EduFor / AE Mangualde - Portugal
The Schools Cluster Mangualde (“Agrupamento de Escolas de Mangualde”), consisting of pre-school education, primary and secondary level and have several units and activities related to students with special educational needs. A example is the "Structured Teaching Unit for the Education of Students with Autism Spectrum Disorders".
The EduFor Training Centre is the training centre associated to the six big Schools all of them belonging to the Viseu District in Portugal. EduFor are acknowledged by the Ministry of Education and Science (MEC) as a training entity. The EduFor main office is situated in Mangualde Secondary School.
The EduFor Pedagogical Committee operates in the Schools Cluster Mangualde, head school of Training Centre of the Associated Schools EduFor. The EduFor Pedagogical Committee has been pursuing a policy of questioning, debate, analysis and training, through a networked environment we have been sharing experiments, innovating environments and answers. The six groups of Schools (Canas de Senhorim, Nelas, Mangualde, Penalva do Castelo, Sátão and Vila Nova de Paiva) that are associated to EduFor, comprehend a large educational territory of five Councils and reveal common potential in several domains. All this networked collaborative work is the responsibility of the Pedagogical Committee in matters such as strategies and planning. It is the only formal organization that integrates the top management of a network of councils, where the problems and educational challenges that we face are debated so as to come up with the adequate educational responses to improve educational success.
We have a large experience in organizing, managing and assessing training events covering diverse areas and training modalities in face-to-face as well as in distance learning, since 1993. We consider training to be a process of permanent personal and professional development of teachers and educators as well as other educational agents to foster a change in methodologies, attitudes behaviors’ and strategies leading to an improvement in teaching practices and in the quality of education.
We encourage good educational practices in schools by participating in and designing training courses and pedagogical projects that integrate Information and Communication Technologies in learning environments. As a reference we participate in “TRENDS”, “Teacher2000” and designing the project “Innov@te with IWB”, whose results were presented on an European level at the "European Conference Educational Research 2007", at the University of Ghent, Belgium”. In the field of digital reading we lead a group of schools that designed the project “Reading Online”, co-financed by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.
The EduFor Pedagogical Committee has long experience in the planning and promotion of projects involving schools and technology. We are experts in the use of web 2.0 tools for collaborative work and distance learning (we have a own server installation of Moodle platform: moodle2.edufor.pt ).
EduFor offering Training Courses for teachers & school staff ins ERASMUS+ KA1 and the Director of the EduFor Training Centre was the only training provider, invited by the Portuguese Agency Erasmus+, to be present in the «International Erasmus+ Conference: “Towards high quality in KA1 mobility projects for school education staff”, March 2 - 3, 2015 in Cologne» (cf. www.facebook.com/edufor.erasmusplus ).
We have a large experience in the context of: Administration, Special Education and Information and Communication Technologies. They also hold a vast classroom context and training experience
1st meeting: presentation--»