-platform and the web-site of the project, even after its completion, both in English, will provide opportunities for further communication and cooperation among educators.

Early educators from 9 educational districts and academics from 9 Universities will participate. The academics will be responsible for the training of educators, based on a well-developed training package, created for the needs of this project. This package will also contain the translated ECERS-R scale and its user’s manual in Greeks, Portuguese, Finnish, Danish & Romanian. This process will enhance trainers’ experience concerning the evaluation of early childhood environments, will widen their expertise in several dimensions of teachers and will enable academics to implement this training to other early educators.

An innovative output will be an interactive e-book, containing:(a) The comparative study concerning the quality of the 6 early childhood educational systems, and (b) A wide range of “Good Practices” for educators. Both outputs constitute an innovative action towards the improvement of early education across Europe. International academic and educational community will benefit from all products of this project (workshops, scientific papers, presentations, etc.), which will be available on the project’s web-site.

Target groups

26.01.2012  |  No Comments ››

  • University members from nine participating countries
  • Early Childhood Educators from six participating countries
  • Cooperating partners.
  • International academic & educational community
  • In service early educators
  • Educational policy & strategy makers

Evaluation

25.01.2012  |  1 Comment ››

Report of the Initial Evaluation
Report of the Middle Evaluation
Report of the Final Evaluation

Photo of the announcement.pptx

LINQ Conference 2014

25.02.2014  |  Comments Off

Results of the ‘EARLY CHANGE’ project will be presented in the EFQUEL Innovation Forum 2014 and International LINQ Conference 2014

http://www.learning-innovations.eu/2014/programme

The Conference will take place on the island of Crete in Greece, from 7th to 9th of May, 2014.

 

Photo 4

EARLY CHANGE WORKSHOP – PROGRAM

05.12.2013  |  Comments Off

International Perspectives on Early Childhood Education

25th of January 2014

Venue: Convention Center of Bank of Piraeus (Katouni 12 – 14, Thessaloniki)

 

EARLY CHANGE Workshop Program

3rdSESSION

Work Plan

26.01.2012  |  1 Comment ››

STAGE OF THE PROJECT OUTPUTS ACTIVITIES TIME PLANNING PARTNERS INVOLVED
1st MEETING Workplan, Deadlines, Allocation of tasks, Evaluation strategy, Financial issues 1st Meeting February 2012 Thessaloniki / Greece University Members
SELECTION PHASE List with assessors / List with classes Selection of: 1) assessors/early educators and 2) preschool classes February – May 2012 University Members
TRANSLATION PHASE Translation scales / manuals / Seminar Workbook Translation procedure February – July 2012 University Members
2nd MEETING Organizing the Training seminars 2nd Meeting September 2012 Porto, Portugal University Members
TRAINING PHASE I Training materials Training Seminar in each country September – December 2012 All Participants
PROGRESS REPORT Progress Report Preparing the Progress Report January – March 2013 (Deadline: 31/3/2013) All Participants
TRAINING PHASE II Evaluation data: ECERS-R score sheets, Good Practices Evaluation of preschool classes in all countries January – June 2013 All Participants
DATA PROCESSING Results Entering data / Analyzing data June – September 2013 University Members
WRITING PHASE Research papers, Conference presentations, E-book Writing procedure June 2013 – March 2014 University Members
PREPARING THE FINAL PRODUCTS Translation scales in 5 languages / Evaluation Report for each country / E-book Organizing the final products September – March 2014 University Members
DISSEMINATION PHASE Proceedings of the Workshop International Workshop May 2014, Greece University Members

Aims of the project

26.01.2012  |  No Comments ››

Aims
Three are the basic aims of this project:
(i) The first is the enhancement of the professional development of early educators,
(ii) The second is the implementation of ICT’s in the training of early educators from 6 E.U countries, and (iii) the third is the evaluation of the early
childhood education environments of these countries.

Objectives
(i) Professional development:
(a) One objective has to do with the acquisition from early educators of skills to work as trained assessors of Early Childhood Education Environments through their participation in the training phases of the project.
(b) Another objective is the development of self-assessment skills through the the implementation of the ECERS-R scale in their own classrooms.

(ii) Implementation of ICTs in the training of early educators:
(a) One objective is the enhancement of the e-literacy of early educators through the constant use of the web-based platform in the whole project.
(b) Another objective is the effective communication, support and feedback of early educators from the academic staff through the synchronous and asynchronous use of the website and the web-based platform.

(iii) Evaluation of early childhood education environments:
(a) One objective of the project is the collection of empirical data for the assessment of the structural quality and process quality of educational care and pre-primary settings for toddlers and preschoolers. These data will be collected by the participating early educators during the training phase II.
(b) Another objective is the comparison of the quality of early childhood education environments across six different educational systems by processing the selected data using advanced statistical analyses.
(c) A final objective is the recording of a wide range of ‘best practices’ implemented in early childhood classrooms in the participating countries. These data will be collected from the early educators during the training phase II, with the usage of an observation tool.

Project description

26.01.2012  |  1 Comment ››

This proposal will contribute to the professional development of early educators (approximately 120) from 6 countries (Greece, Finland, Denmark, Portugal, Romania, Cyprus) who will be trained in using the Early Childhood Environmental Rating Scale-R (ECERS-R) that evaluates the quality of early childhood environment. These educators will acquire the skills to work as assessors in using ECERS-R and develop skills for an effective self-evaluation.

This proposal will also combine the professional development of educators with the implementation of ICTs with the use of a web-platform with synchronous and asynchronous sessions, thus enhancing their e-literacy skills. The web-platform and the web-site of the project, even after its completion, both in English, will provide opportunities for further communication and cooperation among educators.

Early educators from 9 educational districts and academics from 9 Universities will participate. The academics will be responsible for the training of educators, based on a well-developed training package, created for the needs of this project. This package will also contain the translated ECERS-R scale and its user’s manual in Greeks, Portuguese, Finnish, Danish & Romanian. This process will enhance trainers’ experience concerning the evaluation of early childhood environments, will widen their expertise in several dimensions of teachers and will enable academics to implement this training to other early educators.

An innovative output will be an interactive e-book, containing:(a) The comparative study concerning the quality of the 6 early childhood educational systems, and (b) A wide range of “Good Practices” for educators. Both outputs constitute an innovative action towards the improvement of early education across Europe. International academic and educational community will benefit from all products of this project (workshops, scientific papers, presentations, etc.), which will be available on the project’s web-site.

Target groups

26.01.2012  |  No Comments ››

  • University members from nine participating countries
  • Early Childhood Educators from six participating countries
  • Cooperating partners.
  • International academic & educational community
  • In service early educators
  • Educational policy & strategy makers

Evaluation

25.01.2012  |  1 Comment ››

Report of the Initial Evaluation
Report of the Middle Evaluation
Report of the Final Evaluation

Photo of the announcement.pptx

LINQ Conference 2014

25.02.2014  |  Comments Off

Results of the ‘EARLY CHANGE’ project will be presented in the EFQUEL Innovation Forum 2014 and International LINQ Conference 2014

http://www.learning-innovations.eu/2014/programme

The Conference will take place on the island of Crete in Greece, from 7th to 9th of May, 2014.

 

Photo 4

EARLY CHANGE WORKSHOP – PROGRAM

05.12.2013  |  Comments Off

International Perspectives on Early Childhood Education

25th of January 2014

Venue: Convention Center of Bank of Piraeus (Katouni 12 – 14, Thessaloniki)

 

EARLY CHANGE Workshop Program

3rdSESSION

Work Plan

26.01.2012  |  1 Comment ››

STAGE OF THE PROJECT OUTPUTS ACTIVITIES TIME PLANNING PARTNERS INVOLVED
1st MEETING Workplan, Deadlines, Allocation of tasks, Evaluation strategy, Financial issues 1st Meeting February 2012 Thessaloniki / Greece University Members
SELECTION PHASE List with assessors / List with classes Selection of: 1) assessors/early educators and 2) preschool classes February – May 2012 University Members
TRANSLATION PHASE Translation scales / manuals / Seminar Workbook Translation procedure February – July 2012 University Members
2nd MEETING Organizing the Training seminars 2nd Meeting September 2012 Porto, Portugal University Members
TRAINING PHASE I Training materials Training Seminar in each country September – December 2012 All Participants
PROGRESS REPORT Progress Report Preparing the Progress Report January – March 2013 (Deadline: 31/3/2013) All Participants
TRAINING PHASE II Evaluation data: ECERS-R score sheets, Good Practices Evaluation of preschool classes in all countries January – June 2013 All Participants
DATA PROCESSING Results Entering data / Analyzing data June – September 2013 University Members
WRITING PHASE Research papers, Conference presentations, E-book Writing procedure June 2013 – March 2014 University Members
PREPARING THE FINAL PRODUCTS Translation scales in 5 languages / Evaluation Report for each country / E-book Organizing the final products September – March 2014 University Members
DISSEMINATION PHASE Proceedings of the Workshop International Workshop May 2014, Greece University Members

Aims of the project

26.01.2012  |  No Comments ››

Aims
Three are the basic aims of this project:
(i) The first is the enhancement of the professional development of early educators,
(ii) The second is the implementation of ICT’s in the training of early educators from 6 E.U countries, and (iii) the third is the evaluation of the early
childhood education environments of these countries.

Objectives
(i) Professional development:
(a) One objective has to do with the acquisition from early educators of skills to work as trained assessors of Early Childhood Education Environments through their participation in the training phases of the project.
(b) Another objective is the development of self-assessment skills through the the implementation of the ECERS-R scale in their own classrooms.

(ii) Implementation of ICTs in the training of early educators:
(a) One objective is the enhancement of the e-literacy of early educators through the constant use of the web-based platform in the whole project.
(b) Another objective is the effective communication, support and feedback of early educators from the academic staff through the synchronous and asynchronous use of the website and the web-based platform.

(iii) Evaluation of early childhood education environments:
(a) One objective of the project is the collection of empirical data for the assessment of the structural quality and process quality of educational care and pre-primary settings for toddlers and preschoolers. These data will be collected by the participating early educators during the training phase II.
(b) Another objective is the comparison of the quality of early childhood education environments across six different educational systems by processing the selected data using advanced statistical analyses.
(c) A final objective is the recording of a wide range of ‘best practices’ implemented in early childhood classrooms in the participating countries. These data will be collected from the early educators during the training phase II, with the usage of an observation tool.

Project description

26.01.2012  |  1 Comment ››

This proposal will contribute to the professional development of early educators (approximately 120) from 6 countries (Greece, Finland, Denmark, Portugal, Romania, Cyprus) who will be trained in using the Early Childhood Environmental Rating Scale-R (ECERS-R) that evaluates the quality of early childhood environment. These educators will acquire the skills to work as assessors in using ECERS-R and develop skills for an effective self-evaluation.

This proposal will also combine the professional development of educators with the implementation of ICTs with the use of a web-platform with synchronous and asynchronous sessions, thus enhancing their e-literacy skills. The web-platform and the web-site of the project, even after its completion, both in English, will provide opportunities for further communication and cooperation among educators.

Early educators from 9 educational districts and academics from 9 Universities will participate. The academics will be responsible for the training of educators, based on a well-developed training package, created for the needs of this project. This package will also contain the translated ECERS-R scale and its user’s manual in Greeks, Portuguese, Finnish, Danish & Romanian. This process will enhance trainers’ experience concerning the evaluation of early childhood environments, will widen their expertise in several dimensions of teachers and will enable academics to implement this training to other early educators.

An innovative output will be an interactive e-book, containing:(a) The comparative study concerning the quality of the 6 early childhood educational systems, and (b) A wide range of “Good Practices” for educators. Both outputs constitute an innovative action towards the improvement of early education across Europe. International academic and educational community will benefit from all products of this project (workshops, scientific papers, presentations, etc.), which will be available on the project’s web-site.

Target groups

26.01.2012  |  No Comments ››

  • University members from nine participating countries
  • Early Childhood Educators from six participating countries
  • Cooperating partners.
  • International academic & educational community
  • In service early educators
  • Educational policy & strategy makers

Evaluation

25.01.2012  |  1 Comment ››

Report of the Initial Evaluation
Report of the Middle Evaluation
Report of the Final Evaluation

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