OPENTEACH
29 June - 4 July 2025
Transforming School Education with Open Educational Resources and Practices
The need for digital transformation at schools has been discussed for years, but the recent pandemic has accelerated this transformation. Embedding digital technologies in teaching and learning is a complex process that does not simply mean replicating face-to-face practices in online environments. Teaching and learning online requires different approaches to designing learning and engaging learners. Therefore, effective use of online and blended education requires the development of the educators’ digital competence, strategies for using and integrating digital technologies in the classroom and the availability of high-quality digital resources and materials.
The Open Teach C-Hub Summer School promotes Open Education and the creation and use of digital education content through collaboration, exchange of expertise and best practices among teachers. It enables teachers to become digitally competent and confident to co-design, co-create and co-evaluate OERs using engaging and sound digital and blended learning driven pedagogy and instructional design principles. Consequently, schools and teachers can extend their standard curricula with high quality inclusive and personalized content covering existing and emerging topics. Teachers and educators need to be equipped with the confidence and competence to use technology effectively. The Open Teach C-Hub Summer School aims at strengthening the digital competency profile of teachers and educators to ensure effective and pedagogically driven use of technology for teaching, learning and assessment.
The Digital Education Plan 2021-2027 highlights the need to further support the creation, use and sharing of high-quality digital education content. It stresses the need to build upon ongoing activities, while focusing on instructional design principles, multilingualism, accessibility, and taking into consideration the interoperability and transferability of such content. This requires teachers to learn how to use available tools for creating digital content as well as learning about concepts and guidelines about digital content creation. Furthermore, teachers need to be motivated to take on more active roles so that they can support widespread implementation of such tools in their schools and thus increase the number of high-quality- OERs that can be used in teaching. Currently, educators are also interested in more flexible and innovative models of professional development, including scenarios in which they can learn from their peers.
Open Teach C-Hub starts exactly here. Motivating teachers to effectively use technology in education without feeling pressure – as was the case during the COVID-19 pandemic, Open Teach C-Hub advances teachers’ professional development by creating and testing new collaboration approaches among teachers to exchange expertise and create high-quality OERs. It tackles the various barriers teachers face (resistance, lack of confidence and competence) and offers them a scientifically tested co-design approach, along with the training, support and tools they need to take an active role in extending their curricula with digital and blended quality learning content.
Open Teach C-Hub is aimed at addressing the following needs:
Access to quality education. Open Education initiatives, by providing access to free/open licensed educational resources and practices, target central affordability and accessibility issues. An important number of schools still struggle with limited resources and/or outdated materials, as well as cost barriers. OERs can then provide increased access to quality educational resources both for teachers and students in such contexts. (Towey et al., 2019)
More inclusive education. OERs have a great potential to address the needs of learners with disabilities and those from disadvantaged backgrounds. By supporting the systematic creation of OERs, this project can contribute to reducing barriers to education and ensuring that teachers, and ultimately learners in different conditions have access to quality educational resources (Chambers et al., 2016)
Sustainable OER policies and strategies. This project, by designing specific collaboration and co-creation approaches, aims to address this need by providing training and support for educators in OER creation and quality assessment.
Teacher engagement. Even though educators seem to be – in general – using OERs, the joint engagement in the creation of these resources is still suboptimal. This project can thus help to promote teacher development and engagement in tailoring their educational resources to fit their teaching needs and environments. Most importantly, by fostering collaboration among them in producing these educational materials. It is noted that collaboration around OER production and application needs to be supported in an explicit manner to have highest efficacy (Orr et al., 2015). Here, affordances of technology, especially for remote collaboration, are not fully explored.
We would like to offer some ideas and guidelines for your preparation. The summer school will use the Open Teach C-Hub facilities. We have prepared a series of workshops that include:
- Open Educational Resources (OERs) and Open Educational Practices (OEPs)
- Finding Suitable OERs
- Assessing the Quality of OERs
- Copyrights and IPRs
- Creating OERs
- Innovation, Instruction, & Technology in the School
- Student- centered methodologies
- Digital tools and resources
- Instructional design and scenarios
Course fee
The course fee for all ESIA Summer Schools is 480€ (80€/per day) and fully within the funding opportunities of the Erasmus+ Programme.
The course fee covers:
- Expert lecturers for lectures, seminars and workshops
- All materials and equipment needed for the course
- Participation in the social programme & excursions (e.g. Sunset and dinner at Cape Sounio, excursion to the Acropolis and visit to the Acropolis Museum and dinner in downtown Athens, traditional night and farewell dinner, etc.)
Subsistence & accommodation
The Summer School will be held at Golden Coast Hotel & Bungalows, an A-class/ 4-star sea-side hotel which stretches on the golden, sandy beach of the Marathon Bay, near the historic location of Marathon, at the outskirts of Athens.
ESIA has made special arrangement with the hotel and are happy to offer to all participants a single or double room with all-inclusive services (i.e. breakfast, lunch, dinner, drinks and free of charge services for outdoors sports and recreational activities).
The costs for subsistence are also within the ceilings of the Erasmus+ programme for KA1 mobility actions.
ACCOMMODATION AT GOLDEN COAST HOTEL 2025 (Indicative prices)
COST FOR THE PARTICIPANTS (All Inclusive)
- Per person in SINGLE: 140 €/per night
- Per person in DOUBLE: 98 euro/per night
Extra persons (All Inclusive)
- TRIPLE room: 88 euro/per person/per night
EXTRA SERVICES (the following refers to other project participants that don’t pay the course fee)
TOURS & EXCURSIONS
Cape Sounio Tour (Price: 100 €/per person)
Monday @ 18:00
Includes:
-
- Transport by bus (Golden Coast – Cape Sounio – Golden Coast)
- Guided tour of Poseidon temple with Professional and Lisensed guide
- Entrance fees of the Temple of Poseidon
- Lunch at local tavern
- All taxes
Athens tour & Acropolis Museum (Price: 120 €/per person)
Wednesday @ 16:00
Includes:
-
- Transport by bus (Golden Coast – Athens – Golden Coast)
- Short panoramic tour by bus of historic center of Athens
- Services of a Professional and licensed guide
- Entrance fees of Acropolis museum
- Lunch at local tavern
- All taxes
+ Entrance fees to the Acropolis Archaeological Site ticket cost of 30 €/per person.
+ Entrance fees to the Sounio Archaeological Site ticket cost of 20 €/per person.
*** The above prices are calculated based on current costs, tickets to museums / archeological sites, fuel cost, VAT
The Summer School will be held at Golden Coast Hotel & Bungalows, an A-class/ 4-star sea-side hotel which stretches on the golden, sandy beach of the Marathon Bay, near the historic location of Marathon, at the outskirts of Athens.
It is the area of Marathon, that has hosted since the times of myths when Theseus killed the terrible bull of Marathon, to the times of the Persian wars and the Battle of Marathon, further on to our days and the marathon race and Marathon Run, the emblematic symbol of man’s quest for freedom and the will to defend his most noble deeds which constitute the foundations of the Human civilization. The plethora of natural, historical sites and museums of the area reveal in all details this unique historical voyage.
Participants are expected to arrive through the Athens International Airport, approximately 25 km (15,53 miles) distance from the hotel.
School Heads and Teachers participation in the summer courses can be funded by the ERASMUS+ Programme.
In case your school or organization does not have the funds to cover the costs of your participation in the Summer School, there is another option: you can apply to be funded by by the ERASMUS+ Programme.
Please note that the Erasmus+ KA1 application can only be submitted by the school or the organization – no individual applications can be submitted.
The deadline for application is February 19, 2025.
What is ERASMUS+?
Erasmus+ is the European Commission’s Programme for education, training, youth, and sport for the period 2021-2027. As an integrated programme, Erasmus+ offers more opportunities for the mobility of learners and staff and cooperation across the education, training, and youth sectors and is easier to access than its predecessors, with simplified funding rules and a structure that aims to streamline the administration of the programme.
Erasmus+ Key Action 1 (KA1) provides a unique opportunity for teachers, headmasters, trainers, and other staff of educational institutions to participate in international training courses in different European countries. Schools, universities, vocational education and training, and adult education organizations are all eligible to receive full funding to attend courses under a KA1 mobility grant. The Erasmus+ KA1 grant covers all the costs to attend teacher training courses: including travel, subsistence, and course fee.
For up-to-date information about Erasmus+ please check the Programme’s website. Your school will need to apply to your country’s National Agency, who is also the one who will evaluate the proposal. Therefore, your National Agency is also a very good point to start for more information.
Don’t forget to go through the the New Programme Guide and you will have all you need to know.
The steps to apply for an Erasmus+ KA1 School Education Staff Mobility grant are:
- Fill in the registration form to our Summer School with your details. This is an individual registration form, so if there are more than one participant from the same school, each one will have to submit a separate registration form. This way you have reserved a slot in the course in case your application for Erasmus+ funding is successful!
- Register your school/organization here: https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/erasmus-esc/index/ , if not already registered.
- Check the compliance with the programme criteria
- Check the financial conditions
- Fill in and submit the application form
- Respect the deadline
- Do not forget to inform us as soon as you get notified from your National Agency whether your grant application is accepted or rejected.
You can find all related information about submitting an Erasmus+ Application HERE.
We will be happy to guide you through the process.
The hosting organisation of the summer school is Ellinogermaniki Agogi, OID: E10212356