Developing Tomorrow's Cloud Education Leaders

"Cloud Computing adoption in education remains fragmented because while Cloud Technologies offer many advantages, decision makers are largely unaware of the potential benefits for learning, teaching, administration and management. Therefore, training and support systems are needed to help teachers and school systems authorities to keep up to date with the rapidly changing Cloud Computing environment. Leadership is also needed for pedagogical change, otherwise educators will continue the paradox of using old teaching methods but with new tools. L-Cloud proposed project has derived from the results of the project SoC (School on the Cloud - connecting education to the Cloud for digital citizenship network) which explored how education should respond to Cloud Computing developments and how Cloud-based services can be used to improve the quality of education and transform the way schools are led and managed. The School on the Cloud project has demonstrated that leadership for change is needed. The main issue today is the capability to establish meaningful leadership for Cloud-based learning, teaching and administration.L-Cloud is designed to promote the leadership for change with concrete objectives and in achieving them it has created the following three main outputs:1.Guidelines for Skills and Competences for Adaptive Education Cloud Leaders - During this process, the partners filtered the results from SoC Network project and extracted the information needed. They also utilized guidelines developed in partner countries, in Europe and internationally for preparing this qualification framework.2.A Qualification Framework for Education Cloud Leaders based on Skills and Competence. This process included the definition and validation of the competence framework as well as the definition of an International Professional Certification Programme.3.A course for developing adaptive education cloud leaders (As part of exploitation and based on the new ERASMUS+ programme this course may be offered as KA1 for school managers and teachers).The outputs above contribute to the ERASMUS+ priorities :- Open education and innovative practices in a digital era- Development of relevant and high-quality skills and competences- Strengthening the profile(s) of the teaching professionAdditional results of this project include:- Quality Assurance Strategy and Plan including a contingency plan and indicators for measuring QA;- Dissemination Strategy and Plan and consolidated spread sheet for all dissemination activities made;- Exploitation Plan;- Promotion tools and communication channels established for a successful exploitation;- A short-term training activity implemented- Project meetings, physical and online- Multiplier Events , physical and onlineThe outputs and results are published in the project website , www.L-Cloud.eu . L-Cloud results were developed successfully based on a strong consortium consisting of the following 6 partners who joined their expertise in the fields of Information Technology, Education and Leadership to deliver what was planned:1. CY-The Applicant Partner is the European Association of Career Guidance (EACG) , Cyprus (NGO – Association)2. ES-University of Barcelona, Faculty of Educaiton, Barcelona , Spain (Higher Education Institution)3. RO- Colegiul National Pedagogic ""Mircea Scarlat"", Romania (Pedagogical Institute) 4. GR-DOUKAS School, Greece (School)5. BE-European association of Geographers (EUROGEO), Belgium (NGO – Association)6. IT-European Digital Learning Network (DLeran), Italy (ICT Network)Results contributed to and have a potential impact, achieved and foreseen:1.More technology integration2.Enhance Teaching & Learning by enabling students and teachers to access a wealth of educational resources to work, collaborate, communicate, and share, anytime and anywhere,3.Sharing innovative practices in a multi-layer methodology including international experts.4.The cloud as a comfort zone where teachers/leaders and organization meet (digital workplace).5.The cloud as an instrument to strengthen the capacity of policymaking and to improve the quality of school development.6.Establish a framework to meet the identified needs for leaders in utilizing Cloud Technologies7.Better connection on the world of school administration, teachers and students.8.More attention to the core business of education and learning.9.Freedom to focus on education in an experimental and innovative way.10.Connection to the development of innovative learning material.11.More opportunities to collaborate and experiment on international scale.12.More widespread appreciation and use of Cloud Technologies.13.Better skills of school educators for adapting to change.14. Certified Cloud Education Leader who applied and was approved before the end of the project and new application arrived after the end of the project."