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e-hoop is a project co-funded by the LifeLong Learning Programme of the European Union. The project is a collaboration between Cyprus, Greece, Germany, Lithuania and Helsinki. It is coordinated by the [[Cyprus Neuroscience and Technology Institute]] (CNTI), Cyprus with partners the [[FAVINOM Consultancies Ltd]] (Cyprus), [[Hellenic Open University]] (Greece), [[New Technologies and Learning in Europe]] (NTL, Germany), Youth Career and Advising Center ([[JAUNIMO KARJEROS CENTRAS]];JKC, Lithuania) and [[DAFNORD Association]] (Finland).
EPODS supports teachers/trainers in Second Chance Education in their continuous professional development. It assists these educators to set their own development goals, take courses and monitor their progress. In this way, the EPODS online professional development services enable teachers/trainers to maintain the high level of support to learners. E-learning courses and an e-learning creation tool further support the accessible and continuous learning of teachers/trainers.




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==Background and Overview==
==Background and Overview==
Despite significant progress achieved over the past decades, many educational settings still discriminate between learners, either because they come from a different cultural background (e.g. immigrants) or because they have different learning styles or face learning difficulties. Placing focus on combating poverty and social exclusion the e-Hoop project proposes a new conceptual framework of inclusion and proposes a unified way to address “differences”.  
In 2014 the DIgital Second Chance Opportunities (DISCO) Consortium was established with support funding from Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership as digital technology and education are evolving at an increasingly rapid pace, both separately and together. For example, there have been significant developments in new digital technology platforms such as mobile technologies, cloud computing, social media, open educational resources (OERs), free and open-source software (FOSS), as well as the associated hardware (e.g. mobile phones, tablets, e-readers, interactive whiteboards). Opportunities and demands of globalisation and technology are fuelling transformations of educational practices and school infrastructure quickly t. The evolution of educational systems and digital technology also provide additional challenges to framing our perspectives, including the emergence of virtual and networked schools that share courses and programmes within countries and across regions (Davis, Eickelmann & Zaka 2013).  


The aim of the project is to create a universal, dynamic and adaptable e-Learning environment which educators can use, modify and expand, achieved through the development of an open-source experimental platform capable of hosting and delivering e-Learning material in the form of Learning Objects, which meet specifications that enable and facilitate the e-Hoop concept, namely the philosophy that all people are equal and have equal opportunities in learning. The platform will evaluate learning abilities on the basis of which it will deliver content to learners in ways they can learn best (i.e. auditory, visually). In this way differences (i.e. disabilities, dyslexia) can be eliminated. Structured Dialog engaging diverse stakeholders will be used to identify obstacles that prevent this, and agree on actions to promote the e-Hoop concept. The results will be used to derive the requirements for the platform and agree on a succession scheme in the partnership agreement for further exploitation.
Utilising these technological advancements to support good-quality training and reflective professional development are fast becoming essential parts of a teacher’s professional life. Supporting teachers in their professional development leads to improved outcomes for teachers, trainers and learners alike. In former projects many good tools were developed with great enthusiasm and piloted in the area of second chance education that supported teachers to become more confident, responsible, reflective, innovative and engaged. The tools include competence cards, quality cycles, assessment software, evaluation methods, mobility practices, teaching programmes and mentor trainings alongside a number of other tools that supports the education and employability for the NEET-group  in Europe.


The application of OSS tools will facilitate further development and long-term exploitation making it freely available to educators and learners.  
In 2014 the Digital Second Chance Opportunities (DISCO) project began building the foundations of an online European infrastructure framework in second chance education. Now it is time to go a step further by moving DISCO onto the next level of development in terms of its content and service delivery.


==Objective==
==Objective==

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