European conference „Schools go green and digital – and Erasmus+ supports teaching excellence!”
Bonn (Germany) 3-5 May 2023
In view of the rising climate change and the pace of digitalization, today's schools are facing great challenges. At the European conference "Schools go green and digital - and Erasmus+ supports teaching excellence!" more than 200 teachers and school representatives from 26 countries explored how the Erasmus programme can support schools and teachers in this process of change.
General Information
Key Actors
Katharina Heil
Opening of the conference by Katharina Heil, Deputy Secretary General, Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs of the Länder in Germany (Kultusministerkonferenz)
Michael Teutsch
DG Education, Youth, Sport and Culture, European Commission
Schools go green and digital and Erasmus+ supports teaching excellence! [pdf, 1,82 MB]
Michael Teutsch is Head of Unit "Schools and multilingualism" in the European Commission’s Directorate General for Education, Youth, Sport and Culture. He deals with policy cooperation in the areas of schools and multilingualism, with the European flagship programme Erasmus+ in the areas of schools, vocational education and training, and adult learning, and the management and further development of the European School Education Platform and EPALE.
Stephanie Wössner
Stephanie Wössner is a freelance consultant and speaker for future-oriented learning with a focus on extended reality, game-based learning, AI, design and futures thinking, metaverse. She is also co-editor of the journals on Lernen in der digitalen Welt and Weiterbildung. Her main job is at the Landesmedienzentrum (Media Centre) Baden-Württemberg. Until 2019, she was a foreign language teacher and has gained a lot of experience in educational exchange encounters and projects.
She is convinced that the understanding of education has to change fundamentally and that we have to actively shape this change. Therefore, the focus of her activities is on innovative impulses for the transformation of (lifelong) learning in a digitally networked and constantly changing world, which requires many competences that have so far only been marginally anchored in the education system. She sees great potential in digital games that enable immersive, collaborative learning experiences.
Dr. Eveliina Asikainen and Dr. Sanna Ruhalahti
“EduSTA - a Teacher Academy Going Green and Digital” [pdf, 0,90 MB]
PhD. Asikainen, Eveliina works as a Senior Lecturer in the School of Pedagogical Innovations and Culture and leads the EduSTA – Academy for Sustainable Future Educators Erasmus+ Teacher Academies project (2022-2025). Her background is in ecology, environmental policy and environmental education and she has over 30 years career in promoting sustainability in educational institutions. She combines education, active citizenship and ecological transition for sustainable society in her research and development projects.
Ph.D. Ruhalahti, Sanna works as a Principal Lecturer at TAMK UAS Pedagogic Innovations and Culture and as an educational developer in EduSTA. She has been working as a teacher educator for 17 years and her key expertise are pedagogical learning design, microcredentials and digital open badge-driven learning model. She has been developing and exploring digital badges as a teacher’s professional development. She has been involved as educational and pedagogical developer in a dozen of development projects in globally and nationally.
Manuel Flieg, Dr. Barbara Schmidt and Susanne Lemke
“Learning to grow by protecting Environment and Humans” [pdf, 10,73 MB]
Manuel Flieg is a teacher in a professional agricultural high school for 20 years in the field of machinery. He participated in numerous international exchanges (in Germany, Italy, Holland, Czech Republic, Belgium, Canada). He participates in meetings of the European Agricultural High Schools Association Europea and he is member of the French section Involved in sustainable development through various meetings and projects, most recently in the circular economy. He developed different courses and practical activities on composting, hydrodistillation, methanisation, aquaponics, selfbuilding tools with recycled material, plant production with recycled material and he wrote a new project on connected horticulture and circular economy.
Dr. Barbara Schmidt is farmer and agricultural engineer. She has been working since 1998 as a scientific teacher in the fields of agriculture and viticulture and as head of the Agrar-Department at the Edith Stein School in Freiburg. Her teaching activities include soil science, environment, plant production, animal production and viticulture. Since 1999 she has been actively involved in bilateral projects with France and Austria including trainees, especially with regard to viticulture and horticulture. In addition to the Apple project, the Erasmus activities refer to the pedagogical and didactical exchange of European teachers in the agricultural sector as well as the exchange of trainees in horticulture and viticulture with France and Austria.
Susanne Lemke is a vocational school teacher at Edith Stein School, an agricultural vocational school in Freiburg. She teaches gardeners in various disciplines. In the past, she took part in various exchange projects. Currently she is supervising an exchange with Austria, where the trainees can gain new working techniques and experience in their profession.
Franziska Ludger and Michelle Tenge-Rietberg
Franziska Ludger is a lower secondary teacher of English, Maths, European Education, Swimming, Self-Regulated Learning and Art at Geschwister-Scholl-Realschule Städtische Realschule in Gütersloh, Germany. She assists the following special task forces at her school: Erasmums+/eTwinning, Digitalisation and German Language Proficiency. She has been responsible for eTwinning project development, seminars and dissemination in TwinSpace and school homepage for the past four years.
Michelle Tenge-Rietberg is a lower secondary teacher of English, Spanish, Economics, Civics, Catholic Religion and European Education at Geschwister-Scholl-Realschule Städtische Realschule in Gütersloh, Germany.
She has been the head coordinator for Erasmus+/eTwinning development at her school for the past five years. Further fields of responcibility include: updating the European Education Curriculum and disseminating current and past Erasmus+/eTwinning projects. She is an active global citizen: Born in California, USA, and currently living and working in NRW, Germany; bringing cultures, values and the digital world together.
Helena Suomela
“Sustainability competences in education: lessons from Finland” [pdf, 1,97 MB]
Helena Suomela has worked as an expert in sustainable development and environmental education for the past 10 years in a wide range of organizations and with different target groups. The work has consisted of a different kind of development and experimentation work, in which sustainability challenges and competence needs have been solved as needed to for more sustainable future. In her current work, at Finnish National Agency for Education she conducts research and develops sustainability education at the National Board of Education. The aim is to strengthen knowledge, skills and activities in sustainability education, cooperation and social impact.
Sabine Lioy
“Erasmus+: Activities and Funding Opportunities” [pdf, 1,52 MB]
Sabine Lioy, originally trained as a teacher, has been working for PAD as a senior programme officer for more than thirty years. She has a vast experience of the former and the current Erasmus+ programme generations in the school sector and is currently responsible for Key Action 2 Cooperation Partnerships.
Dr. Anne Laaredj-Campbell
Moderation of the conference and
presentation “eTwinning: a Culturally Responsive Approach to Digital Collaboration” [pdf, 2,56 MB]
Anne Laaredj-Campbell is the coordinator for eTwinning at the Pedagogical Exchange Service (PAD) of the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs in Bonn. Her foreign language teaching experience for English and German spans many age ranges from elementary through lower and upper secondary to university level. Her teaching and research interests include action-oriented and culturally responsive approaches to language acquisition in the context of blended learning. She holds a BA in German and Basic Design at the University of Oregon as well as an MA and a PhD in Cultural Anthropology from the Albert Ludwig University in Freiburg. After a four-year research stint in Algeria, Laaredj-Campbell published the results of her dissertation in a monograph entitled Changing Female Literacy Practices in Algeria: Empirical Study of the Cultural Construction of Gender and Empowerment.
Prof. Richard Powers
“The chances of eTwinning for future teachers” [pdf, 2,05 MB]
Prof. Richard Powers, Professional School of Education, Ludwigsburg – Stuttgart
Juliane von Reppert-Bismarck
“Building Resilience to Disinformation in a Digital Media Age” [pdf, 3,02 MB]
Juliane von Reppert-Bismarck is Executive Director and Founder of Lie Detectors. She created Lie Detectors and directs its activities, partnerships and strategy. She heads the organisation’s advocacy. She has advised governments, policy-makers and the EU on strategies to counter disinformation and radicalisation, including within the EU’s High-Level Expert Group on Fake News and its Media Literacy Expert Group. Juliane designed the concept, scripts and training approach of Lie Detectors. For this, she has been recognised both personally as an EU “Local Hero” and via the project’s awards and award shortlists. To create Lie Detectors, Juliane put aside an award-winning journalism career, during which she wrote for The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, Reuters, MLex and Spiegel Online among others. She is an alumna of New York’s Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and the University of Edinburgh and speaks German, English, Spanish and French.
Lie Detectors was a key provider of media literacy teacher-training workshops during the 2021 eTwinning year of Media Literacy and gives frequent media literacy training to children and teachers in Erasumus+ and eTwinning fora. Lie Detectors is a Friend of eTwinning. It is Europe's leading provider of journalist-led media literacy training for children aged 10-15.
Dr. Thomas Spielkamp
Moderation of the conference
Thomas Spielkamp studied English and French language and literatures at the Universities of Münster, Exeter and Lille. He passed two years of teacher training at a vocational school and a general secondary school and started working at PAD back in 1996, where he was closely involved in setting up the German National Agency for the EU-programmes in the school sector.